Friends who come bearing books are friends indeed. Macgregor Hay is such a friend. He understands a passion for books as only a Scotsman who travels to Edinburgh, Scotland, for its annual international book fair can. Today he stopped by the office to give me a copy of J.S. Holliday’s giant coffeetable tome Rush For Riches. Just because he thought I’d like it. And I do.
Holliday is the author of The World Rushed In, the seminal narrative history of the California Gold Rush. Rush For Riches is an extravagant and lavishly illustrated rendering of the same history of “gold fever and the making of California.” I am going to spend many a delightful hour perusing its pages and contemplating the utter madness that drove so much of frontier history.
Fur, whale oil, timber, opals, diamonds, gold, ivory. The Americas, Australia, Africa…
The greed for the big strike was truly a fever; it burned hot and drove men wild with lust. But it wasn’t mere lust for wealth. There is something ineffably compelling about the hunt for the treasures of the earth. It’s the questing; the mission itself giving shape purpose and meaning to the urge to ramble, to see new lands, to drink deep — and get roaring drunk — on the cup of life.
Matthew says
I think the ROMANCE (in the classical sense) of finding treasure (whether shipwrecks or panning gold) is as important as the treasure. The people who really cleaned up on the gold trade where the people who sold supplies to the miners. But that does not have the same feel to it.
JimC says
Exactly. Dave Alvin never wrote a song about a guy selling shovels.
Mac Hay says
Jim-I’m pleased you like it…I figured you would…Slainte! Macgregor
Wayne says
Last Winter I read Edwin Tappan Adney’s The Klondike Stampede about his experiences as a New York reporter covering the gold rush in the Yukon in 1897. His classic and comprehensive book, Bark Canoes & Skin Boats of North America, has long been on my bookshelf but I didn’t know about his adventures as a reporter. That gold miners in the Yukon worked underground in sub-zero temperatures in an effort to strike it rich is a testament to the human drive to gain a fortune. The book plods at times, but it gives the reader a sense of how brutal life was in the Yukon and Alaska gold fields.
JimC says
“Like a fiend with his dope, a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine…”
john roberts says
“Where it’s dark as a dungeon
And dank as the dew,
Where danger is doubled
And pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls
And the sun never shines
A man is a fool
To go down in the mine”
Saddle Tramp says
Jim…
This may not quite be in the FP wheelhouse stylistically but the subject is.
Believe it or not. As I was late hearing about it, I was on the waiting list for tickets to see Dave Alvin do an accoustic set at the Folk Music Center in Claremont at 7:30 Saturday night. I never got a call so I made other plans and headed over to the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre on Wilshire for the 6 pm showing of the documentary film MIFUNE: THE LAST SAMURAI with a Q&A with the director following the showing of the film. Previews before the show included the new film GOLD coming out on Christmas Day in limited showings. It is supposed to be inspired by a true story and seemed very whacked out but involves a really big bucks haul of gold and much intrigue.
Back to Dave Alvin. After the Q&A for MIFUNE I checked my phone and damned if there wasn’t a voice mail at 7:15 pm telling me they had a ticket for me to see Dave and to just get on over there. Too late. Very disappointed to miss Dave in that venue. However, I ended up staying after the Q&A for the additional film SAMURAI REBELLION starring Toshiro Mifune. Very, very powerful film in my opinion. The documentary on Mifune gave the film that much more meaning. Mifune was a helluva good actor.
In the documentary Mifune’s son spoke of his father’s war experience training boys (more or less) and having to send them off on suicide missions. Japan had even gotten to the point of exhausting their supply of men and were conscripting prepubescent boys into the war. Mifune’s son related how his father had told his trainees who were leaving on suicide missions not to say bonzai to the emperor but rather say goodbye to their mothers. Even Kurosawa who initially supported the war said later that he would never bow to an authority again. Much was talked about Ronins as a theme to many of the films. Strange thing there is a similarity with veterans coming to the aid of the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters in similar fashion that Ronins did as unemployed warriors. All the old Chanbara ( the crashing of swords ) silent films are gone other than the final scenes from one depicting a Samurai licking his enemies blood off his sword in the midst of battle for nourishment to keep on fighting.
Of course as always things got to a point of absurdity.
It is the the Samurai spirit that draws me in.
Mifune became an actor by accident when he applied for photographer’s assistent position at Toho Studios when he got sent to the acting department by mistake. He stayed. The rest is history. His father was a photographer and he had helped his father in his business and he never had plans to be an actor.
Kurosawa never had to instruct him as was not normally the case for other of his actors.
The film SAMARAI REBELLION is much much more than swordplay. It goes deeply into the meaning of honor and loyalty and turns it on it’s head. I felt there was a relevance to today’s extreme examples of Nationalism and also the situation with the great numbers of unemployed or under employed warriors and other workers who feel their time has passed them by. Perhaps fuedalism, fiefdoms or tribalism is making a reappearance. I hope not. In my opinion the results would seem predictably bad for most. As a women mentioned in the film that war had never been good for Japan. When you see the footage of it during the film one must agree. The same would be true if it came to our land.
Blood thirst can have no good end but to come to an end. Trust me I understand the practical complications if you will. It’s an age old story.
Back to the gold.
Just like “gold fever” it takes it’s hold and becomes insatiable. Resources are plundered and the lands ravaged to no end. We have already tipped the balance. The one thing that struck me in the classic film THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE was how Walter Huston’s character ( the directorJohn Huston’s father) respected nature and knew when to stop and the values of a good life. The lessons of gold could very well play out in this next era we are now entering. Most will recognize the symbolism of which I speak. Will we get the curse of the mummy? Mother Nature cannot be defeated. How we love the stories of Pirates, Bandits, gunplay, swordplay and the hunt for untold riches. I know I sure do…
A late dinner on the way home at The Apple Pan crowded in at the horseshoe counter diner where they still serve up steak burgers like they did in 1947. Stools only in democratic style. Tramps and moguls sit alike side by side. No reservations. Quality Forever.
CASH ONLY!!
I hope not to be an alarmist but when the boot fits wear it:
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.”
— GEORGE ORWELL
JimC says
Fantastic post, ST. If you’re gonna miss Dave Alvin, seeing Mifune would be adequate consolation.
“Perhaps fuedalism, fiefdoms or tribalism is making a reappearance.” I think so, for a variety of reasons — some for good, some for ill. It seems to be a natural form of human organization.
Love the reference to Treasure of the Sierra Madre. B. Traven knew the madness and Huston was the right man to capture it, because he knew it in himself.
“Tramps and moguls sit alike side by side.” The way it oughta be, by God!
Matthew says
Speaking of Samurai and Gold rushes. There’s a manga I’m looking forward to being published in the US….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Kamuy
I haven’t read but it sounds interesting and people familiar with it seem to think a lot.
Japan has been a settled country for longer than the US has been around so there aren’t much fictional works dealing Frontier themes. Most that do seem to have fantasy elements. Princess Mononoke (it’s not as girly as it sounds) deals with a conflict between nature and civilization and featured one of Japan’s aboriginal peoples as a protagonist. There’s been a few Space Westerns and maybe Attack on Titan with it’s medieval setting. But there’s not much.
JimC says
Manga is terra incognita for me. Russo-Japanese War setting is intriguing.
Matthew says
Manga is terra incognita for me.
And your probably happier that way! They have some weird genres: Gay romances between teenage boys written for adult women! Stories about the daily life of cute highschool (or younger) girls aimed at adult men (often with gay romances.)
That said I’ve liked some of the more historical stuff (like Lone Wolf and Cub) and they have some decent work in other genres.