Yay!  I’m finished with the book!  This post covers pages 631 to 723.  It finished up touring the rest of the Holy Land.  Then they explore parts of Egypt but by then they are all tired of touring the world.  So they go home, and Mark Twain writes a few letters to the editor and then a book that is surprisingly called “The Innocents Abroad.”  That is the overview.  I will write some specifics now.The Holy Land in this section mainly consisted of Jerusalem, which most every street and hill has Biblical significance; but also Bethlehem and surrounding areas, which Twain talks very little about.  I was stuck by there is a particular place for everything in the Bible.  You may believe that that is obvious; if the events of the Bible are true, then they had to have happened in particular places.  Yet I’m sure that for many events they can approximate where it happened but not exactly pinpoint.

Therefore, I think that there were tourist traps even in Mark Twain’s day.  I am not sure that temporary resting places for the patriarchs like Bethel (Genesis 28:19) can ever be pinpointed, yet Twain went to a place that tour guides called Bethel.  On the other hand, Twain went to ruins of Jericho as well that can be authenticated.

The most absurd case of tourist traps happened in this section.  There were indentions in the wall in Jerusalem that the tour guides said where when Jesus fell.  Also here is some absurdity (after finding a stone that looks like a human face worn by kisses from a whole lot of pilgrims):

The guide said it was because this was one of “the very stones of Jerusalem” that Christ mentioned when he was reproved for permitting the people to cry “Hosannah!” when he made his memorable entry into the city upon an ass.  One of the pilgrims said, “But there is no evidence that the stones did cry out– Christ said that if the people stopped from shouting Hosannah, the very stones would do it.”  The guide was perfectly serene.  He said, calmly, “This is one of the stones that would have cried out.”  It was of little use to try to shake this fellow’s simple faith — it was easy to see that. (633)

In relationship to my previous post where I wrote that Twain does not think highly of the Israel, here is another quote that sums that up nicely.  It is in response to a quote from Life in the Holy Land, one of the tour books that Twain and company used.

Which all of us will freely grant.  But it truly is “monotonous and uninviting,” and there is no sufficient reason for describing it as being otherwise. (671)

On a more humorous note, this quote is about salt from the Dead Sea after swimming in it:  ”We scrubbed it off with a coarse towel and rode off with a splendid brand-new smell, though it was one which was not any more disagreeable than those we have been for several weeks enjoying.” (658)

The book ends with several chapters that could have been endings.  However, like the Lord of the Rings, it kept going.  (However, I do like the Lord of the Rings but the third and final movies does have a few whiteouts, a few blackouts, and one map-out.)  Twain evidentially got tired of writing to.  On page 699-701, he writes a long list of “I shall not describe” this or that.  If he did expound on these topics, I could easily see him writing for two hundred pages more.  Maybe he just didn’t like writing about much in Egypt, I don’t know.

He also republishes what he wrote to the editor in pages 713-718.  He calls it a “complimentary” letter but it’s really not that complimentary.  I don’t think of this book in so favorable terms as well.  For if you read the letter to the editor, you have no need to read the book.  You probably will get as much out of it.

This covers the book pages 451 to 630. The most prevalent thing about this part is the use of Scripture for explaining the importance of the places gone to. Even before this section, Twain talks about the seven churches when he visits “Smyrna”, which is modern day Izmir, Turkey and Ephesus. From Izmir, he takes a major land trip south to Israel.

Syria and Israel are not all that beautiful to Mark Twain’s eyes, both dwellings and landscape. Consider this quote: “She was the only Syrian female we have seen yet who was not so sinfully ugly that she couldn’t smile after ten o’clock Saturday night without breaking the Sabbath.” (516) This is quite sad. However, due to the pitiful state of her son, Twain says that “we were filled with compassion which was genuine and not put on.” According to Twain, frequently they would come to crowds in the villages asking for “bucksheesh.”

