Friday, August 30, 2019

What to worry about after your cat dies and you are an empty-nester

The 4 or 5 bluejays were eating out of my hand for 3 weeks or so and then just the runt that could not control eye and beak and hurt my skin, then not one of them.
Then the thugs practicing to be Walmart shooters drove a car backwards fast at the mother turkey and 8 poults but missed them that time and the birds disappeared for 10 days or so.

Saw them today and took a fuzzy picture. They are alive.

Controlling money you leave to a female--Lots of luck, Israel--money on condition she never marry a man named x or y or z


Elizabeth Tygart Boyd, an American mystic, was my Uncle Nathan's Wife and ancestress of a line of Methodist Ministers.


 Her will was declared null and void.



I Elizabeth Boyd on seeing & conversing with a spirit from Heaven at sundry times and sundry places. I went to Salem meeting House in Newberry district--to hear one of our Methodist preachers, the House being crowded very much he preached out-of-doors. I set down and leaned against a tree and there came a spirit from heaven to me and laid off the beautiful city upon our land the size of each lott was half an acre, and the price of it such happiness it shewed to me is past telling, this is the first time it came to me and then fled away; the second time it came to me was at the Salluda Camp meeting in august, of the above year. I went in Mr. Enoch Lakes waggon with his wife to the meeting and there came the same spirit to me again as I believed from Heaven, and laid off this beautifull city upon our land, and gave me Noah for a witness as it was in the days of Noah, so also shall it be in the days of the son of man they were eating and drinking, marrying & given to marriage untill the flood came and swept them away, this was the second time it came to me, in two weeks after Saluda Camp Meeting I was down on our land, and sit down upon a piece of splitwood the spirit of the lord came to me again and laid off the beautifull city upon our land and stayed for the space of five minutes & woe to them that violate the law from the going forth of this paper awake up ye backsliding Israel I pray & pray more faster that you might gain the love of God in your souls awake up ye sinners that ye might repent and be born of the spirit of God or Else never see his face in peace[.] fourth time the spirit came to me, one day I went down to the milk House and the angel of the lord set on the spring as I believe such a beautifull sight mine Eyes never beheld and the happiness of my soul I cant express and it said to me did I think that god made all those beautifull springs for the use of one man and it fled away such happiness I felt in my soul I am not able to express at the appearance of the beautifull sight this is the fourth time it came to me great & terrible will be the day of the lord & who will be able to stand in that day, none but the righteous shall enter through the Gates into the City, woe to the wicked that violate his law and woe to those that violate or lets those servants violate his law that is to say the laws of God on these premises. Another day I stepped on the edge of the old field, the same spirit came to me from Heaven it said to me so cut the stoppage out of the Gully to let the filth of the city out & ministers of the Gospel cry aloud to the people, this is five time it came to me and fled away, another day I was sitting a spin[n]ing on the piazza and named to me what it should be called, and it was to be the city of the new Jerusalem & everything thats for the use of mans body is to the city or in the city & that they shall build their houses out of Brick & they all shall be beautiful buildings so that it should excell all the Citys in the world and I shall meet there and all my neighbours would be blest on the account of this great city and that I should be much persecuted for it, for it will be such a place of happiness that they will come to it. and the spirit came to me another time and laid off the spot of ground where the dead should be buried and what manner and way Hell is gapeing & ready to receive souls in that violate the laws of God this spirit commanded me to give it to the ministers of the Gospel if you believe it was a good spirit, cry aloud to the people the Saturday after the New Hope Camp meeting the same spirit came to me and said to me the reason that the flood come on us was because the Camp meeting was not on our land where the spirit chose for god this is the way that this great city is to be begun my nine sons has each a lot round their Fathers spring, each one of the boys is to have a lott half an acre the price is three hundred dollars a lott now I Charge you in the name of God not to sell your lotts because it is a bless of God to me.—In the name of God Amen. I, Elizabeth Boyd of Newberry destrict & state of south Carolina being deeply Impressed with the truth of the foregoing narrative have thought fit and proper to make and ordain the following to be my last will and Testament.

First  I give and bequeath to my nine sons and their lawfull Heirs, one half acre of land each to be laid off around the spring of their late father Nathan Boyd decd. to which I rate at three hundred dollars each.--

Secondly.   After the payment of my just debts & I order the ballence of my property both real and personal to be Equally divided amongst my said nine sons & their Heirs if Practicable--if not to be sold & the proceeds thereof to be Equally divided between and amongst my nine sons & in case of the death of any of them their Heirs share and share alike---------------------

And lastly I nominate constitute and appoint my trusty friend George Metz Executor of this my last will and Testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this Thirty first day of July one Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Eight and fifty Third year of America Independency



                  Elizabeth X Boyd (SEAL)

At the Death of my children and their wives, these nine lots belong to my grandchildren.

Witnesses

John Tygart

John Metts

George Souter Jur.



