Antique Carousels

Guest Post by Richard Brawer

We have all ridden a carousel either at a traveling fair or at an amusement park.  Where did the word carousel come from?  Who invented carousels?  Where did the makers get their inspiration?

From the latter part of the 1800s to the mid 1930s five thousand hand-carved wooden carousels were built in the United States.  About 170 exist today.  An operating antique carousel can bring a million dollars or more at auction depending the size and condition.

It is generally believed the English word, carousel, came from Italian words, carosello meaning ball game, and garrosello meaning little war.  Those words referred to a Renaissance game where participants rode in a circle and threw clay balls filled with perfume at each other.  A hit eliminated an opponent.

Eventually the French picked up on the Italian game.  In 1662, Louis the XIV held a tournament to impress his mistress.  Like everything Louis did―think Palace of Versailles―his tournament was extravagant.  The participants were dressed in lavish costumes and the horses outfitted in opulent splendor.  The gala event was captured by an artist who called his painting Le Grand Carrousel. (Note the two Rs in the French word where in the English word there is only one R.  You can find the picture by Googling Le Grand Carrousel and clicking image at the top of the opening web site page)

To keep the horses from getting worn out or injured during practice, someone invented a machine where newcomers would sit on a wooden log hung from a wheel atop a pole and turned by a plow horse.  When the aristocrats saw the thing they thought it was fun and had seats resembling fancy carriages attached to the wheel and an amusement ride was born.

The first carousel built in the United is credited to William Dentzel.  He emigrated from Germany in 1864 and three years later opened a factory in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.  His first carousel was installed on Smith Island in the Delaware River.

Inspired by the Le Grand Carrousel painting, Dentzel created elegant carousels.  His horses had regal poses, and the carvers who worked for him, the Muller Brothers and Salvatore Carnigliaro, were perfectionists, carving the details―muscles, lips, tongues, eyelids, ears and flying manes―that looked almost real.  Like in the painting his horses were decorated in bright colors, but he did not embellish them with glass jewels and gold leaf.    Dentzel carousels became known as The Philadelphia Style.

In contrast to Dentzel, the carousel makers in Brooklyn―Charles Looff, Marcus Illions, Charles Carmel, Solomon Stein and Harry Goldstein―tended to make their machines on the gaudy side, bedecking their horses with costume jewels, gold leaf and high pommels and cantles on the saddles.  The Brooklyn makers sold their machines to amusement parks like Rye Playland and Coney Island, thus their carousels became tagged the Coney Island Style.

However, two things Dentzel and the Brooklyn manufacturers had in common were:

(1) While their horses had powerful legs, sweeping tails, flowing manes, arched necks, open mouths and large teeth; and they all used some kind of trappings such as cherubs, eagles, flowers, swords, guns, hitch-hiking trolls, foxes and parrots, the expression on the horses’ faces seemed pretty, even sweet so as not to scare the children.

(2) Carousels revolve counter clockwise.  The right side of the horses face outward.  The artists call the right the” romance side” and carved it more elaborately than the left, especially on the standers―horses that do not move up and down―which were typically on the outer ring and the first horses seen by the customers.

Carousels for traveling fairs made by Allan Herschell and Charles Parker were a total deviation from Dentzel and the Brooklyn makers.  Their horses tended to have large heads and necks so they could be seen from a distance to attract riders.  The saddles were long and flat with very little detail, maybe a star or gun.  The horse’s legs were disproportionate to the body, being long and stretched out so they could be easily stacked and transported from one fair to the next.  Thus their creations were dubbed the Country Fair Style.

There is much more to a carousel than the horses.  There are also chariots, or simply put, fancy booths, for those who do not want to sit on a horse to ride the carousel.  In the center of the carousel, hand painted panels hide the operating mechanism, called the “truck” mechanism.

Then there are the “sweeps” or beams which extend from the center pole of the carousel to the outer ring of the platform. (Think of an open umbrella with support poles extending down from the tips of the ribs to keep it from falling over if stood up by its “center pole”)  Hand carved “rounding boards” in jesters, clowns, and mirrors accented in baroque scroll work circle the ends of the “sweeps” to hide the structural framework, and thousands of light bulbs covered the “sweeps” turning them into a blaze of color.

Then of course there is the band organ which plays what today we call circus music very loud to attract riders.

And don’t forget that brass ring machine.  Catching the brass ring came from earlier Moorish tournaments in Spain where riders would try to spear a ring hanging from a cord.  Applied to the carousel, it became known as a symbol of good luck and those “spearing” a brass ring got a free ride.  Today, only a few carousels have brass ring machines because insurance companies worry about riders falling off as they leaned out for the ring thus making liability insurance costly.