Also the landmarks aren’t impressive.  Listen:

Nearly every book concerning Galilee and its lake describes the scenery as beautiful.  No– not always so straightforward as that.  Sometimes the impression intentionally conveyed is that it is beautiful, at the same time that the author is careful not to say that it is, in plain Saxon. (556)

Twain also is quite snide about the contrasting views of the guidebooks. The group of people that Twain calls the “Pilgrims” see the world through the lenses of the guidebooks according to Twain. Twain says, “I can almost tell, in set phrase, what they will say when they see Tabor, Nazareth, Jericho, and Jerusalem– because I have the books they will “smouch” their ideas from.” (557)

Finally there is something humorous.  This is talking about some non-canonical books that were considered at one time (on page 588):

There is one verse that ought not to have been rejected, because it so evidently prophetically refers to the general run of Congresses of the United States:

199.  They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers.

So there you have it: another post about this book.  I am very tired of this book and still have until 723!  I got another nonfiction about this “Seabiscuit.”  I think I am probably not going to read that one and go back to fiction.

Pesimismo es el nombre que hombres de valor débil dan a la sabiduría.

LNF*

• Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

• Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

• On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

• Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

• The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

• Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

• American car horns beep in the tone of F.

• Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

• Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

• On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

• 7% of Americans will eat McDonalds today.

• All porcupines float in water.

• In Muncie, Indiana, it is illegal to carry fishing tackle in a cemetery.

LNFs on This Day:

1865 – Samuel L. Clemens published “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” under the pen name “Mark Twain” in the New York “Saturday Press.”

1928 – The first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon premiered in New York. It was Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie,” starring Mickey Mouse.

1978 – In Jonestown, Guyana, Reverend Jim Jones persuaded his followers to commit suicide by drinking a death potion. Some people were shot to death. 914 cult members were left dead including over 200 children.

1987 – U2 opened for itself by pretending to be a country-rock group called The Dalton Brothers during a concert in Los Angeles

1994 – Cab Calloway died at the age of 86.

*Why LNF? Why Plain White Shirt? Read Rorschach’s Ribs and all will be understood.

This blog is about the start of volume II (page 315) to page 450.  This section of the book had a lot of interesting parts.  It covers when Mark Twain visits parts of Italy such as the buried city of Pompeii.  I guess part of Italy’s explorations such as Venice’s waterways and the Tower of Pisa were written in the pages of my second post.  However, I didn’t comment on how interesting these parts were.  They truly make me want to travel to parts of Italy.  These parts makes me endure the overwhelming majority of the book that is boring.

The most interesting section was when the governments thought that the American ship was up to no good and quarantined it.  Mark Twain and several others sneaked ashore at Athens in the middle of the night!  For a good story, read pages 363-375.

Here are a couple of quotes that I enjoyed.  The first one talks about Pompeii when the ash came.

Let us remember that he was a soldier — not a policeman — and so, praise him.  Being a soldier, he stayed — because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly.  Had he been a policeman he would have stayed also — because he would have been asleep. (355)

If you want dwarfs — I mean just a few dwarfs for a curiosity — go to Genoa.  If you wish to buy them by the gross, for retail, go to Milan. … But if you would see the very heart and home of cripples and human monsters, both, go straight to Constantinople. (383)

But what object could they have had in view? — what did they want up there?  What could any oyster want to climb a hill for?  To climb a hill must necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise for an oyster.  The most natural conclusion would be that the oysters climbed up there to look at the scenery. … An oyster is of a retiring disposition, and not lively — not even cheerful above the average, and never enterprising.  But, above all, an oyster does take any interest in scenery — he scorns it. (447-448)

Nadie podría vivir con quien dijera siempre la verdad.

This is my second time blogging about this book.  I am now on page 311: done with volume 1.  This post covers 198-311.

Right off the bat, Twain has more criticism about mustached women.  Listen: “The more immediate scenery consisted of fields and farmhouses outside the car and a monster-headed dwarf and a mustached woman inside it.  … Alas, deformity and female beards are too common in Italy to attract attention” (198).  There seems to be no more mentioned of this in this section of the book.  See my former post: Regarding “The Innocents Abroad”, Part 1.

This section also has some unfavorable descriptions of people groups like the last.  An example is on page 270-271.  Here is an excerpt:

This Civita Vecchia is the finest nest of dirt, vermin, and ignorance we have found yet….  It is well the alleys are not wider, because they hold as much smell now as a person can stand, and, of course, if they were wider they would hold more, and then the people would die. … They are very uncleanly– these people — in face, in person, and dress.  When they see anybody with a clean shirt on, it arouses their scorn.