No Record Date

Will made Null & Void January 18th 1830

W. Wilson Ordinary Newberry District

Box No. 36   Pkg. No. 76    Est. No. 863

Tools for Craig's Surgeons Today


Tuesday, August 27, 2019

DAR evidence--sometimes shaky. People Want to Belong, Sometimes

Luckily, I don't want to join the Sons of the American Revolution. Have you checked the fees? But I could join many different ways, I have found out. NOT, though, by Grandpa Boyd. I am pretty sure this is a different John Boyd  from the soldier. Bernardoc is dubious, but it is almost certain that John Boyd was not  the one who was in the Revolution. Epting may be enough of a claim for Mrs Harris. She is my cousin, and she has good lines to the great Methodist minister Mark, one of a string of ministers and one mystic, Elizabeth Taggart Boyd.


The Rock Back in Place for 45 Minutes

from a mile and a quarter north

Postponed beach trip till I got a fairly hard word in a Rev Pension Application


It was queried by the great transcriber so I played with it. You will get it faster, maybe. We Tuckers are not shrewd self-promoters. We don't have that sharp cunning or other such characteristics.

Reading a word in a Revolutionary Pension Application before the Beach




Monday, August 26, 2019

To the North of us, dealing with enormous windows that leaked


Across the Street--reimagining a very expensive house


At 41 heard 'FETCH! FETCH" and watched for dog--but it was a WOMAN who was fetching

Tourist Golfing Man--Hitting ball regardless of who was in front of him. Never called FORE but he called out FETCH and the woman hurried to find the ball and bring it to him.

She could not find one ball in the water so I am afraid she is due for punishment.
If you see this man, run.


Final enlarged version of Parthenope pronunciation

The examples given here are from 2 databases, not others. These are enough!


       Parthenope--All together now: “Accentuate the Antepenultimate”



       In his review of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE in the June 2019 LEVIATHAN on p. 110 John Bryant instructed his readers on basic pronunciation:

          "Parthenope (pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee) is now the newly sanctioned title for what we have in the past referred to as Melville’s Burgundy Club Sketches.”

       Yes, Parthenope is Melville’s final title for the Gentian-Grandvin material, but Parthenope is NOT to be pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee.”



       The most famous use of the word in poetry during the 19th century was surely the last line of William Wordsworth’s sonnet on Sir Walter Scott’s departure for Naples (in the hope that his health would benefit):

                                         “Be true,

Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,

Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope!”



       Melville knew that poem and he uses “Parthenope” this way in Part IX of “An Afternoon in Naples”:

“Neapolitans, ay, ’tis the soul of the shell

Intoning your  Naples, Parthenope’s  bell.



       The rhythm in both Wordsworth and Melville demands that we say “par-THIN-oh-pee.”

       It would be extraordinarily awkward if LEVIATHAN were responsible for pushing Melville lovers toward a mispronunciation of a “newly sanctioned title” of an important part of Melville’s works.     



       John Walker in A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language (Philadelphia: E. H. Butler, 1848) has a section on Greek and Latin Proper Names, p. 51. There he specifies which words are to be pronounced with emphasis on the penultimate syllable and which are to be pronounced with the emphasis on the ante-penultimate syllable. I am having trouble with an image, but Walker says that classic Greek and Roman APE and OPE endings are accented on the “Antepenultimate” syllable, and he gives Calliope, Penelope, and Parthenope among the examples.



That linguistic phenomenon is exemplified in a good many poems in the 19th century and violated in none.

       One possible exception is a fake Walt Whitman poem on Henry Ward Beecher’s 1875 trial for adultery with Elizabeth Tilton. The poem can hardly be called a parody of Whitman, it is so inept, but it was printed in a great many newspapers, apparently following its first appearance in the Brooklyn Argus. This wretched poem appeared in papers all over the country--such as the Troy, Kansas Chief and the Sacramento, California Bee. I would not argue very strongly that the writer was pronouncing Parthenope correctly or incorrectly:
Parthenope horrida! Periscopic woe!

Succotash of social slime immense,

Dumming the argent plenilune . . . .



William [yes, William] Southey in his poem dated 18 November 1831, two weeks after the Barham sailed for Italy, looks forward to Scott’s return to Scotland, his health restored in Naples:

       Then, gallant ship! ere long exultant bear

       From soft Parthenope’s reviving air

The Bard to Caledonia’s joyful shore.--



Lockhart thought that Wordsworth wrote his sonnet on the departure of Sir Walter Scott on 22 September 1831. Was it published right away in a newspaper?  I wonder if he or William Southey first used “soft.”



1792 16 January General Advertiser

Seek not the muses here! The affrighted maids

Have fled Parthenope’s polluted shades . . . .



1797 October 4 Elizabethtown NJ Journal “The New-Fallen Lamb”

A new-fallen Lamb, as Parthenope past,

       In pity she turn’d to behold,

How it shivering shrunk from the cold wint’ry blast,

       Then fell all benumb’d with the cold.



