I agree, Larry, but I think it's thorny because of the time that has 
elapsed since Doten made that joke. Like you, I think anyone in Twain's 
Nevada would get the joke, but 150 years later not everybody in Texas 
and Illinois would catch on. But that doesn't impugn the credibility of 
the joker. Some years ago I was watching some very early episodes of SNL 
with my adult daughter (b. 1977) and had to explain some of the humor.  
It made me feel very old.

I ran into this problem when reading issue after issue of Artemus Ward's 
Vanity Fair. Some of the humor I just don't get, Some of it's the slang, 
some of it's topical, and some of the puns send me off to the OED, and 
then off a'googlin', all in vain. This was sort of my point in an essay 
I wrote about Sam Clemens's entry in the Keokuk city directory where he 
listed himself as an "antiquarian" living at the high-priced Ivins House 
during a time when he didn't have a dime to his name, and no wages from 
his brother. Nobody fell for the "antiquarian" nonsense, then or now, 
and the Ivin's-House-half of that hoax probably didn't fool anybody in 
Keokuk either, but it was fooling Twainians over 100 years later.

The problem, I think, is that we can't always tell if a statement is a 
joke. For example, is Twain kidding when he says he found a page from 
Joan or Arc blowing around in the street when he was young? Is he 
telling the truth? Telling a whopper to make a point? Or is there some 
joke involved that we simply cannot see from this distance?

I guess we'd have had to have been there, but then we'd be dead now.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB, BSA

You can browse our books at:
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com


------ Original Message ------
From: "Larry Howe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>; 
"[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 8/29/2019 4:50:09 PM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Twain and Como Beer

