Reddit user u/est-1913 used The Poetry Foundation's information to create a visual representation of the most common words used in World War One poetry.
Knowing what we know of The Great War, its brutality, its outcome, etc., what's striking is the emotional progression of how the war finds itself represented in language, which u/est-1913 displays in the following graph.
"Love" leads the way in the hopeful beginning stages of the war in 1915. Two years of trench warfare later, and "mud" dominates poems by 1917.
In the decade following the war, "dead," "died," and "time" become most commonly used.
If you're reading H.P. Lovecraft stories, odds are you're an insomniac bored late at night with nothing else to do. Video game playing operates the same way.
Late at night is when nostalgia often kicks in, too. This explains why there's now a a computer game based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story that channels everything unimpressive about video games from the 1980s.
"The Rats in the Walls" is one of the better known horror stories Lovecraft made, which was published in 1924. The website itch.io celebrates various forms of art as it comes into the public domain every year, allowing people to use previously popular works of art freely in new forms. This is how we get an old-timey looking computer game, made by Alex Blechman.
In it, you don't play the protagonist Delapore (an American who buys a tired ancestral home in England), you play the rats in the walls that are slowly driving him insane.
The game (and story) is about as action-packed as an assisted-living community after 10pm on a Tuesday. If you loved playing The Legend of Zelda thirty years ago, then you'll probably hyperventilate playing this.
But what else are you going to do when insomnia kicks in?
Sometimes the most forgotten things are suddenly remembered.
Looking over their database for the most-borrowed book of 2019, the Royal Halloway Library in Egham, England, stumbled upon one bit of sad news: The one book that had gone the longest without being loaned out.
So, they changed that.
The book--There and Back by George MacDonald, originally published in 1891--was given a whirlwind tour, which they detailed on their Twitter account.
Loyal followers. We bring sad news.
As part of our research into the Top 5 Most Borrowed Books 2019 we found that one book hadn't been borrowed for a very long time. It's just been there, collecting dust, staring out the window at other books achieving their book destiny. pic.twitter.com/K8mnzAkxCo
We took it to all the best spots in the library: the Mezzanine, the Feature Wing. We settled down for a good read on the bridge in the Atrium. You can't say we don't know how to show a book a good time.
The staff became quite smitten with the book during the day with There and Back. And like any true love that develops, it's what's on the inside that matters most:
We used sticky notes to highlight our favourite bits in the book. NOT PEN 😠 as we all know how to be respectful to books.
Whilst the cover is nice, the content is what really makes this book beautiful.
After a while, they even did a quick twirling video that channeled everything glorious about the Mary Tyler Moore Show intro.
It might be bold, but at the end of the day, we weren't ashamed to admit that we would have made room on the raft for this book. pic.twitter.com/3tXVpYmj9T
Obviously, now that There and Back was everywhere and back, this means there's a new book that holds the title of going the longest without being borrowed at the Royal Holloway Library.
Sadly, they never mention that book.
Sometimes the most forgotten things remain forgotten.
...and the winner is a children's book. The Snow Day by Ezra Jack Keats leads the way.
In fact, most of the list is made up of children's books, which makes sense considering they're a quick read and children tend to mow through books in about five minutes. All the rest of the books on the list are quite short, too, ranging in the 300-page area.
The New York Public Library turns 125-years old in 2020, which means they're looking back at their history. This leads to wondering what books they've loaned out the most in that time. All books on the list are fiction, except one--the 1936 self-help How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
That's right--nebbish Dale Carnegie was an influencer long before Instagrammers wooed the masses and hawked moisturizers and salad mixes. The book was a major draw for decades, even leading Time Magazine in 2011 to award it as one of the 100 most influential books.
So, what cracked the top-10?
The Top Ten:
1.) The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats: 485,583 checkouts
2.) The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss: 469,650 checkouts
3.) 1984 by George Orwell: 441,770 checkouts
4.) Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak: 436,016 checkouts
5.) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: 422,912 checkouts
6.) Charlotte's Web by E.B. White: 337,948 checkouts
7.) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: 316,404 checkouts
8.) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: 284,524 checkouts
9.) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling: 231,022 checkouts
10.) The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle: 189,550 checkouts
The Caldecott Medal-winning The Snowy Day was released in 1962, but eight of the ten books listed all came from a window ranging between 1949-to-1969, with only Harry Potter and the aforementioned How to Win Friends as the outliers.