1828 Sept 6 Boston Statesman quotes from Samuel Rogers’s Italy (which HM knew) {see next item}



1828 Sept 9-Portland ME Eastern Argus quotes from Samuel Rogers’s Italy

           and on the western shore

Sleeps in a silent grove, o’erlooking three,

Beloved Parthenope [Beloved 2 syllables]



1832 March 23 Southey’s poem reprinted in the Portland ME Eastern Argus (another occurrence of word besides the one already quoted):

A Stranger, from his far and frozen clime,

Goes forth to woo thy breath, Parthenope! . . .



1832 November 24 the Baltimore Gazette reprint from the New York Evening Post an article quoting Wordsworth’s poem on Scott’s departure for Naples.



1838 August 28 the Charleston Courier, M.P. on Admiral Caraccioli:

Palermo’s palace rang with festal strains,

While lost Parthenope wore foreign chains.



1839 August 28 written for the Charleston SC Courier

While lost Parthenope wore foreign chains/ / / /

1842 February 4 NY Emancipator, poem from Blackwood’s Mag, “Blind Old Milton by William E. Aytoun:

Do the sweet breezes from the balmy West

       Still murmur through thy groves, Parthenope,

In search of odors from the orange bowers?



1842 Sept and Oct reprints of piece quoting Wordsworth poem.



1845 Dec. 5--N Y Tribune, from the French of Millevoye--

Parthenope! thou with thy bright blue wave . . . .



1852 January 21 Newark Daily Advertiser quotes from Walter Savage Landor’s Fable:

There was a diver once, whose boast

Was that he brought up treasures lost,

However dep beneath the sea,

Of glossy haired Parthenope . . . .





1855 Punch has this in a poem: “Alas! for the cities of glory / That gem blue Parthenope’s bay, / Alas! for the pride of their story, / Alas! for the pomp of decay.”



1875 January 11 the Portland Press prints an original poem “Ancient and Modern Sirens” :

Hide, hide thy gory head, Parthenope!

And each fell lurer of the sisters three . . . .



1879 March 4 Staunton VA Spectator a poem written for the paper by Thomas Hunter Farver [?] Fanver?

Or hast thou erred, oh cold Parthenope

Has love of mortal caused thy cheek to pale . . . .



1882 July 29 Washington DC Evening Star a modern translation from ancient Greek--young Anaxeos about his dog:

Parthenope, his dog, with whom in life

It was his wont to play, Anaxeos here

Hath buried . . .





1889 May 6 The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln) prints Herman Merivale’s A Grey Day at Naples:

The lazy waters of the lifeless sea

That murmur homage to Parthenope . . . .



1890 Bailey in “Au Revoir” has this:

““Oft from the east, as morning’s dawn / Falls soft and calm across the sea, / I’d mark the sumbeam on the lawn. / And think of fair Parthenope.”



1893 May 28 Chicago Inter Ocean, Ezra H. Stafford, M. D.:

Before the Achaian hero steered

  Westward beneath Parthenope . . . .





All the really poetic uses of Parthenope I have found clearly use the antepenultimate pronunciation. Is there a way of getting word out to readers of LEVIATHAN that what Bryant recommended in the June 2019 issue is not the correct pronunciation. Granted, you can get his wrong pronunciation from the Internet, but we need to go by the practice Melville was familiar with and the emphasis he actually used. Melville said par-THIN-oh-pee, and so should we. Walker in his dictionary on -ope endings was correct: accent the antepenultimate syllable.

      




Thursday, August 22, 2019

Who remembers ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE? WELL, ACCENTUATE THE ANTEPENULTIMATE!


       Parthenope--All together now: “Accentuate the Antepenultimate”



       In his review of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE in the June 2019 LEVIATHAN on p. 110 John Bryant instructed his readers on basic pronunciation:

          "Parthenope (pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee) is now the newly sanctioned title for what we have in the past referred to as Melville’s Burgundy Club Sketches.”

       Yes, Parthenope is Melville’s final title for the Gentian-Grandvin material, but Parthenope is NOT to be pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee.” Now that the Library of America HERMAN MELVILLE COMPLETE POEMS is out, more people than ever will be seeing the title for the first time. Everyone always accented the syllable before the next to last syllable.



       The most famous use of the word in poetry during the 19th century was surely the last line of William Wordsworth’s sonnet on Sir Walter Scott’s departure for Naples (in the hope that his health would benefit):

                                         “Be true,

Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,

Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope!”



       My copy of Wordsworth’s poems (the same edition Melville used) is packed away in its penultimate home (to introduce a term used below), but I will retrieve it and check this quotation before sending the volume to the Berkshire Athenaeum, its ultimate home for my books and papers. Melville knew that poem and he uses “Parthenope” this way:



“Neapolitans, ay, ’tis the soul of the shell

Intoning your  Naples, Parthenope’s  bell.



