ENGL 1101: Fire, Disease, Disaster: Catastrophe and the Shaping of Urban Public Space

The other day I was on YouTube watching some of Charlie Chaplin’s hilarious videos until I came across a rather serious recording in which he performed in. The title of the video is “The Greatest Speech Ever Made.” Sorry, I will not give a background of the video or for what it was made for, but I will say Chaplin played a dictator similar to an Adolf Hitler image. What I hope to accomplish with this post is to introduce the message his performance conveys to my fellow readers as it relates to the course. Plus I think all of society should watch it.

Unlike Hitler, the dictator Chaplin plays actually has a heart of love for humanity and is not full of hate. The late English comedian, who did in fact speak, begins like all great speech givers, soft and low. He talked about how we all want to help one another, as he put it “We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone” But he says we have lost our way and that our greed has driven us in the opposite direction of a life that is free and beautiful. He explains we have reached great heights in development, but continue to deny one another. It seems as if in his mind the balance of things should be uneven in the right direction in other words “We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.” As Chaplin continues it seems he feels that we all still have an ounce of the love and gentleness needed to improve our world which is shown through our inventions, as selfish as they may our.

In this post I do not want to make it so much about Occupy Wall Street, but I believe the following could not be any more suitable for the movement. He stated “the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish. . .” In addition he also quoted the bible:

“In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written: “The kingdom of God is within    man” Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people…..You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.”

This pretty much sums up the efforts of the protesters and they should consider this speech as a slogan.

I really enjoyed this video and not because of Charlie Chaplin’s Performance, but for the message, as any great speaker would have generated the same results. The video begins and ends with Chaplin talking, but the interesting collogue of videos in between is worth watching. Again like all great speech givers Chaplin begins light and then his voice increases louder into the speech. He urge you all to watch this video, but note there are many types make sure to watch the link below for the best version…..ENJOY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo

The last and final visit to the Brooklyn Historical Society for this semester was perhaps the most intriguing. It has been an honor to have been part of such a unique learning community in which my peers and I were able to experience a wide range of research methods through the observations of primary historical documents. In a past post I had said that I “haven’t yet felt the feeling Jennifer Egan did while reading Lucy’s letters,” but I can excitingly say I have now done so. In this most recent visit we were introduced to the journals of Gabriel Furman, who I purposely decided not to research on the internet, and will explain why later in this post.

When I arrived to the BHS I naturally presided by performing the rutting all of us have become accustom to. Upon having finally signed in I immediately walked towards the third table on the opposite side of the atlas collection. As I sat at my table I realized that I was unconsciously redoing what I had done on my first visit to the private archive. That is I studied the interior architecture once more as I listened to Professor Gold and the very knowledgeable historians. Also while I balanced these to senses I enjoyed the noised produced by the other historians as they walked up and down the stairs located against the side of the space.

After a brief introduction to Furman the man we went ahead and entered the world of the 18^th century writer. The reading was defiantly worth reading and who ever wanted to learn about the most important diseases of that time they may be reading Furman’s primary sources. At first he wrote about some of the main statistics of the 1830’s. The most alarming was when he stated that in New York City alone over 15000 people died of disease and I remembered that this is three times of Brooklyn just some 15 years be for hand. Later on he would mention a cure which is important to note because it has to do with the surrounding of a community. This cure was one for New Yorkers, but was introduced by the India’s due to their experience with flies do to their environment. But as much as I enjoyed reading Gabriel Furman’s pieces, what I found amazing was the handwriting my peers and I tried to decode. I personally love great hand writing and was exited to study Furman. I realized that ways people in general of his time would write the long letters longer which makes the general look of the pieces of literature appear attractive. I also realized whenever he had begun a word at one end of a sentence and he had to continue the rest of the word on the line that proceeded he would use an equal sign. At first I thought this was a writing style of his, but I had asked Julie, the historian, and she informed me that his was a standard way of writing at the time.

This last visit was defiantly my favorite, but earlier I mentioned I purposely decided not to research Furman via internet at home because rather than do that I decided to learn more about the man when I visit the Brooklyn  Historical Society on my own in the not so distant future! It has been a great privilege to have been able to enter the world of Brooklyn’s past and in this last post I would like to say the following. Before this semester I didn’t know much about Brooklyn other than the sandy beach in Coney Island and the fact that one of its train stations is Broadway Junction. Now, I can say I have a greater understanding of the borough that sites next to mine and most importantly I was able to learn about its rich history through the long walks a few of my peers and I did in an attempt to explore the area, none of which would have happened if it wasn’t for the BHS and its dedicated staff. Thank you!

These hefty books filled with regular accounts of Brooklyn life and news abroad. I was initially impressed by the lack of writing mistakes, his meticulous ink hand writing remains in good condition. His first accounts where about disease, about how many had died, over 1500 in twenty days of a population of 15000. he offers another note about a cure for the disease from Calcutta, this cure called fore Cinnamon, 50 drops of laudanum (liquid opium), apparently this remedy was quite successful. he also reported that about other outbreaks around the world, even as far a St Petersburg. having only read a few pages, i could imagine that the whole book must have a very large sum of important historical information. his writing preserves history as a direct witness, give a good firsthand idea of what happened.