three thumbs up!
Neuendorffer
1) Good evidence that David Manning wrote the movie reviews bearing his
name is the fact that *his name appears on them as the author*.
2) The evidence for David Manning's authorship is abundant and
wide-ranging for the small Connecticut community in which he lived, much
more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
critics.
-------------------------------------------
<<LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Manning was a film critic only a
Hollywood studio could love -- he always said what you wanted him to
say. If Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to a movie, David Manning
would give three.
If he sounds too good to be true that's because he is. Over the weekend,
Newsweek exposed Manning as a fake made up by someone in the advertising
department of Columbia Pictures.
Columbia, a unit of Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp (news - web
sites). , promised a full-scale investigation followed by ``appropriate
action.''
Meanwhile, all of Hollywood seemed to have one question and one question
alone about the embarrassing discovery made by Newsweek reporter John
Horn: why did someone at Columbia bother to invent a friendly critic,
when he or she could have reached out and touched someone real?
``You don't need to make up quotes in this town. They've got 'Quote
Whores' who will do that for you. There are plenty of people who like
everything they see and like to see their names in the paper,'' said
Time
Magazine film critic Richard Schickel.
It was a sentiment echoed across town, not least of all at Columbia
where executives were shaking their heads and using words like
``stupid'' to describe the Manning stunt.
One studio recently was reported to have called ``critics,'' asking them
if they would be willing to say certain nice things about their films
that could run in the advertisements.
But according to Newsweek, the beautiful part of David Manning was that
you didn't even need to call him. He gave a string of recent Columbia
films gushingly positive comments on the spot without being asked.
Rave reviews attributed to Manning included calling Australian actor
Heath Ledger of ``The Knight's Tale'': ``this year's hottest new star!''
and describing Rob Schneider comedy ''The Animal'' as ``another
winner!''
Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent of Columbia Pictures and
movie-making arm of Sony Corp. pulled ads that quote Manning, who was
described as working for the Ridgefield Press in southwestern
Connecticut, a real weekly paper with a circulation of 6,500 and no
regular film reviewers.>>
-------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <3B1D98D8...@erols.com>, Neuendorffer <ph...@erols.com>
(ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
> -------------------------------------------
> 1) Good evidence that David Manning wrote the movie reviews bearing his
> name is the fact that *his name appears on them as the author*.
Is this evidence corroborated by other evidence (e.g., Stationers'
Registry entries for his writings, mentions of his authorial activity,
Folio tributes, etc.), Art? I thought not.
> 2) The evidence for David Manning's authorship is abundant and
> wide-ranging for the small Connecticut community in which he lived, much
> more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
> critics.
*WHAT evidence* is that, Art? Be specific! What "other Ridgefield
Press movie critics" do you mean, Art? *Be specific*! Do you know of
any other Ridgefield Press movie critics, much less the quality of the
evidence for their work in comparison with that for Manning's work? I
thought not.
> <<LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Manning was a film critic only a
> Hollywood studio could love -- he always said what you wanted him to
> say. If Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to a movie, David Manning
> would give three.
>
> If he sounds too good to be true that's because he is. Over the weekend,
> Newsweek exposed Manning as a fake made up by someone in the advertising
> department of Columbia Pictures.
A fictitious person was exposed in this instance, Art. If Manning
were a real, identifiable person whose identity Columbia had tried to
appropriate, the exposure of the imposture would almost surely have
been much quicker, since there would be people who knew the real David
Manning. And if a real person such as William Shakespeare who was
plainly involved in a major acting company had not written his works,
he would VERy likely have been exposed just as Manning was. Why did it
take centuries for an uninformed Looney to do so?
If the Ridgefield Press had *no* regular film reviewers, then how
could the evidence for Manning's authorship be "abundant and
wide-ranging, for the small Connecticut community in which he lived,
much more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press
movie critics," as you claimed, Art? Are you just making up that part?
I thought so.
But I fear that this affair has depths that you have not yet probed,
Art. Since David Manning was a fake, surely his name was carefully
chosen. Indeed, "David Manning" is a perfect anagram of
A. N. in amid dvng.
David Webb
Neuendorffer
> > -------------------------------------------
> > 1) Good evidence that David Manning wrote the movie reviews bearing his
> > name is the fact that *his name appears on them as the author*.
