History of the Day: 10/22

In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his book Les Mots (The Words) in which he claimed that literature substituted for real commitment in the world. He should know, as he wrote about fifty books, plays and innumerable essays prior to Les Mots, and several more after. Being a man of principle, he rejected the prize, saying,

It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.

Being a philosopher (thus, able to justify anything), he asked for the money anyway in 1975. It reminds me of the time that Ms. Premise and Ms. Conclusion visited Jean Paul Sartre. (transcript)

Today is International Stuttering Awareness Day! Who knew? There are many famous people believed to have been stutterers, such as Moses, Winston Churchill and Scatman Jones who wrote a really cool song for stutterers. One of my favorites is Blessed Nokter Balbulus (meaning "Babbler" or "Stammerer") who is believed to have written the beautiful and haunting hymn Media Vita:

Media vita in morte summus.
In the midst of life we are in death.

The download takes a bit. You can also see (Anuna) perform the same song, or hear the version by Nicholas Gombert. I love that phrase. It reminds me of this awesome watch. It also reminds me that today is the day Pretty Boy Floyd, the Depression era gangster, was killed by Federal agents in 1934. According to Woody Guthrie's Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd, he was launched on his life of crime when:

... a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.

Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.

See? It wasn't his fault. And, apparently, he wasn't responsible for everything the Feds said he did.

Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.

As a matter of fact (Guthrie says), he was a downright Robin Hood!

But a many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.

Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill.

It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:

Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.

This part might be true. He did hide out in towns around his hometown, and people gave him food and shelter. And he did give those people money, either out of the goodness of his heart, or as a bribe. But in those troubled times, with banks breathing down their necks, I'm sure they didn't really care. Guthrie really brings it home with these stanzas:

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

This last part, contrasting small scale theft with large scale theft, I find fascinating! It reminds of the exchange between Alexander the Great and a pirate in St. Augustine's City of God:

What are kingdoms but great robberies? This true answer was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been captured. When the king asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered boldly, "What do you mean by seizing the whole earth? But because I do it with one ship, I am called a pirate, while you do it with a great navy and are called an emperor."

Or these excerpts from Beilby Porteus' Death: A Poetical Essay:

One murder made a villain,
Millions a hero. Princes were privileged
To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.

War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands.

Regardless, the greatest injustice done to any man was that Pretty Boy Floyd should be immortalized in the 80s by these guys.