conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled Beyond the Pale about Beyond, Pale, Gutke with the genre: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Books, Literature & Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author's Lambda Award-winning novel Beyond the Pale announces itself to the world with an infant's scream--"a new voice, a tiny shofar announcing its own first year." The midwife attending this birth is Gutke Gurvich, a half-Jew with different colored eyes and a gift for seeing into the spirit world. Beyond the Pale is Gutke's story, detailing her odyssey from a Russian shtetl to a comfortable Manhattan brownstone. But, as the author puts it, "Whenever you tell the story of one woman, inside is another," and this rich, multilayered novel is also the story of Chava Meyer, the baby girl Gutke delivered that day, as well as the story of the important women in both of their lives: mothers, sisters, neighbors, lovers, friends. After seeing her mother raped and killed during a particularly vicious progrom in her native village of Kishinev, Chava immigrates to America. There, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, both she and Gutke find themselves involved in the nascent labor union and suffrage movements. the author has clearly done her research here, and Beyond the Pale presents a beautifully detailed account of life among turn-of-the-century immigrant Jews, from classes at the Henry Street Settlement House to the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Through the lens of several lesbians' lives, the author draws a portrait of an entire Diasporan community living through the terror and uncertainties of both Russian progroms and life in the New World.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: " The midwife attending this birth is Gutke Gurvich, a half-Jew with different colored eyes and a gift for seeing into the spirit world. Beyond the Pale is Gutke's story, detailing her odyssey from a Russian shtetl to a comfortable Manhattan brownstone. But, as the author puts it, "Whenever you tell the story of one woman, inside is another," and this rich, multilayered novel is also the story of Chava Meyer, the baby girl Gutke delivered that day, as well as the story of the important women in both of their lives: mothers, sisters, neighbors, lovers, friends. After seeing her mother raped and killed during a particularly vicious progrom in her native village of Kishinev, Chava immigrates to America. There, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, both she and Gutke find themselves involved in the nascent labor union and suffrage movements. the author has clearly done her research here, and Beyond the Pale presents a beautifully detailed account of life among turn-of-the-century immigrant Jews, from classes at the Henry Street Settlement House to the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Through the lens of several lesbians' lives, the author draws a portrait of an entire Diasporan community living through the terror and uncertainties of both Russian progroms and life in the New World.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a plot for a book titled Beyond the Pale.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Beyond the Pale (film): Two Irishhmen, Patrick Shaw (Patrick Clarke) and Seamus O'Sullivan (Conn Horgan), enter theS.\nillegally.\nLanding in New York the pair start out with dreams of making it big but soon find themselves in dead-end jobs and drifting apart.\nAs Seamus pursues various get rich quick schemes, the more cautious Patrick holds down a janitors job and plays good Samaritan to washed up alcoholic author Tom Finnegan (Malachy McCourt).\nAlong the way Patrick falls for Helen (Beverley Elder), a struggling actress entangled in a messy break up with Jeffrey (Roger Davis).\nEverything comes to a head when Seamus turns to backroom gambling, Tom hits rock bottom and Jeffrey makes a vicious play to win Helen back.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a plot for a book about Beyond, Pale, Gutke.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Beyond the Pale (film): Two Irishhmen, Patrick Shaw (Patrick Clarke) and Seamus O'Sullivan (Conn Horgan), enter theS.\nillegally.\nLanding in New York the pair start out with dreams of making it big but soon find themselves in dead-end jobs and drifting apart.\nAs Seamus pursues various get rich quick schemes, the more cautious Patrick holds down a janitors job and plays good Samaritan to washed up alcoholic author Tom Finnegan (Malachy McCourt).\nAlong the way Patrick falls for Helen (Beverley Elder), a struggling actress entangled in a messy break up with Jeffrey (Roger Davis).\nEverything comes to a head when Seamus turns to backroom gambling, Tom hits rock bottom and Jeffrey makes a vicious play to win Helen back.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: \nillegally.\nLanding in New York the pair start out with dreams of making it big but soon find themselves in dead-end jobs and drifting apart.\nAs Seamus pursues various get rich quick schemes, the more cautious Patrick holds down a janitors job and plays good Samaritan to washed up alcoholic author Tom Finnegan (Malachy McCourt).\nAlong the way Patrick falls for Helen (Beverley Elder), a struggling actress entangled in a messy break up with Jeffrey (Roger Davis).\nEverything comes to a head when Seamus turns to backroom gambling, Tom hits rock bottom and Jeffrey makes a vicious play to win Helen back.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.. Start with the sentence 'Beyond the Pale
  A figure stepped from the bus'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Beyond the Pale
  A figure stepped from the bus. Wind hissed through dry grass around his ankles and plucked with cold fingers at his black mortician's suit. He reached up a quick, long hand to keep his broad-brimmed pastor's hat planted on his head, then gazed into the darkness with dark eyes.