"David L. Webb" wrote:
>
> Is this evidence corroborated by other evidence (e.g., Stationers'
> Registry entries for his writings, mentions of his authorial activity,
> Folio tributes, etc.), Art?
But there is no Stationers' Registry in Connecticut.
> > 2) The evidence for David Manning's authorship is abundant and
> > wide-ranging for the small Connecticut community in which he lived, much
> > more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
> > critics.
>
> *WHAT evidence* is that, Art? Be specific! What "other Ridgefield
> Press movie critics" do you mean, Art? *Be specific*!
Jay Prescott Sherman.
> > <<LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Manning was a film critic only a
> > Hollywood studio could love -- he always said what you wanted him to
> > say. If Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to a movie, David Manning
> > would give three.
> >
> > If he sounds too good to be true that's because he is. Over the weekend,
> > Newsweek exposed Manning as a fake made up by someone in the advertising
> > department of Columbia Pictures.
>
> A fictitious person was exposed in this instance, Art. If Manning
> were a real, identifiable person whose identity Columbia had tried to
> appropriate, the exposure of the imposture would almost surely have
> been much quicker, since there would be people who knew the real David
> Manning. And if a real person such as William Shakespeare who was
> plainly involved in a major acting company had not written his works,
> he would VERy likely have been exposed just as Manning was. Why did it
> take centuries for an uninformed Looney to do so?
One word: "Freemasonry."
They are irregular film reviewers like Jay Prescott Sherman & Mr. SMEE:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
<<SMEE (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street,
a dissolute, IRREGULAR, and unsuccessful man,
but a man with great knowledge of his art)>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[L] [E]
[S|E]
(M) [W]
[S|E|A) [D]
[E] (R)o
[V] l(I)
(H)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
<<The stone was uneven and broken, and the letters
were straggling and IRREGULAR, but the following
fragment of an inscription was clearly to be deciphered:--
[cross] B I L S T
u m
P S H I
S. M.
ARK
Mr. Pickwick's eyes sparkled with delight>>
----------------------------------------------------------------
<<mu means "mother" in DrAVIDa>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
B I L S T(um)P S H I
I H S P(mu)T S L I B
[I. H. S.] [P. T. S. L.] [I. B.]
In Hoc Signo Post Tenebras SPEro Lucem IAchin BOaz
[http://www.sirbacon.org/gallery/elingen.html] IAmes BOnd
Ionson Ben
-------------------------------------------------------------------
> But I fear that this affair has depths that you have not yet probed,
> Art. Since David Manning was a fake, surely his name was carefully
> chosen. Indeed, "David Manning" is a perfect anagram of
>
> A. N. in amid dvng.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
D-AVID MAN-NING
DAMN AVID GINN!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GINN. [Ar.] (Arabian & Mohammedan Myth.) pl of ginnee: A genius or
demon; one of the fabled genii, good and evil spirits, supposed to be
the children of fire, and to have the power of assuming various forms.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Comedy of Errors Act 3, Scene 1
DROMIO OF EPHESUS Maud, BRIDGET, (=> BRIDGET)
Marian, CICEL, (=> CECIL)
Gillian, GINN! (=> SILVER in Jap.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://zurix.apana.org.au/asatru/Webpage2/Ftpstone.htm
<<The Stentoften runestone (ca. 620 C.E.) reads:
"I, master of the runes, bury here GINN-runes (runes of power).">>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abbot Bernard led Dante through heaven.
ABBOT BERNARD (GINN) => ABB(ING)TO(N) BERNARD
Elizabeth Hall Nash's 2nd husband was Sir John Bernard of Abbington
The writer THOMAS NASH died in poverty (on St. Bernard's day 1601)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 5
First Servant let the PORTER let in SUSAN Grindstone and NELL.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Henry PORTER’s first work for Henslowe is dated May, 1598, and, in
about eleven months, he took part in five plays. Of these, there
is extant only: _The two angry women of ABINGTON._ (1599) >>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
(ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
> > (ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
> > > -------------------------------------------
> > > 1) Good evidence that David Manning wrote the movie reviews bearing his
> > > name is the fact that *his name appears on them as the author*.
