Waiter, I’ll Have the “Supo de la Tago”

Kion vi volas manĝi?

It would be nice to see the menus, if they still exist, or ever existed, but the claim made in 1913 was that seven hotels in the United States had restaurant menus in Esperanto, none of which were in Washington, D.C. The article, unfortunately, doesn’t indicate where they actually were.

The suggestion that there were seven restaurants with Esperanto menus is somewhat surprising. After all, the number of foreign Esperantists in the United States at any given time, has undoubtably been so small that they were probably outnumbered by other tourists from their country who didn’t speak Esperanto. Further, the whole idea of menus in a variety of languages seems to crop up in Europe, but not here.

An English-language menu isn’t always a help. I remember being perplexed the choice “Rhenish pickled beef” on a menu in Germany. I asked to compare it with the German menu, and there it was, “Rheinischer sauerbraten.” Sauerbraten isn’t actually pickled, it just gets marinated in vinegar, not nearly long enough to pickle it. Then there are the bad translations, where English just gets mangled on the menu.

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A Cranberry Tart, A Seasonal Treat

The finished tart, shiny and yummy

We were off for a post-Thanksgiving gathering and I told our host that we would be bringing something “seasonal.” I wouldn’t say what, because I like there to be some element of surprise. What I brought was a cranberry tart. It was seasonal (needs fresh cranberries), yummy, and it’s not difficult to make.

I will offer the caveat: I’ve got some kitchen skills, and (at least) I think I’m pretty good at making desserts. I made this more difficult by baking it in a tart shell, because I like the way that looks. It could be done in a pie shell, but even then I would use the richer tart crust. The tart really is akin to a pecan pie, but with cranberries (and that’s good because I don’t much care for pecan pie).

I finished it off with an apricot glaze, as a result of binging on episodes of The French Chef. Once again, this is not difficult, and the glaze isn’t simply pretty, the apricots give the tart another level of flavor. You can paint this stuff on practically anything.

Docking. Almost ready to bake

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The Lawyer, the Rug Merchant, and the Sodomy Charge

With whom did Benny attempt this?

Articles about sodomy charges in early-twentieth century newspapers tend to be a bit on the opaque side, often not disclosing the name of the other individual involved. Since at the time, opposite-sex couples could be, and were, charged with sodomy, sometimes it’s not clear whether or not the report of transgressive sex is a matter of early (and somewhat hidden) gay history. In this case, I have the suspicion that there’s a bit of gay history underneath it all.

In 1910, Benjamin A. Younkers was a lawyer in Des Moines, Iowa. He was thirty-five years old, married, and though native born, the son of immigrant parents. Martin J. Loftus was a rug salesman in Des Moines, Iowa. He was thirty-five years old, married, and though native born, the son of immigrant parents. How did these two men differ? Younkers had been married for three years, and had no children. Loftus had been married for fifteen years, and had two. Younkers was Jewish, with parents from Russia and Germany. Loftus had parents from Ireland.

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Germ Warfare and Other Intimidations

Mark that one "Return to Sender," would you?

A Colorado judge received a gruesome package in the mail in November, 1909, as reported in the Spokane Press. The box contained two small strips of human flesh. I’m ready to heat sterilize my mailbox just for reading that. But it gets worse, and when you’re starting with medical waste in your mailbox, worse must be pretty bad. The title of this post isn’t “Yucky Mail.” According to a note in the box, the skin was from a smallpox victim. So the anthrax attacks of several years ago, were just kinda copycat.

Wikipedia notes that smallpox was almost completely eliminated from the United States by 1897, so it’s not actually clear that there was any smallpox-infected skin for someone to easily obtain in 1909. To do this, you have to be certain that you’re immune, and it only works if your prospective victim is not immune (flip those around and it’s suicide and annoying, disgusting mail).

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A Professional Esperantist

He wasn't actually looking at
Esperanto, but was getting others to.

The early Esperanto movement had its share of celebrities, people who tended to get mentioned whenever the subject of Esperanto was brought up, or whose connection to Esperanto was mentioned whenever attention was being turned to them specifically. Chief among these was Dr. Zamenhof himself, but in the United States, the same was true of the Stoner family, and every time Mrs. Stoner’s educational theories were discussed in print, readers would be reminded of her connection to the Esperanto movement.

But Zamenhof didn’t make money from the Esperanto movement (it actually was a drain on his resources) and Mrs. Stoner’s interest in Esperanto seemed to be largely based on self promotion.[1] One celebrity’s fame came from his promotion of Esperanto, and in traveling around promoting Esperanto, Edmond Privat was one of the early professional Esperantists, and preeminent among them.

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I Tried to Write Click Bait… And You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!

Just one click. It won't hurt.
I promise.

Actually, you’ve probably already sure what would happen if I tried to write click bait. The main purveyors of click bait won’t be wondering how to contact me to get me to write for them. After all, the click bait version of my blog is This Man Invented a Language — And You Won’t Believe What Happened Next or Two Men Met in Washington, D.C. — What Happened Will Make You Cry![1]

I admit it: if I saw something with a titles like this on a friend’s Facebook feed, I wouldn’t click it. (I’m happy to do the experiment.) So maybe, I’m dooming this post to No-Click Hell. I don’t know. The reason I’m writing this it to point out that I have very little idea what posts are and aren’t going to catch on, beyond some really broad parameters. Also, because the New York Times just looked at click bait, under the title “You Won’t Believe What These People Say About ‘Click Bait’,” though what they say is exactly what you expect.

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An Esperantist in Motion Pictures

Esperanto: They ought to
make a movie!

There was little find about Creston C. Coigne, who as a young man in New York wrote a letter to the Sun which appeared in their November 25, 1916 edition, in part because Mr. Coigne died young. When he died, he was probably about twenty-six years old. The 1915 New York State Census says that Mr. Coigne was eighteen years old and worked as a motion picture actor.

It was a family business. The same census lists his father as a motion picture director and his mother as a motion picture actress. Coigne’s brother Armand, was at sixteen and a stenographer. His grandmother, Ella Brous, kept house for the family. The family business was named after him, Creston Feature Pictures. Like many short-lived silent movie studios, it’s a struggle to even find out what they produced. The Catalog of Copyright Entries does list both Ireland a Nation and St. Joan of Arc among their pictures. The firm did advertise that another film, The Scapular, was nearing completion.[1]

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