There is more good stuff in here.  Twain talks about them grabbing for flies (“They have no partialities.  Whichever one they get is the one they want.”) and also about the women wasting clothes all the time but not becoming any cleaner.

There are more interesting pages that I documented such as Twain and others messing with the guides by most feigning disinterest and one feigning stupidity and ignorance.  I got a good laugh out of these pages (304-307).

Generally, this part of book was more interesting then last.  Twain tells about visiting Venice, Rome, Pisa and other cities.  He also tells about the history and legends behind these cities.  I guess I felt excitement about learning this, whereas the pages spent on the voyage to Europe and earlier stops were boring.

Well, the last time I went to the library, I got two non-fiction books.  One of these is Mark Twain’s (or Samuel Clemens’s if you prefer), “The Innocents Abroad.”  It chronicles Mark Twain’s trip to Europe and is 723 pages long.  Currently, I am on page 198.  I think it is fairly boring.  It seems to have not have any climax that it is building towards.  I guess I like fiction books a lot more.

However, there are a few passages that are interesting such as Twain’s description of people groups and particular characters.  Yes!  This took me a while to find again, but read this:

They were like near all the Frenchwomen I ever saw — homely.  They had large hands, large feet, large mouths;  they had pug-noses as a general thing, and mustaches that not even good breeding could overlook;  they combed their hair straight back without parting;  they were ill-shaped, they were not winning, they were not graceful;  I knew by their looks that they ate garlic and onions; and lastly and finally, to my thinking it would be base flattery to call them immoral.

I’m not sure about the last line but I like what I bolded especially mustaches.  This quote is the best but he also have some unkind remarks to say to the Azores natives, a doctor that always argues wrong and makes up fake ancient authors to support his claims, and other characters or people groups.  (The Azores is an archipelago close to Europe in the Atlantic Ocean.)

Even though this book is boring, I will continue reading it.  I write down where the interesting quotes are when I come to them.

Sokan elgondolkodhattak már azon, hogy milyen lenne, ha lenne egy titkos hasonmás, egy titkos ikertestvér. Én is így vagyok ezzel. A mai média igen “felkapta” ezt a történetet, amit a címben is írtam, s most is megismétlem A koldus és királyfit.

Biztos, hogy izgalmas történet, én is annak tartom. A való életben is jó (vagy legalábbis izgalmasabb) lenne, egy kicsit más szemszögből nézni a világ eseményeit. Feltételezem, hogy más szemszögből teljesen másképp festene minden. És itt nem csak a gazdag-szegény esetét lehet tanulmányozni. Hanem országokra, vallásra és bőrszínre is, hasonlóan rá lehetne vetíteni, és talán már rá is vetítették már a filmekben.

Az embert fűti a bizonyítási vágy, a társadalomba való teljes beilleszkedési kényszer. Ennek sokszor érezzük negatív hatásait, ám sokszor nem vesszük észre, milyen jó dolgunk is van. Persze ez fordítva is történhet.

XOXO SS*

Born in 1928 in Manchester, England, Johnson is an English Roman Catholic journalist, historian, speechwriter, and author. He was educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford. He has more than more than 40 books in print that include:

Heroes(2007)
Creators (2006)
George Washington: The Founding Father (2005)
Intellectuals (2003)
Napoleon (2002)
The Renaissance: A Short History (2002)

I have just re-read Creators in which Johnson examines 17 exemplars of what he characterizes as “creative courage”: Chaucer, Dürer, Shakespeare, Bach, Turner and Hokusai, Austen, Pugin and Viollet-le-Duc, Hugo, Twain, Tiffany, Eliot, Balenciaga and Dior, and in then Picasso and Disney. The range of his interests correctly suggests the scope and depth of his erudition. Here are two brief excerpts:

Creative courage “is of many different kinds. What are we to think of the quiet, withdrawn, silent, uncomplaining courage of Emily Dickinson? She continued to write her poetry, and eventually amassed a significant oeuvre, with little or no encouragement, no guidance, and no public response, for only six short poems were published in her lifetime and these against her will. She worked essentially in isolation and solitude, a brave woman confronting the fears and agonies of creation without (or hindrance either, as perhaps she would have said).” Johnson also briefly discusses Mozart, Dickens, Caravaggio, Beethoven, Marie Cassatt, Toulouse-Lautrec, Robert Louis Stevenson, David Hume, Trollope, V.S. Pritchett, and J.B. Priestly…all of whom encountered and overcame “daunting challenges.”