If you're wondering why Goodnight Moon isn't included on the list, not only do you have a curious and discerning taste in children's books, it's because the NYPL's children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore despised the book and refused to have the library carry it for decades. She died in 1961, so by the time the NYPL reaches its 200th anniversary, the book will crack the top-10.
This is the only blog post reposted on this site for seven years now.
In 1978, Charles Kuralt visited Alex and Mary Chandler in rural Mississippi. Sharecroppers who lived in a cabin, the Chandlers raised nine children who had nearly nothing to their name except the ability to pick cotton.
And, yet, all nine children graduated college.
Here is the five minute video that explains their story, and how they truly embody the thanks that should be in Thanksgiving.
[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]
Word:
codger
Definition:noun
A typically elderly man who is eccentric or strange in a humorous way.
Origin:
Despite the old man angle, this has nothing to do with anyone named Roger or that delicious fish we all love, cod.
Not a codger cod, but a tasty cod.
The best words are the ones that confuse the experts in a variety of ways. The beauty of a word like codger is that it not only suggests eccentric behavior, but it's so eccentric as a word that dictionaries and etymologists are lost. Nothing like quality synergy, I tell ya!
Google will tell you codger is derogatory, an insult to elderly men said by some misanthropic millennial. Yet, Dictionary.com suggests codger is said with affection, like when you aww-shucks your old uncle Ken (a codger) at his surprise 90th birthday party. The Free Dictionary? It defines codger as both offensive and loving. Indeed, all dictionaries waffle between both extremes when offering a definition. Kindergartners at an ice cream stand are more decisive.
Kind of like the old man in 'Up' was a codger.
What experts agree on is that codger first came into use by the mid-1700s as an evolution of the obsolete word cadger. A cadger was someone who begged or was a peddler, based off the verb to cadge. It suggests a more romantic time for homelessness or being destitute, all while channeling the best of Charles Dickens before Dickens ever got around to making poverty look quaint. Oliver Twist? Totally grew up to be a codger.
Oliver Twist is a codger waitin' to happen!
As for cadge/cadger--etymologists have no idea where it came from. Some suggest the Middle English caggen, meaning "to tie," but how tying something came to mean begging is beyond understanding.
At least we can envision Granddad being eccentric like some pre-Victorian era beggar.
3.)Usually following the word "old"; a coffin dodger, an old person who moans about their arthritis. They have little hair on their head, but compensate by tufts sprouting from their ears and noses (male) chins and top lips (female). They dispise anything that anyone under 30 may do. Cant manage to drive more than 30mph, and only drive on Sundays.
Codgers only drive like this in shopping plaza parking lots.
Used in a sentence:
The flaky codger taught the kids in the alley how he used to play dice back in the day.
Why you should use 'codger' in your everyday life:
How often can you offend someone in a pleasant way?
Word Awesomeness Scale (1-to-5):
Two
After all, alluding that Gramps is also a beggar and/or a peddler is a bit low.
The West Danville library originally opened as a gas station in the 1930s before making the natural transition into a library. ((((scratches head)))) For whatever reason, by 1948 the library closed and remained vacant until today, when it will have its grand reopening.
The 1930s: Gas stations as libraries. Naturally.
You'll never look at your local Mobil, Shell, or Exxon station the same way again now.
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:
Of Happiness To Mortal Man, by Bacchylides
Of happiness to mortal man
One is the road, and one the goal
To keep unburthen'd, all he can,
From loads of care the tranquil soul.
But whoso toileth night and day,
Nor day nor night permits sweet rest.
To steal him from himself away,
Or still the fever of his breast,
Nought will it profit, though he bear
On gloomy brow the stamp of care.
When I was a kid, I memorized The Golden Girls and Cheers theme songs, like it was a Jeopardy category. I was made for karaoke at Japanese bars or to entertain 80-year old grandmas in their living rooms with my dulcet tones.
If you're over the age of fifty--or you're someone who was raised on Nick-at-Nite reruns by nostalgic parents--there's a chance these musical theme songs sound familiar to you. The definition of an ear worm is what these theme songs represent. You'll hum one of them for the next week while standing in line at Starbucks for a unicorn frappuccino. You'll hum them at a bus stop. You'll hum them walking down the street.
