Blog Alzheimers

Over the past twelve years or so, I have demonstrated on this blog – and its ancillary blogs – that I have a lot of time on my hands.

Folks were wowed by my witty commentary on The Cokesbury Party Blog, where I shared modern japery on the japes of yore.

They thrilled anew when I targeted my simpering wit at the Treasury of Laughter, a collection of humor some of which survives to this day.

But when visiting those sites now, they feel a little moth-eaten.

Not because my wit is off-point, no! But because many of the links – particularly of the embedded YouTube video variety – have gone to seed, taking readers to the most mundane of places*:

I have had the occasional thought: I should go through my blogs one by one, correcting the bloggy Alzheimer’s by finding new versions of the linked material. But then I think, “Wow, that would mean I *really* have a lot of time on my hands. And it’s likely with the passage of more time, the updated links would suffer the same fate.

Besides, some of the missing links on these blogs may seem easy to replace – there are a thousand options out there for Stupid Sexy Flanders – but some of them are a bit more obscure (like Hee-Haw), and I give no hints to their content in the accompanying text. So the best I could do was guess.

Perhaps, I say to myself, when YouTube is between its frenzied action of countermanding browser YouTube downloaders, I could download the videos I link to and then have them permanently on the blog. And open myself up to copyright trouble. No, better to have Google shoulder that burden, and put up with the dead links.

So the first option is better. But it’s a clear time sink. What to do?

Blog about it, for one. And then very likely do nothing about it.

What gaps there are in my blogs may well turn out to be like the gaps in our knowledge about ancient languages or hieroglyphics. Or of no consequence because they could disappear in an instant and the world would continue on its merry way.

*Excluding any of my blogs, that is.

What's A Compulsive to Do?

So now that the Treasury of Laughter blog is finished, it's up to this anal-compulsive blogger to find another topical thing to blog about. I really, really should be working on my book, and I have been doing that in fits and starts, but I'm finding that editing a book doesn't come with the raw intensity and purpose of writing a book. Nevertheless, I've dragged the manuscript out of mothballs and am going to give it another go. That's a good thing, since putting it away for a while will give me the emotional distance I need to fix its many flaws.

In the meantime, however, I need another topical blog. Horology seems to have the market on it cornered at the moment -- and it's true that I don't quite have the passion for wristwatches as I do for books.

Book blogs are cliche, however. Completely overdone. Besides, that's what I've got Goodreads for. Nevertheless, you'll note I've got a book cover here. It's one of the books I'm reading now. I'm not necessarily going to write about the book, though the thought has crossed my mind to start a blog about the collectible books I find to read. This one, for example - the People's Edition -- how New Deal, Progressivist/Socialist can you get -- edition of Grace Tully's not-tell-anything story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from the point of view of one of his secretaries. I got it for $2 at the local Deseret Industries -- which runs a thriving business of recycling old books tossed out of codgers' homes when they pass on. Per eBay and Amazon, this book is technically worth $26 -- and that's for a copy of a copy that they've bound and are selling as a retread of the book. But if I start a blog that's all about bragging about the bargain books I find, well, it's going to be one smarmy, short-lived blog, because I don't collect as much as I'd like. Besides, I'm in the mode now of boxing up books and putting them in storage because there's not enough room on the shelves and I can't convince Michelle to let me build new shelves upstairs. Oh well.

Not to worry, though. I'll keep working on the novel, feeding the muse at the Targhee Writers Blog. And who knows? Maybe I'll find another book to blog about. I nearly bought another party book a few weeks ago, but it was too tatty for the price they wanted. I'll keep looking.

"A Treasury of Laughter" Comes to an End

And another book blog is complete.

Oh, Louis Untermeyer includes a final collection of little bits -- several pages of insults -- but they're nothing I haven't read before. That's "A Treasury of Laughter," another book, like the Cokesbury Party Book (and blog) ending on a whimper, not a bang.

Nevermind. I enjoyed reading the book. I learned, I think, a bit about various writing styles and authors' voices, realizing that I like some, loathe others. Same will happen to me when I write.

C'est la guerre.

Time's Almost Up for the Treasury of Laughter

Come the third week of May, the era of the Treasury of Laughter blog will close.

I have officially finished reading the book, written my last post and put the book back on the shelf. It’s about time – the poor book, 65 years old, isn’t in the best of shape, though my wife ran it through her book press.