“The popularity of the creative arts, and the influence they exert, will depend ultimately in their quality and allure, on the delight and excitement they generate, and on demotic choices. Picasso set his faith against nature, and burrowed within himself. Disney worked with nature, stylizing it, anthropomorphizing it, and surrealizing it, but ultimately reinforcing it. That is why his ideas form so many powerful palimpsests in the visual vocabulary of the world in the early twenty-first century, and will continue to shine through, while the ideas of Picasso, powerful thought they were for much of the twentieth century, will gradually fade and seem outmoded, as representational art returns in favor. In the end nature is the strongest force of all.”

I highly recommend Creators as well as Howard Gardner’s Creating Minds in which he examines the lives and achievements of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi.

“The finest clothing made is a person’s skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.”

Mark Twain

“Great news, pal! I just sold another cartoon idea to the Banana Splits!” said Mark Twain, waving a check in Albert Einstein’s face. “Let’s go celebrate!”

“That is great news, partner,” said Einstein. “”Those Splits have been very good to you. But I am afraid I cannot celebrate with you, because I have to go play Hamlet tonight at the Delacorte.”

“You’re playing Hamlet?” asked a baffled Twain. “I didn’t know you acted, Al.”

“I haven’t previously,” came the reply. “But my good friend Tony Danza had to drop out, and since it’s a non-speaking part…”

“Hamlet, a non-speaking part?” expostulated Twain. “Au contraire, mon ami! Hamlet’s gotta speak a hell of a lotta words, and all in the correct order! You got some serious studying to do!”

“It’s no good,” moaned Einstein three hours later. “Look: you stand behind a tree on the set, and just tell me the lines as they come up.” Luckily at that moment the phone rang, with a call from the President. “Swing by my house, pronto!” It was another secret mission.

“How brief my time in the limelight,” sighed Einstein as the elevator shot downwards.

The police inspector was yelling at Twain and Einstein again. “You two are the worst nightclub owners in all of Soho! I’ll find something to plant on you if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

“I’ve got some potting soil in my underwear,” offered Einstein, but Twain wasn’t so obliging. “Look, Inspector, either charge us or book us! Our farm club is really fantastic, we want to go back there right now and disco with the animals.”

It had been only two weeks since the celebrated pair had opened Surprisers, the first nightclub to feature a petting zoo on the disco floor, as well as a working farm in the men’s room. The place was mobbed every night, and now supplied milk to all the local stores. As a result both Organized Crime and Organizing Farming had been ‘up in arms.’ On this latest raid, the police had found some acid planted behind a cow’s ear, and Twain and Einstein had both been pulled in. “I’ll get you for white slaving or something,” said the inspector, but finally he was forced to release them for lack of evidence.

“Where are the waitresses we just hired? I want to strike out with them,” said Einstein, who was newly single again. “I only hope one is mentally troubled!” But as they entered their office, they found a guest. He was a little timid-looking fellow in a rumpled tweed jacket, and his bulging glasses emphasized his disorderly greying red hair.

“Woodney Allenby, the famous comedian of self-embarassment!” exclaimed Einstein. “What are you doing here? We didn’t  order any pratfalls!” Mark Twain joined in on the ribbing. “Maybe he’s come to invite us to the Ployboy Mansion, Al!” he exclaimed. “Woodley’s there every night, I hear it’s a real swinging scene!”

Allenby winced. “Perhaps you gentlemen haven’t heard, but I have dropped the Nebbish business and am concentrating on my new singing career.” He jumped up and began singing:

Doin’ it in the overhead luggage rack

Mile high action, in a highly confined space

Coats and handbags pressin’ on my back

Hear the click as it opens, see the stewardess’s surprised face

Twain and Einstein were unimpressed. Woodney put down the tennis racket he’d been using as a pretend microphone and faced them. “The truth is, fellas, I need your help… as drivers!”