In the end, you--will--hum.
It seems many television shows from bygone eras with catchy themes had lyrics all along, except we never knew there were any words to them. THERE WERE WORDS.
So, here are eight television shows that were always known by a musical theme, but apparently had lyrics all along. Impress your grandma and sing them to her the next time you see her.
1.) The Dick Van Dyke Show
If you're over 60-years old, skip ahead. You're humming it right now as you read this.
If you're under 60-years old, The Dick Van Dyke Show was one of the most popular shows on television in the 1960s, routinely airing in the top-10 most watched shows. Its stars, Dick Van Dyke (shocker) and Mary Tyler Moore, both won multiple Emmy Awards for their roles.
And the theme song heavy on the brass section actually had lyrics all along:
So you think that you've got troubles? Well, trouble's a bubble So tell old Mr. Trouble to get lost! Why not hold your head up high and Stop cryin', start tryin' And don't forget to keep your fingers crossed. When you find the joy of livin' Is lovin' and givin' You'll be there when the winning dice are tossed. A smile is just a frown that's turned upside down So smile, and that frown will defrost. And don't forget to keep your fingers crossed.
That's passively-agressively depressing in a lyrical form. Just a hunch, but maybe that's why the producers of the show just went with the instrumental version.
It sounds better when the actual star of the show, Dick Van Dyke, actually sings it, as he did a few years ago on Rachael Ray's show, of all places.
When the 90-ish year old, white-haired star of the show sings it in a grandfatherly tone, it sounds quaint and adorable.
Hat-tip to Mary Tyler Moore for the sound effects.
2.) Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes took all the rib-tickling hilarity of Nazi POW camps and made a sitcom out of the situation. If you can't laugh at your own potential extermination, what can you laugh at, amiright?
The jaunty lyrics never sung before the show sound like a propaganda film come to life. A public service announcement for the U.S. Marines has less machismo then these words:
Heroes, heroes, husky men of war, Sons of all the heroes of the war before. We're all heroes up to our ear-o's You ask the questions We make suggestions That's what we're heroes for. All good heroes love a good, big fight Open up the bomb bays and brighten up the night. We earn laurels solving your quarrels You pull the roses, We punch the noses, That's what we're heroes for. What's a hero do? Well, we're not gonna tell ya Cause we wish we knew. That's why we heroes are so few. We've got a slogan From Colonel Hogan And Colonel Hogan's a hero too. Never flinch, boys, never be afraid, Heroes are not born, boys, heroes all are made. Ask not why, boys, never say die, boys, Answer the call, remember we'll all be heroes forever more
Well, after hearing that, I've already called my local recruiting office and signed up for a tour of duty.
Side note: Hogan's Heroes ended without World War II ever ending. Did the war ever end? Don't spoil it for me! I want to be surprised!
3.) Bonanza
There was a cute time in America--mainly around the 1950s and '60s--where everyone was in love with cowboys. The whole craze single-handedly kept John Wayne with employment for a solid two decades.
Bonanza aired for 14 seasons AND 431 EPISODES on NBC. Seinfeld, by comparison, in the 1990s had only 180. (And if you think that's insane, another cowboy show, Gunsmoke, which aired during the same era, HAD 635 EPISODES on CBS. Americans loved themselves some rootin'-tootin' stuff in the 1960s.)
The theme song of Bonanza was catchy, though. The version with lyrics never aired, but the original pilot episode had the cast sing them at the end of the episode.
I'm not afraid of any pretty maid — Bonanza! Bonanza! When I give a kiss to any little miss She'll learn a lot from me Hair of brown, hair of gold I'll take what I see We're not a one to saddle up and run — Bonanza! Bonanza! Anyone of us who starts a little fuss Knows he can count on me One for four, four for all This we guarantee
All the appeal of sexual aggression and brouhaha antics that usually leads to arrests and a court date. Sounds delightful!
4.) M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H was originally a 1968 novel made into a 1970 movie, which then became a 1972 television series that lasted eleven years. This is to say it was a cash cow.
It all had to deal with the hilarity of surgeons out in the field of battle of the Korean War--a war which, itself, only lasted three years. Nothing brings a hearty chuckle like extending the thought of warfare by a decade.
