My Research on Humor at the Mount Olympus of Twain Studies Or, Why They Put Bob Hirst in a Corner Office by Himself. Just before my recent trek to the Mark Twain Project, that mysterious "black hole of all things Twainia," I became possessed with the image of the staff there--do they own a sense of humor?--more important, does the head article, Robert Hirst own one? And if so, what is the substance and grit of it? How is it displayed? Do these august editors guffaw while reading Sam as I often do? Do they share little "in" jokes about Clemens with a nudge and a wink? Is it "footnote" humor or the broad blaring headline variety? Does Clemens reside there in spirit? real flesh and blood with flaws, the real Sam, or is he simply that scholarly acronym SLC? Beyond any documentation might attach itself to my humongous work-in-progress, I had to know the answers about the gatekeepers. Is there humor at the MTP? I confess I feared the worst. After all, my scant experience with genuine, certifiable archive scholars had taught me to be serious and stone-faced, to speak in low reverent tones and to make my requests few. Deathly cold and studious. I should fully devote my energies to unearthing new trivia for researchers who were to shadow my trail, and not to pander to "the masses" in my finished work. Aim at, dig into, and submit my soul to those primary sources, and all that. Bowing toward Hannibal, Elmira, and Hartford several times a day (From the Pacific slope, all the same direction.) So when I struck out for Berkeley I was what you might call a MTP virgin, more bedeviled by nagging doubts than a mail-order bride with postage due. But, no longer. I've been immersed, as old-time Presbyterians were river-dunked; none of this sissy sprinkling, no sir. I'm cannot yet claim to speak for the entire MTP staff, but I have studied the leading specimens and the handwriting (please! Pencil only!) is on the pad, so to speak. What follows is the product of my trek and polling, somewhat surreptitiously administered. After shelling out $42 cab fare from the Oakland airport (tear it down and start again, please!) I trudged up Hearst Street, a mile from my courtyard motor inn, reflecting on Patty Hearst and that other Hearst the street must have been named after. Finally I came to the building housing the MTP. If you've visited Fort Knox, or perhaps the Royal jewels in London, the system at the Mark Twain Project (which, if you're confused, takes place within the MT Papers, somehow connected to the Bancroft Library, and at some degree akin but not joined at the hip to the University of California at Berkeley--to distinguish it from other Universities of California from Pismo Beach to the Redwood forests, etc--and further ruled from a distance by the MT estate, which shall be faceless and nameless forever more as a party of the worst part, etc.) will seem hauntingly familiar. One does not walk right into the MTP; this isn't Walmart, you know. A sign next to a wall phone in the marbled lobby directs you to call the command post for entrance to the elevator. MTP is on the third floor, high enough to escape the damages of floods that Al Gore has ordered for years hence. The phone connects you with the ever-vigilant Neda Salem, a young woman with the patience of Job and the burdensome task of buzzing in visitors to the elevator and then buzzing a second time through the MTP door-this is required for all researchers, whether antiquarians or virgins, such as myself. There's no helipad on the roof for those who've published. Once inside you discover after several hours, that potty breaks across the hall require another buzzing back in. Neda tabulates all these buzzes, although I steeled my bladder considerably and kept the tally down for two and a half straight days. Such duties could easily make a person humorless, but not Ms. Salem. She is unhurried, even causal, and will smile at you if you prove you're up to earning one. She wears jeans to work, as do a few other staff members, so they aren't over-starched by any means. I was relieved by this and that I wasn't under-dressed. I think Sam would approve of the Western tone of the place, though I doubt he'd be able to do much quality writing there. He'd no doubt chafe at the demure Ms. Salem's thumb on the door buzzer. But a man must surrender some control now and then, if he's to divine the more ticklish research questions, and make sense of the minutiae, if he aspires to true scholarship. Enough such denial and one might qualify for an English professorship. There might even be dreams of publishing a controversial contrarian book about Twain, you know, like claiming he was really Jewish, or a quatroon or something. But let's be serious. If one is to be serious about humor, that is, keeping in mind that the true source of humor is sorrow, as Clemens mused, even if it's the sorrow of an impatient bladder. Buzz! I asked Neda if her name was short for anything else, like Josephine or Hortense or Epaminondas Adrastus, but she assured me it was as her mother intended. I didn't reveal my theory-that her mother was dopey during delivery and mumbled, "I needa ..." or something along those lines, and the nurse, even dopier from all those deliveries, took the word as a name for the baby, and wrote it on the form. But that's just a theory. One I didn't share with her. I