Since you need to wash your hands more these days, now there's a site that'll put song lyrics to a hand-washing poster for you.

Oh, coronavirus. Sorry, Coronavirus-19. Or Corona-19. Or novel coronavirus. Or the mass hysteria gripping the world.

Whatever you call it, people are obsessed with hospital masks, toilet paper (why?), and washing their hands these days. While washing your hands is always a good thing, a little spritz of water doesn't do the trick.

Since health officials for decades have recommended washing your hands for 20-seconds (usually the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday to yourself twice), this led a U.K. teenager named William Gibson to create a website that generates song lyrics to accompany hand-washing posters by the U.K.'s National Health Service:

🎶 I made a little site in 24h that generates hand washing instructions accompanied by lyrics from a song of your choice instantly - check it out!

🔗 https://t.co/JKAQRYy5Yz pic.twitter.com/S1bDLyKt6C

— William (@neoncloth) March 8, 2020

Washyourlyrics.com simply asks for an artist's name and song title, and it'll populate the hand-washing poster with lyrics timed to the poster's instructions:

Obviously pic.twitter.com/VvGPwRlmvo

— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) March 9, 2020

And it's not just song lyrics. Even Shakespeare's plays work out:

Forget singing in Happy Birthday twice: THIS is what you recite to tell you how long to wash your hands. H/t @ninjalampie pic.twitter.com/TjXMZCQbt2

— Reduced Shakespeare Company (@reduced) March 3, 2020

Sure, the Reduced Shakespeare Company could've picked a more lighthearted play than Macbeth. But if everyone is lathered up in hysteria, you might as well choose a play where nearly everyone dies.

It's called synergy, folks.

When Writers Go Weird: That time George Bernard Shaw left money in his will for a new English alphabet

Someone's really irked at the English alphabet.

Are writers ever normal? No, otherwise they'd be productive members of society. 'When Writers Go Weird' is when we remember writers acting strange, odd, off, or--yeah--just plain weird. Also known as Tuesday to them.

Today:  George Bernard Shaw really didn't like the English alphabet and wanted a new one.

You are used to the English alphabet and language. Whether you're an expert user or dabbling in it as a secondary means of communication, you're used to it. You've read this far in a blog post after all.

Which leads to the curious case of George Bernard Shaw's distaste for the alphabet he relied on so heavily. The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925--and numerous other literary awards--Shaw's native tongue was English. He was an Irishman under British rule for the majority of his life, surrounded by the English alphabet. His plays--from Pygmalion to Man and Superman--were all written with that same standard English alphabet using Latin letters.

But he hated it. It made no sense to him how we spelled words and relied so little on phonetics. Case in point, the word "ghoti" is attributed to him, where "ghoti" is pronounced the same as you would say "fish." (Using the "gh" from words like "enough," etc.)

In actuality, Shaw never said anything about "ghoti" (it comes from a letter written in the 19th century from Charles Ollier, who credited his son William with its creation), but Shaw's hatred for the English alphabet was so pronounced, everyone presumes he created the ghoti/fish comparison.

_____________________________________

The organization gained so much traction, President Theodore Roosevelt became a firm believer.
_____________________________________

He wasn't alone. The early 20th century was a quirky time with individuals promoting curious ways to overcome difficulties in language. In 1906, for example, the Simplified Spelling Board was created in the United States (and funded in part by steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie) in hopes of simplifying spelling mistakes and ease the ability to learn English. The organization gained so much traction, President Theodore Roosevelt became a firm believer of the Board's suggestion of 300 new spellings and demanded the Government Printing Office adopt them in their literature. The reason we don't see those new spellings today? Congress quickly rebuked Roosevelt within months.

L.L. Zamenhof

Even earlier, in 1905, an ophthalmologist named L.L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto (designed to be an auxiliary worldwide language easy enough for all to learn), released his Fundamento de Esperanto as a definitive guide to the new language. He gained so much traction that there was the Worldwide Esperanto Congress established that same year--a congress which is still held annually to this day. Mark your calendars and invite the kids.

(Yes, an ophthalmologist deals with eyes, but L.L. Zamenhof apparently only had eyes for languages.)

By 1908, the Simplified Spelling Society was created in Great Britain in the same vein as its American cousin (although completely lacking in tycoon affiliations), and attracted authors from throughout the country, including George Bernard Shaw, to no one's surprise.

_______________________________________

He habitually refused to abide by rules traditionally held with English spelling.
_______________________________________

This is all to say it was a heady time for lovers of making languages accessible and for straightforward alphabets. For Shaw, though, this was a lifelong passion. He habitually refused to abide by rules traditionally held with English spelling and punctuation, such as dropping the "u" in words like "favour" and refusing to use an apostrophe in contractions. He also spent 13 years on the BBC's Advisory Committee on Spoken English pushing a phonetic component. How much the BBC actually listened to Shaw's advice is another matter.

