Bombing tease

Wow that dinner was delicious and carried me almost the whole way through the month.

Now, to complete the story of the original Gimbel Bros. mailbombs of 1919. In essence, the bomb itself was well designed:

Lifting the end of the box released a spring,

which uncorked a small glass vial of acid,

which poured onto mercury-fulminate blasting caps,

which triggered a stick of dynamite,

which exploded, sending metal slugs in all directions.

Yet the designers didn't take into account all the other variables that need to be controlled to have a successful mail bombing. Like securing the other end, so the recipient has to open the correct side of the box; and like putting enough postage on the package. Most of the packages were held at various post offices because of insufficient postage, and thus were discovered once a general alarm was sounded. One package was actually sent back to Gimbel Brothers- a receptionist opened the box, pulled out the bottle of acid, put it back in, re-taped it, added the correct postage and sent it out again. Luckily her bomb was defective and did not go off- it was also caught by postal inspectors.

WHY, aside from being entertaining, is this bombing significant? Generally, it added to the red scare of the times, which fed the passions around the Sacco Vanzetti case. But more specifically, the bombers were never found, and because of one interesting clue, there is a strong belief that the bombers were anarchists, ones that were affiliated with the Gallianists. Sacco and Vanzetti were Gallianists...

Prelude and How to Make a Mail Bomb

Last Friday, October 1, 2010 I presented a workshop at the Prelude Festival at CUNY about How To Make a Mail Bomb. Yes, this is related to the rest of the Sacco Vanzetti story. Although much more nervous than I expected at the beginning I calmed down and had an interesting workshop with the folks who had came. I started with the word "SURVIVAL" breaking each letter down ala the U.S. Army Survival Manual.

S= size up your surroundings: environmental, equipment, and body.

U= Use all your senses, AND Undue haste makes waste.

R= Remember where you are. You should always carry a map, or know who has a map-in case

s/he dies, you are going to have to get that map.

etc.

Then I passed out the prototype cardstock sheets for the Sacco and Vanzetti Gift Shop limited edition "How to Build a Mail Bomb DIY KIT."

The prototypes were unfinished and had some issues, especially since there were no instructions on how the parts fit together. But I knew about these issues and was using the workshop to see how people dealt with the sheets, and what other problems might come up.

As the teams cut, folded, and glued the bomb parts together, I described the details around the original Gimbel Bros. mail bombs that the model was based on.

The details of the original mailbombing incident are fascinating, and in the historical record are exacting details of how the bombs were made. Thus the Mail Bomb Kit, though a cut and paste toy, is also an accurate lesson in how to build one type of mail bomb.

The original mailbombs were sent out in April of 1919. They had a false return address of the Gimbel Bros. Department Store on Broadway and 32nd St in NY. Approximately 40 were sent out. Two people were injured by the one bomb that actually exploded. One of the bombs ended up in the hands of the intended target, but he opened the opposite end than expected and the parts fell harmlessly out. He alerted the police, who then alerted the papers, which then was noted by a postal clerk going home, who rushed back to the office because he had a few of the exact same packaging on his desk because they were being held for INSUFFICIENT POSTAGE. And the rest will have to wait because I am about to eat my birthday dinner...

83-5

"I will do my utmost to be punctual with my postings"

Five days from now is the 83rd anniversary of the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti (and Madeiros). In 1997 I had a dinner party at my loft in Chicago to commemorate the 70th anniversary. We had a forty foot long table with maps associated with the crimes drawn on the table cloths. Wooden ladders were suspended above the table, and candles were attached to make chandeliers. We ate green beans, that I think Dolores brought. This has nothing to do with anything.

During that same time period I developed a workshop show of Sacco and Vanzetti with the performance group Lucky Pierre. Lucky Pierre consisted at the time of : Michael Thomas, Mary Zerkel, Noah Loesberg, Vince Darmody and me. We had just completed a version of I Married Wyatt Earp and dedicated the next block of time to working on Sacco and Vanzetti. In part of my research I had found that Sacco and his wife would often perform in educational plays at labor and anarchist meetings. I used that fact to make the performance a blend of historical details with a fictionalized play within a play written by Sacco. Though we only presented a work in progress (called Take off your Eyeglasses), there were a number of elements that were strong that will continue or is influencing the present work:

I asked Noah to grow Vanzetti's mustache.

The mustache growing has developed into its own story.

I would love to figure out if I can make this blog break into

branches so you could follow each subject matter separately.

I developed the section involving the letter "S" described in the previous Blog post.

I built a "cage" replicating the one defendants used to sit in during trials in Massachusetts.

I worked from trial transcripts, editing together the testimony of one witness from the Grand Jury trial, the actual trial, and the various depositions. This highlighted the changes in the opinions/ memories of the witness as time passed. ( "He is definitely not the man" becomes " I believe he resembles the man I saw" becomes "I am positive that is the man I saw with the gun").

I worked with the performers on how to "present" a foreign accent. I didn't want people to pretend to speak Italian. But issues with understanding and language barriers is critical to the story. The most interesting variation in such a "presentation" was to cut a small slit in a sheet of paper that you slid across the text in a book. The slit only let you read two or three words at a time. The pause caused by moving the piece of paper, as well as the altered cadence and stress, made the text sound more like the patterns of a non-native speaker.