humor
Sammy's Day at the Fair
Broadly speaking, a classic is something of sufficient quality to have withstood the ravages of time. Today, for my own purposes, I will revise this definition, first by dropping the test of time angle and next by elevating the quality aspect. This allows me to declare that my first effort at adaptation in 2007 is indeed a classic that deserves to be recognized as one.
Why so? Because I am a delirious ego-maniac? Perhaps. But in order to be fair to me, a little history. In 2007 I formed a self-publishing company (ArtWrite Productions ) so I could adapt for publication a term paper my son Paul had created for his middle-school science class. I lifted it and adapted it with Paul’s permission after employing him to refine and expand the illustrations he had created for his term paper. That book was titled: Sammy’s Day at the Fair: The Digestive System, featuring Gut Feelings and Reactions. In 2018 I published a second, slightly revised and updated edition of the book. That edition won gold and silver medals from the Midwest Independent Publisher Association (MIPA)—the gold for Children’s Non-Fiction, the Silver for Children’s Fiction.
Running for Vice President
Breaking News! Pause your doubting nature and brace yourself. As previously reported, Mark Twain will not Run for Governor of the state of Florida (even if he could have, why would he have bothered with that small potato!). Okay, I know you knew that. Now here’s the big news that’s breaking—thanks for your patience—Mark Twain will run for Vice-President of the USA in 2026 under the guise of—get this—Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota.
Running for Governor
Mark Twain will soon announce he is Running for Governor of the state of Florida in the November election. OK – you know that's not gonna happen. As iconic as Mark Twain is—a status he’ll forever retain despite having guys like Ron DeSantis ban the books he wrote—he cannot come back from wherever he resides in eternity and run in 2024 because the election for governor of Florida is not until 2026. So, sadly Mr. Twain, as much as you'd like to get your revenge right away, you must drop this idea and try again in two years.
But wait up. Let’s reconsider. You have been convicted, or more correctly, banned from Florida classrooms for being a corrupting influence on youth. Doesn’t your disregard for the rule of law, regardless of whether it be moral or civil, disqualify you from running for office anyway? But then, if that be so, that means you gonna have to forget about running for Florida Governor in 2026 as well. Or maybe for any office whatever whereever it may be.
Mark Twain’s Goal - Bringing Eve & Adam Together
Mark Twain wanted to bring Eve and Adam together, but his goal went unrealized until after his death. Twain wanted to unite his "creation stories" so Eve and Adam’s different perspectives on creation would stand in high contrast. As Twain said, “They score points against each other — so, if not bound together, some of the points would not be perceived.” In 1931, 21 years after Mark Twain died, Harper finally brought the stories together by publishing a book titled “The Private Life of Adam and Eve”.
In 2024, 87 years after Harper first published the book to satisfy Twain's wishes, Adapted Classics is presenting a FREE PDF version of The Diaries of Eve and Adam in advance the revised reissue of our softcover version of Twain's classic retelling of Genesis whether Mr. Twain would like that or not. No offense, Master! We're still bringing and keeping them togeher as you wished.
Announcing Eve and Adam - Genders in the Garden
Near the end of his life, Mark Twain wrote a series of six stories commonly known as the ‘Adamic Diaries’. Four of the stories poke fun at Christianity and are dark in tone. These stories were not published until after Twain died in 1910. Two of the six stories in the series were published as illustrated books while Twain lived—Extracts from Adam’s Diary in 1904 and Eve’s Diary in 1906. These two stories are less pointed and much lighter in tone. In 2017 I intertwined them in “Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Eve and Adam” by rearranging text and adding a little new material. I have now created a revised edition of this book that features new formatting and additional illustrations. It also carries a new title: simply, The Diaries of Eve and Adam. The paperback will be available for purchase on July 12, 2024.
Purchasing Options for Self-Made Men
Purchasing options for Self-Made Men have been determined after much reflection and many wrong turns. Straight to the point—you can now purchase a real book that can be held, smelled, and shelved or, if you actually prefer a screen, you can view or download a PDF version at no charge to you. Of course, after seeing the free PDF you might decide to purchase a real book you can hold, smell, and shelve or maybe gift to a person that you love or hate. I am okay with that. Either or both are fine. Whatever you want to do. That will be your choice.
How to Live to be 200
Perhaps you live to be 200 by living an unconventional life. Okay, that won’t work for everyone and it didn’t work for Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock (December 30, 1869 – March 28, 1944). But he did in fact live unconventionally. For at brief intervals throughout his adult life, he stopped thinking altogether. By his own account he never tired of being mentally inert, but he did find it impossible to earn a living in that state of mind, so he regularly left it and resumed professing political economy and chairing the Economics and Political Science Department at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Oh, and in the cracks of time that arose while doing these jobs, he also wrote books, essays, and articles on economic theory (and yes, humorous fiction—the only pursuit from which he would earn notable money and recognition). Among his works of humorous fiction are essays like the six we present in our illustrated collection, Self-Made Men, Six Humorous Essays by Stephen Leacock. But then, whenever opportunities presented him with a large enough interval of time, he reentered inertia, his preferred state of being.
Illustrated Leacock Essays
The six humorous, illustrated essays in the soon-to-be-published Self-Made Men by Stephen Leacock are drawn from three separate sources of Leacock material. The title essay, Self-Made Men, was published in 1910 in a collection of essays titled Literary Lapses. This was Leacock’s first venture into collecting and self-publishing his humorous essays, all of which had been first published in a variety of magazines. It was an immediate success, garnering him praise and then a contract with a book publisher. From this first venture he proceeded to have an extremely successful career, mainly writing humorous fiction, but also other works. Between the years 1915 and 1925 he was the most popular humorist in the English speaking world.
Does anyone compare to Mark Twain? Yes!