He felt so intensely about establishing a new English alphabet that, upon his death in 1950, Shaw bequeathed a significant portion of his assets in his will to reforming spelling. Naturally, people contested Shaw's last will and testament. Create a new alphabet for English? Was he crazy when he made the will?? But after some legal wrangling, the trust announced £8,300 was set aside from the estate and that a contest would commence for people to design a new alphabet.

There were three rules Shaw required for his new alphabet. One, it had to have a minimum of 40 letters. Why at least 40? God only knows. Two, the new alphabet should be based as much as possible on phonetic qualities. And, lastly, it should not look anything like the Latin letters the English alphabet already uses.

By 1958, the contest began. Out of 467 submissions, four winners were chosen to receive a £500 prize, with Ronald Kingsley Read largely receiving most of the credit. The Shaw Alphabet--also known as the Shavian Alphabet--was born. Made of 48 letters compared to the English alphabet's 26, it replaces lowercase and uppercase letters with "tall," "deep," and "short" status. A dot is placed over a letter if it's a proper name.

While the alphabet exists and Shaw's wishes were granted, the Shavian Alphabet never gained much traction. The trust--which had been originally responsible for holding the competition--had very little money left over. In the end, they only published Shaw's play Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian style.

As for the general movement for an easier alphabet and language, its high point was probably Teddy Roosevelt backing them. The movement petered out into a whimper by the second half of the 20th century. The American Simplified Spelling Board ceased operations by 1920. The auxiliary language of Esperanto? Estimates suggest there are only 1,000 native speakers worldwide today.

Meanwhile, the British Simplified Spelling Society changed its name to the English Spelling Society, but stopped formally endorsing a new English spelling system by 1960. While still in existence today, it largely only makes headlines when protesting major spelling competitions, like the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the United States. Because nothing sways worldwide opinion like raising a stink around nervous 13-year olds.

In the end, Shaw's curious desire for a new English alphabet came to fruition, if only after his death--even if the alphabet itself is largely dead now, too.

There's always Pygmalion in its original Latin letters, though.

Mark Twain's old farmhouse is up for sale.

Great news for the two or three people in the world pining to live in rural Connecticut, as Mark Twain's old farmhouse is up for sale for the low-low asking price of $1.85 million.

Lest you think you're getting some shack with some name recognition, the house was gutted in 2013 by its current owners and updated throughout. According to the real estate listing, the property showcases a "[s]tunning new designer kitchen with Cream Marfil marble counters, custom cabinetry" along with "Gaggenau premium appliances."

If you're scratching your head at what "Cream Marfil" is--as I was--it's apparently just the Spanish word for ivory. (Yes, my Spanish needs work.) And if you're wondering what "Gaggenau premium appliances" cost, well, roughly your entire checking account and your personal modesty.

The listing also notes Twain's estate now has "Carlisle hickory signature floors, antiqued ceiling beams, stone bridges, a projection screen, art room, barn, and a "gunite swimming pool."

If you're scratching your head again at what a "gunite swimming pool" is--as I was--it's apparently just a form of concrete. (Yes, my real estate-to-English translation skills need work, too.) And if you're wondering what "Carlisle hickory signature floors" go for, well, roughly two years worth of your retirement savings and all human decency.

The estate was bought by Twain for his daughter Jean back in 1909, in what I assume to be the most lavish way to tell your adult child they're still loved. Jean didn't enjoy the property for long, as she was found dead in a bathtub from a heart attack on Christmas Eve the same year. She was 29-years old.

Shockingly, the real estate listing skips over the info on Jean's death. Mortality doesn't really wow prospective buyers like gunite swimming pools and Marfil countertops apparently.

Harvard Law School mistakenly listed Anthony Scaramucci as dead.

Say it with me: Only his political career is, Harvard...only his political career.

Harvard Law School released the latest printed edition of its alumni directory recently, where the former White House communications director has an asterisk beside his name. What does the asterisk mean? That Anthony Scaramucci is dead.

Harvard apologized, telling The Washington Post it was a regrettable "error" and that they'd fix the mistake in future editions.

The one small problem? Before this year, the directory was last printed six years ago. This means The Mooch might have to wait a bit before his resurrection can occur.

The Friday Poem: I Died For Beauty, by Emily Dickinson

As another week concludes, we end with a random poem. Famous poets, obscure poets, amateur poets, whatever poets--just a poem to cap off the week.

Like this one:


I died for Beauty — but was scarce, by Emily Dickinson

I died for Beauty — but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining room —

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty", I replied —
"And I — for Truth — Themself are One —
We Brethren, are", He said —

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms —
Until the Moss had reached our lips —
And covered up — our names —

The Weird History of College Mascots, No. 1: Tufts University, P.T. Barnum, and Jumbo the Elephant

Some colleges have perfectly boring mascots with no history outside a public relations-approved cartoon character. Other colleges have histories--often weird--behind their mascots. This is where we recount the oddities.