       The rhythm in both Wordsworth and Melville demands that we say “par-THIN-oh-pee.”

       It would be extraordinarily awkward if LEVIATHAN were responsible for pushing Melville lovers toward a mispronunciation of a “newly sanctioned title” of an important part of Melville’s works.   I am told there is no plan to make a correction in a forthcoming issue, so I am trying to get the news out. Don't say PAR-thin-OH-pee, please.   



       John Walker in A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language (Philadelphia: E. H. Butler, 1848) has a section on Greek and Latin Proper Names, p. 51. There he specifies which words are to be pronounced with emphasis on the penultimate syllable and which are to be pronounced with the emphasis on the ante-penultimate syllable:



[Walker says in classic Greek and Roman APE and OPE endings are accented on the “Antepenultimate” syllable, and he gives Calliope, Penelope, and Parthenope among the examples.]



That linguistic phenomenon is exemplified in a good many poems in the 19th century and violated in none.

       One possible exception is a fake Walt Whitman poem on Henry Ward Beecher’s 1875 trial for adultery with Elizabeth Tilton. The poem can hardly be called a parody of Whitman, it is so inept, but it was printed in a great many newspapers, apparently following its first appearance in the Brooklyn Argus.



This wretched poem appeared in papers all over the country--such as the Troy, Kansas Chief and the Sacramento, California Bee. I would not argue very strongly that the writer was pronouncing Parthenope correctly or incorrectly. In case my image does not come through, here:

Parthenope horrida! Periscopic woe!

Succotash of social slime immense,

Dumming the argent plenilune . . . .



William [yes, William] Southey in his poem dated 18 November 1831, two weeks after the Barham sailed for Italy, looks forward to Scott’s return to Scotland, his health restored in Naples:

       Then, gallant ship! ere long exultant bear

       From soft Parthenope’s reviving air

The Bard to Caledonia’s joyful shore.--



I don’t yet have the day on which Wordsworth wrote his sonnet on the departure of Sir Walter Scott. I wonder if he or William Southey first used “soft.”



1792 16 Jamuary General Advertiser

Seek not the muses here! The affrighted maids

Have fled Parthenope’s polluted shades . . . .



1797 October 4 Elizabethtown NJ Journal “The New-Fallen Lamb”

A new-fallen Lamb, as Parthenope past,

       In pity she turn’d to behold,

How it shivering shrunk from the cold wint’ry blast,

       Then fell all benumb’d with the cold.



1828 Sept 6 Boston Statesman quotes from Samuel Rogers’s Italy (which HM knew) {see next item}



1828 Sept 9-Portland ME Eastern Argus quotes from Samuel Rogers’s Italy

           and on the western shore

Sleeps in a silent grove, o’erlooking three,

Beloved Parthenope [Beloved 2 syllables]



1832 March 23 Southey’s poem reprinted in the Portland ME Eastern Argus (another occurrence of word besides the one already quoted):

A Stranger, from his far and frozen clime,

Goes forth to woo thy breath, Parthenope! . . .



1832 November 24 the Baltimore Gazette reprint from the New York Evening Post an article quoting Wordsworth’s poem on Scott’s departure for Naples.



1838 August 28 the Charleston Courier, M.P. on Admiral Caraccioli:

Palermo’s palace rang with festal strains,

While lost Parthenope wore foreign chains.



1839 August 28 written for the Charleston SC Courier

While lost Parthenope wore foreign chains/ / / /

1842 February 4 NY Emancipator, poem from Blackwood’s Mag, “Blind Old Milton by William E. Aytoun:

Do the sweet breezes from the balmy West

       Still murmur through thy groves, Parthenope,

In search of odors from the orange bowers?



1842 Sept and Oct reprints of piece quoting Wordsworth poem.



1845 Dec. 5--N Y Tribune, from the French of Millevoye--

Parthenope! thou with thy bright blue wave . . . .



1852 January 21 Newark Daily Advertiser quotes from Walter Savage Landor’s Fable:

There was a diver once, whose boast

Was that he brought up treasures lost,

However dep beneath the sea,

Of glossy haired Parthenope . . . .





1855 Punch has this in a poem: “Alas! for the cities of glory / That gem blue Parthenope’s bay, / Alas! for the pride of their story, / Alas! for the pomp of decay.”



1875 January 11 the Portland Press prints an original poem “Ancient and Modern Sirens” :

Hide, hide thy gory head, Parthenope!

And each fell lurer of the sisters three . . . .



1879 March 4 Staunton VA Spectator a poem written for the paper by Thomas Hunter Farver [?] Fanver?

Or hast thou erred, oh cold Parthenope

Has love of mortal caused thy cheek to pale . . . .



1882 July 29 Washington DC Evening Star a modern translation from ancient Greek--young Anaxeos about his dog:

Parthenope, his dog, with whom in life

It was his wont to play, Anaxeos here

Hath buried . . .