But M*A*S*H's theme had lyrics, written originally by the film director Robert Altman's teenage son. The song's title? Suicide Is Painless.
Clearly, it's a comedy built on a speedball of lyrical depression.
Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me I realize that I can see That suicide is painless It brings so many changes And I can take or leave them if I please The game of life is hard to play I'm gonna lose it anyway The losing card of some delay So this is all I have to say The sword of time will pierce our skin It doesn't hurt when it begins But as it works its way on in The pain grows stronger watch I bring A brave man once requested me To answer questions that are key Is it to be or not to be And I replied oh why ask me
What? No references to Lou Gehrig's Disease and cancer while you're at it? Where are the chuckles?!
In case you have short-term memory loss, remember that these weren't the lyrics to some horrifyingly depressing medical drama. This was a comedy show. But apparently nothing tickles the insides like the thought of suicide.
5.) Bewitched
Theme songs in the 1960s were always jaunty little 30-second numbers that apparently had a secret jazzy life, as we see with Bewitched's theme.
Here's Steve Lawrence, famous for being from the husband and wife duo of Steve & Eydie, but also known for a head of hair that required amazing amounts of styling products and creepy Vegas lounge club vibe where he's winking at you nonstop from the stage while he takes a drag from his menthol cigarette.
Bewitched, Bewitched, You've got me in your spell. Bewitched, Bewitched, You know your craft so well. Before I knew what I was doing I looked in your eyes That brand of woo you've been brewin' Took me by surprise. You witch, you witch, One thing is for sure. That stuff you pitch Just hasn't got a cure. My heart was under lock and key, But somehow it got unhitched. I never thought that I could be had But now I'm caught and I'm kinda glad To be Bewitched.
I'm just taken by any song that uses the word "woo" seriously in its lyrics. That takes some moxie.
6.) I Dream of Jeannie
1967 was the Summer of Love, which is to say everyone was in a haze and cloud of various, uhhh, medicinal products freely passed from one to another.
This also explains how two television shows about a witch (Bewitched) and a genie (I Dream of Jeannie) could somehow be the peak of television ratings then.
Jeannie had a boppy little musical intro which had lyrics thrown away by producers. Because when you're high on LSD, odds are the lyrics don't make much sense anyway.
Jeannie, fresh as a daisy. Just love how she obeys me, Does things that just amaze me so. She smiles, Presto the rain goes. She blinks, up come the rainbows. Cars stop, even the train goes slow. When she goes by She paints sunshine on every rafter, Sprinkles the air with laughter, We’re close as a quarter after three. There’s no one like Jeannie. I’ll introduce her, To you, but it’s no use, sir, Cause my Jeannie’s in love with me. She’s in love with me.
Oh, that not-so-subtle second line of how "she obeys me" can't go unheralded. The 1960s were such a hoot for casual misogynism!
7.) Star Trek
It's incredibly hard to find a video of the lyrics to the show without some fanboy of Star Trek dressed up like Spock or some random green alien singing the theme while snacking between their latest Taco Bell Supreme.
Many hours of my life were lost to find even just this basic video. Feel my pain.
Beyond The rim of the star-light My love Is wand'ring in star-flight I know He'll find in star-clustered reaches Love, Strange love a star woman teaches. I know His journey ends never His star trek Will go on forever. But tell him While he wanders his starry sea Remember, remember me.
Whosa--whatsa--whosa singing these lyrics? Is this a mystery woman? What just happened?
Now, Captain Kirk macked on a few women during his travels over the years, but these lyrics are straight out of Days of Our Lives. And a "star woman"? I didn't drink enough to understand what's going on right now.
8.) I Love Lucy
The timeless show--in that it's insane that after all this time people still know of I Love Lucy. It's only pushing seventy years at this point. No rush.
Move on? Pssh.
I love Lucy and she loves me We're as happy as two can be Sometimes we quarrel but then How we love making up again Lucy kisses like no one can She's my missus and I'm her man And life is heaven you see 'Cause I love Lucy Yes, I love Lucy And Lucy loves me
I have to call these lyrics out. The whole show was about how they argued 24/7 over everything, and yet their marriage was full of love? Really? Maybe Lucy doesn't actually love you, Desi--ever think of that? It's lovely to hear some smooth ballad crooned to your wife, but the remaining 23.5 hours of daylight you're yelling at her.