should exhalt Ms. Salem. Indeed yes. She has a diverse set of tasks, which require constant vigilance. The powers that be sentenced her with this dirty but necessary work, so perhaps it is they who lack a funny bone. It was her painful duty to remind I was not allowed to use pen, or ink in any form, nor could I chew gum whilst I was there, but it did not seem painful to her in the execution of it; she slyly enjoyed reading off the stone tablets. The next day I did not chew the gum, but let it burn a place in my cheek for several hours, covering rare chomps with a feigned yawn. Perhaps they are concerned that researchers, being strange animals, might use chewing gum in place of bookmarks. Whatever, but I was somewhat dumbstruck when I observed Bob Hirst jawing gum quite joyfully and decisively and on more than one occasion, but being polite I refrained from pointing out this inequity, knowing after three score years that justice is often uneven, and concluded it must be so for scholars and editors as well. Perhaps Bob's sin may have contributed to his exile to a dingy corner office--that is, it would be dingy if the papers, folders, books, etc. strewn about would permit-so much paper in one small room simply soaks up dingy aspects, you see. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Neda had me sign a form in blood (type O+) which advised no food, backpacks, cameras, scanners, or bombs inside the reading room. Luckily the form didn't ask my age, weight or my mother's maiden name, which I always struggle with because I don't believe my mother ever was a maiden. I wanted to ask if humor was considered food, but I held my tongue. I needed to discover whether ba by-faced Neda had a sense of humor, the question in point being the real reason for my visit-and if she and others there did not have a sense of humor, to warn everyone on the MT ListServ. It's a noble cause, so stop sniggering. Only secondarily did I want to nail down some letters and dates after 1880. Neda's eye twinkled at this point, or maybe she was tearing up at my being there. So as a suggestion, I offered to spit my gum on the tip of my ink pe n, thus solving both felonies with a single remedy. It was an impulsive offer, as no sane person could reason out such a line, but I handed it out with a sober mein Artemus Ward would be proud of. I was relieved when my offer yielded laughter of a genuinely melodic sort, within a nanosecond of utterance, and so I had my first answer for an MTP staff member-Ms. Salem definitely has a sense of humor. Humor 1, Unhumor 0. I couldn't have been happier had I found an unknown ALS of Sam Clemens in my mother's old trunk, addressed to her maiden name, confirming that yes, she was at one time a maiden. I met the staff, at least a few of them. I even met Lin Salamo, who I thought was doing research in that big archive in the sky, so I'm glad to report she (I figured her name for a man, which should show you the extreme level of my chuckleheadedness) is still kicking, and I told her so. She put to rest the gossip that she made mud pies for Albert Bigelow Paine when he was a boy. It's simply not the case. He was a grown man and they were huckleberry pies. But seriously, Lin's very quick, petite, only a bit wizened on the edges, and somewhat pleasantly intense. She instantly proved herself when telling me what a word was on one of Twichell's illegible diary pages. It's always good to have a few of that sort of editor around. So I apologized for thinking she were a he, and also for imagining that "he" were dead. I offered that the rumor was merely an exaggeration. While encouraged at my good start, there was still the big fish, otherwise known as the Senior Editor, Old Man Hirst. I feebly asked to meet the Chief, feeling like Oliver asking for more gruel, or cold pooridge or whatever they fed the kid. I'm not into Dickens these days so forgive me if I got it wrong. I'd often wondered if Bob Hirst really existed, but I didn't let on suspicion to that quarter. The thought flew by that even if he were a fictitious character, made up by sinister directors of the Bancroft Library, I'd go along. Neda seemed startled a tad, as if no one ever asked such a thing, and for an instant, I feared all my advantage had slipped away like a worm down a vulture's throat. Then she led the way, past a wall of books that had seen better days, into the recesses of the place. Robert Hirst's workspace is shuttled away in the back corner office, beyond normal traffic--not an office you walk by, being in such a corner, because if you're there, there's no where else to head. Neda gingerly stepped in, a Sherpa guide leading a city slicker to an icy precipice. My first look at Robert made me want to holler "Ho! HO! HO!" And I wondered how many times he'd played the Claus man at Christmastide. Bob's hair turned white prematurely at age six, he later confessed. I didn't mind. In fact I thought to myself that his locks were rather dashing, rumpled as they were in Clemens fashion--that is post-1900 Clemens fashion. As a matter of interest, all the staff members I saw had gray or white hair. I made a note to go a bit easier with deep research, so as to maintain the mostly brown mop I'm proud of at my advanced age. As I thrashed about for a seat, Bob slyly pointed to a thin hump in the piles of paper where the barest sliver