Today:  Tufts University and the circus

On one side we have a fledgling Tufts University prior to its 1852 opening looking to add individuals to its Board of Trustees.

On the other side we have P.T. Barnum, one half of the famed Barnum & Bailey Circus, who was looking to be philanthropic.

Here the two shall meet.

P.T. Barnum looking for another sucker.

Tufts was looking to add board members, and turned to the wealthy and famed showman to help prop up their institution. Barnum didn't want to leave a legacy of simply being an entertainer, so he happily obliged, donating $50,000 (more than $2,000,000 in today's money) to the school to have a museum and hall for the Department of Natural History.

Meanwhile, in 1860, purportedly on Christmas day in what would be modern-day Sudan, an elephant was born. After its mother was killed by hunters, the elephant was sold to an Italian animal dealer. The young elephant made its way to Trieste, Italy, then stops in Germany and a French zoo, before landing at the London Zoo in England.

It was at the London Zoo that the elephant gave visitors rides, mainly children. Seeing how smart, docile, yet large, the elephant was, the keeper, Anoshan Anathajeyasri, gave the elephant the name Jumbo. The name potentially has roots in Swahili, maybe "jumbe," which means "chief."

In 1881, Barnum & Bailey Circus purchased Jumbo from the zoo for a then-$10,000. So distraught were the children of London at the thought of losing Jumbo, Queen Victoria received over 100,000 letters asking for her to intercede.

She did not. Jumbo headed to America.

Jumbo late in life.

For the next four years, P.T. Barnum showcased Jumbo in order to make his investment money back. Jumbo (and other elephants) were paraded over the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge to show it was strong enough. Jumbo also was featured at Madison Square Garden. People flocked to see the famed "biggest elephant in the world."

In the end, Jumbo's time in America was short-lived, even if his history has been long-lasting. On tour with the circus in St. Thomas, Ontario, in 1885, while moving the elephants across a rail yard, Jumbo died. The reasons are varied and vague, filled with as many facts as there is dramatic fiction. Most sources agree Jumbo tripped crossing some tracks, and probably impaled himself on his tusk, killing himself instantly. To further compound his death, a locomotive came down the track and couldn't stop in time, hitting his seemingly lifeless body.

The scourge that is rail yards strikes again.

The romanticized version of the story is that a small elephant named Tom Thumb was lingering on the tracks. Jumbo, being the bright animal he was, hustled to push Tom Thumb out of the way as the locomotive burned down the track, and that Jumbo tripped in front of the train saving the smaller elephant. Is there any validity to the story? It was 1885 after all, and P.T. Barnum was involved. Barnum always loved a good story.

To benefit a bit more by Jumbo's death, Barnum had the elephant's corpse separated. In time, the skeleton ended up at New York City's American Museum of Natural History, while the heart went to Cornell University. The hide was stretched and stuffed to try and mimic the original Jumbo, and it was donated to Tufts University.

Stuffed Jumbo years before the fire.

A fire at Tufts in 1975 destroyed the hide, but they had already adopted Jumbo as their mascot by then. Ashes believed to be the hide of Jumbo were placed into a peanut butter jar, where they remain today in the athletic director's office. Only a piece of Jumbo's tail, which was taxidermied when Barnum separated Jumbo, remains in a display case at Tufts.

Today, Barnum Hall still exists on campus, while a monument of Jumbo was erected at the St. Thomas, Ontario, rail yard in 2006, 121-years after his death. New York City's American Museum of Natural History maintains Jumbo's skeleton to this day as well, a donation from Barnum they have never parted with.

And Tufts University has fully embraced the image of an elephant, of Jumbo, as their mascot.

Tufts University campus today.

It is not the most common of mascots to be had for a modern day university, but the common denominator is Jumbo's impact. The bright, docile, fantastically large animal that made children beg a queen, that drew crowds around the world, that made a wealthy P.T. Barnum even wealthier--the giant that spent its life in captivity--remains in the consciousness of those his path crossed 132-years later.

If anything should be a mascot, if anything should represent a school, it should have meaning. And few mascots have the meaning quite like Jumbo the elephant.

Pokemon can build bridges in poetry, or so it appears.

Modern poetry has drifted from popularity, and now exists sort of like that annoying friend you have on Facebook that shares their confessional works which sound like a third rate ditty written by a Sarah McLachlan clone at an ASPCA rally.

But poetry can sometimes still be quirky.

The Toronto Star newspaper asked two local poets, Kate Sutherland and Stephen Thomas, to take the most popular trending search terms found on Google and social media and make a poem about the year that was 2016.

That's it. No directions, no focus, no overly detailed analysis--no rules.