There's a reason Lucy and Desi had individual beds on the show.
According to Doubleday, the story--The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine--"follows a young boy who eats the flower sprouted by a magical seed and gains the ability to talk to animals. From there, the boy and his new animal friends go off on a wild adventure to rescue a kidnapped prince."
So, it's like Jack and the Beanstalk meets Doctor Doolittle.
In 1879, while the family was visiting Paris, Twain apparently told his daughters a bedtime story following the plot of Prince Oleomargarine. Afterward, Twain wrote 16-pages of notes on a potential full-length book, but left it at that. For over 130-years, the notes remained lost until scholar John Bird discovered them at the Mark Twain Papers & Project at the University of California at Berkeley in 2011.
Somehow, 16-pages of Twain's notes evolved into a 152-page storybook with illustrations by two other people.
Notes = 152-page book.
A "Twain" book.
Notes.
Based on this metric, I have written tens of thousands of books. It's impressive, if I do say so.
Charles Kuralt was an essayist and journalist for CBS, where he sought out the unique, the interesting, the small slices of good that exist in life.
In 1978, he visited Alex and Mary Chandler in rural Mississippi. Sharecroppers who lived in a cabin, the Chandlers raised nine children who had nearly nothing to their name except the ability to pick cotton.
And, yet, all nine children graduated college.
Here is the five minute video that explains their story, and how they truly embody the thanks that should be in Thanksgiving.
The brief life of Charlotte Bronte will be the focus of an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, where the original handwritten manuscript of Bronte's Jane Eyre will take center stage. It'll be on display in the United States for the first time in the book's 169-year history.
At least half of this is real writing.
Why so long to get around to it? I don't know. Why did it take so long for Charlotte Bronte to get to the point in her books? Why did every character take forever to fall in love?
You've heard similar stories before. Someone's rummaging around in an attic, finds some old, forgotten boxes, and discovers a piece of history worth $325,000. This inspires you to immediately run to your attic or basement where hopes of wonderful riches are quickly dismissed upon learning you only have old musty sweaters, 8-track cassettes, and dashed dreams. Que sera, sera.
And so the story goes again. A family is Mississippi recently discovered a letter in their attic that was written by Thomas Jefferson shortly after the War of 1812. Jefferson wrote the letter to then-U.S. Ambassador to France William Crawford, a relative of the modern Mississippi family.
In the letter, up for sale by The Raab Collection, Jefferson remarks about the Treaty of Ghent, which effectively ended the war and which was written in his Monticello home. The letter also offers Jefferson's thoughts on Napoleon--who had just lost his own war with Britain occurring the same time in Europe as the War of 1812 was raging in North America. According to Jefferson, Napoleon's "downfall was illy timed for us. It gave to England an opportunity to turn full handed on us, when we were unprepared. No matter. We can beat her on our own soil…"
Oooh, sassy passive aggression! Jefferson doing a little chest puffing and dismissive hand waving at both the British and Napoleon in one sentence.
All of Jefferson's sass can be yours for the sale price of $325,000.
But double-check your basement first. Just in case.
Royal Engineer John Squire was a noted soldier for the king's military, a learned man of good standing with a penchant for fine handwriting. This led to a diary detailing his stops in battle during the crown's fight with Napoleon's war across the continent. Any sort of diary two centuries old is valuable, never mind one of an officer from the Napoleonic War.
Fast forward 200-years, and Squire's diary was discovered in a cupboard--stacked amongst old, dusty books--in the back room of bookstore in Tasmania of all places. And no one knows exactly how it ended up there.
According to the BBC, the bookstore owner believes "the journal could have been in the shop for 20 years, but no-one [know's] how it arrived. A working theory is that it arrived with the colonists who established Van Diemen's Land." Van Diemen's Land was the former name of Tasmania shortly after it became known to Europeans in 1642.
Squire was no slouch, with a military resume that saw him at British campaigns in Egypt, including being present when the Rosetta Stone was handed over to the crown. He later spent time in South America, Sweden, and Portugal, where he eventually died of a fever.
