Big Read BookSlam--You Know You Want to Slam-along!

The Big Read BookSlam
Friday, March 15
6:30 p.m. 
Vigo County Public Library 

Be creative and join The Big Read BookSlam on March 15 at 6:30 pm at the Library. Explore any theme from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, though poems, craft, paintings, and more. Options are as varied as your interpretations of the book. Call 812–232–1113 ext. 2320 by March 10th to reserve your space. Please limit presentations to 5 minutes and participants must be over age 16. 

Here's a  taste of what you may (or may not) hear and see at this soon to be famous Big Read BookSlam:

GO HERE



. . . and an early review is in  

aaronc158 

I'm guess[ing] tom sawyer disliked this lol

What's your guess?

My all time favorite Mark Twain quotation.

Anyone care to disagree with, add to, or modify this pearl of wisdom?

It's the story of our times.  Everyone is looking for an "edge" in this hyper-competitive world and good books are just sitting there, unread.  "Can't read them" is not the real problem.  Alliterates are the norm today. Alliterates being  people who can read good books but choose not to.

A Birthday Wish to Samuel Clemens

165 Madison Avenue
New York City
November 30th, 1907

My dear Mr. Clemens:
I have seen in the New York Tribune this morning that to-day is your birthday – and it is mine too!
I am writing to wish you many happy returns of the day and to tell you that I think Tom Sawyer is the nicest boy I have ever known.

Sincerely yours,

Florence Benson

[Twain responded, telling her, "I have always concealed it before, but now I am compelled to confess that I am Tom Sawyer!"]

This is from a new book Dear Mark Twain: Letters from His Readers,” edited R. Kent Rasmussen.

Did Mark Twain ever smile for the camera?

Mark Twain was the most photographed celebrity author of his time.  And this was before digital cameras, iPhone pics and bona fide paparazzi. Twain had this to say about facing the camera:

"If a man tries to look serious when he sits for his picture the photograph makes him look as solemn as an owl; if he smiles, the photograph smirks repulsively; if he tries to look pleasant, the photograph looks silly; if he makes the fatal mistake of attempting to seem pensive, the camera will surely write him down as an ass."
-- Letter from Mark Twain to the Daily Hawaiian Herald, Sept. 5, 1866

You can find pages of images of Twain online by searching Google Images and Bing Images.  Can you find one of Twain looking "pensive" or, heaven forbid, "pleasant"?  Pleasant and pensive may be in the eye of the beholder.  The real challenge is to find a photo of Mark Twain with a smile on his face.  If you can, please post it or the source/internet url in the comment section.


Here's what you're up against:

"Half twain! Quarter twain! M-a-r-k twain!"

For most people, the name "Mark Twain" is virtually synonymous with the life along the Mississippi River immortalized in the author's writing. Clemens first signed his writing with the name in February 1863, as a newspaper reporter in Nevada. "Mark Twain" (meaning "Mark number two") was a Mississippi River term: the second mark on the line that measured depth signified two fathoms, or twelve feet—safe depth for the steamboat. In 1857, at the age of twenty-one, he became a "cub" steamboat pilot. The Civil War ended that career four years later by halting all river traffic. Although Clemens never again lived in the Mississippi valley, he returned to the river in his writing throughout his life. And he visited a number of times, most notably in 1882 as he prepared to write Life on the Mississippi, his fullest and most autobiographical account of the region and its inhabitants, and again in 1902 when he made his final visit to the scenes of his childhood.

Time is often compared to a river. Can you step in the same river twice? Not really. Mark Twain contemplates the river he loves and describes this melancholy fact beautifully in Life on the Mississippi. This passage is from that book,  "Two Ways of Looking at the River." 

GO HERE

Tom Sawyer -- Reader Beware, Twain Knows You!

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is undoubtedly the book of the season in the Wabash Valley.  Thanks to this year's  Big Read  programs (Go Here) and the many FREE copies being made available to the public there is no reason not read or re-read this classic work in American literature.

This book is not a children's book. It was, after all, written by Mark Twain.  Of course, the episodes in the novel will appeal to kids.  But Twain never wrote anything without some thoughtful and amusing barbs in regard to human behavior -- social,  psychological, philosophical--in it. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  is certainly no exception.  Read it and watch out for the sharp hooks he includes. Since most of the readers around here will be human, I'm guessing there is plenty in the book that will snag you. [Spoiler Alert--How did you like his take on "showing off"?  Any of it get a little too close to home or was he just describing your neighbor, co-worker and/or in-laws?]

