Lillie Fortenbaugh

[Byron In Exile]

OOOOOOOH! handbags at dawn!

I already said that I was going by what you posted only. no need to be so defensive!

and you must have missed my thesis posted in multicolours in an aborted never ending thread

Too many emoticons: I became confused, and had to abort the post.

 

[where]

Too many emoticons: I became confused, and had to abort the post.

hahahahahaha! ban me already!

 

[Byron In Exile]

Get the 1960 film version of "Inherit the Wind". Gene Kelly has the role HL Mencken played in the Scopes trial.

Actually, he plays "E. K. Hornbeck," a newspaper reporter, but the character is obviously H.L. Mencken.

And you're right, this film is invaluable to anyone who values reason over supersistion.

 

[Byron In Exile]

hahahahahaha! ban me already!

It's what you want, isn't it?

Then, no.

Starve some more.

 

[where]

It's what you want, isn't it?

Then, no.

Starve some more.

you only ban thin people? I can't get any thinner, I'd disappear!

 

[Saint Peter]

It's what you want, isn't it?

Then, no.

Starve some more.

Ban turd instead!

 

[where]

Ban turd instead!

he can't ban anyone. poor old thing!

 

[unregistered]

 

[Byron In Exile]

you only ban thin people? I can't get any thinner, I'd disappear!

Intellectually, I meant.

You might be a bit thin there...

Physically, I'm sure you're fine.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Ban turd instead!

He's got the big yellow hat, though.

 

[where]

Intellectually, I meant.

You might be a bit thin there...

Physically, I'm sure you're fine.

I'm confident of my intellectual ability to post up my thesis plus one of the top ten universities in the UK have offered me a place, so I think I'll take my own assessment of my intellectual ability over yours

I will however read some more of this guy's stuff if I can find it in the uk. I did it for AJ so I could fairly assess Rand and I'll do it for you.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Ahahahahaha...

She's in Britain: give her a break.

It's not as if American schools teach their students anything anymore.

How can you expect the British to?

 

[_prudence_]

She's in Britain: give her a break.

It's not as if American schools teach their students anything anymore.

How can you expect the British to?

I'm a Brit, I also have never heard of him.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[Byron In Exile]

I'm confident of my intellectual ability to post up my thesis plus one of the top ten universities in the UK have offered me a place, so I think I'll take my own assessment of my intellectual ability over yours

Oh, you go, girl!

I won't contest your ability to suck up to power.

If you cross them, though, you'll be in the gutter faster than you can say "w..."

I will however read some more of this guy's stuff if I can find it in the uk. I did it for AJ so I could fairly assess Rand and I'll do it for you.

Don't do it for me, do it for you, k?

Rand is uniformly boring. Mencken is regularly entertaining.

I've posted bits of his writings, such as when I came across them as seemed significant to me, so I suppose I'll try and repost them here.

 

[Byron In Exile]

I'm a Brit, I also have never heard of him.

I wish I could criticize British schools, but, being an American, I cannot.

 

[HungryJoe]

plus one of the top ten universities in the UK have offered me a place

The UK has more than two good universities?

 

[Byron In Exile]

You might try, A Mencken Chrestomathy, H.L Mencken, Vintage Books, Random House.

An excellent suggestion.

 

[Byron In Exile]

You might try, A Mencken Chrestomathy, H.L Mencken, Vintage Books, Random House.

And from that book:

"Under the Elms"

From the Trenton, N.J. Sunday Times, April 3, 1927
by H.L. Mencken

Early in 1927 several suicides were reported from college campuses, and the newspapers played them up in a melodramatic manner and tried to show that there was an epidemic. In this they were supported by various alarmed pedagogues, one of whom, Dr. John Martin Thomas, president of Rutgers, told the Times that the cause was "too much Mencken." The Times asked me to comment on this, and I sent in the following. Thomas, a Presbyterian pastor turned pedagogue, was president of Rutgers from 1925 to 1930. He resigned to enter the insurance business.