  Then the man—who had been called many names in the past, but who these days went by the moniker of Brother Cy—leaned his scarecrow frame toward the bus, like a lodgepole pine bending before the storm, and called through the open door.
  A chorus of excited voices answered him. Someone flicked on the bus's high beams, and two cones of light cut through the night. The rear emergency door swung open, hinges creaking, and a dozen shadowy forms leaped out. They dragged a heavy bundle into the field and unrolled it with deft movements. More dim figures scurried from the back of the bus, wrangling poles and rope, and hurried to join the others. Brother Cy stalked to the center of the field and paced a wide circle, digging the heel of his worn black boot into the turf at measured intervals. When the circle was complete, he stood back and looked on in satisfaction. Here would stand his fortress.
  A score of dim forms strained. The mound heaved itself higher into the air, and higher yet, like a mountain being birthed. At last its pointed peak reached the top of the high pole. Ropes were lashed around wooden posts and tied off, stray edges of canvas were skewered to the ground, lengths of cord were tucked away. Where minutes before there had been empty moonlight there now stood a tent. It was an old-fashioned circus tent, what in days gone by had been called a big top, torn and patched in so many places it looked as if it had been sewn from the trousers of a hundred penniless clowns.
  Like wraiths in the half-light, the shadowy roustabouts bustled in and out of the tent. Parti-colored banners were unfurled. Collapsible bleachers were pulled from the back of the bus. Fire sprang to life in dozens of punched-tin lanterns, carried inside in a glowing procession until the tent shone gold in the night. Last of all a sign was planted in the earth before the tent's entrance. It proclaimed in bold, Gothic letters:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When they had reached the top, the land they found was not much like Colorado. This was the Dominion of Galt, situated in the highlands between Eredane and Calavan. It was a small and stark land, all sharp edges and treacherous crevices. As they rode south they had passed few villages, and these had been as hard and uninviting as the stone from which they were hewn. Few crops grew in this land, and the main livestock was a kind of wiry goat. What the animals found to eat among the tumbled boulders Travis didn't know.
  Although the landscape of Galt was harsh, its people could not have been more different. The travelers did not camp—the night wind would have scoured them from the ground if they hadn't frozen first—so they had stayed in taverns three nights in a row. At each one the people had been kind, red-faced, and of good humor. The food they had served had been scant and simple, but it was served generously and alongside large tankards of ale. Travis had sipped his tentatively at first, then had joined Beltan in taking large gulps. Unlike the not-quite-oatmeal he had drunk elsewhere, the brews of Galt were brown, rich, and smooth as molasses.
  They were also of a strength he had never encountered before, as he had discovered upon waking that first morning in Galt.
  Fortunately, the ale had not actually addled Travis's wits, only dulled them temporarily. By that evening, at the next tavern, he had felt better and had taken smaller sips from his tankard.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: By that evening, at the next tavern, he had felt better and had taken smaller sips from his tankard..
  Fortunately, the ale had not actually addled Travis's wits, only dulled them temporarily.
  They were also of a strength he had never encountered before, as he had discovered upon waking that first morning in Galt. Unlike the not-quite-oatmeal he had drunk elsewhere, the brews of Galt were brown, rich, and smooth as molasses. Travis had sipped his tentatively at first, then had joined Beltan in taking large gulps. The food they had served had been scant and simple, but it was served generously and alongside large tankards of ale. At each one the people had been kind, red-faced, and of good humor. The travelers did not camp—the night wind would have scoured them from the ground if they hadn't frozen first—so they had stayed in taverns three nights in a row.