And like the Cokesbury Party Blog, it kind of goes out with a whimper rather than a bang, due in part to weak end material in the book itself, and also to my desire to finish blogging this book and take a rest for a bit.

Will I find another book to blog about?

I don’t know. I’ve got a few possibilities sitting on the bookshelf. But in the meantime, I’ve started two other blogs which are a little on the neglected side, and I’ve also started teaching part-time as an English instructor at a local university. Whether or not I start another blog depends on time and desire, and both are at a low ebb at the moment. Plus, I’ve got a fantasy novel to edit and farm out to agents before the year is out. I’m swamped. And I can’t even blame Guilder for it.

Used under the fair use doctrine for commentary purposes.

Just A Sample

Here's just a sample of what you're missing -- or not -- over at the Treasury of Laughter. Enjoy. I know I do.

Where I work we have a stink bug problem. If we have a week where we don’t see two or three of them trundling along the walk outside or from underneath the cubicle walls inside, we consider ourselves lucky. And it’s not necessarily the stink that’s worrisome, it’s the radioactivity they bring.

Because of this, I feel Don Marquis’ pain. As the creator of Archy and Mehitabel, a paste-eating cockroach and Cleopatra reincarnated as a cat, he lamented “It would be one on me if I should be remembered longest for creating a cockroach character.”

So this is one more on you, Mr. Marquis.

And thanks.

Here’s Archy’s first bit of vers libre poetry, as found on the typewriter:

expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it
there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore
there is a rat here she should get without delay

most of these rats here are just rats
but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him
he used to be a poet himself
night after night i have written poetry for you
on your typewriter
and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet
comes out of his hole when it is done
and reads it and sniffs at it
he is jealous of my poetry
he used to make fun of it when we were both human
he was a punk poet himself
and after he has read it he sneers
and then he eats it

i wish you would have mehitabel kill that rat
or get a cat that is onto her job
and i will write you a series of poems showing how things look
to a cockroach
that rats name is freddy
the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat
but something smaller i hope i will be a rat
in the next transmigration and freddy a cockroach
i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then

dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office
i haven't had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long
or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings
and paste and leave a piece of paper in your machine
every night you can call me archy

More, of course, is available here.


And oh, isn’t that the truth, the fierce competition and jealousy between poets. But as a rat poet, what exquisite relish to be able to eat one’s opponents’ words after having sneered at them.

Interestingly, Marquis’ work transcended the page, ending up as a musical, “Shinbone Alley,” starring Eddie Bracken as archy and Eartha Kitt as mehitabel and featuring the song “Toujours Gai,” based on a poem archy transcribes for the catty cat.

And further as a terribly-produced 1970s cartoon of the same name starring Bracken and Carol Channing at her bone-rattlingest.

Treasury of Laughter Has Returned . . . Again

All right everyone out there in Blog Land, the Treasury of Laughter is back. Cue the appropriate scene:

Used here under the fair use doctrine for educational purposes. Advance film to about 4:06.

And yeah, if this blog had any audience at all, I’m sure they’d be giving me the same stunned-bunny looks those Lake-Men give Thorin when he pops out of that barrel. But no matter. I’m back, and that’s what counts.

Hiatus at TOL Is Over

While the vacation was nice, it’s obviously time to get back to work.

And since my wife was kind enough to fix my copy of “The Treasury of Laughter” in her home made book press, I can actually open up and use and read the book without fear that it would fall apart in my hands. It’s still a bit delicate, but it’s a lot more robust now after her careful repairs. (Anyone interested in seeing our home made press in action, let me know in the comment section here.)

So go here for the latest installation at the Treasury of Laughter.

Treasury of Laughter Kicks Off

I promised it would start in May, and to my thankful legion of fans, I can say this: I will not disappoint. At least not in the starting in May thing. There are many other ways I am likely to disappoint over at The Treasury of Laughter blog, but at least, by golly, it started on time.

Yes, by golly. And by gosh. And by goshen. And any other colorful, colloquial rubism I can come up with. For the first entry over at the Treasury of Laughter deals with folklorist and dramatist George Ade, who wrote many fables almost exclusively in slang. His writing sounds like this, only much more incomprehensible because Ade was born in 1866 and died before the end of World War Two. In 1944, for those of you too dim to know your history.:

More to come at the blog in the future, of course. It'll be totally rad. Awesome, dude.