Just a poem, trending topics.

The two poems are wildly different despite the same focal point.

Kate Sutherland wrote "Year-End Tally," in which her rapid-fire lines add, subtract, divide, and multiply the year's news stories. As it begins:


Add a small boy Subtract a gorilla
Multiply mosquitos Subtract bumblebees
Multiply flames Subtract homes Subtract jobs
Add golf Add rugby Multiply medals
Add innings Add PokéStops


Generally, it continues that way until a slew of Twitter-like hashtags finish the poem.

By comparison, Stephen Thomas wrote "Celery Water," drenched in humorlessness, and as serious as a deadly diagnosis:


We are sick. You can almost feel your insides
kicked. In a darkened dorm, we reverse
and blast “Purple Rain.” Like life,
the guitar part is long, and we black out stranger things:
November 8, around 10 p.m. Eastern.
Scratch out this year, which “cursed you like a witch.”


Oh--it continues with multiple mentions of death and pounding and creatures and crying. The events of 365 days affects people differently, clearly.

Both poems mention PokeStops, though--so despite all the chaos that was this year, Pikachu and friends is what really mattered in 2016.

Google's AI loves romance novels, post-modernist poetry, and potentially murder.

Whisper sweet nothings to me...

Like many tech organizations, Google is working on artificial intelligence (AI). And like any good science fiction movie, the AI developed so far is cold, calculating, and incapable of showing much human emotion. Kind of like your ex-significant other.

Google wanted to change this. The Brain Team made their AI read 2,865 romance novels in hopes it would develop a more sensible diction to its tone of voice--or at least an appreciation for book covers with bare chested men. Next, the team then gave the AI two short sentences, one beginning, one end, and asked its computer child to complete the story and concept in fewer than thirteen of its own sentences.

What we get is poetry that even Walt Whitman pauses over.

Take this poem:


there is no one else in the world.
there is no one else in sight.
they were the only ones who mattered.
they were the only ones left.
he had to be with me.
she had to be with him.
i had to do this.
i wanted to kill him.
i started to cry.
i turned to him.


It's always a good laugh whenever AI casually writes the sentence "I wanted to kill him." As if every dystopian nightmare just didn't become a little more possible. This is The Matrix without Keanu Reeve's stilted delivery.

Then there's this nugget:


he was silent for a long moment.
he was silent for a moment.
it was quiet for a moment.
it was dark and cold.
there was a pause.
it was my turn.


This is after it read romance books, too! Imagine what vivid little love chestnuts might have come out if the AI read horror stories, war epics, or anything involving Twilight.

Google says they're still in the early stages of creating a natural speech pattern for its AI, although it's doubtful homicidal computers ever need to have casual conversational skills.

This Week in Science!!!

A career in writing will lead to premature aging and a healthy dose of personal humiliation. But science and medicine is where you'll make money, fame, and the respect of your parents. As a result, we might as well pay attention to what they're doing in those fields.

So it's time to take another peak at anything going on in the world of science and medicine this week.


Starting off with:  A weasel goes out in a flash...of sorts.

story one:
Weasels hate science!!!

Science hater.

Confirming long-held suspicions of villainous behavior, a weasel is possibly to blame for taking down the $7 billion, 17-mile Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

The collider--which moves protons at nearly the speed of light before smashing them together in hopes of building on data on the Higgs boson, a cornerstone of particle theory--went offline this week after a power cable was disabled.

And how was it disabled? Engineers found the charred, furry remains of what they believe was a weasel or marten at the scene of the crime. Crime doesn't pay, weasels! Karma bites back!

This isn't the first time cute animals have tried to cripple science at the Large Hadron Collider. Back in 2009, a soggy, plain baguette dropped by a passing bird became caught in some electrical equipment and took out the collider then as well. That's right--bread products and birds are undermining scientific advancements, too. The chaos needs to end!

Does this mean small woodland creatures hate particle theory? Are they fundamentalists? Spies? What's their angle? Only time will tell.



story two:
Brainless slime can adapt!!!

Little Bobby is delicious!

Slime actually exists outside of Nickelodeon skit shows and two-bit divorce lawyers, and scientists have discovered that it can think. Sort of, at least, according to Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A single-celled organism called Physarum polycephalum has no nervous system, with largely a solitary desire to find food as its lone act of survival. Picture your average 15-year old boy. Just like that.

Scientists wanted to know if the unicellular organism would adapt if they put a harmless barrier between it and a food source. Using caffeine or quinine as the barrier, P. polycephalum showed reluctance to move at first. On day one of the experiment it took the slime hours to adjust to the barrier, as apparently our mindless friend doesn't appreciate the finer qualities of a cup of joe as we do.

After nearly a week of testing though, and apparently tired of the charade, the slime smartened up. Once placed in the petri dish on day six, it immediately moved across the barrier to its food source. Scientists believe this is an example of 'habituation,' where harmless stimuli are ignored in order for the appeasement of important life functions.

