At the end of the week, what was learned? What’s new?
I learned about a cartoon called The Outbursts of Everett True. It’s hardly the most important thing, but everything else I learned seemed to be an extension of something I already knew.
In retrospect, the cartoon wasn’t new, either, inasmuch as I’ve spent a lot of time in the last two years studying newspaper cartoons of the Teens and Twenties. It was a revelation about the amount of pent-up fury in 1913, though. We’ll get to that in a second.
When was the last time you learned something that wasn’t an extension of your knowledge set? I love learning things that have nothing to do with my interests, if it has substance. Learning that there is a YouTube show about two men in wigs is not one of them; learning about Belgian cheese regulations does not count; learning something about Space sometimes counts, but we all are accustomed to knowing just enough about Space to think “given the mysteries of the Universe and our evermore sophisticated means of interrogating the inky depths, yeah, that’s par for the course.”
Sometimes you learn that current beliefs about something are just plain wrong, but it’s not widely known - say, a recent Reddit thread called “what’s something known in your industry that isn’t known outside it, and would change everything if it was widely known.” You can’t trust these threads, because anyone can say anything, but the post that stuck out said the home-DNA-testing kids were junk, and the result were junk, and the idea that you can figure out that you’re 7% American Indian was junk. I can see that. But I don’t know.
Do you respond positively to new knowledge because it makes you feel as if you have inside skinny? Does it reinforce your self-conception as a skeptical thinker? Does that self-conception make you gullible to nonsense?
Anyway. Everett True.
I found one example in an old paper, and was mystified.
What did this mean? What happened?
Took a while to find more, but then all was clear. Mr. True was a fellow who responded promptly and violently to minor, careless, anti-social behavior, or inadvertent displays of human nature. Do the wrong thing in his presence, and he would beat you half to death.
He tracked the guy down and turned him to bloody mush with his enormous fists.
People loved the strip. The middle-class newspaper readers loved to see people get struck on the head, thrown from trolleys, pushed down the stairs, and otherwise abused by a large angry man who’d had enough of everything and everyone. One paper ran a front page story asking readers who Mr. True should abuse if he came to their town.
People had lots of suggestions.
Let's take a look at the Children's Internet, and see how those headline-writing seminars are going:
The author is a priviledged white guy, as evidenced by the fact that he can say he would do Dr. Phil, but would be excoriated if he said the same thing abut, say, oh, Helen Mirren.
Dispatches from a world whose existence I was previously unaware:
Great proofreading there, folks.
That's three of us!
Meanwhile, in link-chum (and yes, I am paying to have them removed next year):
This pole vaulters what? You'll have to click! Maybe there will be an apostrophe on the site! Maybe not!
Also, how long can they milk that one Pole Vaulter's photo? (This is not it.) Forever.
Not chum, but a tweet from an accout I swear I unfollowed because it was so relentlessly banal:
"Eventually my work in low-income neighborhoods transformed my heart and I began to loathe the poor! It was a wonderous thing!"
I think how you land there, where you land, and what you transform into are the important aspects, but this account always falls over gossamer-strength "wisdom" like this.
I wonder how Everett True would respond to Twitter.
Dull as this is right now, you'll be happy when it's done and you can say "I was there in the difficult, ugly days."
Context:
"This calls for a woman hunt."
She's a pretty cool customer, no? Solution is here.
OH PLEASE NOW you say. WE'VE DONE THIS. WHAT MORE IS THERE TO SAY
Well, tarry a moment. For most of 2019 you heard Tony Martin introduce the show from the Blue Note Cafe, piano tinkling in the background, as everyone smoothed the way for Anchor Hocking's spot.
Then Anchor Hocking pulled out.
There was still Tony . . . in a sense.
The new announcer may be familiar to a few of you.
In the absence of notable cues, we'll get this week's ad right out of the way here.
How long did Toni last? Tune in next week.
Everyone loves movie themes! They couldn't possibly ruin -
Oh
Wikipedia: "Born a dwarf (he stood 4 feet 6 inches as an adult) in Washington, D.C., he worked as a newspaper seller until being discovered at a contest in Boston held by bandleader Borrah Minnevitch, of The Harmonica Rascals. Soon he joined a comedy variety act, during which time he learned the art of pantomime that contributed so much to his success. He then joined the Rascals, with whom he toured the world."
Bonus:
Puleo was one of the very first performers to introduce America to using the zip code. In a TV commercial, he climbed up a small ladder and said, "Now remember, use your zip code," as he pointed to a letter going into the mail box.
Apparently he made more than one.
That'll hold the little bastiches. Is this mike on? Sorry. See you Monday!
