http://www.anyfourwords.com Subscribe to a feed which represents a webzine which keeps on saying that it's going to change the world or something like it. Humor us. Click on a title to take you to the full story, essay, or Thing of Mild Interest. en-us http://www.anyfourwords.com/Feed.gif http://www.anyfourwords.com 120 60 http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_salvation_army_and_other_institutions.html All these institutions, like the famous settlements in the quarters of London and New York, belong to the category of benevolent institutions, an invention of the middle class, who believe they can find a way to make up for the sins they’ve committed on the underclass. With their right hands, they suppress the people, while with the left they wipe the sweat of guilt from their foreheads. It’s like throwing snowballs into hell to keep it from getting too hot! Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:17:20 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_settler.html Thresher: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Carriage driver: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Farmhand: 45 dollars a month, including food and board. These wages are in place during the harvest. -- Mill workers: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Carpenters: 25 cents an hour. Train workers: 2 1/4 dollars a day. Sawmill workers: 4 dollars a day. Coal miners: 55 cents per ton. Lumberjacks: 2 1/2 dollars a day. Bridge builders: 2 1/2 dollars a day, including board. Cooks: 65 dollars a month. Foremen: 75 dollars a month. Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:17:19 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_gateway_to_the_prairie.html Because of all the noise, the Slovakian child wakes up with a godawful wailing. The young mother turns red and looks around for her husband. Then, as if she doesn’t know what else to do, she unbuttons her jacket and pulls the child to her breast. The young Englishwoman is having the same problem. Both children are screaming the same song in the same language. But the Englishwoman blushes violently as she unbuttons her sweater and stuffs her kid’s mouth just like the Slovakian did to hers. The two mothers smile kindly over their bare breasts. Both are still a little red in the face. They’re almost showing off, with their shirts pulled completely away from their breasts. They’re not really blushing out of shame, but pride. Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:17:18 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_running_road.html I can’t explain the silent, nomadic instinct which clouds my mind again and again every time I see a map or a time table. Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:17:17 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/montreal_the_french_city.html If you travel north from Buffalo to Toronto, it’s as if you’ve gone from America to Europe, but if you travel east from Toronto to Montreal, it’s as if you’ve gone from England to France. Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:17:16 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/toronto_the_english_city.html Someone said this to me in Ottawa, in Winnipeg, and someone else from the Salvation Army said it in Toronto: the immigrants of the eastern cities, Toronto and Quebec and Montreal, are the least welcome kind of immigrant. They’ve taken their small chance and are happy with it. They don’t want the earth; all they see is asphalt. They’ve taken to the sea in vain, and all they’ve done is exchange one gutter for another. They could’ve just stayed in their gutters at home. To the west, cities sprout up fantastically like mushrooms, but these immigrants don’t build cities. In the west they could be men, but instead, they’re freeloading in the east. They will make eastern Canada the same intolerable center of rot that they'd known in their hometowns on the old continent. Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:17:15 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/crossing_lake_ontario.html This land Canada, in whose north the lines of the map uncertainly evaporate on the paper, has for decades been seen as a land of eternal winter, a playground for fur trappers, fur sellers, Indians and adventuring lowlifes crossing immense wastelands. Now I’m starting to realize what it really is -- Canaan! Sun, 30 May 2010 15:17:14 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_hotel_athenaum_chautauqua.html The class system doesn’t seem to exist over here, or at least it exists in an entirely different form than in Europe. Just imagine a German student working as a waiter, or the daughter of an upper-class family performing some sort of low manual labor. Thu, 20 May 2010 15:17:13 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/chautauqua.html The puddle in front of me is the Sea of Galilee, the cement town on the hill is Bethabara, and the hill is Gadara. The larger puddle is the Dead Sea, and the large cement pile is Jerusalem. Some of the surrounding towns include Bethlehem and Gibeon, but towards Chautauqua Lake, on the other side of the Mount of Olives, lies Hebron. So when I was on the steamship, I wasn’t traveling on Chautauqua Lake, but instead the Mediterranean. Mon, 10 May 2010 15:17:12 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/a_well-used_afternoon.html Elbert Hubbard is the founder of the Roycrofters. You can see his name in these cute little books which came over at Christmastime from America in great bunches to the finer bookstores on the European continent. The English and Americans never tire of printing their classics over and over again with renewed affection and diligence, and the Roycrofters do the very same. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:17:11 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/on_monday.html He stands with a posture that is difficult to describe. His feet are pushed together tightly on a rung of the ladder. He stretches his arms out horizontally to the right and left, his hands reaching for the steel and stone on both sides. He throws his head back, he looks up and tries to find something in the heights above him. That’s how he stands on his wooden ladder above the abyss. Now I can even make out his blue shirt and corduroy pants. He stands there above the abyss and works for the power. He stands alone and works for the power that will drive the machines in the factories of this country. Our guide yells at me and tells me I can’t stay there anymore. Still, I look up one more time and memorize the picture of this lonely thing, this worker, this man standing between the abysses, whose life, dimly illuminated, powers the work of this country on a thin, swaying ladder. Walking forward, I ask myself if I haven’t just seen a vision of the crucifixion. Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:17:10 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_thundering_water_on_sunday.html The sun sinks over all these moments and disappears behind the mountains. The lights glow out from the shore and the houses, more brightly than I have ever seen lights glow. They have red cheeks, so to say, like country children, who live on the fruit of their father’s fields, becoming healthy and well-fed. It is wonderfully beautiful as night comes. Benches stand between bushes and hide under the trees by the shore, where the glowing lights can’t get to them. Sometimes a bit of foamy water moistens them. Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:16:10 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_childrens_republic_in_freeville.html The Republic was built on a vacation spot, which George built with his own two hands in his hometown of Freeville for the poor children of New York. The children got into all sorts of mischief, and George said, like the good and wise person that he is: I will not punish you for the mischief you’ve made -- punish yourselves! Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:16:00 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/up_the_hudson.html In front of one of the tents, a giant brute sits in shaggy pants, his browned upper body a little pale. He shoots his revolver as we pass just for fun. He’s comfortable. He lives completely by himself in his tent. So far as I can see, his tent stands entirely alone. To the left and the right are forests, streams, cliffs, for far and wide nothing but forest, no other tent, nothing. He sits there on the Hudson in front of his wigwam. He smokes his short pipe, fishes, roasts his fish and lets himself dream. When it is expected of him, he shoots his revolver into the air whenever a large ship passes by. He enjoys himself, as they say. Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:15:59 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_skyscraper_seen_from_above_and_at_night.html Times Square, ten o’clock at night. From somewhere above, an unknown star shines down on me. Seventeen distinctly distributed blue stars shine down from a square cloud I can only barely see. They are the lit windows of the Times Building. Under those stars, men work throughout the night. High above, opposite the giant hotel, garlands of light, glowing light-flowers float into the dark sky as an indistinct light illuminates the fluttering white flags on the crowns of the beautiful buildings. I would gladly forget everything else at night and feast on the new stars, these lightbulbs and acetylene stars, which New York has introduced to the sky -- but soon enough, I’ll lose my delight. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:15:58 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/new_yorkers.html In the Bowery, a drunken Croat stumbles around at night, holds half of a ten dollar note in his hand, sweats and swears. (“Porco Dio, I am an Italian!” swears this Hungarian Croat -- in German! That’s Austria for you!) He is just arriving, a crowd of people is around him in a moment and I am with him. You can hear all the languages of the world -- dollar is the only word that everyone says in the same language. Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:15:57 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/heat_wave.html And the high point of it all: a clergyman in Newark said the word damn on the pulpit! “Damn the ice industry!” These are the historic words that the brave Reverend Shreve Osborne threw down from the pulpit of Trinity Episcopal Church to the frightened members of his flock. He has my absolution -- the ice pieces I’ve been rubbing on my body have already melted down to nothing, and already the heat wave turns the last atom of cool water on my body to smoke. Sweat is dripping from every pore. Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:15:56 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/arrival.html And now, far behind the hills of Long Island, a stationary cloud climbs into the sky, a narrow fog fortress with towers and battlements, attached to the side of Staten Island’s hills. It approaches us as we turn to it. It is the southern tip of Manhattan, the city of the skyscraper. Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:15:55 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_captains_dinner.html The wife of the dead man sits in a corner and plays a game of solitaire. I wait for about a quarter an hour and watch over the edges of my book as she starts another game. She loses that one too. And then a third. There is no movement in her face, the hopelessness squeezes itself out. She’s not young anymore, her face is pallid and yellow, but she’s not playing solitaire just to pass the time. Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:15:45 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/intentions.html What he recited was a large speech he had probably rehearsed over the course of a week against the Presbyterian Church, which made God’s word into a business. It also spoke against the powerful, who must’ve falsified the Bible because the Bible was full of contradictions and the rich knew how to take advantage of that. It was also against Parliament, which was a lie, and the king as well, who was also a lie. And the speech was for Jesus, who was poor and true and whose words stream clearly through all the falsehoods in this book and so on. Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:15:35 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/a_fog_over_the_sea.html But the people here walk back and forth, stand around and chat with each other, as if being stuck together on a plodding ship in a thick fog with no light, no color, only a hollow roaring seeping through . . . as if this were the most natural thing in the world! I sit in my deckchair and stare at the breathless passengers, my brothers and sisters in death and life. They hurry by me stubbornly with long, quick steps. In a little more than a minute on the promenade deck people run by me twenty times, thirty times, forty times, one behind the other! Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:15:25 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/southampton_water.html Moischele and Piffl wrestle each other under the bench for an apple that is always rolling to starboard. The mother yells at them and continues combing herself. A metal samovar stands there at all times of day by the family, sometimes on the ground, sometimes on the bench, next to a glass containing light-yellow liquid, tea from the samovar. Before Mrs. I. puts the glass to her mouth, she takes a piece of sugar out of her husband’s bag, bites it in half, sticks the other half back in her husband’s bag, and then, with the half-piece of sugar between her teeth, she pours the tea over the lump of sugar into her throat. Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:15:15 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_first_morning_on_board.html In steerage, an infectious disease can spread with disastrous speed, so the people in steerage must be daily subjected to examination on board. The hygienic facilities are excellent, giving no one any reason to feel sorry or shed a tear. But the day before yesterday, I saw something in Bremen which I will not soon forget. The man from North German Lloyd took me through the train station into the Emigration Department, and over there I saw what I want to tell you. In a large room, day after day, three doctors in lab coats stand in front of a sort of barrier. They have a table with containers of carbolic acid next to them, and in their hands they hold these steel instruments, which at best I can say look like nail files, I can find no better comparison. Three long rows of people walk up to the barrier, men and women holding children by the arm. They come up to the doctor with the shirtsleeves on their right arms rolled up. Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:14:14 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/rufus/3.html “You can’t take one loss and run with it. It was just a client, and we didn’t even lose the client. I mean, when people lose jobs, when children lose their toys, when fucking rats lose their cheese, they all go looking for more jobs, more toys, more . . . cheese. No . . . we all gotta pull that parachute out, that support line, we just have to find out what that is. If you just think about what you actually want, not this soul stuff, I’m talking material stuff, stuff you can hold in your hand. If you can just think about it hard enough, and think about how badly you really want it, and I know you want it, otherwise you wouldn’t have been working as hard as you have for so long, if you can think about those goals and those achievements sitting there in the palm of your hand, they will come to you, and you’ll be happy. It won’t be magic, they won’t just magically appear, but just by thinking about them, you’ll focus on them more, and without even knowing it you’ll work harder to get them. Just keep thinking about how good life could be, and life will be good. That kind of thinking has gotten a lot of people a long way, and, so far as I can see, any other kind of thinking, like thinking negatively or thinking about things that may or may not exist, only leads to failure and suffering.” Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:00:00 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/a_day_in_the_chicago_schools.html “And now, children, say, what are we all?” The children leap up, as if they were shot through with electricity, their high voices cheerful and shouting and rejoicing: “Americans!” Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:00:00 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/rufus/2.html Hey Tom. How have you been? I havent been in my apartment for awhile and I dont if anyone’s tried to call me. Do you know? Ive been travelling, not very far not yet. I havent tried it in awhile and I need to get my legs. But its real good to try things I think I want to do and find out if I really want to do them. Im working at a computer in a library right now. I dont have a lot of time. There are things to do. Let me know how youre doing. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/remarks_on_hull_house_and_the_south_park.html Everything you see here is free to the people of Chicago and stands at their disposal unencumbered. Everyone is welcome. You can speak whatever language you want. The poorest of us can get those flea-ridden rags off their bodies. You can come whenever you want. You don’t need to show us any papers, you don’t have to write down your name, neither your right name nor a fake one. Everyone is welcome. We live in a democratic country here. Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:00:00 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/rufus/1.html Which made it all the more disconcerting when Rufus began stopping in front of local churches and gazing at the crucifixes perched on top. Whenever he read the newspaper, he found himself poring over the various murder stories which made up the bulk of local events. At work, where he operated as an efficient and respected project manager, he consistently resisted the urge to call his colleagues cocksuckers and to steal their pencils for no apparent reason. Worst of all, from the very beginning Rufus knew he was having a problem and he thought about it. He stayed up late at night and watched commercials for trade schools, all of them telling him to do something with his life. He bought self-help books whenever a title caught his attention, and although he never read the books all the way through, he knew what they were telling him to do. He had to follow his inclinations, to take his strongest attributes until what he wanted to do and what he could do were one and the same. He needed to bring into action the soul of himself. Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:40:51 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_warehouse_above_the_train_station.html But even outside this auditorium, what a terrifying sort of work! Young ladies stick a hundred thousand stamps to a hundred thousand envelopes for the catalogs. The thin sheets fly like fan blades under their fingers. At the printing press, where the parts of the catalog are attached, the workers have to use all of their senses, nerves, and brains to make sure that the yellow sheets sit on top of the blue ones and not underneath. Your feelings well up within you when you walk by a few tables and realize that the only reason people are sitting here is because the company hasn’t yet found machines that can do this sort of work. And yet, these humiliated creatures are luckier than those who have lost their income because the company has managed to find the right machines. Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:12:12 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/the_cat_in_the_piano_factory.html And the wheel turns and the thickset fellow makes his first cut. For thirty years he stands there and makes his first cut surely and confidently, the same way a bank director sets his signature on a document. He earns a lot of money, sixty cents an hour, and is as much a representative figure of modern American as Dowie, Rockefeller, and Roosevelt. He has kept up this pace thirty years long -- 25 animals a minute, that makes 1500 an hour, equaling 15,000 for a ten-hour workday. For thirty years he has remained at his post, standing in the rush of America. Millions of pigs have been brought to his spear, right where the people’s carnivore instincts want them. Do I hate this man for his job, for his calm, unconscious, raw naturalness? Do I hate a man who buys the well-being of his family with death throes, thin red streams, and frightened squeals? Not a chance! I admire him for his strength and his speed. Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:01:01 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/chicago_an_impression.html A low noise rests over the city, a rumbling coming from over or under the earth, a pulsing which sounds like somebody endlessly beating a carpet. Coal dust goes up one nostril, the scent of boiling glue goes up the other. This paste rests on the surface of your brain and behold, the Chicagoan’s consciousness is born. Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:20:30 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/amerika/pictures_from_amerika.html A German named Arthur Holitscher wrote a travelogue of America and Canada in the early 20th century. The main reason people know about it is because Franz Kafka used it as a source for his first novel, but it's a neat book in its own right. The only problem for us is that there isn't any English translation of it out there that we can find, so the Editor decided (out of the good of his heart) to translate at least some of his favorite sections using his very limited knowledge of the German language. The link contains some pictures, which give you an idea of what the book will be like. The Editor is currently working on the translations. Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:24:36 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/dictionary/diction.html The Editor is cooking something up and hasn’t really found anything good to publish this time around. He swears something is around the bend, but for the time being, read the dictionary. Sun, 30 Aug 2009 08:16:24 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/old/the_circle.html The Circle was anxiously European, to the point where people distinguished between Swedish, Irish and Polish. Anyone middle-Eastern was simply mistaken for Greek. If you ever pressed anyone on the issue, he’d tell you that race meant nothing to him, but if you used the right language, you could start talking to him about certain neighborhoods on the other side of the city, and then he’d start telling you about how certain people from certain neighborhoods should take better care of their children, should stop blaming the outside world for their problems and should, above all things, cooperate more with police. Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:11:11 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/old/sometimes_i_feel_like_a_motherless_child.html He took out a pistol from the glove compartment and walked back to the man who, even though his legs weren’t bound, wouldn’t run. Instead he softly closed his eyes in expectation. Swiftly and professionally, with a certain degree of reverence, Mario stepped up to the man, pointed the gun at his head, and pulled the trigger, telling himself all the while it was something that needed to be done. Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:15:03 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/old/give_my_love.html My name is Pete Williams. I live in Gilman on 2nd Avenue in a big house that used to be bright yellow. Show my bloated body to that cunt of a wife of mine and give her all my love. Tell my boy I know where he gets his dope and he should knock it off before he turns into me. Kick my dog for me. You’re such a stupid sonofabitch you just Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:15:15 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/podcast/ads.html Our reputation has grown to the point where major advertisers now want a piece of the Any Four Words action. With this kind of money, we won't need advertisements for awhile, but you never know. Maybe we'll want bigger yachts. The ad will be posted on the home page for ten days and will then be archived with the rest of the podcasts. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:10:00 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/podcast/ads.html This site doesn't pay for itself, so every now and then we just have to offer the time and attention of our vast, understanding audience to any company or organization wanting to make a pitch. The following audio advertisement will be up for ten days and will afterwards be archived with the rest of the podcasts. Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:12:12 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/old/chopin_park.html I put my right foot on a pedal, pushed off with the other, and got going for a good thirty feet or so. My father became excited and he started yelling. “All right, son! Keep going! Keep going!” It sounded too encouraging, so I veered off into the grass and fell. He quieted down. “What the fuck, are you doing this on purpose, what the fuck is the matter with you.” Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:48:20 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/old/meeting_someone_i_used_to_know.html I thought he would make a hell of a garbage man, or an electrician or maybe even an accountant. But instead he wanted to be a priest. It said so right on his account. And he wanted to Friend me. Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:12:12 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com/old/misunderstanding.html I kissed her, strongly at first, but then I backed off a bit. Closed mouth. My hands, instead of grabbing her, reached further back and gripped the counter behind her, so that she couldn’t move left or right without having to go through one of my arms. It was foreign and anonymous, which canceled out the sordidness of it, or at least made the sordidness part of the fun. Mon, 1 Jun 2009 20:24:28 CDT http://www.anyfourwords.com George Creel is dead. Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:10:20 CDT