What to take away from this? Slime will adapt and dominate the planet in forty million years. Be prepared.



story three:
Your dog is a touch-me-not!!!

"Help meeeee."

A researcher at the University of British Columbia studied a collection of 250 photos of humans hugging their dogs and claims that not only are many people suspicious of being touched by you, but even your dog would appreciate three feet of personal space.

Stanley Doren, a professor of psychology at UBC, studied the photos and says the canines often exhibit signs of stress, anxiety, discomfort, or plain dislike of the hugging situation. The discomfort originates in dogs' inherent desire to flee from danger, and with all your hugging and canoodling you're trying to negate ages of evolutionary behavior.

Doren believes that 81.6% of dogs in the photos were giving off at least one sign of discomfort--all while you were trying to Instagram and Facebook that awkwardness--except you weren't picking up on the social cues apparently.

So the next time your dog is giving you some serious side-eye action, he's not flirting. He's wondering where the pepper spray is.



story four:
Zinc has never sounded so sexy!!!

Zinc = XXX

When a human egg is activated by a human sperm, a tiny little zinc firework explodes around the egg, researchers at Northwestern University say. The larger the zinc firework, the healthier the egg is for developing a viable embryo. Zinc is now officially the sexiest chemical on the periodic table.

Researchers say this could have huge benefits toward choosing the healthiest eggs for in vitro fertilization. "It’s a way of sorting egg quality in a way we’ve never been able to assess before," said Northwestern's Teresa Woodruff.

To think, all those years creepy guys said they could make fireworks happen in the bedroom--they weren't lying.

The Friday Poem: Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, by Mary Elizabeth Frye

As another week concludes, we end with a random poem. Famous poets, obscure poets, amateur poets, whatever poets--just a poem to cap off the week.

Like this one:


Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Spain sort of shoulder shrugged their way through Cervantes' own 400th anniversary.

Cervnates is so sad, even his
mustache and eyebrows are frowning.

Not only does Spain contrast with England in weather, food, and attractiveness of its citizenry, it also contrasts in how they venerate their nation's most famous writer.

This weekend England nearly ground to a collective halt in adoration of their dearly departed Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death. The Royal Mint released a coin commemorating him, monarchy praised him, and every cultural and public institution seemingly held an event to honor him. Things were as Englishy as England gets outside of a Monty Python sketch in the rain.

But just south, in Spain, the nation had to be tapped on the shoulder to be reminded that the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' death was occurring, too.

How badly was Cervantes ignored? Arturo Pérez-Reverte, one of Spain’s best-selling novelists, wrote online that the Spanish government's response was "the international embarrassment of the year of Cervantes." No major celebrations, no cultural standstill. An annual book award in his name was given out, but that's done every year with a collective yawn from the populace.

Admittedly, Spain is in the fifth month without an elected government, but there is a government nonetheless. That government simply just didn't make much ado about anything. Proof in point: A little over a year ago, Cervantes' body was discovered in a convent. Yet, according to the historian who led the search, Fernando de Prado, Spain has done "absolutely nothing" to promote the burial site.

José María Lassalle, state secretary for culture, explained to the New York Times the laissez-faire attitude to the anniversary as an attempt "to break with the philosophy" of the 1980s and 1990s when socialist governments heavily subsidized celebrations and strictly directed them. In 2016, it was supposed to happen organically.

Lassalle forgot that even organic things sometimes never grow.

On the 452nd anniversary of his birth and the 400th anniversary of his death, Shakespeare is still dead.

Just an update.

Even National Geographic has figured out an angle to Shakespeare this week.

I'm sort of what Shakespeare meant!

In all the breathless excitement over the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, there's been a huge chasm where reporting is lacking and the masses need an answer.

Such as, what is National Geographic going to do to find an angle on the Bard's death?

Wait no longer, folks. National Geographic, that stalwart that has had its fingers on the pulse of maps  geographic anomalies  space exploration  historical context  weather patterns  animal behaviors  political machinations  16th century English Renaissance literature, has the answer. To commemorate the anniversary of Shakespeare's death, they've created a slideshow of thirteen animals mentioned in his work.

They take some liberties though. Where they quote Shakespeare mentioning an ape from The Taming of the Shrew, National Geographic shows a Pileated Gibbon. Admittedly, that was always Shakespeare's literary Achilles heal: a lack of references to obscure gibbons.

Now, if only the Journal of Opthamology will stop holding out and release their story on eyes in Shakespeare. The people need to know!

Los Angeles Times critic asks if Shakespeare and Cervantes ever sort of had a connection.

"What would Cervantes do..."

Later this week is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, which means all the crazy lovely little anecdotes and what the--? cute side stories are burrowing out of the woodwork to commemorate the Bard's life and work.

