CZM Book Club: Assembly Line, by B. Traven

Margaret reads you a story about arts and crafts.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Book Club, book Club, book Club, book Club, book Club,
book Club, book Club. I wonder how long I can
do that for book Club book Club, No, I got bored. Hello,
and welcome to cools on Media book Club, your weekly
book club that I host. My name is Margaret Kiljoy,
and I host the cools On Media book Club, which

(00:25):
is what I had already said. And every week I
read you different stories. And it's the only book club
where you don't have to do the reading because I
do the reading for you. You might have other book
clubs like that, Well I wouldn't be me doing the
reading for you, although I do like reading anyway. Okay,
I've been on this kick where I've been reading old
stories written by radicals, and I have got for you

(00:48):
a story that I'm excited about.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
It is written by B. Traven. And if you've never
heard of B. Traven, that's understandable. And if you have
heard of B. Traven, you might be excited. B Traven
what was a really important Mexican pulp fiction writer. He
was writing in the twenties thirties. I actually don't know
when he stopped writing because I don't have his hoole biography.
In front of me. But if he's famous today, there's

(01:11):
two old movies based on his books. One is called
The Death Ship and that's less known, and then there's
the Treasure of the Sierra Nevadas and that movie was
a big old hit before I or most of you
were born. But the thing that is really neat about
be Travan And one day he's actually going to be
a character on I'm going to do episodes about him

(01:33):
at some point on cool People who did cool stuff.
So I don't have all the information right now. The
thing is is that no one knew who Betraven was
for so long, Like he would only meet people in
darkened rooms in order to do interviews and stuff like that.
He was completely anonymous as this very popular pulp fiction

(01:53):
writer in Mexico, and a lot of his work was
translating in English. And you know, two Hollywood movies were
made after his book books, and almost certainly I believe
people see this as a known fact now. He was
a German anarchist named Rhet Marut who was part of
this There was this whole wave Germany almost had a
revolution at the end of the nineteen tens, and I

(02:14):
haven't really covered this uncol people did cool stuff yet,
so I don't know a ton about it. Rosa Luxembourg
is a big famous person from all this whole thing.
And there was a bunch of anarchist artists who got
together and tried to create a Soviet and in the
Soviet sense of like a bottom up assembly organized society,
rather than what the Soviet Union became, which has nothing

(02:35):
to do with Soviets. I'm not bitter. Rhet Marut had
to flee Germany because of his role in this revolution,
but he was a fiction writer, and so he made
it to Mexico and he started writing, and he wrote
a lot of really popular stuff. And so I'm going
to read one of his short stories today. This story

(02:55):
is called assembly Line, and I've said this with a
couple episodes recently. It was written in nineteen twenty eight,
or it was published in nineteen twenty eight in English,
and it was probably translated into English by Betraven himself.
But the way that people wrote about race and indigenity
was different. And I would also say that the way

(03:18):
that indigenity versus like radical leftist politics looks different in Mexico. Historically,
this is going to be a story about an indigenous
man in Ohaka. And I could not really tell you
about the relationship of Bee Traven to indigenity in terms
of writing and things like that, but I can tell
you that I have studied since like the eighteen forties

(03:41):
eighteen fifties, this overlap between European anarchist politics, learning from
and hanging out with and being part of Mexican radical culture,
including indigenous culture, and so I suspect I don't know
whatever I'm doing this thing where I'm like, hey, some
of the writing in this is like not the way
that someone would write it now, or things like that,

(04:04):
But I still find it a very interesting story. And
I also like reading these stories because of how they're
indicative of the way that radical fiction writers perceived of
their world and what they like to write about at
different times. And I think that there's a value also
in that. I also just like this story. This is
another example kind of like the Toll story stories I've
been reading where it is a skilled writer who is

(04:28):
writing these political parables, and I think that that skilled
writer is important. And I also have a particular love
like Tulsoi is fine. I have a particular love for
pulp fiction in adventure novels, and that's what B. Traven
is more known for. Although this is not as much
of an adventure story. Write the story assembly line B.
Travean nineteen twenty eight, mister E. L. Winthrop of New

(04:53):
York was on vacation in the Republic of Mexico. It
wasn't long before he realized that this strange and really
wild country had not yet been fully explored by rotarians
and lions, who are forever conscious of their glorious mission
on Earth. Therefore, he considered it his duty as a
good American citizen to play his part in correcting this oversight.

