Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE
NAME OF WORKER Herman Partnaw
ADDRESS 557 W. 144th St.
DATE May 9, 1939
SUBJECT Unemployed fringe
1. Date and time of interview
April 17, 1939
2. Place of interview
Seoond Avenue and 11th St.
3. Name and address of informant
Anonymous
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms,
each bearing the proper headinL and the number to which the material
refers.)
ci
STATE
NAVE OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
Herman Partnoy
657W. 144th St.
May 9, 1939
Unemployed fringe
I BOYCOTT THE WORLD
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
I am a student of life, my contemporary friend,
a scholar of cosmos. Cosmology, histology, pathology,
neurology, astro-physiology and the whole tautology of
existence are mv fields. But what have I ascertained, de-
duced, induced, produced in short, learned? Is there a
design, a scheme, a plan in this world? No, I declare, no,
no and again no.
As it totters toward catastrophe, the world is
suffering endless fluctuations, alterations, transformations,
in short, flux. In order to save and preserve their rights
and privileges their front lawns and limousines the
economic royalist gang of psychopaths, paranoiacs, neuresthenioe
and megalonamiaos in short, butchers are plotting to delude,
deter, detract, deceive, extort us with nationalism, patriotism,
-3-
aryanism, racialism in short, LIES. Everywhere trepidation,
hallucination, anxiety jitters, in short-- prevail.
The poor people may today vacillate, fluctuate,
hesitate and waver. But, my contemporary, they will
win their revenge. All the disinherited will have their
cosmic revenge. I promise it. Picture for yourself, for
example, their grave and ours. First, ours. Look at me.
ttla emaciated, dessioated, lacerated, withered in short,
dried up. Imagine me dead. It's not hard. I'm lying like
a schlemiel in an inexpensive coffin of warped, bleached,
knotty lumber in short, a pins box. Along come the worms
the round worms, the flat worm, the earth worms, the tape-
worms in short, worms. They're wriggling and squirming,
they're searching for something to eat, something nutritious
and nourishing. They smell here, they smell there, nibble
a piece here, a piecethere. Phooey. Like an old baked apple.
Every bite produces nausea, dizziness, wind, loss of appetite.
I'm left in peace.
Now the scene shifts to J. Pi Norgan's gravy. A
box of delicate wood, of sensitive fibre, of finest grain.
A corpse that's radiant with freshness and richness and
succulence summers in Bar Harbor, winters in Palm Beach.
It a toothsome bit of zoftig carnivorae. In short
stuffed kiehke. Now enter the worm, disgusted and
suspicious from the meal at my grave. A cautious sniff and
a nibble and HA-HA-A-A-ABI What have we here? Aoh du
Lieber? No mere meal or lunch or dinner but a repast, a
banquet rare, a feast. He rings the dinner gong and they
come running in droves all the ringworms, the egirthworms,
the round worm, the flat worm, the tapeworms and prestoI
it's a skull and bones. You see? The cosmic revenge of the
poor.
Meanwhile, shall I wait and let myself slip into
deoline, decay, decadence, disuse? No, my contemporary. I
must have economic revenge now, now, now. But who can trifle
with lookouts, walkouts, walkins, sitdowns, sleeping? My
strike must be universal and absolute. It must be a one-man
boycott of the whole world. By a final and unconditional
refusal to work I have never °omitted the indiscretion of
being hired and therefore can never suffer the mortification
of being fired either. You see? I blockade the universe.
Now look into the future. Cast your imagination
into the clairvoyant future. Every day more and more people
out of work, every day more and more therefore joiningigy
ranks, year by year more and more and more millions and billions
throughout the world Are you following me? Do you see as
I do the vision, the apparition, the overpowering apocalyptic
panorama? A whole worla, my friend, without a single person
at work. Colossal. Whet? What keeps me from
going mad? Why, words, my contemporary, just words.