Cases in point:

NPR talks about Shakespeare's love of scenes based around large meals--mainly because people die shortly thereafter in his dramas. It's like your family's Thanksgiving if everyone gave in to the simmering turmoil over grandma burning the candied yams again.

The Guardian looks at "Bed tricks and broken women: Shakespeare's guide to love," in case you thought the glory days of romance involved bathing once a month.

And the Los Angeles Times resorts to daydreaming that Shakespeare is somehow connected to Cervantes.

It's true. Cervantes died 400-years ago this year as well. In fact, it was 400-years ago this week, too (although by different calendars--Julian vs. Gregorian--just play along). But the Spanish Cervantes and the English Shakespeare almost assuredly never met, one of the greatest shames in literary history. The closest connection ever posited is that an elderly Shakespeare adapted an early partially-translated segment of Cervante's Don Quixote and named the second rate play The History of Cardenio. And even that's a stretch connection.

That's it. That's the only relation between two of history's greatest writers who died nearly the same time, separated by a relatively small gulf of water.

And it's probably the only time Shakespeare's attempt at a similar work paled in comparison to another.

Harper Lee wasn't a fan of Donald Trump's Taj Mahal Casino.

Apparently not a fan of slots or blackjack.

You should have furrowed your brow bright there when thinking about Harper Lee somehow connected to not only a casino, but Donald Trump's Taj Mahal Atlantic City Casino.

In a letter dated from 1990 found in Lee's New York City apartment, and currently up for auction online, Lee wrote a friend regarding having guests stay at the Taj Mahal. "The worst punishment God can devise for this sinner is to make her spirit reside eternally at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City," Lee wrote, shortly after the casino was opened.

On the campaign trail, Trump hasn't commented, but it'll probably be this:

"Who's Harper Lee? I mean, really, who is she? She's washed up. I'm telling you. She hasn't released anything new in, like, fifty years, maybe more. It's kid stuff, that Mockingbird junk. When I owned the Taj Mahal, it was the greatest casino ever developed. It was more popular, more important than the one in India. No one on the planet had seen such a thing. I mean, really, what would you rather do? Play at the greatest casino on the planet or read a dopey book about I, I, I don't even know--what's that book about?--bird killing? Do you want to read about birds being murdered? What's it, a how-to manual? Get her outta here with this stuff."

Lee's letter, by the way, has a current bid of $1,330.




Don't we all want to know the reasoning behind why Harper Lee was hosting guests at a New Jersey casino in the first place, regardless of the Trump angle? This is akin to F. Scott Fitzgerald inviting friends to AA meetings or Ernest Hemingway deciding that knitting circles are the next hot happening trend.

Fairytales are old. And it turns out they're a lot older than originally thought.

A study released by the Royal Society Open Studies journal reveals that fairytales began earlier than once thought. A lot earlier.

Looking at common links between 275 Indo-European stories, Durham University anthropologist Dr. Jamie Tehrani and folklorist Sara Graça da Silva from the New University of Lisbon concluded fairytales pre-date commonly believed origins by thousands of years.

As The Guardian, which spoke to Tehrani and da Silva, writes:


"Analysis showed Jack and the Beanstalk was rooted in a group of stories classified as The Boy Who Stole Ogre’s Treasure, and could be traced back to when eastern and western Indo-European languages split – more than 5,000 years ago. Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin to be about 4,000 years old. A folk tale called The Smith and the Devil was estimated to date back 6,000 years to the bronze age."

The Smith and the Devil never gained the popularity of other stories, although it takes on similar themes of a trickster (the Devil, shockingly) being tricked (noo!).

By comparison, Aesop looks like a new kid to the storyteller game by being only 2,500 years old or so. And Mother Goose? Let's not speak of her amateur hour shenanigans again.

You'll never look at a Walgreens the same way again.

Researchers claim they have identified the site where the accused from the Salem Witch Trials were hanged. It overlooks a modern-day Walgreens.

The story popularized in Arthur Miller's fictionalized play The Crucible has long been in the consciousness of American history, but no one knew for certainty where the hangings occurred.

Using "advanced mapping techniques" and cross-researching eyewitness accounts with stories of the events surrounding the hangings, historians believe with without a doubt that those executed for being witches were killed on top of a wooded hill in Salem, MA, which today is called Proctor's Ledge, where a small monument will be erected. And, yes, the hillside looks down upon a Walgreens.

But I think we all kind of look down on Walgreens. It's no CVS.

Where Dead Writers Reside, Part Eight: Truman Capote, Dylan Thomas, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Willa Cather,

It's October, and that requires obligatory Halloween-inspired posts. And nothing is more obligatorily macabre than looking at the tombstones of those who have died.

Every year we do this. Now through Halloween we'll occasionally post collections of tombstones to see where famous writers are hanging out today.