(05:16):
In search of opportunities to indulge in his new avocation,
he left the beaten track and ventured into regions not
especially mentioned and hence not recommended by travel agents to
foreign tourists. So it happened that one day he found
himself in a little quaint Indian village somewhere in the
state of Ojaka. Walking along the dusty main street of

(05:37):
this peblocito, which knew nothing of pavements, drainage, plumbing, or
any means of artificial light save candles or pine splinters,
he met with an Indian squatting on the earth and
floor front porch of a palm hut, a so called yaclito.
The Indian was busy making little baskets from bast and
all kinds of fibers gathered by him in the immense

(05:58):
tropical bush which surrounded the village on all sides. The
material used had not only been well prepared for its purpose,
but was also richly colored with dyes that the basket
maker himself extracted from various native plants, barks, roots, and
from certain insects by a process known only to him
and the members of his family. His principal business, however,

(06:19):
was not producing baskets. He was a peasant who lived
on what the small property he possessed less than fifteen
acres of not too fertile soil, would yield. After much
sweat and labor, and after constantly worrying over the most
wanted and best suited distribution of rain, sunshine, and wind,
and the changing balance of birds and insects beneficial or

(06:40):
harmful to his crops. Baskets he made when there was
nothing else for him to do in the fields, because
he was unable to dawdle after all the sale of
his baskets, though to a rather limited degree, only added
to the small income he received from his little farm.
In spite of being by profession just a plain peasant,

(07:00):
it was clearly seen from the small baskets he made
that at heart he was an artist, a true and
accomplished artist. Each basket looked as if covered all over
with the most beautiful, sometimes fantastic ornaments, flowers, butterflies, birds, squirrels, antelopes, tigers,
and a score of other animals of the wilds. Yet
the most amazing thing was that these decorations, all of

(07:23):
them symphonies of color, were not painted on the baskets,
but were instead actually part of the baskets themselves. Bast
and fibers dyed and dozens of different colors were so
cleverly one might actually say intrinsically interwoven, that those attractive
designs appeared on the inner part of the basket as
well as the outside, not by painting, but by weaving.

(07:46):
Were those highly artistic designs achieved. This performance he accomplished
without ever looking at any sketch or pattern while working
on a basket. These designs came to light as if
by magic, and as long as the basket was not
entirely finished, one could not perceive what in this case
or that the decoration would be like. People in the
market town who bought these baskets would use them for

(08:08):
sewing baskets, or to decorate tables with or window sills,
or to hold little things to keep them from lying around.
Women put their jewelry in them, or flowers or little dolls.
There were, in fact a hundred and two ways they
might serve certain purposes in a household or in a
lady's own room. Whenever the Indian had finished about twenty
of the baskets, he took them to town on market day.

(08:32):
Sometimes he would already be on his way shortly after midnight,
because he owned only a burrow to ride on, and
if the borough had gone astray the day before, as
happened frequently, he would have to walk the whole way
into town and back again. At the market, he had
to pay twenty centavos and taxes to sell his wares.
Each basket cost him between twenty and thirty hours of

(08:53):
constant work, not counting the time spent gathering the bast
and fibers, preparing them, making die and coloring the bast all.
This meant extra time and work. The price he asked
for for each basket was fifty centavos, the equivalent of
about four cents. It seldom happened, however, that the buyer
paid outright the full fifty centavos asked, or for realis,

(09:17):
as the Indians called that money. The prospective buyer started bargaining,
telling the Indian he ought to be ashamed to ask
such a sinful price. Why the whole dirty thing is
nothing but dirty patate straw, which you find in heaps
wherever you may look for it. The jungle is packed
full of it. The buyer would argue, if I paid you,
you thief ten cent of vetos for it, you should
be grateful for it and kiss my hand. Well, it's

(09:40):
your lucky day. I'll be generous this time. I'll pay
you twenty and not one green centavo more. Take it
run along. So he sold finally for twenty five centavos.
But the buyer would say, and what do you think
of that? I've only got twenty centavos change on me?
What can you do about that? If you can change
me at twenty p payso bill?

