Happy 4th of July from Following the Equator

"We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we glorious Americans will occasionally astonish the God that created us when we get a fair start."
- "The Bolters in Convention," Territorial Enterprise, 12/30/1863

"We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty."

- Foreign Critics speech, 1890

"The average American may not know who his grandfather was. But the American was, however, one degree better off than the average Frenchman who, as a rule, was in considerable doubt as to who his father was."

- quoted in "Stories of Mark Twain," C. D. Williard, Pacific Outlook, 4/30/1910

Twain and Eastern Philosophy

A rare book belonging to Mark Twain is currently part of an exhibit running through March 31 at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tracing the ongoing influence of Eastern thought on Western culture, the exhibit features a myriad of books in the personal collection of Kent Bicknell, a scholar who has long been fascinated by the subject.

The exhibit, entitled "Imprint: From Walden to Graceland, 200 Years of Asian Spiritual Traditions in Western Thought", contains Asian volumes from the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Elvis Presley and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Twain's contribution is the 1889 book Aryan Sun-Myths: The Origins of Religions.

Best of all, the book actually contains some of Twain's own hand-written notes in the margins, such as this gem on the nature of "saviors" throughout history: "I feel an honest reverence [for saviors] … I was only meaning to slur those liars their followers."

Here's to 2009...

"New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them, as usual. "

"Yesterday, 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."

"New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody, save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions."

When Twain Met Churchill

An astute reader of the New York Times pointed out in yesterday's Sunday Book Review that Carlo D'Este's new book about Winston Churchill, which was recently reviewed in the Times, contains a misrepresentation of Churchill's encounter with Mark Twain.

According to the new book, Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, Twain introduced Churchill to a New York audience in 1900 with the words, "a hero of five wars, author of six books and future prime minister of England." In actuality, it was the manager of Churchill's North American lecture tour who came up with that only partly accurate description, not Twain.

Twain, more in keeping with his personality and general attitude toward colonial warfare, actually described Churchill as "[knowing] all about war and nothing about peace."

This inaccurate attribution has been often repeated, so thanks go out to Times reader Peter Crane for pointing that out.

Twain and Churchill, incidentally, shared the same birthday: November 30.

Twain Maxim Inspires Story Behind 2008 Oscar Favorite

Any way you slice it, Mark Twain has had a profound and ongoing influence on American popular culture. The latest example of the stamina of Twain's wisdom can be found in one of the most acclaimed motion pictures of the year, one that has been making waves lately as a major Oscar contender.

When famous editor Maxwell Perkins related to his even more famous client F. Scott Fitzgerald that well-known remark of Twain's which asserts, "It's a pity that the best parts of life come at the beginning, the worst parts at the end," it inspired Fitzgerald in 1922 to pen the short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"--about a man who comes into the world as an old man and literally ages in reverse, passing away as an infant.

It was that story which was eventually adapted into David Fincher's newest film from Paramount Pictures, starring Brad Pitt in the titular role. Actually, the story had been considered for film adaptation going back to Fitzgerald's lifetime, during his years as a Hollywood screenwriter. However, even a 1943 screenplay by fellow author-turned-screenwriter William Faulkner wasn't enough to get the unusual project off the ground. It popped up again in the early 1980s, but was stuck in development hell for the past 25 years.

And now, finally, after such a rocky road, the film based on the short story inspired by the words of Twain has made it to the silver screen, and is one of the biggest projects of the year. Ol' Sam would sure be amazed.

Advertisers Benefit from Twain's Wisdom

Adland, a website devoted entirely to the commercial advertising industry, has a highly amusing bit up today. It's called "9 Things Mark Twain Taught Me About Advertising."

Here are the tried-and-true Twain tenets cited in the article:

• "Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."

• "When in doubt, tell the truth."

• "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable."

• "Whenever you find you're on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."

• "The difference between the right word and almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

• "Great people make us feel we can become great."

• "The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession."

• "A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs."

• "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

The author provides specific examples and anecdotes for each quote. It's a great read--check it out here.

Twain's Heaven on Earth

Dr. Sean Carey, a research fellow at London's Roehampton University, argued yesterday that the island nation of Mauritius should return to its previous use of a famous Mark Twain quote as the slogan for its crucial tourism industry.

The quote in question comes from Twain's 1897 South Pacific travel tome Following the Equator, in which he declared, "Mauritius was made first, then heaven" (a line which he actually quotes from someone else in the book.) Writing in Mauritius' newsspaper L'Expresse, Carey deplores the recent switch to the much duller and vaguer slogan, "An unforgettable experience."

No reason is given for the change. But for Mauritius, located off the eastern coast of Africa near Madagascar, tourism is clearly of major importance, so maybe someone should listen to Dr. Carey.