SandBox
From Plastic Tub
To understand the genesis of Mister Wilson’s photography, one must do a little digging through the roots of his family tree.
It all began 120 years ago with his great-grandfatherWilhelm Ratzinger, born in 1880 near Chicago, Illinois, the son of a German immigrant and pig farmer. Wilhelm was an ambitious lad who found the contraints of midwestern society chaffed against his sense of adventure. Thus at the tender age of 17 he made his way westward in search of his fortune.
Ratzinger made his way to New Mexico where in quick succession he worked as a roughneck, stable boy, mail courrier and finally, down on his heels and contemplating suicide, as his journals recount, he was employed by a "shifty and unscrupulous" character who supplied the local army garrison with pork. Ratzinger could not escape the pig, it would seem, and he dutifully began his life as a swine driver.
His life on the pig trails was a colorful one, full of hardship but also great whimsy. He took to wearing a bright red poncho and was nicknamed "the Cardinal." On one such pig run in May, 1900, a National Geographic photographer by the name of Barnabas Atkins accompanied the swine driver as he drove his herd from Albuquerque to Denver. Atkins photogrphed Ratzinger and the lads, sharing the trail and the chili, along the way showing Ratzinger a thing or two about photography, allowing him to observe the preparation of the heavy glass plates and even to manipulate the camera. At least one picture survives today, inscribed with the words "Colorado City, July 15, 1900. Poob country." Whatever "Poob" means, it was certainly an insult; the three uses of this word in this journal are certainly disparaging. Take this one from march 31, 1901: "Ran across the durnedest cur of a Poob I ever saw today, a duded up like some kind of dandy, throwing coins down on the table as only a preacher looking for more in return can do."
Carnival Play: A (More-or-Less) Pantomime Script
Characters:
- Bacchus (or a fat roman)
- Harlequin
- A creole woman
- A ditzy secretary
- An angry noble Venetian style
The current time is 01:00.
Archived Text:
- SandBox/Archive8-20-2005 holds text from inception through 8/20/05 (at 15:39).
- SandBox/Archive11-2-05 holds text from the creation of Archive # 1 through 11/2/05 (at 2:16).
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