Speaker 2 (10:00):
All right?

Speaker 1 (10:01):
You shall have your twenty five fieros. Of course, the
Indian could not change a twenty payso bill, and so
the basket went for twenty centavos. He had little, if
any knowledge of the outside world, or he would have
known that what happened to him was happening every hour
of every day to every artist all over the world.
That knowledge would have made him very proud, because he

(10:21):
would have realized that he belonged to the little army
which is the salt of the earth, and which keeps culture, urbanity,
and beauty for their own sakes from passing away. Often,
it was not possible for him to sell all the
baskets he had brought to market. For people here as
elsewhere in the world, preferred things made by the millions,
and each so much like the other that you were unable,

(10:41):
even with the help of a magnifying glass, to tell
which was which and where was the difference between two
of the same kind. Yet he, this craftsman, had in
his life, made several hundreds of these exquisite baskets, but
so far no two of them had ever turned out
alike in design. Each was an individual piece of art,
and as different from the other as a marion from
a Velasquez. Naturally, he did not want to take those baskets,

(11:04):
which he could not sell at the marketplace home with
him again if he could help it. In such a case,
he went peddling his products from door to door, where
he was treated partly as a beggar and partly as
a vagrant, apparently looking for an opportunity to steal, and
he frequently had to swallow all sorts of insults and
nasty remarks. Then, after a long run, perhaps a woman
would finally stop him, take one of the baskets and

(11:27):
offer ten centavos, which price, through talks and talks, would
perhaps go up to fifteen or even twenty. Nevertheless, in
many instances he would actually get no more than just
ten centavos, and the buyer, usually a woman, would grasp
that little marvel right before his eyes and throw it
carelessly on the nearest table, as if to say, while
I take that piece of nonsense only for charity's sake,

(11:47):
I know my money is wasted, but then after all,
I'm a Christian, and I can't see a poor Indian
die of hunger since he has come such a long
way from his village. This would remind her of something better,
and she would hold him and say, where you at home? Anyway?
In Dieto? Where's your pueblo? So from Huhutonoc? Now listen
here in Dieto. Can't you bring me next Saturday two

(12:08):
or three turkeys from Hutonoc? But they must be heavy
and fat and very very cheap, or I won't even
touch them if I wish to pay the regular price.
I don't need you to bring them, understand, hop along?
Now in Deeto, the Indian squatted on the earth and
floor of the portico in his hut, attended to his work,
and showed no special interest in the curiosity of mister
Winthrop watching him. He acted almost as if he ignored

(12:30):
the presence of the American altogether. How much is that
little basket, friend, mister Winthrop asked, when he felt he
had at least say something so as to not ap
peer idiotic fifty centavos patroncito, my good little lordie for Realez,
The Indian answered, politely, All right, sold, mister Winthrop blurted
out in a tone and with a gesture as if

(12:50):
he had just bought a whole railroad, and examining his
by he added, I already know who I'll give that
pretty little thing to. She'll kiss me for it. Sure,
I wonder what should you use it for? He had
expected to hear a price of three or even four pesos.
The moment he realized that he had judged the value
six times too high, he saw right away what great

(13:11):
business possibilities this miserable Indian village might offer to a
dynamic promoter like himself. Without further delay, he started exploring
those possibilities. Suppose is my good friend, I buy ten
of these little baskets of yours, which I which I
might as well admit right here and now have practically
no real use whatsoever. Well, as I was saying, if
I buy ten, how much would you then charge a piece?

(13:34):
The Indian hesitated for a few seconds, as if making calculations. Finally,
he said, if you buy ten, I can let you
have them for forty five centavos each, Senorito, gentleman, All right, amigo,
And now let's suppose I buy from you straight away
one hundred of these absolutely useless baskets. How much will
each cost me? The Indian, never looking up to the

(13:55):
Americans standing before him, and hardly taking his eyes off
his work, said politely, with out the slightest trace of
enthusiasm in his voice. In such a case, I might
not be quite unwilling to sell each for forty cent
of vitos. Mister Winthrop bought sixteen baskets, which was all
the Indian had in stock. But you know who does
have more in stock? Well, whoever's advertising, They probably have

(14:19):
a bunch of stuff, and you could buy it if
you want. Or you could press the forward thirty second
spot in a couple times so you hear the theme
music again. You could do whatever you want, and we're back.

