Culture, Unconventionality, and Destruction
McSorley's Old Ale House-a great read in Mitchell's book!
The underclass of New York vividly springs to life in Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell and more importantly, they portray entire cultures through individual lifestyles while disliking conventionality and embracing a lust for life that ends with destructive behaviors. Various cultures are adeptly represented by individual New Yorkers throughout the book. Furthermore, these New Yorkers push aside traditional living and instead adopt unconventional existences in which they live carefree lives. As a result of their loose living, harmful behaviors appear in the lives of underprivileged New Yorkers.
In Professor Sea Gull, Houdini’s Picnic, and King of the Gypsies distinct cultures appear. Joe Gould in Professor Sea Gull clearly portrays the culture of the homeless and life as a bum. He claims to be “the foremost authority in the United States . . . on the subject of doing without” (52). To survive, Gould acquires free food and practices aggressive mooching in night clubs. For example, he eats ketchup in large quantities because it is free, (53) making the most of affordable food and using forceful methods to obtain more provisions from night clubs such as the Vanguard. When marching into the establishment, Joe threatens the owner when he states “Hello, Max, you dirty capitalist. I want a bite and a beer. If I don’t get it, I’ll walk right out on the dance floor and throw a fit” (64). Using this bribery tactic and by eating condiments,, Gould receives free food as a member of the bum culture in New York.
Likewise, the Calypso music culture in Houdini’s Picnic appears in the persona of Wilmoth Houdini, a Calypso musician. Houdini, “the first Calypsonian to make recordings” (254), contributes to the Calypso culture in New York by making “public appearances at ‘picnics’ held in Harlem halls” (254). Picnic participants dance to the rhythms of the Calypso music and feast on Calypso food. While the dancers gyrate, “the old women sitting stiffly on the slat-backs along the wall listen attentively with big smiles on their faces” (257) while Houdini sings. At the picnic, attendees eat paylou, or “joints of fowl cooked with rice and onions and herb-seasoned meat patty pies” made by Houdini and “home brewed ginger beer” (25, 261, 256). The Calypso culture is distinguishable in Houdini’s Picnic.
In King of the Gypsies, the gypsy culture in New York and the personality of King Cockeye Johnny, a Russian gypsy, are also synonymous. Johnny Nikanov claims personal leadership of a group of gypsies as the king of exactly thirty-eight families of Russian gypsies —about two hundred and thirty men, women, and children, to all of whom he is related by blood and marriage (148), with whom he feels a familial bond. In his role as a gypsy king, Johnny serves as a judge and peacemaker. For serious arguments, “he holds a Romany kris, or gypsy trial in his home” (154) using the gypsy culture to his political advantage. As an older gypsy, Johnny further portrays the culture in his belief of child marriage and his multilingual abilities. For “Johnny sold his daughter, Rosie, to a Chicago gypsy” for a bride price and speaks “Russian, Rumanian, Romany, and English” (149). King Cockeye Johnny and the gypsy culture of New York are one and the same.
Also apparent in the three Mitchell stories are examples of underclass New Yorkers who push aside traditional living and adopt unconventional existences in which they live carefree lives. For instance, in Professor Sea Gull, Joe Gould lives as a bohemian, and more specifically as a writer with an unconventional lifestyle. Gould has no permanent home in Greenwich Village and finds sleeping quarters wherever he can (52), focusing solely on his An Oral History of Our Time and writing anywhere he can. Joe “writes in parks, in doorways, in flophouse lobbies, in cafeterias, on benches on elevated railroad platforms in subway trains, and in public libraries” (55). He is a wanderer; “restless and footloose as an alley cat,” disappearing for several weeks, never telling his friends his destination (54); recording the mundane, everyday events that he sees. He does not have a steady job and despises money. Joe admits that a steady job would interfere with his thinking and he “seems miserable with money in his pockets” (55, 68) until it is spent. Joe’s resistance to permanency and financial responsibility are reflected in his eccentric lifestyle.