Also there are other animals to ride on―tigers, elephants, dogs, pigs, zebras, lions, pandas etc.  I concentrated on the horse because it is the most common animal.

So, the next time you ride a carousel, take a closer look.  Even the steel ones with plastic animals made today copy the original makers.

If you are curious to see if there is an antique carousel near you check out these web sites:  www.americancarousel.com (American Carousel Society) and  www.nationalcarousel.org (National Carousel Association)

Richard has published five novels in mystery, suspense and historical fiction genres.  When not writing, he spends his time golfing, sailing and growing roses.  He has two married daughters and lives in New Jersey with his wife.

Read about Richard’s novels including “Murder Goes Round and Round” where an antique carousel is the motive for the murder at:  www.silklegacy.com  Click mysteries at the top of the home page.

Stop the Presses! No More Paper Books

Guest Post by Irene Watson

As e-books become more and more popular, the question of whether or not they are a fad seems to have been swept aside. It is clear that e-books are here to stay, and now the question becomes whether paper books will survive. Authors and publishers need to make hard decisions about how they will publish their books. Here are some thoughts on whether it is still worthwhile to print books.

I find it hard to believe I am writing an article about the pros and cons of printing paper books. For over a decade we have been hearing about e-books and debating whether they would ever take off and win an audience. Even a couple of years ago, the jury was still out, but with the advent of the new Kindle and Nook and other e-readers, I can firmly say that I believe e-books are going to remain a major part of the publishing industry for years to come, if not forever.

In the last year, a new trend has started where I’ve actually seen authors produce only e-books. Granted, most of these authors are self-published and publishing their first book. They may not have the money to print paper books, or they simply do not want to risk the costs of printing on paper when producing an e-book is so less expensive. It’s hard to believe that a few decades ago a person would have spent tens of thousands of dollars to self-publish a book. By the beginning of this century, print-on-demand had reduced that cost to just a couple of thousand, or even just in the high hundreds. Now, producing an e-book might cost you only a couple of hundred dollars, or you could even do it yourself and just have the cost of your time to produce it. You can then sell it without ever having to do anything more—no printers, no printing costs, no delivery or mailing costs.

But are e-books really books? I’ve heard various publishing experts talk about how we are now in the information age, and we are no longer selling books but selling information. That’s a good point to make because e-books do not resemble books. Granted, e-readers like Kindle and Nook try to give the perception still that we are holding some sort of book, but it’s a different feeling to hold a plastic electronic device compared to paper that is pleasant and yielding to our touch. I still like the feel of a book better, and I think e-readers still have some bugs to be worked out, but I have to admit that the low price, the convenience of storing multiple books on an e-reader, and the speed of delivery are all preferable over printing paper books.

So is it no longer worthwhile to publish paper books? I know at least one author who has gleefully told me, “No more paper books for me.” But all I can say to that is, “Hold on. The paper book hasn’t died yet.” Maybe in ten years it will be dead, maybe sooner, but it isn’t dead right now. I think authors should continue to print paper books in reasonable quantities. I would recommend smaller print-runs—perhaps only 1,000, or 500, or even 100 books—just what you think you might be able to sell in a year or two and not beyond that, and then reassess whether you want to continue printing on paper. You need to be very realistic and savvy about how many paper books you can sell so you don’t end up with a basement full of paper while your e-book sales continue to climb, but a need for paper books still exists.

Here are some reasons why paper books are still a good idea. First, they are relevant to an author’s marketing strategy. If you plan to connect with readers only online, perhaps you don’t need this advice, but to produce only e-books is to alienate a good percentage of your audience.

Face-to-Face Interaction: Many readers like to connect with the author whose books they read. If that were not true, we wouldn’t have book signings and poetry readings and all manner of author events. Yes, perhaps a reader can connect with the author by sending him a Facebook message, and in some senses, the Internet has made author-fan connections much easier. But meeting someone online can never compare to meeting someone in person.

When you advertise a book release, it’s one thing to say “Go to Amazon to buy the Kindle edition.” It’s another thing to say, “Joanie will be signing books at Beauchamp’s Bookstore on March 8^th from 3-5 p.m. Granted, we all know that book signings do not draw crowds. You’re often lucky if three or four people show up. But then there are always people who happen to be in the bookstore who stumble upon you. You might think you can still make a personal appearance, but if you don’t have a book to sell, people may be less inclined to come to meet you.

Autographed Books: Along the lines of book signings, people like autographed, personalized books. Readers like to meet authors because they think authors are celebrities. Even people who are not readers are often overcome by an author’s perceived “celebrity” status and will then buy a book. I can’t tell you how many times I have had people say to me, “Wow, you’re an author” or “I never met an author before” and they say it with awe in their voices. These people do not want solely a reading experience. They want an in-person experience. They want to feel something exciting has happened to them by shaking hands with a famous author, and they want a memento of that experience by carrying away an autographed book.

