The Radio Show at the End of the World
In this newsletter: a racetrack cheat, the end of the world, a police riot, checking in with Mr. P, and some personal news.
Part I: Paddy Barrie Lives
In the spring of 1932, Evander Phocian Howard invited the world’s greatest racetrack cheat up for a drink.
They met in an apartment in Miami. Over bottles of Dressler beer, the little con man told Howard the story of the chameleon colt Aknahton, who he had fraudulently disguised as three different horses and entered in races on four different tracks over five months, until Aknahton broke down and the Pinkertons nabbed him and the whole game was up.
Howard was the editor of a forgotten gambling circular called the New York Press. He dressed like Nicely-Nicely, in a purple plaid suit and a red shirt, with a white hat on top. His guest, the conman Patrick Christian Barrie, had a nondescript face sort of face that could pass as a stablehand’s or a stockbroker’s, depending on the exigencies of the moment.
Howard wrote up Barrie’s confessions and published them in his magazine, a periodical so lost to history that it doesn’t even exist in the catalogue of the New York Public Library. What the flamboyant gambling writer made of the world-historic cheat is, ninety years later, forgotten.
The legend of Patrick Christian Barrie, however, lives on. From a smattering of press accounts and a few secondary sources, I’ve written a chronicle of the great con man, featuring an exploration of his methods and a telling of the Akhnaton escapade. It’s out today from Narratively.
Part II: A Radio Show at the End of the World
Late last year, looking for something new to listen to while doing chores around the apartment, I dove deep into the infinite podcast abyss and resurfaced in southern Australia, where the world is ending.
The New South Wales Country Hour is a radio show for farmers in rural Australia. Listen from New York City, though, and it sounds like a preview of the coming climate apocalypse.
I wrote about what it’s like to dip into the Country Hour in a piece out this week in the Daily Beast.
Part III: The Riot on East Broadway
One midwinter afternoon in 1926, the socialists at the Jewish Daily Forward called the cops on the Jewish left.
On my last day on staff at the Forward (more on that below), the paper ran my story about the day the Jewish communists marched on the Forward, and the Forward bosses called the police, who sent a crack squad that specialized in brutalizing leftists.
It’s a story about how all that kitsch about the Jewish left at the turn of the last century masks something much messier, much more deeply felt, and much more interesting. Read it here.
Part IV: Checking in on Mr. P
This time last year, I sent out a newsletter featuring an essay about the late stallion Mr. Prospector, a professional inseminator whose descendants filled every single starting gate in the 2018 Belmont Stakes.
With the 2019 Belmont Stakes running this Sunday, I looked through the pedigrees of this year’s starters to see how Mr. P’s heirs fared.
Last year, the entire field at the Belmont was descended from Mr. Prospector. This year, as far as I can tell, only eight out of the ten starters carry his blood. A Japanese import named Master Fencer appears to have no connection to the old man, nor does a Kentucky-bred gelding named Tax.
That’s not to say that Mr. Prospector had a bad Triple Crown season. Country House, who won the Kentucky Derby, is Mr. P’s great-grandson on one side, and his double great-great-great grandson on the other. War of Will, who won the Preakess Stakes, is also a great-great-great grandson.
But this has been a horrible year for American thoroughbred racing. At Santa Anita, 27 horses have died on the track since the end of December, raising good questions about why this sport is even allowed anymore, and whether it should be.
As I wrote last year, there’s an argument to be made that the fragility of the modern thoroughbred is due, in some small part, to the dominance in the bloodline of Mr. P’s genes, which favor extreme speed at a young age at the expense of durability.
“Others who understand all this far better than I do have argued that it’s the very dominance of Mr. P’s particular genes, which favor the kind of equine precociousness that’s helpful in winning the Triple Crown at the age of three, that has shortened the average careers of today's racing thoroughbreds,” I wrote. “Mr. P’s blood was strong but delicate, and as it has spread through the herd, he's introduced a tendency towards premature debility that’s helped make eleven races, each of which lasts around two minutes, a perfectly respectable life’s work for a thoroughbred.”
The oddsmakers say that a descendant of Mr. P is likely to win the Belmont on Saturday, winning the old horse a sort of Triple Crown a full twenty years after his death.
The big question is whether the sport can survive the legacy of Mr. P.
Part V: Some Personal News
After approximately one eon and a half, I am no longer on the staff of the Jewish Daily Forward.
Last month, I lugged home a crate of old notebooks, took the ceremonial last-day selfie with the bust of Ab Cahan, drank the traditional last-day toasts at Jim Brady’s (to FEGS and NYLAG and UJA and the USCJ and the RCA and RRC and JTS and the ADL and the AJC and the URJ and ZOA and the JCPA and JVP and the ILG; to the Conference of Presidents and each of the major American Jewish organizations therein; etc., et al.), and went on vacation.
Since then I’ve started a new position as a reporter at Barron’s, focusing on the healthcare industry. Keep an eye on barrons.com for my latest, especially if you’re interested in the business of healthcare.
Part IV: Words of Advice
Listen to this Alan Lomax recording of Aunt Molly Jackson.
This archive of PDFs of the American Communist newspaper the Daily Worker was a big help in the story about the riot outside the Forward building, and is totally fascinating. Take a look.
This photo of two Department of Agriculture scientists, taken in 1926, only gets creepier the closer you look at it. (The Frankenstein-looking guy on the left, Maurice Hall, was head of the Zoological Division of the department's Bureau of Animal Industry. The Strangelove-eyed guy on the right, J.E. Shillinger, was an expert on wildlife diseases.)
Thanks for reading. Stay in touch,
Josh Nathan-Kazis