Sunday, April 29, 2018

Ouija Board Writes Novel?

So I saw something interesting while watching Mysteries at the Museum this weekend.  They ran a story about Mark Twain and a book he supposedly wrote post-death.  Yep.  Apparently many years ago a woman named Emily Grant Hutchings claimed that the spirit of the famous author dictated a book to her through a Ouija board, letter by letter.  This painstaking endeavor obviously took a while, and after two years of transcribing the ghost's words, Hutchings published Jap Herron. Now when Twain's daughter, Clara Clemens, got wind of Hutching's claims and her attempt to profit from Twain's popularity, she and Twain's publisher attempted to disprove that his ghost had written the novel, but was unsuccessful.  Not finished with her attempt to expose this fraud, Clemens consulted with a lawyer and then filed a lawsuit stating that if indeed Mark Twain wrote this book, then the estate should receive the profits from this new novel and not Hutchings (smart cookie).  Eventually Hutchings conceded and agreed to destroy all copies of the book. It was later noted in the show that Hutchings had actually corresponded to Twain on a couple of occasions, but apparently, let's just say, he was not exactly enamored with the would be author.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Hello Old Friend

So the poetry bug has hit me again after a long absence.  Hence I write in short, complete and incomplete sentences, laced with metaphors, adverbs and adjectives, descriptive prose sprinkled with breaks and commas abound.  Hello old friend.  How nice to see you again!