Aesthetics: Granted, your book’s first edition may never become a collector’s item, and yes, we all feel we own too much stuff so it’s nice to have e-books that take up no space. But many of us love books for themselves. We collect first editions. We buy books we have already read just because we want the feeling that we own that book. We love the artwork of the covers and we want those books sitting on our coffee tables and bookshelves simply because the sight of them gives us pleasure. There is something so very aesthetically pleasing about the look and feel of a book, and book lovers know what a pleasure it is to see rooms filled with bookshelves, and all those enticing book spines in multiple colors with dramatic titles staring at them, holding secrets to be discovered and hours of reading pleasure.

Browsing for books in an online store just isn’t the same as going to the bookstore. Yes, it’s faster and easier to shop online, but if you really, truly, want to browse, you go to a bookstore. Going to a bookstore is like going to a movie, or going out for coffee. It’s a pleasant past-time. You can’t get that feel from an e-book, and you certainly can’t collect that feeling from an online bookstore. Maybe we’ll get that feeling when someone invents the virtual reality bookstore that we visit wearing special eyeglasses so we feel we really are in a bookstore—hey, I should invent that—but until that time comes, the physical bookstore will retain its charm.

Gifts: Can you see the excitement on Christmas morning when you all gather around the Christmas tree with your iPads and then check your email to find little messages saying you’ve been gifted electronic books? Boy, that just takes the festivity right out of gift-giving. Would you really give an e-book as a gift to a loved one? Perhaps if you live on opposite sides of the country from one another, but if you’re going to see that person on Christmas morning, isn’t a paper book wrapped in colorful paper a better token of affection and Christmas spirit?

E-Book or Paper? The Final Decision: To sum up my argument, we will have a need for paper books for years to come—at least until those of us who grew up loving paper books have departed this world. You certainly want to consider the longevity of your book. You want it available to future generations who may be raised on e-readers and never know what it is to read a paper book. A paper book can “go out of print.” So far, I haven’t seen evidence that an e-book can—although doubtless we’ll have to get newer e-readers.

So keep in mind that people still want to feel that human connection to the author—a paper book provides that connection in ways an e-book cannot. A paper book is more than the words on the pages. It becomes a gift, a token of affection, a symbol of meeting the author, a family heirloom. Somehow, I don’t foresee Grandma leaving her e-book collection to her grandchildren, but what about that family Bible, that first edition collection of the Anne of Green Gables series she enjoyed as a child, or that tattered and worn because much loved copy of Mother Goose that she used to read to you? Those are books you keep and treasure for a lifetime.

You can dismiss my argument for paper books as all sentiment if you like, but as an author who wants to sell books, don’t forget that humans are sentimental. Give them what they want. They may want the convenience of e-books, but they also want the sense of a human connection that a paper book offers.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find  reviews  of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity  and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Get Ready for ‘Nike Terrorists’

Guest Post by Mark Yost

Spy thrillers and action-adventure novels a la Tom Clancy and John Le Carre have been populated by all sorts of villains over the years: crooked politicians, jaded spies, greedy businessmen. Now get ready for “Nike Terrorists.”

According to a number of articles I’ve read and military analysts I’ve spoken with, Western intelligence agencies preparing for the G-8, Olympics, and other high-profile events aren’t so much worried about terrorists planning the next 9/11. They’re worried about extremists like Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Frenchman who killed three soldiers and four Jewish civilians using simple guns that most anyone can buy.

Writing recently in The Wall Street Journal, Con Coughlin, the executive foreign editor of London’s Daily Telegraph, said, “The manner in which Merah carried out his killings perfectly fits the profile of this new generation of Islamist terrorists.”

They’re called “Nike Terrorists” because, like the popular sneaker maker’s slogan, they’re encouraged to “Just Do It.” The architect of this new terror tactic was none other than Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Muslim cleric who was based in Yemen and eventually killed by a U.S. drone. Al-Awlaki made a series of Internet videos encouraging terrorists to do whatever they could to cause terror in their home country using small arms and homemade bombs.

One of the first examples of this terrorist tactic was seen in November 2008, when al Qaeda terrorists used small arms and simple explosives to kill 164 people in Mumbai. More recently, in Britain 21-year-old Roshonara Choudhry watched al-Awlaki’s videos, took a knife from his kitchen drawer, and tried to stab Labour Party politician Stephen Timms. Then there’s Anders Breivik, the Norwegian man who set off a car bomb killing eight people, then went to a Labour Party island camp and killed 69 others. Breivik’s home-made bomb used fertilizer, an ingredient that’s easily available in farming communities around the world. The weapons he used -- a 9mm Glock 17 pistol and Ruger Mini 14 rifle -- were both semi-automatic and legal. Breivik was so depraved that he wore a police uniform to the camp, luring people out of hiding after the initial shooting. At his trial recently, he said he was disappointed that he hadn’t killed more.

