Lizzie Borden Society Forum

The October 2005 issue of The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies has been placed online for your reading pleasure. If your web browser does not load the new page, don't forget to hit your browser's refresh button to make it seek out the new uploaded version of the web site.

http://www.hatchetonline.com/HatchetOnline/index.htm

For those who are not subscribers and would like to order a print copy, you cand do so through our publishing partner LuLu.com at
http://www.lulu.com/content/168430

If you are a subscriber who has forgotten or misplaced your login info, please email me at [email protected] and I will resend it to you. Also, if you encounter any downloading problems, let me know and I can send you the magazine on disk instead.

Happy reading!

Stefani Koorey
editor/publisher
PearTree Press

WONDERFUL ISSUE AS ALWAYS!! Two thumbs up!

YAY! We have a great group of writers! Great Editor, too!

BTW: Doug-oh makes his debut with a poem and an intriguing concept which he invented. Kudos Doug-Oh!

That would be the "Tom Cruise hanging from the ceiling from the air vent" theory, no?


Just ordered my bound copy from Lulu, since the last one was so gorgeous.

As always, what a wonderful read! I pigged out and read it all in one sitting again.

i love knowlton's letters to abby! ever since she got indignant about him warning her about the morning of august 4th--i love 'em.

and the doug-oh concept is great. i don't know if audrey got it yet or not. i think she'll be deeply flattered. the inspiration is to come mainly from an eye on the forum? (the poem was good, too)

i appreciate what annette did -- defining the morse problem, and therefore where to start the debate.

i remember sherry saying something about that re-enactment on the 4th.

sherry exits house, gesticulating wildly -- to her family shouts: "the whole
mystery has been solved! isn't that great?"

"yeah, i guess. what about lunch?"

(seriously, though, they must really be supportive to put up with this, huh?)

Sounds like a great issue once again. I love them all. Ooh - a poem from Dough oh! And a Morse article from Edisto!

Yes, Steve & Stevie are supportive of my studies of Lizzie Borden. Steve has been wonderful to me for years - ever since I pointed out to him that as a wife, I have the power to make his life content and blissful or a living hell.

If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

The issue was as wonderful as always... A triumph!

Darling Douglas.... It is you who are the delight!

Merci Monsieur!!!

It is Annette Holba, Ph.D., not Annette Weeks.
Tho we look forward to a contribution from Edisto someday...

BTW: Love the Cover Art!

I agree with Kat: the "Lizzie a la Warhol" cover is the best! Stefani, you should seriously consider printing that design on posters or t shirts--you'd sell a ton of them!
Am still reading, but so far my favorite article is Haulover's tour of Fall River. It makes me feel like I'm right there.
One question for Stefani: In the article on Morse's testimony is Lizzie's "pansy" photo. She is facing to the left. Has this photo simply been printed backwards, or is this a second photo of her in the same outfit, facing the other way? (I know that other versions do exist.)

Glad you all like the issue!!! It makes me feel like all the work is worthwhile when you guys let me know what you thought!

Stuart, I have reversed the photo. I do that all the time just to give a "new photo" feel to the image. We have so few Lizzie images to work with. Some are not reprintable unless I get a better quality first image to work with. So I photoshop and play with them.

Do you think it would be a good idea to mark those images as being reversed when they are so nobody will confuse them with the original pose? I hadn't thought about this until you mentioned it and it might avoid any confusion or perceived tampering with history!

Stefani, I meant to ask this about the last issue: who does your artistic "tampering?" There weren't art credits for the striking B&W images in the August issue. Were those done with a graphics program? I don't know of a PhotoShop filter that would give those results.

Usually I read the Hatchet cover to cover – and it’s over too soon. This time I decided to savor it and take my time; so I’ve only read one article so far -- Eugene's Impressions of Lizzie Borden's Fall River: A Momento of an Interesting Occasion. Absolutely wonderful! I've been to the B&B and the FRHS twice and this piece does a great job of crystallizing a Bordenite's initial exposure to whole experience. The last few lines are truly burnished prose.