Wilmoth Houdini also rejects the conventions of society and lives as he chooses. In Houdini’s Picnic, Houdini is a wanderer of sorts without a consistent home. His desire to move back and forth from New York to Trinidad is obvious when he claims he must re-experience Calypso culture. “I have to go back to Trinidad to renew my inspiration”. He goes back to eat calaloo; blue crab soup and drink some gin juleps; green-coconut water and gin (160). Houdini learned this roaming behavior as a child, for even though the Calypso singer was born in Brooklyn, his family returned to Trinidad when he was two. In fact, Houdini says that “I came from a wandering family” (160). In the financial realm, Houdini earns some money but, he is not a financial saver. In fact when Calypso singers are paid, “they promptly spend their money for clothes and liquor”, two goods with lesser value and limited use. Wilmoth Houdini also opts for an atypical lifestyle without consistent living arrangements and limited finances.
Johnny Cockeye, the gypsy king, also shuns conventional living arrangements veers from the traditional view of who should be the main family provider. As a child, Johnny grew up wandering from one town to the next with his family. Johnny’s observations of the men tinkering at odd jobs and the women conning and stealing for money, food, and clothes (159- 160) showed him an alternate lifestyle. In addition, Johnny grew up living in a tent and as an older gypsy chooses to sleep on the floor using his bedroom for his headquarters instead (155). He even tries to fashion his apartment like a tent, hanging blankets and tent carpets on the walls and in the doorways (155). In regard to work, Johnny like other gypsy men does not earn a living. Gypsy men are incapable of working a steady job. Johnny explains that his skills as a coppersmith are outdated (149) and admits that “if I had to take a steady job or be exterminated, I would beg to be exterminated” (147). In fact, the gypsy women are the providers. Johnny “is supported by his wife, Mrs. Looba Johnny Nikanov” (154). As king of the gypsies, Johnny Cockeye rejects standard living quarters and allows a woman to be the breadwinner.
As a result of their loose living, harmful behaviors appear in the lives of Joe Gould, Wilmouth Houdini, and Johnny Cockeye Nikanov, three underprivileged New Yorkers. Joe Gould for example, experiences social rejection from the literary world because of his outspokenness and his deliberate acts opposing societal norms. The Raven Poetry Circle refused to accept him as a member after his appearances solely for the free wine (68), his submissions of foolish poems such as “In winter I’m a Buddhist, And in summer I’m a nudist” (69), and his shocking poetic interpretation of a sea gull when he ”jumped out of his chair and began to wave his arms and leap about and scream” as though he was a sea gull in flight (70). Gould, through his destructive behavior, terminates all chances of acceptance by his peers as a writer.
Wilmoth Houdini also faces destructive behavior in his loose living. His reason for a lack of consistent living arrangements centers partially upon alcohol when he explains that the gin juleps of Trinidad “build up me vitamin and contribute to me inspiration” (260). For this reason he must return to Trinidad. In addition, alcohol of which Houdini partakes, surrounds him at his gigs,. Ginger beer, rye, and gin all are consumed at Houdini’s picnic (257) where he also “mixed drinks for the band” (257). In his own words, Houdini admits a potential problem and a fear of whiskey when speaking of future successes. If “whiskey don’t murder me, Madison Square Garden is where I wind up” (261). Houdini’s choice of income clearly shows destructive behavior.
Johnny Cockeye deals with the harmful behaviors of his thirty-eight gypsy families as well. Behaviors involving petty crime, swindling, and thieving directly connect to the loose lifestyle of impermanent homes and men who do not work. The gypsies are “pickpockets, wallet-switch swindlers, and fortune tellers” (143) who rely on Johnny to intercede for them with the police. Johnny is also expected to help the gypsies when they “have trouble with policemen, truant officers, relief investigators, and health inspectors (154). Clearly the unconventional life of a gypsy develops into detrimental behaviors.
Thus, a sole underprivileged New Yorker is a representation of a culture, as with Joe Gould and the homeless, Wilmoth Houdini and the Calypso singers, and King Johnny Cockeye and the gypsies. Furthermore, the stories Professor Sea Gull, Houdini’s Picnic, and King of the Gypsies emphasize individuals who exemplify nontraditional lifestyles in which they live casually according to their own desires. As a result, each story contains a subtle message that damaging consequences are often included with unconventional choices.