1889 May 6 The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln) prints Herman Merivale’s A Grey Day at Naples:

The lazy waters of the lifeless sea

That murmur homage to Parthenope . . . .



1890 Bailey in “Au Revoir” has this:

““Oft from the east, as morning’s dawn / Falls soft and calm across the sea, / I’d mark the sumbeam on the lawn. / And think of fair Parthenope.”



1893 May 28 Chicago Inter Ocean, Ezra H. Stafford, M. D.:

Before the Achaian hero steered

  Westward beneath Parthenope . . . .





All the really poetic uses of Parthenope I have found clearly use the antepenultimate pronunciation. Is there a way of getting word out to readers of LEVIATHAN that what Bryant recommended in the June 2019 issue is not the correct pronunciation. Granted, you can get his wrong pronunciation from the Internet, but we need to go by the practice Melville was familiar with and the emphasis he actually used. Melville said par-THIN-oh-pee, and so should we. Walker in his dictionary on -ope endings was correct: accent the antepenultimate syllable.

      




60 years ago today in Beaumont, Texas


I graduated from Lamar State College of Technology "with highest honors." I was able to attend the mid-day ceremony because my job was 8 pm to 4 am. But then I quit my job, losing 7 years' seniority on the Kansas City Southern Railway, and taking a chance on a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship for a year at Northwestern University. So I drove north, without a job. but with the promise of $1800 over the course of a year.. 1,800, not 18,000.

Today's rye bread

I had to get rye by mail and had to run down odd ingredients such as dry milk (which used to be available everywhere), but I had all I needed today. The results are wonderful. The loaf was so good I had to force myself to stop eating. I gave it an hour, almost, at 350 F, so I was working a long time on it. I did not even have to wait for the judgment of the bread lover in the house. It so satisfying when you work hard and produce something great.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Kayakers beware!


LEVIATHAN June 2019 told wrong how to say Parthenope. Do we give up?



Can you ever make a correction? Can you kill the snake not scotch it? How to say Parthenope!


       In his review of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE in the June 2019 LEVIATHAN on p. 110 John Bryant instructed his readers on basic pronunciation:

          "Parthenope (pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee) is now the newly sanctioned title for what we have in the past referred to as Melville’s Burgundy Club Sketches.”

       Yes, Parthenope is Melville’s final title for the Gentian-Grandvin material, but Parthenope is NOT to be pronounced PAR-thin-OH-pee.”



       The most famous use of the word in poetry during the 19th century was surely the last line of William Wordsworth’s sonnet on Sir Walter Scott’s departure for Naples (in the hope that his health would benefit):

                                         “Be true,

Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,

Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope!”



       My copy of Wordsworth’s poems (the same edition Melville used) is packed away in its penultimate home (to introduce a term used below), but I will retrieve it and check this quotation before sending the volume to the Berkshire Athenaeum, its ultimate home for my books and papers. Melville knew that poem and he uses “Parthenope” in a line:



“Neapolitans, ay, ’tis the soul of the shell

Intoning your  Naples, Parthenope’s  bell.



       The rhythm in both Wordsworth and Melville demands that we say “par-THIN-oh-pee.”

       It would be extraordinarily awkward if LEVIATHAN were responsible for pushing Melville lovers toward a mispronunciation of a “newly sanctioned title” of an important part of Melville’s works.     



       John Walker in A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language (Philadelphia: E. H. Butler, 1848) has a section on Greek and Latin Proper Names, p. 51. There he specifies which words are to be pronounced with emphasis on the penultimate syllable and which are to be pronounced with the emphasis on the ante-penultimate syllable:






That linguistic phenomenon is exemplified in a good many poems in the 19th century and violated in none.

       One possible exception is a fake Walt Whitman poem on Henry Ward Beecher’s 1875 trial for adultery with Elizabeth Tilton. The poem can hardly be called a parody of Whitman, it is so inept, but it was printed in a great many newspapers, apparently following its first appearance in the Brooklyn Argus.




This wretched poem appeared in papers all over the country--such as the Troy, Kansas Chief and the Sacramento, California Bee. I would not argue very strongly that the writer was pronouncing Parthenope correctly or incorrectly.



William [yes, William] Southey in his poem dated 18 November 1831, two weeks after the Barham sailed for Italy, looks forward to Scott’s return to Scotland, his health restored in Naples:

       Then, gallant ship! ere long exultant bear

       From soft Parthenope’s reviving air

The Bard to Caledonia’s joyful shore.--



I don’t yet have the day on which Wordsworth wrote his sonnet on the departure of Sir Walter Scott. I wonder if he or William Southey first used “soft.”



Punch has this in a poem in 1855: “Alas! for the cities of glory / That gem blue Parthenope’s bay, / Alas! for the pride of their story, / Alas! for the pomp of decay.”



A poet named Bailey in “Au Revoir” in 1890 has this: “Oft from the east, as morning’s dawn / Falls soft and calm across the sea, / I’d mark the sumbeam on the lawn. / And think of fair Parthenope.”