> "David L. Webb" wrote:
> >
> > Is this evidence corroborated by other evidence (e.g., Stationers'
> > Registry entries for his writings, mentions of his authorial activity,
> > Folio tributes, etc.), Art?
> But there is no Stationers' Registry in Connecticut.
That's just a jocular example, Art. Do you know of *any* evidence
(other than the quotes provided by the studio itself) that Manning was a
writer? I thought not.
> > > 2) The evidence for David Manning's authorship is abundant and
> > > wide-ranging for the small Connecticut community in which he lived, much
> > > more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
> > > critics.
> > *WHAT evidence* is that, Art? Be specific! What "other Ridgefield
> > Press movie critics" do you mean, Art? *Be specific*!
> Jay Prescott Sherman.
Excellent, Art! You're making progress! Now what is the evidence for
Sherman's authorial activity as Ridgefield Press movic critic? More to
the point, what is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence that is "much
more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
critics" to which you alluded? As far as I know, Manning's film crticism
*did not even appear* in the paper with which the studio claimed that
Manning was affiliated. Do you actually know of any evidence of Manning's
authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable evidence for other
Ridgefield Press movie critics"? Or are you just making things up, as
usual? I thought as much.
> > > <<LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Manning was a film critic only a
> > > Hollywood studio could love -- he always said what you wanted him to
> > > say. If Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to a movie, David Manning
> > > would give three.
> > >
> > > If he sounds too good to be true that's because he is. Over the weekend,
> > > Newsweek exposed Manning as a fake made up by someone in the advertising
> > > department of Columbia Pictures.
> > A fictitious person was exposed in this instance, Art. If Manning
> > were a real, identifiable person whose identity Columbia had tried to
> > appropriate, the exposure of the imposture would almost surely have
> > been much quicker, since there would be people who knew the real David
> > Manning. And if a real person such as William Shakespeare who was
> > plainly involved in a major acting company had not written his works,
> > he would VERy likely have been exposed just as Manning was. Why did it
> > take centuries for an uninformed Looney to do so?
> One word: "Freemasonry."
Freemasonry has nothing to do with Shakespeare authorship, Art.
[...]
> > > Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent of Columbia Pictures and
> > > movie-making arm of Sony Corp. pulled ads that quote Manning, who was
> > > described as working for the Ridgefield Press in southwestern
> > > Connecticut, a real weekly paper with a circulation of 6,500 and
> > > no regular film reviewers.>>
> > If the Ridgefield Press had *no* regular film reviewers, then
> > how could the evidence for Manning's authorship be "abundant and
> > wide-ranging, for the small Connecticut community in which he lived,
> > much more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press
> > movie critics," as you claimed, Art?
> They are irregular film reviewers like Jay Prescott Sherman & Mr. SMEE:
Then where is the "abundant and wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much
more abundant than comparable evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield
Press movie reviewers, Art? You mean there isn't any evidence? You mean,
you just made up that part? That's what I thought.
> <<SMEE (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street,
> a dissolute, IRREGULAR, and unsuccessful man,
> but a man with great knowledge of his art)>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> [L] [E]
> [S|E]
> (M) [W]
> [S|E|A) [D]
> [E] (R)o
> [V] l(I)
> (H)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
what I thought.
[...]
> [cross] B I L S T
> u m
> P S H I
> S. M.
> ARK
More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
what I thought.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> <<mu means "mother" in DrAVIDa>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> B I L S T(um)P S H I
> I H S P(mu)T S L I B
>
> [I. H. S.] [P. T. S. L.] [I. B.]
> In Hoc Signo Post Tenebras SPEro Lucem IAchin BOaz
> [http://www.sirbacon.org/gallery/elingen.html] IAmes BOnd
> Ionson Ben
More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
what I thought.
That's a great shaggy dog story, Art. What does it have to do with
Shakespeare, or with the "abundant evidence" you have yet to produce? You
mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and wide-ranging
evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable evidence" even for
*irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's what I thought.