Today: Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Willa Cather


Truman Capote:

I actually have 1/2 of Capote's ashes, too!

Truman Capote got by in life on three things: a unique name, drug/alcohol addiction, and verbally clawing the eyes out of almost every writer that existed during his time. (Gore Vidal was a popular target. But it was Gore Vidal after all.)

Capote had a whirlwind life. Crazy parents, an early life being neighbors with Harper Lee, vagabond teen years, time working at The New Yorker, pissing off Robert Frost*, fame and notoriety, friendships with a cast of characters (like Andy Warhol), and a liver that was a beast all kept Capote going into his 50s.

Then the liver gave out. He officially died of liver cancer at the age of 59, although a coroner's report claimed there was a fantastic concoction of drugs in his system, too, which didn't help matters.

Tombstone Notes:
Capote's life was timid compared to afterlife. Shortly after dying he was cremated, with his ashes potentially split between two individuals--Jack Dunphy and Joanne Carson (the ex-wife of Johnny Carson). Except maybe not. Dunphy claimed he received all of the ashes, not half. Carson, meanwhile, said she kept her share of ashes in an urn in the room where Capote died.

When in doubt, claim you have some of the ashes.

In 1988, Carson claimed her ashes were stolen, along with $200,000 in jewels. Capote's ashes were later returned, hidden in a coiled-up hose in the backyard of Carson's home. A year later, the ashes were nearly stolen again during a dinner party. Cremated remains = hot commodity.

After Dunphy died in 1992, he was cremated as well. It took two years, but in 1994 Dunphy's ashes were taken with his own alleged stash of leftover Capote, and both scattered in various spots of water around New York.

All we really know for certain are two things: Capote bought a crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, where maybe no one is buried, and Dunphy had a memorial stone placed at one location where someone's ashes were tossed about.



Dylan Thomas:

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our next literary alcoholic, Dylan Thomas!

Nothing much of note has ever really come from Wales, especially on the writing front. A Welsh person will rattle off twenty names for you, half of which sound like real names--but there's not a chance you've ever read anything by them. That is, of course, unless Dylan Thomas is mentioned.

Thomas wasn't a stellar student, and largely did nothing of note academically--yet he wrote poetry feverishly. In his teen years he gained some small popularity, and built a reputation off that. He also gained an appetite for smoking and drinking, and built a bigger reputation off those.

Writing doesn't pay terribly well, and it didn't pay much back in the 1940s and '50s. As a result, Thomas often embarked on reading tours to generate more money. It was on one of these reading tours of America that Thomas, while looking ill to everyone he encountered, went out drinking in New York City. After spending all night at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, Thomas went back to his hotel and loudly proclaimed, "I've had 18 straight whiskeys! I think that's the record!"

He spent the next couple days still drinking, before falling even more ill. Eventually he ended up in the hospital and died within the week. Pneumonia was the official cause of death, with pressure on the brain and a fatty liver contributing.

Note to self: Quit at 17 straight whiskeys.

Tombstone Notes:
Wales isn't known for its writers, and it isn't known for stylish looking tombstones.

Thomas is buried in the over-spill graveyard of St. Martin's Church, Laugharne, Dyfed, Wales, under a simple white cross with garish writing from someone we can only assume just started out with amateur calligraphy. Although bonus point for trying to squeeze "memory" in diagonally on the cross and putting his name off-center.



Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Good news! Dunbar eschewed the trend of trying to kill himself via addiction!

The bad news? Death gets us all in the end.

Dunbar lived a short life, but a life packed with a vast amount of publications, from poetry to novels to short stories. Born of two former slaves--including a father who joined the Massachusetts 55th Infantry Regiment (the second all-black infantry in America's history, after the 54th Regiment portrayed in the movie Glory)--Dunbar had the stereotypical childhood all writers hope to have.

Unhappily married parents? Check.

Divorced parents? Check.

Dad dying while Dunbar still a kid? Check.

Off and running with the sad story, Dunbar didn't allow it to keep his ambitions down. By the age of 16, he started publishing poems. Yet, despite initial luck in being published, he still lacked fame. That is until William Dean Howells, editor of The Atlantic Monthly and author himself, gave rave reviews to the young poet.

Throughout his 20s Dunbar gained popularity, so much so that he toured Europe to read his work. But it generally went downhill after that. By the age of 27, Dunbar was diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised by doctors to go to Colorado for the dry air, and to drink whisky to alleviate his symptoms. (Oh, no...) Dunbar and his wife started to drift apart because of his dependence on alcohol (...not again!...), and they separated.

At the age of 33, his health damaged even further from his addiction to whisky (...this wasn't supposed to be about booze!...), Dunbar died, officially, from his bout of tuberculosis (...but alcohol won again).