(14:42):
After three weeks stay in the Republic, mister Winthrop was
convinced that he knew this country perfectly, that he had
seen everything and knew all about the inhabitants, their character,
and their way of life, and that there was nothing
left for him to explore. So he returned to good
old New York and felt happy to be once more
in a civilized country, rust it to himself. One day,

(15:02):
going out for lunch, he passed to confectioners, and looking
at the little display in the window, he suddenly remembered
the little baskets he had bought in that far away
Indian village. He hurried home and took all the baskets
he still had left to one of the best known
candy makers in the city. I can offer you here,
mister Winthrop, said to the confectioner, one of the most
artistic and at the same time most original of boxes,

(15:24):
if you wish to call them, that these little baskets
would be just right for the most expensive chocolates meant
for elegant and high priced gifts. Just have a good
look at them, sir, and let me listen. The confectioner
examined the baskets and found them extraordinarily well suited for
a certain line in his business. Never before had there
been anything like them, for originality, prettiness and good taste.

(15:45):
He however, avoided most carefully showing any sign of enthusiasm
for which there would be time enough. Once he knew
the price and whether he could get a whole load exclusively,
he shrugged his shoulders and said, well, I don't know.
If you asked me, I say, it isn't quite what
I'm after. It depends, of course, on the price. In
our business, the package mustn't cost more than once in it,

(16:06):
Do I hear? An offer, mister Winthrop asked, why don't
you tell me in round figures how much you want
for them? I'm no good at guessing. Well, i'll tell you,
mister Kemple. Since I'm the smart guy who discovered these baskets,
and since I'm the only jack who knows where to
lay his hand on more, I'm selling to the highest
bidder on an exclusive basis. Of course, I'm positive you
can see it my way, mister Kemple. Quite so, and

(16:29):
may the best man win. The confectioner said, I'll talk
the matter over with my partners. See me tomorrow morning,
same time, please, and i'll let you know how far
we might be willing to go. Next day, when both
gentlemen met again, mister Kemple said, now, to be frank
with you, I know art on seeing it, no getting
around that. And these baskets are a little works of art.
They surely are. However, we are not art dealers. You

(16:51):
realize that, of course we've no other use for these
pretty little things except us fancy packing for our French
prelines made by us. We can't pay for them what
we meant I might pay considering them as pieces of art.
After all to us. They're only wrappings. Fine rappings perhaps,
but nevertheless rappings. You'll see it our way, I hope,
mister Oh yes, mister Winthrop. So here is our offer,

(17:14):
take it or leave it. A dollar and a quarter
apiece and not one cent more. Mister Winthrop made a
gesture as if he had been struck over the head.
The confectioner, misunderstanding this involuntary gesture of mister Winthrop, added quickly,
all right, all right, no reason to get excited, no
reason at all. Perhaps we can do a trifle better.
Let's say one fifty. Make it one seventy five, mister

(17:36):
Winthrop snapped, swallowing his breath while wiping his forehead. Sold
one seventy five apiece free at Port of New York.
We pay the customs and you pay the shipping. Right sold,
mister Winthrop also said, and the deal was closed. There is,
of course, one condition, the confectioner explained, when mister Winthrop
was to leave one or two hundred won't do it

(17:57):
for us. It wouldn't pay the trouble in the end
advertising I wouldn't consider less than ten thousand or one
thousand dozens, if that sounds better. In your ears, and
they must come in twelve different patterns. Well assorted, how
about that I can make it sixty different patterns or designs,
So much the better, And you're sure you can deliver

(18:17):
ten thousand, let's say early October. Absolutely, mister Winthrop vowed
and signed the contract. Practically all the way back to Mexico,
mister Winthrop had a notebook in his left hand and
a pencil in his right, and he was writing figures,
long rows of them to find out exactly how much
richer he would be when his business had been put through. Now,

(18:38):
let's sum up the whole goddamn thing, he muttered to himself.
Damn it, where is that cursed pencil again? I had
it right between my fingers. Ah, there it is ten thousand,
he ordered. Well, well, there we get a clean cut
profit of fifteen thousand, four hundred and forty genuine dollars
sweet smackers, fifteen grand right in a papa's pocket. Come

(18:59):
to think of it, that republic isn't so backward after all.
Buenos tardes, mi amigo, how are you whom he found
squatting in the porch of his jocolito as if he
had never moved from his place, since mister Winthrop had
left for New York. The Indian Rose took off his hat,
bowed politely, and said, in his soft voice, be welcome, Patronsito.