I see nothing mysterious about these suicides. The impulse to self-destruction is a natural accompaniment of the educational process. Every intelligent student, at some time or other during his college career, decides gloomily that it would be more sensible to die than to go on living. I was myself spared the intellectual humiliations of a college education, but during my late teens, with the enlightening gradually dawning within me, I more than once concluded that death was preferable to life. At that age the sense of humor is in a low state. Later on, by the mysterious working of God's providence, it usually recovers.

What keeps a reflective and skeptical man alive? In large part, I suspect, it is the sense of humor. But in addition there is curiousity. Human existence is always irrational and often painful, but in the last analysis it remains interesting. One wants to know what is going to happen tomorrow. Will the lady in the mauve frock be more amiable than she is today? Such questions keep human beings alive. If the future were known, every intelligent man would kill himself at once, and the Republic would be peopled wholly by morons. Perhaps we are really mowing toward that consummation now.

I hope no one will be upset and alarmed by the fact that various bishops, college presidents, Rotary lecturers and other such professional damned fools are breaking into print with high-falutin discussions of the alleged wave of student suicides. Such men, it must be manifest, seldom deal with realities. Their whole lives are devoted to inventing bugaboos, and then laying them. Like the news editors, they will tire of this bogus wave after a while, and go yelling after some other phantasm. Meanwhile, the world will go staggering on. Their notions are never to be taken seriously. Their one visible function on earth is to stand as living proofs that education is by no means synonymous with intelligence.

What I'd like to see, if it could be arranged, would be a wave of suicides among college presidents. I'd be delighted to supply the pistols, knives, ropes, poisons, and other necessary tools. Going further, I'd be delighted to load the pistols, hone the knives, and tie the hangman's knots. A college student, leaping uninvited into the arms of God, pleases only himself. But a college president, doing the same thing, would give keen and permanent joy to multitudes of persons. I drop the idea, and pass on.

 

[where]

You might try, A Mencken Chrestomathy, H.L Mencken, Vintage Books, Random House.

Mencken, Gathered by Alistair Cooke, Vintage Books, Random House.

if it's not in the Uni library then no chance.

His writings were loved and admired by her own Alistair Cooke.

ugh... I loathed him! pompous fucking creep he was.

Oh, you go, girl!

I won't contest your ability to suck up to power.

If you cross them, though, you'll be in the gutter faster than you can say "w..."

Don't do it for me, do it for you, k?

Rand is uniformly boring. Mencken is regularly entertaining.

I've posted bits of his writings, such as when I came across them as seemed significant to me, so I suppose I'll try and repost them here.

no sucking up to power. I do it with hard work and my work regularly contests the general norms in my academic field. It's the advantage of being an independent student.

If I read it, it will only be for you. that way if I don't like it, I can properly resent you for having wasted my time.

The UK has more than two good universities?

amazingly, yes. and mine scores better than the two you have ever heard about for social research. It's why I chose it.

 

[butters]

"There was even a crayon portrait of her father hanging over the parlor mantlepiece. The wallpaper and carpets, not to mention the furniture, looked to be at least fifty years old, and it was only too apparent that they were hideous even when young. Thus Lillie lived out her days. She got along somehow, without intelligence, information, or taste. She had no desire to learn anything, and in fact learned nothing. Her ideas at seventy were her ideas at fifteen. It is hard to think of a more placid life, and apparently she enjoyed it, but it is likewise hard to think of one more hollow. It was as insignificant, almost, as the life of her dog."

From this entry, it seems he was judging her 'apparent lack-of-ness' against his own yardsticks. It doesn't do him any great favours, since it smacks of a feeling of superiority.

Many people have kept diaries, and many are embarrassed by their own entries as they mature. The act that he observes she led what was, for her, a contented life, and the fact that he admits to never having known her with anything other than the most shallow of aquaintances, makes for an observation that he really doesn't have much to base his judgements of her on. May we all be as content with our own lifestyles. What will suit one person will be anathema to another, and there's no such thing as good and bad taste - simply different tates.