All the really poetic uses of Parthenope I have found clearly use the antepenultimate pronunciation. Is there a way of getting word out to readers of LEVIATHAN that what Bryant recommends is not the correct pronunciation. Granted, you can get his wrong pronunciation from the Internet, but we need to go by the practice Melville was familiar with and the emphasis he actually used. Melville said par-THIN-oh-pee, and so should we.

      




Saturday, August 17, 2019

Andy Jaysanovitch: What Happened When Trump's "eyes fell on Hershel Parker’s monumental biography of Herman Melville."





By ANDY JAYSNOVITCH
March 12, 2012
My Rejected Shouts and Murmurs Story
"IT’S A TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP WORLD"
copyright 2012 by Andy Jaysnovitch
      It all started innocently enough. It was the morning after the Super Bowl and advertising whiz Donny Deutsch was on The Today Show brainstorming new uses for old slogans. Everybody just loved his favorite — “Things Go Better With Trump.” The Donald, watching his pal from his Fifth Avenue aerie while he proofed his latest book, Genghis Khan, My Brother My Mentor: Negotiate Like a Mongol Warrior, gently handed Melania his Limoges tea cup and sprang into action. Knowing that Coca-Cola was on the ropes fighting the junk drinks tax, Trump was able to quickly forge a deal to use the new slogan — so quickly in fact that he was able to do it before The Today Show had left the air. Hearing about this, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry stood there speechless while Al Roker uttered the words that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the mighty Trump empire, a crash that would make the fall of the Roman Empire look like a minor dust-up. And all it took was a new Rokerism: “Well, I guess it’s a Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump world!”
         In Hollywood, the moguls were still nestled in their beds when Roker’s words shook the earth, but in Trump-like style, they soon sprang into action. The head of MGM, or what passes for it these days, decided to rerelease It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as It’s a Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump World, and he called on James Cameron to pull off this audacious feat. Cameron spent six days and six nights holed up in an editing room in Burbank and when he emerged at dawn on the seventh day, he triumphantly held aloft his workprint. Under security normally reserved only for heads of state, the police parted the sea of paparazzi and soon Cameron and his film were jetting eastward for the premiere at Radio City Music Hall.
      In New York, a mob of anxious moviegoers that stretched all the way to the George Washington Bridge had been lining up ever since word of the project had been leaked in the trades. In dramatic fashion (or was it Cameron?), the city was swept by a monumental thunderstorm that lit up the night sky brighter than a thousand klieg lights. Amazingly, only three people were trampled to death when the impatient crowd rushed the theatre. The film proved to be such a resounding success that MGM immediately announced that they had inked Cameron to helm a sequel in which Trump would play all the roles himself except for the irreplaceable Larry Storch character that would be played by his avatar. Not to be outdone, George Lukas quietly parted ways with Harrison Ford and quickly announced his upcoming Indiana Trump and the Search For Scrooge McDuck’s Money Bin, a Disney coproduction.
      It was here though that things started to go off the rails. While Trump basked in the afterglow of an adoring public, a mechanic from Massapequa, shrewdly sensing the value of the Trump mystique, was the first to change his name to Donald J. Trump. Then a story broke about a tattoo artist from Tottenville who had managed to parlay his new Donald Trump name change into a business so successful that he was able to afford an apartment in one of the real Trump’s residential castles. It was only a studio though, but it was a start.
        And now the floodgates were opened. Everyone quickly realized how easy it was to change your name. In the US, there were eleven relatively easy steps, in the usually stodgy UK, only two! — just change your name, and start using it! Can you believe those Brits?
      Within days, seemingly half the men on Facebook had changed their name to Donald J. Trump. Trump, for his part, did what any self-respecting emperor of the universe would do. He sued. It quickly became obvious though that there weren’t enough lawyers in the universe to prosecute these name stealers. Especially if he only employed lawyers that weren’t named Donald J. Trump because lawyers too had started changing their names. Predictably, it was only a matter of time before just changing your name to Trump wasn’t quite enough. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, there were more Trump impersonators than Elvis impersonators. In a sign of deference to the King though, only a small fraction of the Elvis impersonators changed their name, and even those that did, decided that they’d still rather look like Elvis.
      Meanwhile, it was getting pretty hard to tell the genuine Trump anymore. When Random House discovered sixty-seven pallets of unsold copies of The Art of the Deal in a warehouse in Jersey, there was no shortage of Trumps who showed up to collect the loot.
      And the name changing wave was now going worldwide. There were Duncan Trumps in Scotland and Yuri Trumps in Red Square. And, in a move that truly wounded him, Ivanka decided to change her name to Donatella (just call me Don for short!).
Truly, Trump had never faced a challenge like this in his life. Of course, there was the terrible pressure of trying to look good on TV which itself was no small achievement. Trump noted early on though that the camera was not his friend and shrewdly outsmarted it with a sizeable donation to the Film Editor’s Benevolent Fund.