And I loved the cover, Stef. I’d buy a 'Warhol Lizzie' tote-bag for sure!!!

FairhavenGuy @ Thu Oct 06, 2005 12:52 pm wrote:Stefani, I meant to ask this about the last issue: who does your artistic "tampering?" There weren't art credits for the striking B&W images in the August issue. Were those done with a graphics program? I don't know of a PhotoShop filter that would give those results.

I do all the covers. Twice I used wonderul photos by Mark Amarantes, and only did a bit of tweeking to make them pop a bit more (exposure, contrast, cropping, saturation, etc.). I use Photoshop CS2 for photo enhancement.

Photoshop doesn't work for vector graphics but the new illustrator CS2 does! It has a live trace feature that accurately convert photos, scans, or other bitmap images to editable and scalable vector paths that can be enlarged without degredation to the image.

http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrat ... tures.html

The images that I use are drawings from newspapers of the time.

I am glad you like them! The warhol-Lizzie cover was very intricate and took a lot of time to do. I will do some products with her for you guys really soon and announce them here when they are ready.

I just finished the Hatchet and I think it is the best
issue yet, wonderful writers. The Trial of JVM was
impressive (hermeneutic?) I had to pull out my
dictionary. Eugene you are awesome, I love your
writing and pix, same with Sherry and Doug's poem, loved the Crone of the Quequechan and Halloween theme, Denise Noe and K. Carbone, what
great writing! I always love "Dear Abby"! Great Job!

I do think it would be a good idea to designate if the photos have been changed, just so people know which is which. Actually, that photo of Lizzie turned around does give it much more depth.
Several years ago I saw an auction listed in one of the antique trade papers that had several photos of the Bordens up for sale. Included was the famous "pansy pin" photo of Lizzie. It looked just slightly different than the published familiar one. I'm sure there are more out there, in private hands!
With all of the technology available today, I wonder why the FRHS doesn't make fresh negatives and prints from the originals? I'm sure it would bring out all sorts of previously lost details.

So, Stefani, are you saying that this image was created by using Live Trace in Illustrator? Or was it taken from a publication of the time?

WOW !!! I LOVE IT !!!


Tracy...

FairhavenGuy @ Thu Oct 06, 2005 7:17 pm wrote:So, Stefani, are you saying that this image was created by using Live Trace in Illustrator? Or was it taken from a publication of the time?

I had a high resolution image from a newspaper from 1893. I used Illustrator CS2 (it is the newest edition of the suite) to create a live trace. There are about a dozen choices of what kind of trace you might want and then choices as to threshold and minimum area. You can raster the image and add drop shadows, then flatten the image when you are done so that the images is preseved for press printing. I can be saved in a number of formats that then can be imported into Photoshop for any tweeking or changes.

The Andrew picture was indeed done this way. I have to live trace the graphic images in The Hatchet now so that they can be printed through LuLu.com. That printing process demands images of at least 300 dpi. I reduce the file size of the PDF for downloading by downsampling the images back to 72 dpi for computer screens. I used to work up from 72, but now that the magazine is also published in print, I work down from 300 dpi.

The trick is to use high resolution original files. The photos in the magazine were not live traced, only the illustrations. The photos were given to me in color and I converted them to grayscale and then tweeked them in Photoshop CS2.

That was a powerful story, Kash! Thank you!

Thanks, Stef.

I thought maybe you had a program that converted grayscale photographs of Lizzie, Andrew, etc. into those line drawings.

Since virtually all of the materials I produce are for print, I'm almost always working with high resolution images-either 300 or 600 for line art and 225 or 300 for halftones. (Because our magazine is web printed on newsprint, I can get by with 225 for the halftones there.)

When I first got involved with the printing business, I was actually hand setting some things in lead foundry type one letter at a time. The publishing industry has come a long way in 30 years.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I've been champing at the bit to read the current issue of The Hatchet. After a hectic clinical week, I got home at 3:00p today and just pigged out on reading all the great articles. All the contributions were superb!