Mohamed Merah, the French gunman, also used easily available weapons such as a .12-gauge pump-action shotgun, three Colt .45s and a .357 magnum to carry out his attacks. On March 11 Merah shot an off-duty paratrooper point blank in the head outside a gym in Tolouse. A few days later he shot at three soldiers near an ATM machine, killing two and wounding one. Four days later he opened fire on a schoolyard at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school, killing three children and one adult.

One of the reasons that thrillers are so…well…thrilling is because they mimic real life. Perhaps the most-famous character of all time, James Bond, was based upon Ian Fleming’s own wartime exploits in the British No. 30 Commando unit. Tom Clancy, a mild-mannered insurance agent from suburban Maryland, put his name on the literary map by weaving his voracious knowledge of U.S. military techniques and technology into his novels featuring CIA analyst Jack Ryan. And in Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series, the hero played on the big Matt Damon often uses everyday household items to make weapons and explosives. Given this disturbing new trend in the War on Terror, I think we can expect to see these so-called Nike Terrorists showing up in a lot more plotlines.

Mark Yost is the author of “Soft Target,” a book about two al Qaeda terrorists who get tired of dodging drones in Afghanistan and come to the North Shore of Chicago to open up a new front in the War on Terror. He was also a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page and still writes for the Journal’s Leisure and Arts page.

Keeping in Touch

Guest Post by Sandra Clayton

When you are a travel writer there is not only the need to reach family and friends but book and magazine publishers as well. Nowadays it is likely to be by email or text. Yet little more than a decade ago most contacts were by snail mail. And to achieve this, of course, you needed a post office.

Spanish ones in particular could be something of a challenge. They often had no sign on them as if trying to keep their existence secret, and even when a resident pointed one out to you its opening hours or even which days it opened might not be shown on its frontage. You just kept turning up with your postcards and packages and hoped to catch it unawares.

The counter clerks were invariably thin and stressed and even apparently simple transactions, like dispatching an ordinary-looking brown envelope, required them to consult huge directories, their supervisor, and each other, in low whispers while the customers on the other side of the counter drooped in the airless heat behind a yellow line painted on the floor.

The culmination of every transaction was signalled by slamming a rubber stamp from ink pad to envelope or document half a dozen times with a force that made the windows rattle. With this hushed, bureaucratic complexity on one side of the counter, passive endurance on the other, and the execution-like effect of the rubber stamp, I wondered if Franz Kafka got the idea for his novel, The Trial, from a Spanish post office.

A particularly memorable one was in an old worn building in a narrow street in a small coastal town in the Balearic Islands. The big, square room had a bare wooden floor, flaking walls, a very long deep counter, a large, slow-moving ceiling fan and looked like a scene from a movie set in war-torn Europe. A large family stood hunched in front of the right-hand clerk clutching documents and gave the impression of having been there a long time.

At the left-hand end of the counter, a middle-aged man waited so long for his envelope to be processed that as soon as the clerk raised her rubber stamp he lurched away, blank-eyed, towards the door and had to be called back to pay. The fee had been overlooked among the whispered consultations, enormous directories and hammer blows of the rubber stamp. It was all probably futile anyway, since the contents of his lumpy manila envelope would never have survived the rubber stamp.

When our turn came we hoped the foreign destinations of our envelopes would not consign us to a fate similar to that of the family on our right. Whether they were registering a birth or a death, buying a marriage licence or querying a social security cheque, their documents were still unprocessed when the rubber stamp at our end of the counter finally fell. We flinched in spite of ourselves, then staggered out into the sunlight with a vague feeling of relief to find ourselves still alive and at liberty.

Communication is so easy nowadays. But not as colorful.

In the late ‘90s Sandra Clayton and her husband David sold up their home and set sail in a 40-foot catamaran. Since then they have covered around 40,000 miles and visited more than twenty countries. Nobody has to sail to enjoy her books. They are written for anyone interested in travel, people and places or a different way of life.

Sandra’s first two books about their travels, Dolphins Under My Bed and Something Of The Turtle, were originally self-published as PODs and both were Finalists in the travel category of The National Best Books Awards sponsored by USA Book News. The latter also achieved second place under general non-fiction in The Written Art Awards sponsored by Rebecca’s Reads.

Both books have since been taken up by Bloomsbury Publishing, with Dolphins published in May 2011 and Turtles – now under the new title Turtles In Our Wake – in March 2012.

To learn more: http://sandraclayton.sharepoint.com.