      For his part, Trump knew that the game was up when he spied his five year old son, Barron, on Entertainment Tonight outlining to Billy Bush his plans to break ground on competing projects in Atlantic City, Jersey City, and Dubai. As the piece was ending, it looked like the kid intentionally turned sideways. What was that, a tattoo? Trump blinked — he couldn’t believe his eyes! Where had he failed the lad? A competitor? No problem. But a tattoo? Wasn’t his son listening to him when he told Larry King that his kids would be tattooless? Didn’t he read his book, Townhouses Not Tattoos. And what miscreant would tattoo a five year old kid anyway? When he got through with whoever was responsible for this, they’d wish they were facing the Mongol hordes instead.
      He rewound the piece and looked closer. It was a tattoo and it seemed to spell out HILTON. Are you kidding me? Had the kid changed his name to Barron Hilton? Trump couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Contrary to popular belief, he hadn’t named his kid after the famed hotelier. In truth, unlike his apprentices who hardly seemed to give naming a second thought, Trump had agonized over the kid’s name for weeks, finally deciding to name him after a series of children’s books that recounted the fantastic adventures of a character named Baron Trump. His grandfather had read them on the ship when he immigrated to America and had then given them to his son who had then passed them on to his young apprentice, Donald.
      Trump, a man always in control of his emotions, a man not easily given to displays of anger, reluctantly ordered his housekeeper to smash a few dishes just to let the troops know of his displeasure. When this was done, Trump thought Barron actually looked like he was snickering. His disappointment in his pint-sized progeny was tinged with a soupcon of pride though. The kid was a contrarian at only five years old! He had presciently called the downfall of the once mighty Trump name. Still, this kid was going to be trouble. It was painfully obvious that he hadn’t read Ivanka’s book where she recounted the soul searching she went through when she contemplated piercing her navel. How could he punish Barron? Take away his apartment? Make him wear off-the-rack clothing? Could he fire the kid?
      All this name changing couldn’t have come at a worse time. Now that Trump had decided to run for President, he was afraid there would be some confusion among the voting populace. At first his run for the White House was only a ratings ploy to give a boost to his Celebrity Apprentice, but Trump soon became convinced he could win the highest office in the land. Some might call it sappy, but he programmed his new wake-up music to Dan Fogelberg’s Run For the Roses. He had little trouble visualizing himself in the Rose Garden so he started to work variations of the word rose into every speech he made. Only one variant was off limits, that of the scrappy former talk show host who he detested.
      Trump wasn’t sure but he thought that maybe all these newly minted Trumps might prove to be an asset rather than a liability. Wouldn’t they be loyal to the name and rather naturally pull his lever in the voting booth? To test his theory, he sent his driver into the wilds of Pennsylvania to find someone who was actually named Trump before all this nonsense started. In a matter of hours, Trump found himself face to face with a man who looked like he had come straight from the jungle. The other Donald J. Trump sitting before him was a parsnip farmer from Pottstown who had borne the famous name for twenty years before the developer was even out of diapers. Never one to beat around the bush, Trump got right to the point. “I brought you here today to find out if you’d vote for me for President.” The grizzled old farmer eyed him warily. “Where do you stand on parsnip subsidies?” the farmer spat at him. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had a parsnip,” Trump said, realizing instantly that he had made a rare mistake. The farmer couldn’t contain his displeasure. “And you call yourself presidential material?” Trump decided to remain calm and reason with the old guy. “Well, let’s see. We got rid of the guy with two first names. The guy named after a cave dwelling amphibian is history. And seriously, how long do you expect a guy named after a nuthouse to last?” “You know his name is Santorum,” the farmer countered. Trump exploded. “He’s crazier than Gary Busey! Why I’m the only guy with a normal name! Don’t tell me you’re going to vote for a guy named after a piece of athletic equipment!” The famer gave him a withering look. “I thought you just endorsed him. Didn’t you say that he’s tough and smart?” “Well, he is,” Trump shot back. “But I’m far tougher and far smarter. I still might have to run.” Then Trump grinned. “Just be glad that I’m not growing parsnips. If I was, the Trump parsnip would be renowned the world over.” Suddenly, a ghostly look swept the farmer’s face. “Now, you’ve really scared me. I think right after the election, I’m gonna move into my cave!” Trump looked thunderstruck. “Cave? You have a cave?” Trump asked, and here the craggy farmer looked like he was eyeing the village idiot. “Are you telling me a big-shot real estate fellow like yourself doesn’t even own a cave? President, my ass!”
      Now the tumblers in Trump’s head were spinning like mad. After promising to eat his share of parsnips, he had the farmer shown out and he soon began buying up caves. Within an hour, he had options on every cave on the eastern seaboard and as night fell his agents were moving westward. By dawn, Trump had every cave in the country tied up.