Keep up the great work...all of you! And thanks for brightening up my week.

I've just finished reading the October issue for the second time. "Stupendous" is the best word that comes to mind offhand for the whole. (I did not read my contributions more than once, nor are they necessarily included in the preceding comment.)

I do have one question though of a ... linguistical nature I suppose it would be, for any natives out there who might care to enlighten me. Quequechan , (presumably accented at first syllable) how is that pronounced in or otherwise about Fall River - or for that matter New England?

I can see three or possibly four different ways. Which is the most common?

Thanks

Kek-ke-chen?
It was repeated to me over and over by natives- I hope I got it right

Well, Kat's had it pronounced to her by natives, but I've got a different pronunciation, so maybe it varies. . .

QUICK-uh-shan.

Perhaps this is the New Bedford area pronunciation, but for a number of years I worked in the Fall River/Somerset area. I always heard it pronounced that way.

Thanks, Chris. The pronunciation you give here is one of the two most likely candidates, as far as I could make out anyway. New Bedford works as well as any.

It'd be interesting to get...oh, say ten folks together in the same room and have everyone pronounce "Quequechan" - see how many different variations are encountered.

He's probably right.
I probably don't recall the pronunciation I heard. I was afraid of that!

***It's WONder, dammit!***




i wondered what all that wandering was about.

Haulover: It brings to mind that old Appalachian Christmas carol, "I wander as I wonder," doesn't it?

I have read the whole October issue in one sitting... truly AWESOME! Good job, everyone!

stuartwsa @ Sat Oct 08, 2005 8:10 pm wrote:Haulover: It brings to mind that old Appalachian Christmas carol, "I wander as I wonder," doesn't it?

Oh that's right! You and Eugene both sing, don't you!?
That is cool.

Couldn't remember how to log in for about a week-but you guys are great! Wonderful issue!
Its an honor to be a part of it.

kash

I just last night finished reading my nearly impeccable October Hatchet; there were a few printing problems, but one of them was macabre and enchanting. One of the ghosts accompanying the article on an 1890's Halloween (I dearly love and, indeed, collect just this kind of Halloween arcana) was missing a left eye. In honor of Andrew? Sherry, you are a treasure. Your contribution from Bridget had me laughing out loud at the end of a very tiring day! In all, a delightful (if not hefty) issue. Making this into a quarterly will, I'm sure, automatically fill every issue with "good stuff." Any issue with pieces by Eugene and Denise is worth having in a beautiful bound volume, sez I!

I was happy to see one of my own survey comments printed, too! It's such a pleasure to feel a part of the Borden community by opening the cover of the latest (or even an old) Hatchet!

Thank you for your kind words, Bob G. I'm glad you enjoyed my offerings. For some reason I like to pick on Bridget and Morse. And Dr. Bowen. The recipe Bridget gave is a real one, by the way, taken from a real old recipe.

Next time I go out there, and if you go too, I'd love to meet you.
- Sherry

I just finished reading mine too-it came at just the right moment. I was feeling inexpressably down last night, and the magazine with all of its wonderful offerings completly brough my spirits up. Haulover's story of our Fall River visit this summer brought back my own memories of that evening with Stefani-it was such a great night. And his musings as he walked around Fall River in the dark were wondefully atmospheric-I loved it! It is a creepy walk at night, isn't it?? You can just imagine Lizzie walking past the old buildings too.
Sherry, Doug, Denise and everyone had something in it to make me smile (I'm not finished with it yet either)
Eli-Third Circle Of Hell! I almost died!
Many thanks to all at the Hatchet.

kash

The October edition of the Hatchet had a fine article, by Denise Noe, on the 2 versions of the movie Gaslight.

The more famous of the two starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer will be on TV tonight, Nov. 5, at 8pm to 10pm on channel TCM (Turner Classic Movies).