is an Abolitionist— A man who wants to free The wretched slave—and give to all An equal liberty. THE ANTI-SLAVERY ALPHABET Alphabets usually have a not-so-hidden agenda, aiming to do more than reinforce rather arbitrary connections between the names of letters and the words that demonstrate their forms and sounds. Some alphabets teach the names […]

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We have another unexpected encounter, another fleeting kiss of incongruities.  All is chaos and continuity, at least sometimes. RICHARD SHAVER AND ALBERT EINSTEIN Richard Shaver — the visionary pulp fictioneer and painter — and Albert Einstein — the mathematical mystic and physics pioneer — were very different men.  They moved in different circles.  But they […]

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Spelling Book Poetry The Sadlier’s Dominion Catholic Speller (by a Catholic teacher, 1883), is much more than a spelling book. It encompasses spelling “oral and written,” including detailed explanations of phonetics, pronunciation, syllabics, grammar and syntax, Latin and Greek etymology, and common abbreviations and titles. I’ve never seen a modern speller this comprehensive – then […]

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Like many, I was disappointed by the quick fizzle of the Bigfoot Body hoax in Georgia.  I suppose I should wax explicit, and carefully explain that no, it’s not because I think Bigfoot is a real flesh-and-blood beastie, or because I was expecting, or even wanting, evidence.  The stories are real enough; and have their […]

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Facts Can Be Fun! Interactive gadgets and gizmos to aid learning have been popular for decades, perhaps longer. Often used for the basics – ABCs, vocabulary, numbers, math, music, spelling, verb conjugation, and foreign languages, for example – they have been packaged as calculators and electronic devices, paper wheel charts, games, puzzles, wooden blocks, and […]

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Let me add that the stories meant to amuse children often teach different lessons than the textbooks and tracts.  This toy magic lantern slide, for example, has an unusual moral: no dinner until you destroy the furniture.  Your teachers do not want you to emulate the pig; but every child will admire its inventiveness, envy its contentment, and […]

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JOHN COOPER.

John Cooper was a little boy, whose father and mother lived in a cottage on one side of a village green. He was his parents’ only child, so that he had no brothers nor sisters to play with. But he had a dog of which he was very fond, and he used sometimes to play with other children on the green. Tom Jones was one of the boys that played with John Cooper. One day he asked John Cooper to go for a long walk with him, instead of going to school. John at first would not consent, but at last he gave way and went with Tom, taking Carlo with him.

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[I wrote this brief appreciation of George Jean Nathan’s immortal compendium, The New American Credo, for the “Classic Bookshelf” column of “Fortean Times” back in June 2001.  I’ve pulled it from the boneyard, just so you can chew on it.] George Jean Nathan and his fellow iconoclast H. L. Mencken spent much of the 1920s collecting […]

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The great mad painter and pulp writer, Richard Shaver, was convinced that the sun had become poisonous, and had repolarized our brains, so that we think backwards.  We mistake beauty for ugliness, and evil for good.  That’s why we act the way we do. I suspect he was wrong about the sun; but he may […]

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I have little interest in astrology.  I doubt that my character is determined by the fact that some groups of stars look like animals, sort of; on the other hand, I feel no itch to denounce it as a pseudo-science, as the pseudo-skeptics do.  As an old-school skeptic, I accept that my human faculties are inadequate […]

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