Yet, strangely enough, his long lost diary might have been a better traveler than he ever was--however it was that it traveled.
FUN FACT!: After being discovered in 1642, Tasmania was thought to be part of mainland Australia. Somehow, despite a settlement long established on the southeastern tip, it took until 1798 for an explorer to circumnavigate the island and realize, you know, duh.
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.
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.
[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]
Word: Ragamuffin
Definition:noun
A ragged, disreputable person; often a child in dirty clothes and an unkempt state.
Origin:
Nothing pleases the British like making poverty sound quaint. Charles Dickens made a career off this model after all. And like most British words, ragamuffin is a child born of many parents.
There's no be-all origin story for ragamuffin. The first known use of it was in the Middle English epic poem Piers Plowman, not to be confused with modern English media personality Piers Morgan. Written in the 1300s about a character named Will who keeps falling asleep and having dreamvisions of spiritual meetings with religious figures, it's as exciting and titillating as you might imagine 14th century sleep to be. Ragamuffin makes its first known appearance in history as Ragamoffyn, a demon's name in the poem.
Morgan, not Plowman.
Wait--does this mean we actually have been calling Tiny Tim and Oliver Twist demons all this time? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying. We're all terrible people, you especially. I never claimed to like Dickens.
Most sources don't know what ragamuffin evolves from. The word probably comes from some variety of surname of the time, with "rag" being what you imagine--that thing you refuse to pick up to clean your bathroom. Even the famed English word master Samuel Johnson was uncommitted to the word's birth, actually stating in his famed dictionary, "From rag and I know not what else." In other words, he's got nothing. Thanks, Sam!
I got nothing for you.
"Muffin" probably just comes from a cute English wordplay, which is as cute as the Brits get, but some claim the word evolved from Middle Dutch's muffe, which means mitten, thus the clothing angle reinforced. Muffe would sound confusing these days after all, as we'd picture a fifty-something WASPy woman in jewels who is clearly no ragamuffin.
Shakespeare ends up using the word in 1597 in his play Henry IV (I'll save you the convoluted line), but it doesn't really gain traction in popularity until the 1800s. Writers like Louisa May Alcott, Anna Sewell, and Mark Twain all use it in their novels, and Charles Dickens pretty much creates the titular ideal of a ragamuffin in Oliver Twist. Google Books' Ngram Viewer even shows the spike in usage as the 19th century rolled on:
What does this all mean?
I don't know. Just that Oliver and Tiny Tim are demons.
12. A person who does not like turnips or rutabagas.
Used in a sentence:
Part of me wondered if Oliver was angelic, but something suggested he was demonic, especially considering his filthy appearance as a ragamuffin from the streets.
Why you should use ragamuffin in your everyday life:
It subtly suggests delicious breakfast treats while reminding you you're too dirty, poor, and disheveled to afford delicious breakfast treats.
Walt Whitman has been labeled many things, but humble is not one of them.
The same Walt Whitman that gets guff for being cocky about his writing ability is also the same Walt Whitman modest enough to spend many days during the Civil War visiting hospitals filled with wounded and dying soldiers, writing letters for them or simply sitting down to have a chat.
"He just literally visited people. And he bought stationery and he would bring it with him and he would offer to write letters home for them," she tells NPR's Michel Martin. "Many [soldiers] were illiterate but also many were just too sickly to write so he would offer to do that."
One such sickly soldier was Robert Nelson Jabo, a French Canadian living in New York state who was a Union soldier dying in a hospital too far away to reach family. Whitman sat down with Jabo to write the following:
Washington, Jan. 21, 1865(6)
My Dear Wife,
You must excuse me for not having written to you before. I have not been very well + did not feel much like writing – but I feel considerably better now – my complaint is an affection of the lungs. I am mustered out of service, but am not at present well enough to come home. I hope you will try to write back as soon as you receive this + let me know how you all are, how things are going on – let me know how it is with mother. I write this by means of a friend who is now sitting by my side + I hope it will be God's will that we shall yet meet again. Well I send you all my love + must now close. Your affectionate husband, Nelson Jabo Written by Walt Whitman a friend.
"I think Walt's time was the most important gift that he was giving these men," Budell tells NPR. "Really they just needed someone to sit by their side."
As did Jabo. He died from tuberculosis shortly after this letter was written.