Twain was blunt. “Neither of us can drive, Woodney. If that’s what you need, we can’t help you.” Allenby was disappointed, but he thanked them and left. THE END

Aventurile lui Tom Sawyer, este o serie anime regizată de Hiroshi Saito, care a fost difuzată în 1980. Aceasta se bazează pe binecunoscutul şi popularul roman  „Aventurile lui Tom Sawyer” de Mark Twain. Această serie a fost, de asemenea, tradusă în limba engleză de către Saban Internaţional şi difuzată pe HBO în 1988 sub titlul “Aventurile lui Tom Sawyer”. anime Pe vremea copilăriei nu ratam niciun episod(de parcă acum nu le revăd;))) Cartea autorului american Mark Twain este mult mai bine redată(nimic nu se compară cu o lectură)asta nu înseamnă că desenul animat este mai prejos, tocmai datorită acestui desen m-a atras ideea de a citi romanul.

I suppose I should clarify what it is I’m trying to do here. I’m all too aware of how “Zen” gets applied to almost anything as marketing shorthand for “simple” or “uncluttered” or “exotic.”

By “American Zen” I don’t mean a kind of fast-food or attention-deficit Zen, but approaching basic Zen Buddhist principles via American philosophical traditions. I just see many parallels between what I learn in my Zen studies and what I’ve read in Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and other American writers. So I want to explore making Zen principles available through American writers.

Author Erik Reece covered simliar ground from a Christian perspective in his book An American Gospel. I had suspected for a long time that there was an American spiritual tradition to be found outside of established, dogmatic institutions. I was thrilled to see Reece had found much of it in the New England Transcendentalists. I’ll be adding the tradition of American Freethought (Paine, Ingersoll, Twain) to the mix which, to me, is very Zen.

All this may seen at odds with making a “simpler, American Zen,” but that’s the other challenge for me. I think, at it’s heart, Zen is simple (which is not the same as easy). I think that all the scriptures and so forth can actually be distractions. I won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I believe there can be a simpler approach to Zen that would make it available to more people without watering it down or letting it slide into the realm of pop psychology.

Sorry that is has been so long. I will try to start blogging actively again from this blog on.

So, now for the Boss Hoss. As I have done before, it’s a review of a coverband. Just like The Baseballs, Boss Hoss is a German coverband. The difference is that The Baseballs cover songs and make them rockabilly. Boss Hoss makes it country.

They cover American songs, no German. Don’t worry.

Probably my favorite cover is ‘Seven Nation Army’ originally by The White Stripes. The country version contains more intruments and is just overall better. It’s happier too.

YouTube has quite a lot of Boss Hoss on it. They have covered some good classics, such as ‘You Never Walk Alone’. Pretty calming actually.

They also covered a rap! EMINEM’s without me, now in country version. 

And of course, a county Christmas!

People don’t get more country than these guys.

Daily Quote: ‘Get your facts first, then you can distort them at will.’ – Mark Twain

Have a happyday (:

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”
- Mark Twain

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
- Albert Einstein

“Believe Nothing,
No matter where you read it or who has said it,
not even if i have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense”
- Budhha

“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
- Albert Einstein

“Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.”
- Socrates

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.”
- Mark Twain

“Perfection is not when there is more to add, but when no more to take away”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Now that I have finished my fourth helping of the entire The West Wing series, I have decided to devote my spare time to reading the numerous books I have but have not read (or completed) yet.

They are:

Bill Bryson – Down Under (finished 15/10/09)
J.D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye
Joseph Heller – Catch 22
Barack Obama – The Audacity of Hope
Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club
Bill Bryson – Made in America
Mil Millington – Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About

They are the ones which immediately leap from my bookcase screaming “read me now dammit!”, and once I do I’m then going to make a start on the classics. As someone with a History degree which contains heavy doses of American history, I feel I have a shockingly poor knowledge of the great books. I have never read Hemingway, Twain, Faulkner, or any of the great American writers.

As Josiah Bartlet once said, modern history is just another name for television. It’s shameful that I have a history degree yet I have barely read a book first published before 1945.

But what to read first?