{"id":2092,"date":"2011-09-19T22:33:46","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T02:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/?p=2092"},"modified":"2011-09-19T23:22:37","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T03:22:37","slug":"making-soup-on-a-nail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/2011\/09\/19\/making-soup-on-a-nail\/","title":{"rendered":"Making soup on a nail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jaxonw.hat.500KB.0001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the last two years, I have been working on a film about a man who can be described as a footnote to history, Honor\u00e9 Joseph Jaxon<\/a>, alias William Henry Jackson.<\/p>\n

An enigmatic figure, his life was full of drama. He admired the M\u00e9tis and participated in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, acting as a secretary to Louis Riel. <\/strong>While Riel was hanged for treason, our man was declared insane and let go. He escaped the insane asylum and found himself \u2013 less than a year later \u2013 involved with the labour movement in Chicago,<\/a> the fastest-growing industrial city in the U.S.<\/p>\n

When anarchist leaders were accused of causing the Haymarket Riot of 1886 <\/a>\u2013 the events which led to the choice of the 1st of May for the annual socialist labour march \u2013 he took their defence. Again, his associates were hanged.<\/p>\n

Jaxon was an impostor, <\/strong>declaring himself to be a M\u00e9tis when he was actually born William Henry Jackson of an Ontario methodist family. But he was a visionary, imagining and fighting for a just multicultural society. <\/strong>He ended his days in New York City, where he was evicted from a basement apartment with his huge collection of archives at age 91. He died only a few weeks later.<\/p>\n

Jaxon\u2019s story is little known, but Calgary historian Donald Smith<\/a> has written a terrific book<\/a> about him, published by Coteau books. Also, Quebec anthropologist and radio host Serge Bouchard<\/a> did an excellent radio program about him. My own knowledge of Jaxon goes back to the seventies, when I made a series of radio programs about the U.S. labour movement, notably with the help of my friend Pat Quinn, then the Chief archivist at Northwestern University in Evanston\/Chicago.<\/p>\n

There are of course no moving images of Jaxon, and only a dozen photos.<\/strong> That\u2019s why I say this project is like \u2018making soup on a nail,\u2019 recalling an old Scandinavian folk tale about a vagrant who gets himself invited to stay overnight at farm houses by offering to make soup with a nail. \u2018If we can just add a little piece of potato, this will be even better\u2026.\u2019 You get the idea.<\/p>\n

My partners in crime in this undertaking are, among others, scriptwriter Peter Haynes and animator Philippe Vaucher<\/a>. Here is one of Philippe\u2019s images.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Jaxon_Old.500KB.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to Tobi Elliott<\/a> for her help with the blog. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last two years, I have been working on a film about a man who can be described as a footnote to history, Honor\u00e9 Joseph Jaxon, alias William Henry Jackson. An enigmatic figure, his life was full of drama. He admired the M\u00e9tis and participated in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, acting as a … Continue reading Making soup on a nail<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[592,591,586,115,585,584,578,590,579,583,582,580,581,589,588,587,577],"class_list":["post-2092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-general","tag-animated-documentary","tag-animation","tag-coteau-books","tag-documentary","tag-donald-smith","tag-haymarket-riot","tag-honore-joseph-jaxon","tag-illustrations","tag-jaxon","tag-labour-movement","tag-louis-riel","tag-metis","tag-northwest-rebellion","tag-peter-haynes","tag-philippe-vaucher","tag-serge-bouchard","tag-william-henry-jackson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}