I must thank Mr Durrett for his posting. I'd have done it myself --I have no 
false modesty. And none of the genuine stuff either.

The LA Book Review piece by David Hernandez has spread to many places. I was 
informed by someone that a website that tracks and ranks media postings that 
go"viral" ranked this piece 1,238 out of about 12,500 media postings that 
appeared in that same 24 hour period. That was after it got posted at 
salon.com. I'm not sure how viral that really is, but while "going viral" 
online I was at home nursing a truly painful abdominal infection with two 
antibiotics that had entertaining side effects (cf 1601). Too much 
information --I know-- but I like the irony, and as I get older my 
appreciation for irony is exceeded only by my appreciation for antibiotics.

It also got pinged as "noteworthy research" or "articles worth noting" or 
something like that at The Chronicle of Higher Education, got a notice and 
link at the New Yorker website, and even got blogged about in Italy. There 
have been a bunch of Facebook "likes" attached to the LA Book Review piece 
and a bunch of tweets, but I belong to neither and don't follow any of that. 
Whatever Kevin Mac Donnells you may see on Facebook are not me. Comments 
I've read in some other places lead me to conclude that the less a reader 
"gets" what they are reading, the more likely they feel compelled to post 
something. Of course, none of these people are reading my original article; 
they are reading and responding to a short piece about my article, and some 
of the subsequent postings about it leave out even more details which begins 
to distort what I said, reminding me of the old game of "rumor." Some of 
these subsequent postings would have you thinking some things that I never 
said and wholly unaware of many things I did say in How Sam Clemens Found 
Mark Twain.

Anyway, it's nice to see Twain in the popular media and I hope the bottom 
line is that it draws some new subscriptions to the Mark Twain Journal and 
gets people to read his writings.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB
*************************
You may browse our books at
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2013 10:10 AM
Subject: Should go directly to it


> Folks:
>
> I copied-and-pasted an intermediate step.  This
> will take you right to the Atlantic Newswire page.
>
> I hope.
>
> Dang, sorry for the rabbit trail.
>
> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/10/now-we-know-how-samuel-
> clemens-became-mark-twain/70161/
>
> Roger Durrett
>
>
>
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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>