  Although the landscape of Galt was harsh, its people could not have been more different. What the animals found to eat among the tumbled boulders Travis didn't know. Few crops grew in this land, and the main livestock was a kind of wiry goat. As they rode south they had passed few villages, and these had been as hard and uninviting as the stone from which they were hewn. It was a small and stark land, all sharp edges and treacherous crevices. This was the Dominion of Galt, situated in the highlands between Eredane and Calavan.When they had reached the top, the land they found was not much like Colorado
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' before it completely destroys two coexisting worlds: ancient Eldh and modern Earth.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Travis could only nod, beyond words now. Then he gripped the half-coin in his hand, shut his eyes, and saw—not darkness—but light.
  He could not be certain, but ever afterward it seemed to Travis that the gentle sound of a lute followed after him, and soft words sung by Falken's voice:
  Enya and Loreena McKennitt, for the magic of their music, which kept my spirits and my fingers flying.
  Travis Wilder has returned from the otherworld of Eldh, hoping to settle back into his humdrum life in the mountains of contemporary Colorado. But he soon finds himself stalked by two shadowy organizations, each aware of his incredible journey and each determined to exploit it—whatever the cost to Travis... or to Eldh. Meanwhile, a terrifying new contagion is spreading like wildfire, a disease with no cure, which some are comparing to the Black Plague.
  When the disease strikes his closest friend, Travis is drawn back to Eldh, where the same epidemic, known as the Burning Plague, is wreaking another kind of havoc. There, Travis and his former companion Grace Beckett—herself from Earth, but now living on Eldh—must solve the riddle of the plague. Where did it come from? What is it's purpose? And how can it possibly be stopped... before it completely destroys two coexisting worlds: ancient Eldh and modern Earth.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first four paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Beyond the Pale
  I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak. The Carthaginian women in the last peril of their state cut off their hair for bow-strings to give the defenders of their country, and such peril and shame as now hangs over this country is worse than Roman slavery. I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.16
  In the novel itself Stowe used every opportunity to preach directly to her readers. She drew attention to the hypocrisies of the liberals who supported slavery by colluding with the more obviously 'evil' slave traders; and she challenged her Northern readers who claimed to despise the institution of slavery but who refused to accept free blacks as their equals. By claiming that slavery was a purely moral and religious issue she was well aware that women would be more susceptible to her arguments, and she set out to speak to them directly. More specifically she addressed the 'mothers of America': through her descriptions of domestic life, death and the separation of women from their children and husbands, and the humiliation of sexual abuse, she stated quite explicitly that it was up to women to use their moral influence against the more rational and unfeeling qualities of men.
  This is God's curse on slavery! – a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing! – a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under laws like ours – I always felt it was, – I always thought so when I was a girl, – I thought so still more after I joined the church; but I thought I could gild it over, – I thought, by kindness, and care, and instruction, I could make the condition of mine better than freedom, – fool that I was!18
  Another female character whose moral indignation also shames her husband – with more successful results – is Mrs Bird, the senator's wife. Over the tea-table, surrounded by young children, she scolds him for not opposing the fugitive slave law which forbade anyone to help or harbour runaway slaves. As their house was situated just across the river from the slave-owning South, they considered themselves friends of the slave and would have unquestioningly helped any fugitive who came to their door. When Mr Bird attempts to reason with his wife that to do so in future would be breaking the law, she rounds on him: 'I hate reasoning, John – especially reasoning on such subjects. There's a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing; and you don't believe in it yourselves, when it comes to practice.' The power of her emotional argument is soon revealed as a runaway slave presents herself at their door, and there is no question of turning her away.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Once in the classroom, she commented on the 'immodesty' of the girls' dress, dwelling particularly on their jewellery. But,
  If Annette Ackroyd had expected to find instant solidarity with Indian women, this encounter certainly disappointed her. In addition she objected to what she perceived as an untenable inequality between Mr and Mrs Sen. In her eyes, Mrs Sen was not a suitable wife for the leader of the Brahmo Somaj or for a man who had advocated the rights of Indian women, not merely because of her appearance but because she was unable to speak English. For this, she blamed Sen and perceived him as a hypocrite, although there was no evidence for this. Sen advocated education for women and his wife was indeed attending school. There was nothing here which could not have been predicted from Sen's English lectures on the position of Indian women and the need for their education.