of a lonely chair peeked out, crowded above and aside by paper seemingly suspended in air. How can I describe the efficient spiritual maze of his office? Questions raced through my skull--how much of this paper was stuff by Clemens? Had the fire marshall ever been there? How many trees had suffered the axe for this mountain range of pulp? What if a stack fell over on me? Did my health insurance policy cover such mishap? There's an old saying that a messy desk is the sign of a genius. If this is true then Bob Hirst is geometrically a quadrilateral Einstein to the eighth power. But I don't want to leave any such impression that the man is disorganized--heavens no. He knows where stuff is. He showed me the empty file cabinets behind mountains of papers, receptacles against one wall waiting for the transfer of said paper mountains, one or two of which might easily be named Everest or K2. Such is Bob's foresight, his planning skills, that I have no doubt he knows where each page, file, book, and slip will fit into the innards of those files. He's simply working out the plan and when the NEH gives the green light (and forks over the pork)--presto, voila! The work will be done. Reassuringly, he was able to dip into the morass in judicious places and pull out the exact reference he needed as our little chat proceeded. And having worked day by day through 1883, I was able to keep up with him in a sort of MT trivial pursuit. We had a good talk, and one which contained not a few bits of humor on both sides. I felt assured enough that I donated one of my short story books to his pile of papers. It may never been seen again. Yes, Robert is helpful, an open and genial host--if he owned a pub, I've no doubt the first drink would be on the house, and maybe the last as well, and a few in between. Though, it was only upon returning home that I realized that I'd never seen the man's desk peeking through anywhere, or even if he has one, or if there's carpet on the floor, or even if there is a floor. I might have been resting on petrified strata of old files. But beyond madcap lies genius, and I have hope that with a careful and concerted effort to scatter my papers, I'll reach Hirst's level in a decade. I see more books arrived while I was away. It's all very sobering, and if one lacks a distinct muscular humor, this research business can erode the soul's sunlight. On the plane home I wondered what treasures are buried in Hirst's cave of paper. I'd asked some other staff what do they do when Bob's away? How do they find things? I was assured on a sober aside that "there are people who know." Probably those shadowy figures of the MT Estate, but by the very tone of the confession I did not ask more. Someday there may be a project to dig out the Project. I hope so. So, if you're worried, rest assured-Robert Hirst has a sense of humor. And so does Neda Salem. And Lin Salamo. I was there. I know it to be so. Bob and I even spoke of the need for and the value of a sense of humor, and how strange it seems for anyone to study MT without developing Atlas-like muscles on their funny bones. Ashamed, I whispered the foul rumors, slurs that some full-time MT researchers are bereft of humor, and due to this it has been said in some circles that along with chewing gum and ink, laughter was not allowed at the MTP. "It's a d----d lie," he said "An infernal lie. The sort that hanks your shoes all together before they start off around the globe." Well, that isn't his exact quote, but then, I write fiction, you know. I had to test the man, didn't I? What's the use of traveling all the way to Berkeley, dodging all the street people pushing carts like a jam on Interstate 5, staying up-wind of them long enough to find the proper address on Hearst Street, then pleading into the lobby phone like a grandmother visiting San Quentin, if one can't determine the burning over-riding question behind the mission? *MTP--Do they have a sense of humor?* But enough of that. I believe Bob Hirst's reputation has been saved and I want to pass the word. There's even a picture in the latest Bancroft magazine of Bob pretty amazingly cleaned up. He looks fine, distinguished, erudite even--and yes, his expression displays a definite whimsy. This is additional photographic evidence, for the doubting Thomases among you, and I'll not entertain the idea that hijinx were applied to that picture. Yes, Bob has a sense of humor. He really has. Don't be afraid to go to the MTP, tackle him in his office on any Twain matter and tell him a good joke or two. He'll laugh. I guarantee it. He simply can't help himself. In some ways, he's even easier than Neda or the redoubtable Lin. Trust me. Didn't he turn around that picture of Twain aiming the pistol in the recent (2004) book *Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living*? Now that's funny! I note too that Lin Salamo's name is also on this book, as it seems to be on most every publication there, though she denies editing for Paine, as I've said. Oh, there were a few other staff members lurking about, slinking in and out of storage rooms, oblivious to virgins such as I. But I understood that I'd meet them later, after they'd measured me and confirmed that yes, indeed, David H. Fears also has a sense of humor, even if he possesses little other sense. DHF (Not quite in time for April Fools Day)