>Kevin--
>
>I assume that he's joking as well, but that's the trouble with jokers--Mark Twain included.  Figuring out when they're joking or being sincere (i.e. credible) is a thorny issue.
>
>--LH
>
>Larry Howe
>Professor of English & Film Studies
>Department of Literature and Languages
>Roosevelt University
>Editor, Studies in American Humor
>President, Mark Twain Circle of America
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________
>From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2019 4:25 PM
>To: Larry Howe; [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re[2]: Twain and Como Beer
>
>[Sent by an External User]
>
>I assume Doten is joking: He says Twain never got to the mines in one
>direction because he always stopped for a drink along the way; then
>Twain goes in the opposite direction (with no bar to distract him) and
>finds a mine nobody could find.  That doesn't make Doten unreliable; it
>proves he had a sense of humor. But we already knew that from his
>bar-tab hoax.
>
>
>Kevin
>@
>Mac Donnell Rare Books
>9307 Glenlake Drive
>Austin TX 78730
>512-345-4139
>Member: ABAA, ILAB, BSA
>
>You can browse our books at:
>https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.macdonnellrarebooks.com&d=DwIFaQ&c=a-IB_GMEfAZCNvTl5o6ZExYKmR-HZTqw1M_ZxQv8eiY&r=M7fe_5tVzFcSaDV_TGyMVieQKup7oSC-0rxoDyxcCJY&m=5UEQH1i3Lcq0mwM06aeMiaqMIjhUAgPuSvbUmfyO3po&s=KmnIAFHlt8E2ibqXBw5fgxdyMK16Bv3QYcMblxm3ONY&e=
>
>
>------ Original Message ------
>From: "Larry Howe" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>;
>"[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: 8/29/2019 4:07:22 PM
>Subject: Re: Twain and Como Beer
>
>>Kevin--
>>
>>Regarding your assessment of Doten as "perhaps the most reliable source," I have to wonder if you're stretching his credibility a little out of shape.
>>
>>In Robert Stewart's quoted excerpt, Doten asserts that "'Mark Twain' ... did succeed, however, in visiting the Whitman mine, which lies in the opposite direction from the brewery."  Would this Whitman mine be the same as the elusive Whiteman cement mine referenced in _Roughing It_?  If so, Mark Twain says that he never found it, nor did anyone else, including Whiteman who wandered the territory with a questionable map acquired from the last surviving claimant of that mine.  Indeed, Twain magnifies the joke of the "blind lead" by having Higbie neglecting the work required to secure their claim while Mark Twain was nursing Captain Nye, stricken by spasmodic rheumatism.
>>
>>Now, I'm not suggesting that we take Twain's version as gospel, but Doten's suggestion that Twain visited the "Whitman mine"(if it's the same one that Twain calls the "Whiteman mine") seems a deliberate effect of absurdity that folks in the region who knew the history of this mythical lode would have recognized.
>>
>>--LH
>>
>>Larry Howe
>>Professor of English & Film Studies
>>Department of Literature and Languages
>>Roosevelt University
>>Editor, Studies in American Humor
>>President, Mark Twain Circle of America
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>________________________________________
>>From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Mac Donnell Rare Books <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2019 10:43 AM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: Twain and Como Beer
>>
>>[Sent by an External User]
>>
>>It was, of course, Alf Doten who later admitted to Joe Goodman (Twain's
>>editor at the Enterprise) that he (and Twain) were behind the hilarious
>>bar-tab hoax. I provide a quote and citation in my essay. Joe Goodman
>>has proven a reliable source, and Bob, who knows waaaaay more about Alf
>>Doten and Nevada history than I will ever know, I think would agree that
>>Doten is one of the most reliable sources of information on that period
>>in Nevada's history--perhaps the most reliable. Anybody who has not read
>>Doten's published diaries should treat themselves to a few hours in the
>>hammock reading those stout tomes.
>>
>>Kevin
>>@
>>Mac Donnell Rare Books
>>9307 Glenlake Drive
>>Austin TX 78730
>>512-345-4139
>>Member: ABAA, ILAB, BSA
>>
>>You can browse our books at:
>>https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.macdonnellrarebooks.com&d=DwIFaQ&c=a-IB_GMEfAZCNvTl5o6ZExYKmR-HZTqw1M_ZxQv8eiY&r=M7fe_5tVzFcSaDV_TGyMVieQKup7oSC-0rxoDyxcCJY&m=eZO_LKkWm-sF2ybRUsLcce7alcsa6UlTQsPYQNTCIPA&s=Z031wyXyIQh2G6CQzhyCtelaZqzw9b-64_fSviU617Q&e=
>>
>>
>>------ Original Message ------
>>From: "Robert STEWART" <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Sent: 8/29/2019 10:19:54 AM
>>Subject: Twain and Como Beer
>>
>>>In a recent Twain Journal, Kevin MacDonnell mentioned Alf Doten in connection with discussion of Clemens' 1863 decision to write under the name Mark Twain.The two journalists first met in 1864, when Twain of the Enterprise visited the mining camp of Como, where Doten was the Como correspondent for the Virginia Daily Union.
>>>Now a ghost town, in the 1860s Como was a well established mining camp in the Palmyra Mining District of Territorial Nevada. It was located in the low mountains southeast of Virginia City. As pointed out by MacDonnell, Doten mentions Mark Twain's visit in his heavily edited Diaries, published in the 1970s by the University of Nevada Press. Now UNR Special Collections, the agency that holds the extensive Doten papers, is transcribing all of them to put the entire file online. One part of that collection will Doten's 1863-64 columns from the Union, chief competitor of the Enterprise. In his Union column of April 13, 1864, Doten mentions Twain's visit, writing as follows:
>>>[T]he Como Brewery still continues to produce that immortal nectar in the way of lager, of which the iniquitous "Mark Twain" was so evidently enamored during his visit here, a short time ago. Poor fellow ! he attempted many times to go out and inspect the mines, that he might report upon them, but humbly acknowledges that he could never "get past the brewery," where he sat and drank "gallons and gallons." He did succeed, however, in visiting the Whitman mine, which lies in the opposite direction from the brewery.
>>>
>>
>
>