  Aside from encountering attitudes which shocked her, Annette Ackroyd also found the practical tasks of renting a school building and finding staff extremely difficult. Many of her diary entries are brusque, irritated reports of abortive meetings with prospective landlords and of seeing premises which, because of their state of repair seemed entirely unsuitable to her. Her diaries suggest a frustration brought about by an expectation that things should be just as they would be in London. Despite a busy social life, she felt isolated. In January 1873, she wrote: 'I do not know where to begin! or how to begin, and long for several impossibilities in the shape of help and womanly help.'
  She failed to develop any close relationships with Indian women, though she stayed for nearly a year with Mrs Ghose, and mentioned a number of other middle-class Indian women whom she visited. As far as other white women were concerned, she felt alienated from the Government House crowd – the wives and daughters of Civil Servants and army officers – finding them conservative and unsympathetic.
  There was certainly no possibility of friendship with any of the mission women in Calcutta. They disapproved of her project and made sure that she knew. On 3 April 1873, she noted that she had been called on by an American, Miss Seeley, who told her plainly that, 'education is not our mission but to save souls'. On another occasion she wrote, 'I learn from Babu Sisapada Banerjee that a missionary had been telling his cousin that our school was going to make all the girls infidels.'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: '. But,
  If Annette Ackroyd had expected to find instant solidarity with Indian women, this encounter certainly disappointed her. In addition she objected to what she perceived as an untenable inequality between Mr and Mrs Sen. In her eyes, Mrs Sen was not a suitable wife for the leader of the Brahmo Somaj or for a man who had advocated the rights of Indian women, not merely because of her appearance but because she was unable to speak English. For this, she blamed Sen and perceived him as a hypocrite, although there was no evidence for this. Sen advocated education for women and his wife was indeed attending school. There was nothing here which could not have been predicted from Sen's English lectures on the position of Indian women and the need for their education.
  Aside from encountering attitudes which shocked her, Annette Ackroyd also found the practical tasks of renting a school building and finding staff extremely difficult. Many of her diary entries are brusque, irritated reports of abortive meetings with prospective landlords and of seeing premises which, because of their state of repair seemed entirely unsuitable to her. Her diaries suggest a frustration brought about by an expectation that things should be just as they would be in London. Despite a busy social life, she felt isolated. In January 1873, she wrote: 'I do not know where to begin! or how to begin, and long for several impossibilities in the shape of help and womanly help.'
  She failed to develop any close relationships with Indian women, though she stayed for nearly a year with Mrs Ghose, and mentioned a number of other middle-class Indian women whom she visited. As far as other white women were concerned, she felt alienated from the Government House crowd – the wives and daughters of Civil Servants and army officers – finding them conservative and unsympathetic.
  There was certainly no possibility of friendship with any of the mission women in Calcutta. They disapproved of her project and made sure that she knew. On 3 April 1873, she noted that she had been called on by an American, Miss Seeley, who told her plainly that, 'education is not our mission but to save souls'. On another occasion she wrote, 'I learn from Babu Sisapada Banerjee that a missionary had been telling his cousin that our school was going to make all the girls infidels.Once in the classroom, she commented on the 'immodesty' of the girls' dress, dwelling particularly on their jewellery.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: If it is accepted that definitions of womanhood and femininity are culturally constructed within the interlocking systems of domination that they also help to shape, then feminism actually needs to bring women together to take them apart. White and black women can unite not so much in favour of women being able to wear headscarves but against the combination of gender, class and race relations that forbids cultural differences and fears that the dominant culture will be 'swamped' by an Other one. Similarly, feminists can dissociate themselves from racist assumptions about predatory black men and vulnerable white women while continuing to campaign against violence from men in general. Just as black women have had to identify and oppose racist definitions of their identity as women in their struggles against racism and female subordination, so white women can potentially open up new avenues of political strategy and alliance by refusing racist definitions of white femininity.