Science performs a multitude of greater good for humanity. The good outweighs the bad in almost immeasurable ways. But there are those fleeting times science goes off-the-rails in head-shaking, sigh-inducing, groan-grumbling fashion. This is where we point to those great moments mistakes in science.
Today: The Cutting Down of a Nearly 5,000 Year Old Tree
They are relatively short and fairly ugly with little foliage, but they are as alive as they are ugly--and they are old. The oldest non-clonal organisms in the world are not the giant sequoia or the redwood. Instead, age is found in the plump, gangly limbs of the Great Basin bristlecone pine, found in the western United States, in spots humans rarely tread, so far and so distant the trees climb away from civilization and often into the mountains.
Donald Currey, then a graduate student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1964, was one of many scientists looking to seek out the oldest trees on the planet. For Currey, this was to examine the climate dynamics of the Little Ice Age, an event that happened from roughly the years 1300 to 1850. Currey's search brought him to Wheeler Peak in Nevada, where nearby bristlecone pines were known to survive well over a thousand years.
What's left of Prometheus. (Wikipedia)
Through a series of curious decisions by Currey, the National Park Service, or others, the then-oldest known living organism on the planet, a bristlecone named Prometheus, was cut down. The question that never has had a collectively-agreed upon answer is simple. Why?
Currey's aim seemed noble. He was looking to study climate change when it wasn't a talking point, even if it was climate change of centuries ago, and the coring of some trees in the Wheeler Peak area suggested this specific grove of bristlecones was at least 3,000-years old.
The problem with--or, maybe better said, the beauty of--bristlecones is that the very features of their appearance that look dead are often that. Dead. Significant portions of the tree can be killed during forest fires or other natural disasters, but if a portion survives the tree itself usually survives. Sometimes, although rarely, this strip of living tree can be as small as two inches wide, but such tiny available living trunk makes taking a coring sample difficult in order to ascertain the tree's actual age. Such was the case with Prometheus.
Stories vary as to how Prometheus ended up dead and on its side. The National Park Service claims they simply granted permission to "a researcher" (who is not named on their site, oddly) to take coring samples from some trees and to entirely cut down one other bristlecone. The Park Service alludes that Currey (who shall not be named!) simply chose Prometheus by chance. Upon felling the tree, he counted the rings and performed various analyses that said the bristlecone was 4,844 years old (and later raised to 4,862 years old), making it the then-oldest known living non-clonal organism in the world.
Other stories, like by The Smithsonian Magazine, claim that Currey simply aimed to sample Prometheus--yet, as the tree was so old, his coring tool became stuck in the bristlecone's deadened facade. A park ranger, Donald Cox, offering assistance at the time, allegedly allowed the tree to be the lone bristlecone cut down. And yet others, like at Terrain, say Currey knew fully well the tree he wanted was much older than others in the area and sought it out. The great curiosity, as the San Francisco Chronicle once noted, is if one is researching the Little Ice Age that happened somewhere around 600 years ago, why cut down any tree thousands of years old when many other younger trees would do?
The reasoning or fault for the end of Prometheus varies on which individual tells the story. Regardless, what always remains a constant is some people agreed, at some point, that the cutting down of a known thousands-of-years-old tree was acceptable. And--which might be the only concrete point of this story--Currey was only a graduate student at the time, not an expert in his field. His wealth of knowledge on ancient trees in 1964 was solid, although probably not rich. Not nearly as rich as when he died in 2004 as an esteemed scientist in his field.
In the end, Prometheus--the ancient Titan from Greek mythology--created mankind and gave humans fire, the power to destruct.
Leave it to humans to kill Prometheus--the ancient tree older than most Greek mythology--to complete the sad, poetic circle.
Written in 1936 before The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, or anything else that might bring him fame, J.R.R. Tolkien published two poems in the annual of Our Lady's School in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England. Somehow, as things came to pass, the poems were largely forgotten.
Wayne Hammond, a Tolkien Scholar, contacted the school's headmaster recently after research told him Tolkien had published the poems eight decades earlier. The poems--titled "The Shadow Man" and "Noel," a Christmas poem--will now be the centerpiece to a Tolkien exhibition at the school.
Let's hope "Noel" is just code for "hobbit," since no one will want to read it otherwise.
