Goldenbird

Sorry 'bout the guinea pig...

Sometimes people ask what historical period I would like to live in. Well, the last 30 years have been pretty okay. Antibiotics and developed contraception methods guarantee that I can live my life without many of the worries that Mayann and her friends would have to deal with in reality. In biographies of people living in the 1910′s and 1920′s, it’s striking how many suffered and even died because of sexual health issues, even well-to-do people. Others were victims of psychiatric issues, and we still haven’t found solutions for many of those. And then there were countless quacks wreaking havoc on people’s savings and sanity.

Goldie is not a quack, of course. She represents the cutting edge of science with a feminist goal. Just look through her bookshelves for inspiration! The book right behind Falco’s ear is titled Idéologie d’hier: Dieu, la morale, la patrie (“Ideology of Yesterday: God, morals, fatherland”), by Dr Madeleine Pelletier, a famous French feminist doctor and social activist. No wonder our dear deacon recoils in horror. So what might Goldie be concocting? What makes even convinced animal rights activist Mayann beam with glee?

By the way, the word Guinea Pig in the sense of ‘object for experiments’ was first recorded in the English language precisely in the year 1920.

Since I started studying Paris argot, it was only logical to continue with the Apaches of Montmartre. Looks like Mayann is ready to give them a taste of their own dance.

… And that was how I came to know Julot and Gigolette,
And we would talk and drink a bock, and smoke a cigarette.
And I would meditate upon the artistry of crime,
And he would tell of cracking cribs and cops and doing time;
Or else when he was flush of funds he’d carelessly explain
He’d biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine.
So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace,
And not a desperado and the terror of the police.
(Robert Service, 1921)

Lord knows what Falco thinks he can do with his umbrella. Perhaps it’s something he learned as a missionary in Japan, or maybe he is familiar with the Cunningham system.

Studying popular imagery of the clerical class over the centuries, one is struck by the ubiquitous umbrella, if you pardon the pun. Here some Jesuits chase away a secular scientist from a Bavarian university in the German satirical magazine Jugend (1913).