  The arguments that I have made in all these essays rest on my conviction that political unity between women across race and class is potentially one of the greatest forces for change in the world, but that there is nothing about being a woman which necessarily guarantees that unity. If feminism is to survive the fragmentation of women's politics which has been happening as a result of realizing this lack of guarantees, then feminists need to acknowledge the inescapable diversity of femininity and womanhood without losing sight of the ways that we are all what Jane Flax refers to as 'prisoners of gender'. This means working out the dynamics of race, class and gender in every situation that demands a political response – adopting what some have called 'strategic identities' which allow opposition to one form of domination without being complicit in another. I recognize the dangers in over-simplifying what are infinitely complex and fractal patterns of social relations, constantly affected by the refinement of communication technologies and bio-technologies. As Sandra Harding says: ' "Something out there" is changing relations between races, classes and cultures as well as between genders – probably quite a few "somethings" – at a pace that outstrips our theorizing.'25 Perhaps it is the very speed with which the changes are taking place that makes an awareness of history all the more urgent.
  Few have understood Anthony and Stanton's desperation and the isolation that resulted from the Republican and abolitionist opposition to them during the Train episode. Because they were committed to not prioritizing the rights of one group over another and because theirs was a special commitment to women, they refused to abandon the women's cause or subordinate it or themselves to the men who tried to dominate them. In doing so, they appeared to be taking a proslavery or antiblack position, thus prioritizing rights after all... In those painful moments of isolation, Anthony and Stanton learned that no political party or reform movement led by men could be their sustained natural ally, such as Republicans and abolitionists had been for black male slaves.
  Whether the criticism of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments expressed by the leaders of the women's rights movement was justifiable or not is still being debated. But one thing seems clear: the defence of their own interests as white middle-class women – in a frequently egotistical and elitist fashion – exposed the tenuous and superficial nature of their relationship to the postwar campaign for Black equality... in articulating their opposition with arguments invoking the privileges of white supremacy, they revealed how defenceless they remained – even after years of involvement in progressive causes – to the pernicious ideological influence of racism.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Beyond the Pale
  While building the brewery and scraping together money and equipment, I was still taking welding, agriculture, and refrigeration classes at Butte. Having access to their shop gave me the necessary forklifts and fabrication tools that I needed for refurbishing and modifying the brewing equipment I was steadily assembling. I still remember shearing and drilling out the bottom of the mash tun. This part was for a critical part of the brewing process when the crushed malted barley is mixed with water to convert the starch into sugar and the resulting sweet wort is then separated from the grain. The tank was an old milk vat that I added a perforated floor to; we were so low on funds that I decided it would be cheaper to drill the roughly 4,000 holes required to perforate the bottom rather than buy a pre-perforated stainless sheet. I spent days on a drill press with a bag of drill bits, painstakingly drilling. Everyone who came by to check on our progress thought I was crazy. The building construction was proceeding slowly but steadily because we were doing all the framing, sheetrocking, and other construction ourselves. Paul had some experience taping and texturizing and did most of the painting while I was putting together the equipment, but we still needed some crucial parts and pieces that I couldn't scrounge up.
  I had found enough open dairy tanks to use as primary fermenters, but I couldn't come up with any suitable closed aging tanks (where the beer would finish fermenting and spend approximately an additional two weeks aging and maturing). I went to a company south of Chico that made small, stainless tanks designed for mounting on tractors for fertilizing and agricultural spraying. They couldn't manufacture and polish the tanks to the hygiene standards we required, so I decided I would have the tanks prefabricated and tack them together so that I could do the welding and sanitary polishing myself. It was a terrible chore that involved being inside the tanks for days on end, welding and then grinding and polishing the seams so that they would be crevice-free and easy to clean. I convinced Paul to help, but on his first day, the grinder got away from him, giving him a deep gash that required stitches. I was on my own after that and spent several dirty, cramped weeks welding and finishing the six aging tanks. After more than a year of construction, we had most of the main equipment together, but we still had a lot to figure out.