There's nothing inherently wrong with him making his observations - if he's being true to his thoughts, then at least he was a man who could be honest with himself. If any of us had observed her on a daily basis as he had, then there would undoubtably be some of us thinking along the same lines as he committed to paper. Diaries are meant to be private. Our own snobberies, foibles, fetishes are not there for the eyes of others. But, as a newspaperman, I can't help but think he must have been aware of the possibility of his words being made public. Indeed, he may have written it with the intent of self-publication and so adopted that singularly cold and supercilious tone.

It's my opinion that the fact she had a crayon portrait of her father kept in a prominent position in the house indicates that she was capable of feeling connected to another person. If her furniture and decor were old, maybe she liked things that way - familiarity obviously not breeding discontent in her case. Or perhaps she didn't see the point in spending money on replacing furniture that still had years of use in it. Maybe it was all as she remembered from her times with her father - so perhaps kept that way as a comfort to her. His judgemental tone makes this piece more than mere observation, imo - he was judging himself superior to her, assuming his own life to hold more value than hers. Perhaps he was right. I think she might have argued the point - if she could have been arsed, that is. Don't you think his surprise at not having heard the news of Lillie's death, and his phrasing of it, very telling? lots of others seemed to have not only heard but were marking her passing.

 

[where]

"There was even a crayon portrait of her father hanging over the parlor mantlepiece. The wallpaper and carpets, not to mention the furniture, looked to be at least fifty years old, and it was only too apparent that they were hideous even when young. Thus Lillie lived out her days. She got along somehow, without intelligence, information, or taste. She had no desire to learn anything, and in fact learned nothing. Her ideas at seventy were her ideas at fifteen. It is hard to think of a more placid life, and apparently she enjoyed it, but it is likewise hard to think of one more hollow. It was as insignificant, almost, as the life of her dog."

From this entry, it seems he was judging her 'apparent lack-of-ness' against his own yardsticks. It doesn't do him any great favours, since it smacks of a feeling of superiority.

Many people have kept diaries, and many are embarrassed by their own entries as they mature. The act that he observes she led what was, for her, a contented life, and the fact that he admits to never having known her with anything other than the most shallow of aquaintances, makes for an observation that he really doesn't have much to base his judgements of her on. May we all be as content with our own lifestyles. What will suit one person will be anathema to another, and there's no such thing as good and bad taste - simply different tates.

There's nothing inherently wrong with him making his observations - if he's being true to his thoughts, then at least he was a man who could be honest with himself. If any of us had observed her on a daily basis as he had, then there would undoubtably be some of us thinking along the same lines as he committed to paper. Diaries are meant to be private. Our own snobberies, foibles, fetishes are not there for the eyes of others. But, as a newspaperman, I can't help but think he must have been aware of the possibility of his words being made public. Indeed, he may have written it with the intent of self-publication and so adopted that singularly cold and supercilious tone.

It's my opinion that the fact she had a crayon portrait of her father kept in a prominent position in the house indicates that she was capable of feeling connected to another person. If her furniture and decor were old, maybe she liked things that way - familiarity obviously not breeding discontent in her case. Or perhaps she didn't see the point in spending money on replacing furniture that still had years of use in it. Maybe it was all as she remembered from her times with her father - so perhaps kept that way as a comfort to her. His judgemental tone makes this piece more than mere observation, imo - he was judging himself superior to her, assuming his own life to hold more value than hers. Perhaps he was right. I think she might have argued the point - if she could have been arsed, that is. Don't you think his surprise at not having heard the news of Lillie's death, and his phrasing of it, very telling? lots of others seemed to have not only heard but were marking her passing.

I couldn't be bothered writing anything, but you have fairly well encapsulated what I was thinking.

 

[bronzeage]

Hindsight says J.S. Bach is more important than you.

And Bach is less important than Mozart, who died penniless. Fame and importance is of very little use to either, right now.

If notoriety after death somehow improves the quality of life then there is some advantage to it.

 

[where]

And Bach is less important than Mozart, who died penniless. Fame and importance is of very little use to either, right now.

If notoriety after death somehow improves the quality of life then there is some advantage to it.

some musicians might argue that point you know.