Tombstone Notes:
Buried in his hometown of Dayton, OH, Dunbar's tombstone includes a plaque bolted to a giant, irregular boulder. On the plaque is a verse of his poetry written in what was called "Negro dialect" of the antebellum south.

The verse is about death, just to really drive the point home.



Willa Cather:

This time, I promise, a writer who didn't find friendship at the bottom of a bottle. I swear.

In fact, compared to most, Cather's life was downright homey and lovely. Born to two stable parents, her family initially lived in Virginia. Before her 10th birthday, with a father fearing tuberculosis running rampant throughout the region (hello, Paul Laurence Dunbar!), the Cathers picked up stakes and moved to Nebraska.

It's in Nebraska that young Willa Cather became affected by the sprawling land and unique personalities. As a freshman at the University of Nebraska, she intended to go into medicine and become a physician--but a publication of an essay in the Nebraska State Journal convinced Cather she could write. She'd end up graduating with a B.A. in English.

As the years passed, success found her. Short stories, magazine articles, and novels came forth, as did awards like the Pulitzer Prize. She never married, instead living with a female friend for most of her life, especially after moving to New York City.

Nothing major afflicted Cather as she aged into her 70s, although biographies note her health faded for nondescript reasons. Death isn't nondescript though, as Cather died from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Take THAT, alcohol!

Tombstone Notes:
In a great bait-and-switch, Cather was buried in Jaffrey, NH, in a plot beside her longtime friend. Why Jaffrey? Cather was one of the few people in American history who could handle stepping foot into New Hampshire often, and traveled to Jaffrey later in life to write in silence.

The tombstone includes a passage from her novel My Antonia: "...that is happiness; to be dissolved
into something complete and great."

Dissolve. Kind of ghoulish. But I guess "ashes to ashes, dust to dust"...




*Capote vs. Frost:
Capote, while young, largely unknown, and still working at The New Yorker, went to Vermont for vacation--yet he was violently ill with flu. Frost, while old, largely famous worldwide, and still writing poetry, went to the hotel where Capote was staying to give a reading.

Knowing he was from The New Yorker, the hotel manager convinced Capote to attend Frost's reading, which he did. After a short while, and feeling sickly, Capote stood up and started to leave the room. Frost, indignant, allegedly threw a book of poetry at Capote as he exited.

The next day, Frost contacted the editors at The New Yorker and asked, "Who the hell is this Truman Capote, anyway?"

Capote, later in life, described Frost as "the meanest man who ever drew breath, an old fake dragging around with a shaggy head of hair and followed by pathetic old ladies from the Middle West."

Admittedly, Frost did have one hell of a head of hair.

The Friday Poem: Sleep, by James Weldon Johnson

As another week concludes, we end with a random poem. Famous poets, obscure poets, amateur poets, whatever poets--just a poem to cap off the week.

Like this one:

Sleep,  by James Weldon Johnson

O Sleep, thou kindest minister to man,
Silent distiller of the balm of rest,
How wonderful thy power, when naught else can,
To soothe the torn and sorrow-laden breast!
When bleeding hearts no comforter can find,
When burdened souls droop under weight of woe,
When thought is torture to the troubled mind,
When grief-relieving tears refuse to flow;
'Tis then thou comest on soft-beating wings,
And sweet oblivion's peace from them is shed;
But ah, the old pain that the waking brings!
That lives again so soon as thou art fled!
Man, why should thought of death cause thee to weep;
Since death be but an endless, dreamless sleep?

Maya Angelou's house is for sale. You better like yellow and/or painting.

Maya Angelou died a year and a half ago, and after an estate sale of many of belongings the place she called home for the last twenty years of her life is for sale.

Located in Winston-Salem, NC, the property boasts six bedrooms and nine (!!) bathrooms--potentially making up 85% of all the bathrooms existing in the metro area.

Do you like yellow? No? How handy are you with a paint brush? Angelou's favorite color was yellow, a hue she wasn't afraid to plaster on nearly every exterior space throughout the property. The main house, the multi-car garage, and guesthouse come coated in a puss-colored shade of yellow that only someone with diseased lungs could appreciate.

She bought the house in 1994 for roughly $600,000, and despite drastically expanding the house to over 7,300sq. feet, the property is for sale for $805,000, regardless of her name recognition.

Angelou's expansion wasn't technically out of necessity. Before moving to North Carolina, she lived in California, but was offered a lifetime professor position at Wake Forest University. Upon making the move from a ten room home in California, her view of house-living changed. As she told the Wall St. Journal in 2012, "I thought I was going to buy a nice little house. I’d wrap it around me in a poetic way, and I’d live a poetic existence. But then I thought, 'Wait a minute. If I moved from a 10-room house [in California] and into a three-or four-room house, then what am I telling myself? That I’ve been reduced?' I couldn’t do that."

Soooooooo, she didn't channel her inner Henry David Thoreau I take it.



photo: from the real estate listing page