  By September 1980, we had been working on the project for more than two years, continually running out of money and having to ask our small group of shareholders to put in additional funds. Psychologically we were starting to break down; it had been such a long, hard struggle, and I started to question my decision to put everything on the line. There was still a lot to do, and it was slowly starting to grind me down. Between the weekend bicycle shop work to provide some income to live on, construction, welding, and fabrication classes, and road trips looking for parts, it was a seven-day-a-week effort with few days less than 10 hours long and many more than 12. My family life was suffering—Katie was questioning our decision, but to give up at this point wasn't something I thought I could do. I knew if I quit now, everything I had worked so hard on would be lost and there would be no salvaging most of our investment. We were getting close to being able to brew, but it seemed like the challenges just kept coming. I couldn't see cutting corners after all the hard work that we had already put in, so we decided to stay the course and keep grinding away.
  I remember one particularly brutal day that almost derailed me. I thought I had taken enough refrigeration classes to allow me to design and install the refrigeration system from the equipment I had been able to scrounge. Most of the compressors used to cool the fermenters came from old milk tanks I found in dairies. With a little input from my refrigeration instructor, I was able to adapt them to operate at the warmer temperatures we needed for our ale fermentation. We still needed a cooler to put in our aging cellar, but we were so low on funds at that point that I couldn't afford to buy a new compressor or coil. My friend, Jean Harvey, located an old walk-in cooler at a closed, clandestine, backyard butcher shop located just north of the brewery in Chapman Town, an offbeat old Chico neighborhood. The owner used to raise livestock and perform butchering for his needs as well as for others in this unsanctioned operation. His business had been shut down by the Health Department, and I was able to purchase the compressor and coil out of the walk-in cooler for almost nothing. I had to remove, clean, and completely rebuild it before I could use it, though. When I got it back to the brewery, I realized that it was corroded and totally repulsive inside, covered in years of dried blood and feathers. I spent hours scrubbing fat and blood off it, getting covered by the gore in the process. I started to question what I was doing, but after the most disgusting and disheartening day I'd had yet, I finally got the cooler running and my sense of purpose back together.
  I had also finally got the bottling line rebuilt, but I could test it only with water because we hadn't yet brewed a batch of beer. Still, I was pretty pleased with myself when I finally got it to run and fill and cap a few bottles. The labeler was another story. I thought, how hard could it be to fix up the one machine and get it running? We had been given the opportunity to buy a second labeling machine for $250, but we were so cost conscious at that point. We were spending what little bit of savings I had left, so we didn't want to waste the money. With the slow speed we were planning on running, we thought one labeler would be able to handle our planned speed of 50 bottles per minute. It didn't look too complicated. I had never operated any automated bottling equipment, but being fairly mechanical, I was pretty sure I could figure it out. The first labeler we acquired with the soda line was built by the Economic Machinery Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, and as far as I could tell from the limited available historical information, it was designed in the 1920s and manufactured in the 1930s. Referred to as the World Rotary, this model was the predecessor of the much superior World Tandem labeler, which replaced it sometime in the 1940s. (Some World Tandem labelers still remain in operation today at modern American small breweries.) As it turned out, few parts were available for the Rotary, so I had to fix or make what was broken or needed. I had no operation or parts manual, so I just had to figure out how it was supposed to work. Luckily we still had two small soft drink bottling companies operating in Chico at the time, and I started picking their brains regularly. The very experienced production foreman at the tiny 7UP bottling plant was extremely helpful, having operated very similar equipment. For the first year of operation, both of the local bottlers would regularly let me have their almost empty glue buckets to scrape the bottom for the few cups of label glue that we required to label our 100-case runs. Because we had decided to use a returnable longneck bar bottle, and the soft drink bottlers I had purchased didn't have a similarly shaped bottle, I had to modify the parts to handle the tall, skinny bottle. Luckily the old soda company had run a 7-ounce bottle at some point, and because I had grabbed all the spare parts I could find, I was able to carve out and modify the required pieces from those parts. The longneck beer bottles would prove to be another challenge because they have a high center of gravity and fall over easily. With the crude level of technology my vintage labeler employed, we had huge losses in our early production days.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Although I was no longer in direct communication with the other shareholders, I was aware of increasing strife between them. Paul's second marriage had recently fallen apart, and other family members were still hoping for a higher valuation. By this time, most if not all of the family members had retained their own counsel to vie for their fair share. The stock that had been purchased for several thousand dollars was now potentially worth millions.