Comment here if you want to share anything coming from your reading of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  All remarks are welcome . . . as are responses.

Mark Twain on Antiques Road Show

"Mark Twain's autograph manuscript of  Chapter XX of A Tramp Abroad, published in 1880, has come to market. It is being offered for £50,000 ($75,825) by Peter Harrington Rare Books of London.
The chapter provides an amusing account of Twain at the mercy of his passion for collecting ceramics. As collectors we are slaves to an object or book that inflames our imagination and are weaklings against a good story which we hope the dealer is accurately telling as he stokes the fire in our brain. Twain was no exception."

GO HERE for full article

What, you've never seen Mark Twain with his shirt off?

Now you have!

GO HERE

Mark T. looks like he's been hitting the gym.  But a picture is NOT worth a thousand words whatever our image soaked culture may say.  So how about a few words from you on why Mark T. took off his shirt for this photo.  And historical truth and accuracy are not required as part of your speculations.

When did Samuel Clemens become Mark Twain?

Clemens and Twain

Henry Sweets says Samuel Clemens officially became Mark Twain on either Feb. 2 or Feb. 3 of 1863.  That’s the first time an article by Clemens was published with the famous pen name.
Sweets, who is the curator for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, MO, says pinpointing the exact day has grown more difficult over the years.

GO HERE

Sweets also says Mark Twain "was his most famous pen name, it was not the first used by Samuel Clemens."  

Anyone out there who can tell us another one or two?

Tom and Huck Should Do Some Fishing on the Wabash River

While working hard at being pirates, Tom Sawyer and his friends eat what they brought from home. They also seem to find the fishing good.  Was it this good?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfG4vsJ5_xI

Mark Twain's Autobiography

Mark Twain tells all in “new” autobiography

A recent PBS NewsHour segment on the preparations at the University of California Press for the publication this November of Volume One of the uncensored autobiography of Mark Twain—not to be published until 100 years after his death—takes us behind the “unmarked door in the Bancroft Library” at Berkeley and into the Mark Twain Archive. The Twain scholars at work offer some teasing glimpses of what’s to come.

SPENCER MICHELS: Editor Ben Griffin, who joined the Twain Project five years ago, relates another jolting passage, where Twain took out his anger on an entrepreneur named James Paige, who lost him money.

BENJAMIN GRIFFIN, editor, Autobiography of Mark Twain: This is the end of the piece he wrote about Paige.

 "Paige and I always meet on effusively affectionate terms, and yet he knows perfectly well that, if I had his nuts in a steel trap, I would shut out all human succor and watch that trap until he died."

GO HERE for PBS NewsHour segment on the uncensored autobiography.

Twain did not allow this story of his life to be made public for 100 years.  Today "tell all" memoirs appear before the ink is dry on court rulings and YouTube films reveal indiscretions as they are in progress.  Any thoughts on when and why this all changed so radically?  

New Year's Resolutions --Listen to Mark Twain

How are those New Year’s resolutions coming along?  No surprise that Mark Twain was skeptical about your achieving those well intentioned, solemnly entered into, pledges.

“Yesterday,” Mark Twain wrote, “everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.”

Among his doubts, Twain leaves out diets and the ever popular "getting in shape."  I’m certain he would have had plenty to say about those current obsessions with bodily perfection.

If, however, your New Year’s resolution was along the lines of “Will read more classic works of fiction in 2013.” I’m ready to believe Twain would say something like

“Go ahead.  Surprise me. Pick up and read more good books in 2013.  And why not start with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, this year's Big Read book?  I've been told no one has ever gained weight while reading a fine book. Just keep the Super Size Me drinks and the bon bons out of reach.”

After reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, what's on your To Read List 2013?

 

Mark Twain and American Childhood

For the National Endowment for the Arts introduction to the Big Read book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, GO HERE

This introduction includes a Reader's Guide, Teacher's Guide,  Audio Guide (and is available En español).

After you've (re-) read the book, here’s a nice question from the guide to chew on:

How do you think American childhood has and hasn't changed since the 1840s?