       Trump soon found he had little interest in the Presidency. He’d heard that the Rose Garden was often beset by swirling winds that would wreak havoc with his hair. There were no unkind air currents in caves though, and besides his hair looking good, caves would protect him in case this madly spinning sphere of ours was in as much trouble as it appeared to be in. Now that he had the market cornered in caves, there was only one piece of unfinished business to tidy up — to take revenge on all those name-stealers. While mere mortals would have folded here, Trump was just beginning to fight. With the instincts of the champion he was, Trump retreated to his stately library to mine the wisdom of the ancients. Sadly, he quickly discovered that he had failed to stock his library well. There was no Aristotle, no Plato, no Socrates. He did however discover a book by his pal, Donny Deutsch. As he pulled it from the shelf though, he winced. Even in its hand tooled leather binding, the book offended him. How can you title a book Often Wrong, Never in Doubt. He made a mental note that a future project for the apprentices could be renaming the book. In its present state, the title alone was enough to get you fired. Not a hypocrite, he winced again as he saw the title of one of his books. It was unseemly for a man of his stature to lay claim to a book with a title like that, but there it was staring him in the face — Think Big and Kick Ass. The apprentices could fix that one as well.
      Just as Trump was getting ready to give up, his eyes fell on Hershel Parker’s monumental biography of Herman Melville. How it had found its way into his library, Trump couldn’t say, but one thing was for sure — he wasn’t prepared to read all two thousand pages of it. At first he thought of assigning it as a project for the apprentices, but he wasn’t sure those dolts could read anything more challenging than James Patterson, so rather reluctantly he dragged the books over to his favorite chair and settled in for a quick skim. Trump had spent years nurturing his brand, growing it from a tiny seed into a giant redwood. Now it was a pile of sawdust. His brand was in tatters. The branding problem was clearly Trump’s white whale. He wondered what the ever resourceful Melville would do if he were in his shoes? Trump began to skim the epic story of the great writer and the pesky whale, but a man unaccustomed to frittering away even a millisecond of his valuable time soon had a better idea. He sat still as a yogi and willed himself into a transcendental state. Just before he lost consciousness, he spied the harbor of New Bedford, and soon thereafter his senses were assaulted with the stench of an ocean positively brimming with whales. Time passed and when Trump finally stirred again, he noted that lengthening late afternoon shadows were falling over Central Park and that the weird whale smell had almost completely disappeared. Suddenly he knew just what to do. As Trump put the Melville books back on the shelf, his eyes fell for a moment on another book, Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. Trump beamed. First the caves, and now this. Trump couldn’t believe his good fortune. Most men got one good idea their whole life if they were lucky. Good ideas were just elbowing each other for attention in Trump’s brain. Where some men just saw lettering on a book’s spine, Trump saw his whole life stretched out before him. He truly was the luckiest and smartest man on this wildly spinning sphere.
      He called his pal Donny and hastily arranged a meeting. As his limo sped the three blocks to Central Park, Trump made a flurry of phone calls and a fistful of business deals that would have taken a mere mortal months to transact. Trump finally felt in control again. With darkness descending on the city, Donald and Donny wandered around the park with nary a second glance from formerly curious New Yorkers. They waxed rhapsodic about what a forgotten pleasure the park was and how they’d have to do it again soon, their laughs saying, “Yeah, sure, in a million years!”
      His empire in ruins and his brand hopelessly tarnished, Donald J. Trump seemed in surprisingly good spirits. Thinking he would have to console him, Donny was prepared to cheer up his best pal by telling him he could get in on the ground floor on Unbranding, then make a seamless segue to Rebranding. Deutsch was surprised to find that it was Trump though that was doing the reassuring. “I know how to solve my problem,” Trump said confidently. “I sat down to search my soul. Nothing. Then I asked myself what the great Khan would do. Unfortunately, everything carried jail time. That’s when I hit upon the answer. I’ll do a talk show and I can reinvent my brand — make it stronger than it ever was.” Then he glanced over at his favorite pal and said generously, “I was going to call it Tea With Trump, but I changed my mind. We’ll do the show together. Let’s call it The Two Dons.”
      Before Deutsch could let loose with one of his million dollar smiles, Trump fixed him with a steely glare that would have made a Mongol warrior’s heart turn to ice. “And then I’m gonna harpoon every last one of those sons-of-bitches that stole my name!” With that, a cheshire grin spread across Trump’s face and he wordlessly pointed up at a full moon that hung so low in the sky it looked like you could almost touch it. The earth seemed to stand still for a moment, then wobble a bit on its axis. “I just bought a billion acres, and closed a deal with Richard Branson to take me up. I’ll be breaking ground before the new loser is in the White House. President? Who wants to be President? I can be Emperor of the Moon! ” And with that, Trump let loose with one of his trademark smiles, a smile that lit up the night sky like …. well, like a thousand, million, billion klieg lights. Why, it was reportedly so bright that even the Man in the Moon winced.


Mert reads Volume One


Jay Leyda and Hershel Parker