Moses Down Bad For Power

Moses is going to be pharoah eventually. Found in a river and adopted, he is raised to love music and is infatuated with Osiris. It seemed to me like his initial reasoning for finding and learning from Jethro was pure. He wanted to learn the old songs out of curiosity. How did Moses warp so much?

Even after Moses learned all of Jethro’s songs he was happy with that. He said that he would always remember Jethro in his heart whenever he played those songs. Jethro responds with a thinly veiled attempt to get Moses to join his family. I believe this came from an entirely pure place, not trying to become part of the pharoah-to-be’s family but instead just because he liked Moses. They had spent several months together and for some reason Jethro even considered Moses as a son after just the first day because of his stunt of saving the cows that his daughter’s were watching from being heckled by the lackeys that Moses found in the first place. In this alternate history it seems like everyone is incredibly gullible. A quick side note, how did Moses become good at a random 25 string instrument in only a few months?? After that time he should only be able to play basic songs, nothing should sound good either. Yet somehow is is good enough to play duets with Jethro.

Moses stays because there is still more to learn, but already he seems to be showing the first signs of being power hungry. Why else would he willingly marry Zipporah out of the blue after one day when he had apparently been “using” all of Jethro’s daughters however he wanted to. Also wtf Jethro how are you not suspicious, the polyamourous Moses is suddenly monogamous and commits to one of the daughters. Moses learns the secret words and is getting ready to leave and yet again Jethro comes in with the suspicious timing “ooh what about the ancient book in Koptos now you have to come back someday”. This time at least Jethro isn’t too suspicious, it isn’t the right moon phase after all. Side note, I think Moses did actually love Zipporah to an extent considering how he was going to leave and go back to Egypt with her.

This time when Moses stays longer and then goes camping, Jethro does become suspicious. He knows what Moses really wants. The confusing part is in how easily Moses is swayed by Set. It’s on thing to blindly agree to Set’s conditions about the cult of Aton but know he has completely morphed as a person. Realistically it would make more sense for Moses to agree but then never follow through. Instead Moses comes back, initially acts secretive, then blows up and gets mad at Jethro. Why would Moses listen to Jethro the entire time, then suddenly ignore when Jethro gives the warning that he would get the evil side of the book? From what we were told, Set did not do all that much or say anything that should have caused this behavior. What do you think caused this change in Moses?

The Coalhouse Invasion

In Ragtime, Coalhouse’s invasion of Morgan’s treasure trove culminated in the Coalhouse boys being allowed to escape while Coalhouse himself got captured. What other possible outcomes could there have been? Was there a better way of dealing with the situation?

 

Essentially this invasion was a hostage situation. Though there was no person being kept prisoner, Morgan had kept countless priceless treasures. Coalhouse said they had Morgan since they had his property. Hostage situations are very delicate, especially with so many unknowns (size of the force, how far they are willing to take this, etc.). Given the situation, I think Whitman handled it okay, despite not wanting to concede anything at first. However, there were some things that could have gone much better. Father went back and for as a message bearer for a time and even Booker T. Washington went in. Questioning Washington on what he saw was a little bit harder, but Father was purposely working with Whitman and could have been questioned after every visit to give more information, get rid of more unknowns.

 

If Whitman knew how many people there were and knew there was a white man (younger brother) in blackface, what could he have done? There was always someone sitting over the detonation box so attacking was not an option. The entire operation was based around time since the resources of Coalhouse were limited (food, water). If it went on for long enough Coalhouse could have requested food and water but it could easily have been poisoned, or at the very least drugged to make them all sleep. Coalhouse didn’t want to blow up the house, their original goal was just to get the car fixed and get retribution on the fire chief. This makes them much more willing to reach some sort of compromise (part of why Conklin did not end up dead). To add on to that, although Coalhouse himself is resigned to die after this whole affair ends, he doesn’t want the rest of the Coalhouse gang to die.

 

Getting the car fixed is the one hill that Coalhouse has consistently shown he is ready to die on. He blames Conklin for indirectly causing Sarah’s death and did attempt to kill Conklin before that but at the end of the day Conklin did not kill Sarah. Though Whitman did not know about Sarah, he should have realized that killing Conklin just for messing up Coalhouse’s car was completely unreasonable and tried to bring Coalhouse’s demands down sooner. Whitman refused to see this, instead over the course of the whole incident there was greater damage to the surrounding area and a police officer’s life was lost due to a landmine. Had Whitman put away his pride and thought about this more rationally as if this was a hostage situation the losses could have been avoided. That said, the end result of Conklin fixing the car himself and the Coalhouse boys getting an hour's head start to run was the best ending for everyone.

 

What do you think? Comment below.

Houdini and Spiritualism

In Ragtime, after Houdini’s mother’s death, Houdini goes through a super depressed streak. During this time he visits his mother’s grave every day, to make up for not being there when his mother called for him. Each day he would add a stone to a pile, eventually making a small pyramid over the grave. Wanting to learn what his dead mother had to say to him, he became obsessed with spiritualism. It is important to remember that Houdini was primarily a showman and cultivated a certain image for himself. It is more likely that he just flirted with the idea of talking with the dead rather than actually placing any hope into it, unlike what he showed the public.

           

             Doctorow is very close to reality in this section about Houdini. As he said, spiritualism started growing in popularity starting in 1848 and grew in popularity until about the 1920’s. After that it morphed into a more established religion. The same year Houdini’s mother died (1913), the first spiritualist church opened in Australia. This really goes to show how widespread the idea of conversing with the dead had become.

 

             Houdini really did go on a spree of debunking mediums, even going so far as trying to outlaw the practice in congress. One story that really stuck out to me (I wish Doctorow could have somehow included it) is Houdini’s friendship with Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes. Though Sherlock Holmes is a very rational character, Doyle himself was a big believer in Spiritualism. One day he convinced Houdini to attend a séance led by Doyle’s wife. Doyle’s wife was an amateur medium and at the séance used a mistake riddled version of auto writing (though both she and Doyle believed it). Auto writing is a divination technique where the medium writes something without consciously thinking about it, giving the impression that a “spirit” is writing with their hand. It is often accomplished in a trance or while paying attention to something else. Of course with Houdini’s background he already knew many tricks of the trade but this séance had some glaring problems, first and foremost being that Houdini’s Italian mother guided Doyle’s wife to write in English. Doyle was so proud that afterwards he went to the press and said that he managed to convince Houdini that spiritualism was real. With Houdini being such a prominent anti-spiritualist this would have made big news. Though Houdini had previously just been pretending to go along for his friend, after this statement he publicly denounced The Doyles’ séance resulting in a broken friendship.

 

            So far I have enjoyed all of the passages with Houdini and he is probably my favorite character in the book. The point of this blog has just been to flesh out a part of Houdini that I had not known of before Ragtime. If you have any further questions or anything is missing, please ask down below.