(19:19):
Thank you. I feel fine, Thank you, moebenos tards the house,
and all I have is at your kind disposal. He
bowed once more, moved his right hand in a gesture
of greeting, and sat down. But he excused himself for
doing so by saying, pardon me, Patrosito, I have to
take advantage of the daylight. Soon it will be night.
I've got big business for you, my friend, mister Winthrop.

(19:40):
Agan good to hear that. Signor. Mister Winthrop said to himself.
Now he'll jump up and go wild when he learns
what I've got for him, and aloud, he said, do
you think you can make one thousand of these little baskets?
Why not, Patronzito. If I can make sixteen, I can
make one thousand also, that's right, my good man. Can

(20:00):
you also make five thousand? Of course, Signor, I can
make five thousand if I can make one thousand. Good Now,
if I should ask you to make me ten thousand,
what would you say? And what would be the price
of each You can make ten thousand, can't you? Of
course I can't signor I can make as many as
you wish. You see, I am an expert in this
sort of work. No one else in the whole state

(20:20):
can make them the way I do. That's what I thought,
and that's exactly why I came to you. Thank you
for the honor, Patroncito. Suppose I order you to make
ten thousand of these baskets, how much time do you
think you would need to deliver them? The Indian, without
interrupting his work, cocked his head to one side and
the other, as if you were counting the days or
weeks it would cost him to make all these baskets.

(20:42):
After a few minutes, he said, in a slow voice,
it will take a good long time to make so
many baskets, Petroncito. You see, the bast and the fibers
must be very dry before they could be used properly. Then,
all during the time they are slowly drying, they must
be worked and handled in a very special way, so
that while drying they won't lose their softness and their
flexibility and their natural browks. Even when dry, they must

(21:02):
look fresh. They must never lose their natural property, so
they will look just as lifeless and dull as straw.
Then while they are drying, I got to go get
the plants and roots and barks and insects from which
I brew the dyes. That takes much time. Also, believe me,
the plants must be gathered when the moon is just right,
or they won't give the right color. The insects I
pick from the plants must also be gathered at the

(21:22):
right time and under the right conditions, or else they
produce no rich colors and are just like dust. But
of course, hefsito, I can make as many of these
kind of steethas as you wish, even as many as
three dozens if you want them. Only give me time.
Three dozens, three dozens, mister Winthrop yelled, threw up both
arms and desperation. Three dozens. He repeated it as if

(21:47):
he had to say it many times in his own voice,
so as to understand the real meaning of it, because
for a while he thought he was dreaming. He had
expected the Indian to go crazy on hearing that he
was to sell ten thousand of his baskets without having
to pedal them from door to door and be treated
like a dog with a skin disease. So the American
took up the question of price again, by which he
hoped to activate the Indian's ambition. You told me that

(22:09):
if I take one hundred baskets, you will let me
have them for forty centavos apiece. Is that right, my friend?
Quite right? Hepacito. Now, mister Winthrop took a deep breath. Now,
then if I ask you to make one thousand, that
is ten times one hundred baskets, how much will they
cost me each basket? That figure was too high for
the Indian to grasp. He became slightly confused, and for

(22:31):
the first time since mister Winthrop had arrived, he interrupted
his work and tried to think it out. Several times,
he shook his head and looked vaguely around as if
for help. Finally, he said, excuse me, hepasito, little chief,
that is by far too much for me to count. Tomorrow,
if you'll do me the honor, come and see me again,
and I think I shall have my answer ready for you, patronsito.
And so then the guy, the American guy, he went

(22:52):
off and listened to ads. That's what he did. I
totally didn't add that to the story. That's definitely a
part of the story. That's not true. It's not part
of my story.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
I've added it.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
I'm sorry, I can underly to you, says and rebec.
When on the next morning mister Winthrop came to the hut,
he found the Indian, as usual, squatting on the floor