  By August we had a final offer from one of the venture funds that met Paul and his family's financial objectives and seemed to be the best to me. The leverage was slightly lower than many of the other proposals, and I would increase my ownership percentage to 80 percent if I met all the return objectives. I had long been unhappy with Paul's efforts and contributions, but at least I knew what to expect. Accepting the proposed deals meant trading a known partner for an unknown entity. My new partner would potentially be more onerous and demanding than my current one, with greater expectations on the company's performance.
  By late 1997 the craft industry was struggling, and the lofty valuations of the few public small breweries had plummeted 75 percent from the highs they had hit the previous year. I had mounting concerns about the strength of the industry moving forward, the level of debt, and the almost certainty of being back in the same situation in five to seven years when my new partners wanted out. In September my lawyer notified Paul's advisors that the current proposed deals had too much risk and we could not go through with any of them. With a faltering industry, a heavily leveraged buyout made even less sense to me than when they had originally proposed it. Paul's side had ridden a huge wave that had swept across the brewing industry and that I had helped increase. Now that it was starting to crest and looked like it could come crashing down, they wanted to get out quick. I had the sense that several people involved had already been counting their money, so my stopping the deal at what was essentially the eleventh hour wasn't well received. We had been close to concluding a deal that had been in the works for almost four years. My halting the sale was certainly a blow to their plans. In hindsight, it was probably one of the wisest business decisions I have ever made. Of course, this started another round of accusations and legal posturing. Luckily, I had a very wise attorney who convinced all parties that finding an acceptable resolution to these new developments was preferable to the nuclear option of dissolution or court sale that could have ended in what was left of the company being sold at a fraction of the current value after a drawn-out legal process. Given the level of frustration on the part of all parties at this point, this outcome was a distinct possibility.
  Throughout the lengthy legal battle, I came to realize that all of the venture funds had proposed deal structures that included significant leverage with fairly minimal cash infusion. If the projections were conservative enough, they validated that the company could handle the required leverage necessary to retire the debt.
  But if they could make it work, why couldn't I? All I had to do was to raise the same amount of capital that the venture groups were going to invest. This would also mean not having to fund another buyout in seven years. My attorney introduced me to a colleague who was experienced in negotiating with banks and who ran a firm that readied companies for sale or to go public. He was well versed in handling all types of financial deals, and besides having contacts, he knew the ins and outs of structuring leveraged deals such as I was proposing to undertake. I was now in a race to come up with a financing package that could match the offer on the table. One option was for Paul's family to carry a note for one-third of the debt. I would raise the majority of the money from the bank, which would loan me only about two-thirds of what was needed. The proposal was received with a lukewarm response, but it was better than further impasse.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The chapter house at the Abbey of New Clairvaux.Sierra Nevada's Ovila® beers reflect traditioncombined with brewing innovation.
  One of our brewers, Scott Jennings, skimming the foam off an open fermenter full of Kellerweis during fermentation, 2009.
  The first batch of our Sierra 30th Anniversary series, Fritzand Ken's Ale, an imperial stout brewed with Fritz Maytag,previous owner of Anchor Brewery, 2010.
  At the announcement of our North Carolina brewery with former North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, and my son,Brian Grossman, on January 25, 2012.
  The Sierra Nevada Beer Bike in front of the brewery in 2012. A Beer Camp counselor steers while campers provide the pedal power.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Beer Camp counselor steers while campers provide the pedal power..
  The Sierra Nevada Beer Bike in front of the brewery in 2012.
  At the announcement of our North Carolina brewery with former North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, and my son,Brian Grossman, on January 25, 2012.
  The first batch of our Sierra 30th Anniversary series, Fritzand Ken's Ale, an imperial stout brewed with Fritz Maytag,previous owner of Anchor Brewery, 2010.
  One of our brewers, Scott Jennings, skimming the foam off an open fermenter full of Kellerweis during fermentation, 2009.Sierra Nevada's Ovila® beers reflect traditioncombined with brewing innovation.The chapter house at the Abbey of New Clairvaux