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Siva Vaidhyanathan <[log in to unmask]>
Sat, 1 Mar 1997 18:00:19 -0600
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I feel awkward defending Roy Blount. But someone should, I guess.

The fact that Blount's essay is twice as long as it should have been is
sorta the point. He was fulfilling a contractual obligation by joking
around and filling up his space with whatever he could find ... just like
MT did so many times. He was mimicing, signifyin', playing. If it didn't
work all the way through, then I guess he didn't do it well enough. I loved
it, but I'm easy to please. I still chuckle when I read MT doing it.

Oh, well. No one's ready to put together the Oxford Roy Blount Jr.
collection yet, so I guess I'll have to wait about a century to see if
there will be a demand. I might be to only one who wants it. Let's just
hope there'll be no Oxford Jeff Foxworthy collection.

In fact, if Jeff Foxworthy had written a forward to the OMT, it might have
gone something like this:

------------------------------------------

You just MIGHT be a Twainiac if:


You've tried twice in your life to get through _Joan of Arc_.

You keep ordering Scotch when you really want a beer.

You spell "civilize" with an "s."

Every year, you pull for Hal Holbrook to get nominated for a special
lifetime Tony award.

Every time someone brings up the creation story from _Genesis_, you
interject, "You know what Eve was thinking right then ..."

You know the number to the Best Western in Hannibal.

You know how to get to Hannibal.

You can't wait until your hair turns white. (Yes, Michael. This means you.)

You never attempt to find a motive in a narrative because you fear you will
be prosecuted.

You decline to find a moral in it because you would be banished

You refuse to attempt to find a plot in it so you don't get shot.

You actually pretend to know the difference between the "Missouri negro
dialect" and the "extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect."

You are allergic to cats, but you get one anyway.

In response to claims that Mark Twain said (FILL IN WITTY REMARK HERE), you
find yourself frequently saying, "No, actually Twain never said that. That
was probably (FILL IN LESS TALENTED WITTICIST HERE). If Twain had said
that, I would have read it somewhere."

You own at least three different editions of _Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn_, and can discuss the merits and demerits of each.

You find yourself crossing out the "The" before _Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn_ in newspaper articles.

You can name an American president who was born the same year that Huck
Finn came out in its first US edition.

You know the difference between the dates of the first US and British
printings of Huck.

You lie awake at night wondering what a Paige Typesetting Machine actually
looked like.

You consider _What is Man?_ the last, long-lost dialogue of Plato.

_1601_ actually gets you somewhat aroused.

You know when Haley's Comet will return.

Your face turns red, your temples throb and your brow furrows when people
say to you, "Hey, you study Twain. Did you read that article in _Harper's_
by Jane Smiley where she ... ?"

You name your daughter Susie.

You can explain how subscription bookselling worked.

You know that the same publishing family that ruined and almost folded
_Harper's_ magazine in the 1970s also shut down the _Buffalo Express_.

You feel like the Mysterious Stranger is a friend of yours.

You have outlined a yet-to-be-written novel that you describe to friends as
"sort of a modern-day Connecticut Yankee story."

You feel like running away a lot.

You refuse to talk to people who value the works of James Fenimore Cooper
or Sir Walter Scott.

You spend more than $200 on a set of his complete works in facsimile
edition (available through mail order or at a book store near you) you just
MIGHT be a Twainiac.
---------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading all this. I can fill space with the best (and worst) of
them.

Siva Vaidhyanathan
University of Texas

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