Way up north there was once a Canuck humorist by the name of Stephen Leacock who, as a practicing humorist, was comparable to Mark Twain. Yes indeed, he was. Just as worthy comedians and humorists in the USA are annually awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, worthy humor writers in Canada are annually awarded the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. And yet, despite his grand reputation, many avid readers in the USA and elsewhere have never heard of Mr. Leacock.
Twain Illustrated that he was Running for Governor
Twain Illustrated contains three funny stories by Mark Twain. All three stories are funny, but one, Running for Governor, is also scary, since it strikes so closely to what is currently happening in the USA and elsewhere. Democracy is in danger because so many people don’t know what to believe in this information/disinformation age of ours. Of course, as the story shows, this phenomenon is not exactly brand new. For most of the nineteenth century, politicians funded major newspapers throughout the US. In 1870, only 11% of urban daily newspapers were independent of corrupt influence by politicians. Twain surely had this in mind while writing Running for Governor for his monthly column in The Galaxy, a literary magazine, in which he portrayed his fictional candidacy for Governor to be just as hopelessly futile as it would have been in fact. Enjoy a Read-Along Video of Running for Governor Here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated 2023 Winner for Short Story/Anthology
DeSantis versus Twain
Running for Governor
In a matchup for the ages, Mark Twain and Ron DeSantis will be Running for Governor. Should someone ban this contest the way that DeSantis bans books? Yes! Let DeSantis run for President! Plus, Mark Twain would ruin Florida society if he should come back from the dead and win. OK – that's not likely to happen. As iconic as Mark Twain is—or was until guys like DeSantis started banning the books he wrote—he cannot come back and do that. No, no can do. So call off the race. Mark Twain will not run for governor. Besides, he’s been indicted, or more correctly, banned for corrupting youth, so surely he would be disqualified from running for office—right???
View and/or download a FREE PDF version of Twain Illustrated here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated the Winner for Best Short Story Anthology of 2022!.
Mark Twain Illustrates his Point
Mark Twain illustrates his point well in the story Running for Governor, one of three stories in Twain Illustrated. And what point is that? These days you could easily transpose it to be: Make Fox News pay the price.
Running for Governor is a story that Twain wrote in 1872 for his monthly column in The Galaxy, a literary magazine. It centers on corrupt reporting in newspapers and shows modern readers that misinformation has been freely practiced in the USA for as long as forever.
View and/or download a FREE pdf version of Twain Illustrated here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated finalist for Best Short Story Anthology of 2022!.
Mark Twain Connects with China
Mark Twain connects with readers in China in a way he doesn't usually connect with readers in the USA. Running for Governor, one of three stories in Twain Illustrated, stands out as the best example of why this is so: The Chinese adore Twain as a satirist, while Americans have largely ignored this aspect of his wit.
More than a century after his death American readers still hold Twain the author in the highest esteem. He is widely viewed as the preeminent American humorist and most critics credit him as the founder of the American voice in literature. He is iconic, and has been all along. View and/or download a FREE pdf version of Twain Illustrated here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated finalist for Best Short Story Anthology of 2022!.
Twain Illustrated: Twain Presumes Too Much
Twain illustrated contains one reborn story—Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow—largely requiring rebirth because even the great Mark Twain could presume too much. The story is my adaptation of a speech he delivered in 1877 at a Boston banquet honoring esteemed American poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Twain presumed his audience was in a playful spirit that night as he prepared to deliver a speech that poked fun at literary giants Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Either the audience was not feeling playful, or maybe everyone was reluctant to laugh because all three poets were seated right there at the head table with Whittier. For neither the poets nor anyone else in the audience laughed, not even once, during the entire story. Master humorist Mark Twain had come to totally expect laughter, and lots of it, when he told a funny story. He claims he never fully recovered from the humiliation he felt that night at the banquet. View and/or download a FREE pdf version of Twain Illustrated here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated finalist for Best Short Story Anthology of 2022!.
Twain’s Carnival of Exaggerations
View and/or download a FREE pdf version of Twain Illustrated here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated finalist for Best Short Story Anthology of 2022!.
Edgar Allan Poe was not sarcastic
So that makes me dead wrong for saying Poe use sarcastic humor in the example I chose to demonstrate his humor. Either Poe wasn’t being sarcastic, or the excerpt I used wasn’t humorous. Intent to hurt cannot be funny, even when someone’s ego deserves to be chopped down to size. I don’t think I can have it both ways. The dictionaries have corrected me. A little deeper Still,...
Edgar Allan Poe was not ...
Poe’s humor was almost entirely sarcastic. Sarcasm falls within the form of humor called wit, which is defined as mental trickery. I addressed the subject of wit in a previous blog about Mark Twain’s humor.
But why try to thoroughly describe Poe’s...
Mark Twain Made Mischievous Fun
In essence, pranks embody tricks that produce surprise. But physical pranks also play out to the detriment of a victim. A victim hardly ever immediately sees...
Mark Twain’s Eve and Adam - Gender Stereotypes?
When Mark Twain developed the characters Eve and Adam in his creation stories, did he rely upon and perpetuate gender stereotypes? Although most of the people who have read and reviewed “Eve’s Diary” like the story, some readers found fault with Twain’s portrayal of Eve, especially after she began taking an interest in Adam. Twain took on a daunting task when he decided to fictionalize the story of creation. He must have known his characterizations of Eve and Adam, the very first human creatures, would be seen as archetypes for all succeeding generations of both genders of humans. Confidants of Twain knew he wrote “Eve’s Diary” as a eulogy to his beloved wife Olivia. Consequently, Twain did not intentionally slight Eve in any way, and definitely not as a gender stereotype, when he developed her character.
View/download free pdf version of the Diaries of Eve & Adam (scaled for mobile & ipad devices)