(23:20):
under the overhanging palm roof, working at his baskets. Have
you got the price for ten thousand, he asked the
Indian at the very moment he saw him, without taking
the trouble to say good morning. See, patronsito, I have
the price ready. You may believe me. It has costed
much labor and worry to find out the exact price,
because you see, I do not wish to cheat you
out of your honest money. Skip that, amigo, Come out

(23:43):
with the salad. What's the price, mister Winthrop asked nervously.
The price is well calculated now without any mistake on
my side. Have I got to make one thousand kindastitas?
Each will be three pesos. If I must make five thousand,
each will cost nine pesos. And if I have to
make ten thousand. In such a case, I can't make
them for less than fifteen pesos each. Immediately he returned

(24:05):
to his work, as if he was afraid of losing
too much time with such idle talk. Mister Winthrop thought
it was perhaps his faulty knowledge of this foreign language
that had played a trick on him. Did I hear
you say fifteen pesos each if I eventually would buy
ten thousand. That's exactly and without any mistake, what I've said, Patronsito,
the Indian answered in a soft and courteous voice. But

(24:27):
now see here, my good man, you can't do this
to me. I'm your friend and I want to help
you get on your feet. Yes, Patronsito, I know this,
and I don't doubt any of your words. Now let's
be patient and talk this over man to man. Didn't
you tell me that if I would buy but one hundred,
that you would sell each for forty centavos? See Hevesito.
That's what I said. If you buy one hundred, you

(24:49):
can have them for forty centavos apiece, provided that I
have one hundred, which I don't. Yes, yes, I see that.
Mister Winthrop felt as if he would go insane any minute. Now, Yes, oh,
you said, only what I can't comprehend is why you
cannot sell at the same price if you make me
ten thousand. I certainly don't want to chisel on the price.
I am not that kind only well, let's see now

(25:10):
if you can sell for forty centavos at all, be
it for twenty or fifty or one hundred. I can't
quite get the idea of why the price is to
jump that high if I buy more than one hundred. Bueno,
patron tito, What is there so difficult to understand? It's
all very simple. One thousand kindistitas costs me one hundred
times more work than a dozen. Ten thousand cost me

(25:32):
so much time and labor that I could never finish them,
not even in one hundred years. For a thousand kindis titas,
I need more basts than for one hundred, and I
need more little red beetles and more plants than roots
for the dyes. It isn't that you can just walk
into the bush and pick all the things you need
at your heart's desire. One root with the true violet
blue may cost me four or five days until I

(25:53):
can find one in the jungle. And if you thought
how much time it takes and how much hard work
to prepare the bast in fiber. What is more, if
I must make so many baskets, who will then look
after my corn and my beans and my goats, and
chase for me occasionally a rabbit for meat on Sunday.
If I have no corn, then I have no tortillas
to eat. And if I grow no beans, where will

(26:13):
I get my fruholes from. But since you'll get so
much money from me for your baskets, you can buy
all the corn and beans in the world, and more
than you need. That's what you think, Senorito, little lordie.
But you see, it is only the corn I grow
for myself that I am sure of. Of the corn
which others may or may not grow, I cannot be
sure to feast upon. Haven't you got some relatives here

(26:34):
in this village who might help you make baskets for me?
Mister Winthrop asked, hopefully Practically the whole village is related
to me somehow or other? Fact? Is I got a
lot of close relatives in this here place. Well, then
can't they cultivate your fields and look after your goats
while you make baskets for me? Not only this, they
might gather for you the fibers and the collars in
the bush, and lend you a hand here and there,

(26:55):
and preparing the material you need for the baskets. They
might patroancate again, They might possible, But then you see
who would take care of their fields and cattle if
they work for me, and if they help me with
the baskets. It turns out the same. No one would
any longer work in his fields properly. In such a case,
corn and beans would get so high up in price
that none of us could buy any and we would

(27:16):
all serve to death. Besides, as the price of everything
would rise and rise higher still, how could I make
baskets for forty centavos apiece? A pinch of salt or
one green chili would set me back more than I'd
collect for one single basket. No, you'll understand, highly estimated
Caballero and hevcito, why I can't make the baskets any
cheaper than fifteen pasos each. If I got to make

(27:36):
that many, mister Winthrop was hard boiled, no wonder, considering
the city he came from. He refused to give up
more than fifteen thousand dollars, which at that moment seemed
to slip away through his fingers like nothing. Being really
desperate now, he talked and bargained with the Indian for
almost two full hours, trying to make him understand how
rich he the Indian would be calm if he would
take this greatest opportunity of his life. The Indians ever

(28:00):
ceased working on his baskets while he explained his points
of view. You know, my good man, mister Winthrop said,
such a wonderful chance might never again knock on your door.
Do you realize that? Let me explain to you, in
ice cold figures, what fortune you might miss if you
leave me flat on this deal. He tore leaf after
leaf from his notebook, covered each with figures and still
more figures, and while doing so, told the peasant he

(28:22):
would be the richest man in the whole district. The Indian,
without answering, watched with a genuine expression of all as
mister Winthrop wrote down these long figures, executing complicated multiplications
and divisions and subtractions so rapidly that it seemed to
him the greatest miracle he had ever seen. The American,
noting this growing interest in the Indian, misjudged the real
significance of it. There you are, my friend, he said,

(28:45):
that's exactly how rich you're going to be. You'll have
a bankroll of exactly four thousand pesos. And to show
you that I'm a real friend of yours, I'll throw
in a bonus. I'll make it around five thousand pesos,
and all in sober The Indian, however, had not for
one moment thought of four thousand pesos. Such an amount
of money had no meaning to him. He had been

(29:05):
interested solely in mister Winthrop's ability to write figures so rapidly.
So what do you say now? Is it a deal
or is it Say yes, and you'll get your advance
this very minute. As I have explained, patronsito, the price
is fifteen pesos each. But my good man, mister Winthrop
shouted at the poor Indian, in utter despair, where have
you been all this time on the moon? Or where

(29:27):
you are still at the same price as before? Yes,
I know that hepacito, my little chief, The Indian answered,
entirely unconcerned. It must be the same price, because I
cannot make any other one besides signor there's still another
thing which perhaps you don't know. You see my good
lordie and caballero. I've to make these canistitas my own way,

(29:47):
and with my own song in them, and with bits
of my soul woven in. If I were to make
them in great numbers, there would no longer be my
soul in each or my songs. Each would be like
the other, with no difference, and such a thing would
slowly eat up my heart. Each has to be another song,
which I hear in the morning, when the sun rises,
when the birds begin to chirp, and the butterflies come
and sit down on my baskets, so that I may

(30:08):
see a new beauty. Because you see the butterflies like
my baskets and the pretty colors on them. That's why
they come and sit down, and I can make my
canistitas after them. And now signor he fasito, if you
will kindly excuse me. I have wasted much time already,
although it would be a pleasure and a great honor
to hear the talk of such a distinguished caballero like you,
But I'm afraid I have to attend to my work now,

(30:30):
for day after tomorrow is market day in town, and
I've got to take my baskets there thank you signor
for your visit, adios. And in this way it happened
that American garbage cans escaped the fate of being turned
into receptacles for empty, torn and crumpled, little multi colored
canistitas into which an Indian of Mexico had woven dreams

(30:52):
of his soul, throbs of his heart, his unsung poems.
The end, we don't have a lot to add to it.
I think it's a pretty self explanatory thing. You know,
it's called assembly line. There is no assembly line in it.
It doesn't even come up that anyone considers an assembly line.
And it gets into something that I've covered a lot

(31:14):
on both book Club and on my show. Cool people
did cool stuff about like the move towards industrialization right
and what we lose in factory work and things like that,
and that I really like. And also it actually reminds
me a lot of some of the stories that I
read by William Morris a while ago, which, you know,
whereas this fiction writer who presaged a lot of like

(31:37):
Tolkien and Lord of the Rings and stuff, but was
also mostly known for making wallpaper and inspiring the arts
and crafts movement. And this idea of like really seeing
the beauty in ornament and putting time and effort into
the things that you make, and I like seeing that
reflected in these different ways, and yeah, you'll be enjoyed
it too. I'll be back next week with more goalson medium.

(32:01):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or
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Speaker 1 (32:18):
Thanks for listening.