David Webb
Okay Fine
Your exchange with Art seems to say that you agree that a name on a title page is
not by itself sufficient to establish authorship.
I think that's progress.
OF.
"David L. Webb" wrote:
> In article <3B1EA9CB...@erols.com>, ph...@erols.com
> (ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
>
> > > (ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
> > > > -------------------------------------------
> > > > 1) Good evidence that David Manning wrote the movie reviews bearing his
> > > > name is the fact that *his name appears on them as the author*.
>
> > "David L. Webb" wrote:
> > >
> > > Is this evidence corroborated by other evidence (e.g., Stationers'
> > > Registry entries for his writings, mentions of his authorial activity,
> > > Folio tributes, etc.), Art?
>
> > But there is no Stationers' Registry in Connecticut.
>
> That's just a jocular example, Art. Do you know of *any* evidence
> (other than the quotes provided by the studio itself) that Manning was a
> writer? I thought not.
<snip>
Neuendorffer
> > > > -------------------------------------------
>>> > 1) Good evidence that David Manning wrote the movie reviews bearing
>>> > his name is the fact that *his name appears on them as the author*.
>
> > "David L. Webb" wrote:
> > >
> > > Is this evidence corroborated by other evidence (e.g., Stationers'
> > > Registry entries for his writings, mentions of his authorial activity,
> > > Folio tributes, etc.), Art?
>
> > But there is no Stationers' Registry in Connecticut.
>
>
> That's just a jocular example, Art.
Always going for the jocular, heh Dave.
> > > > 2) The evidence for David Manning's authorship is abundant and
>>>> wide-ranging for the small Connecticut community in which he lived, much
>>>> more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
> > > > critics.
>
> > > *WHAT evidence* is that, Art? Be specific! What "other Ridgefield
> > > Press movie critics" do you mean, Art? *Be specific*!
>
> > Jay Prescott Sherman.
>
> Excellent, Art! You're making progress! Now what is the evidence for
> Sherman's authorial activity as Ridgefield Press movic critic? More to
> the point, what is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence that is "much
> more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie
> critics" to which you alluded?
<<Ridgefield was founded in 1708 when about 30 families from Long
Island Sound settlements bought these uplands from the Ramapoo
Indians.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is A, B, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Freemason (B)enedict (A)rnold came to Ridgefield in April of 1777
to fight the British who had landed at Compo Beach at Westport, Conn.,
and marched north to Danbury, where the Redcoats burned many homes and
community buildings. On their way back to the sea, the troops passed
through Ridgefield where General Arnold and General David Wooster,
leading local militia, attacked. Arnold's horse was shot out from under
him on the Main Street of Ridgefield, but he continued to fight. Wooster
was wounded along the North Salem Road (now Route 116). Wooster's son,
protecting his father, refused to surrender and was run through with a
sword, killing him instantly. General Wooster was taken to Danbury where
he died a few days later, aged 66. Professor James Kirby Martin, in
Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered
(New York University Press, 1997), devotes several pages to Arnold's
participation in British General Tryon's raid on Danbury and the Battle
of Ridgefield, using it to point out Arnold's bravery and strong
leadership qualities, but also the lackluster support the patriot
general got from the militia and citizenry of our part of Connecticut.
Here's a portion of the the book's description of the Battle of
Ridgefield on northern Main Street at Casagmo:
The citizen-soldiers started to break and run. In desperation, America's
Hannibal [Arnold] brandished his sword and rode back and forth, trying
to form a rear guard to protect his fleeing column. Suddenly Arnold's
horse collapsed. Having been hit by nine musket balls, the tortured
animal, thrashing in death throes, had his rider pinned to the ground.
An enemy soldier climbing off the ledge, rushed forward with bayoneted
musket in hand. Supposedly he shouted, "Surrender! You are my prisoner!"
"Not yet," was Arnold's alleged reply as he deftly retrieved a pistol
from his saddle holster, took aim, and leveled his adversary with one
shot. Freeing himself from the flailing horse, Arnold hobbled off toward
a nearby swamp, with enemy musket balls flying all around him. His
hairbreadth escape was a testament to what England's Annual Register of
1777 called his "usual intrepidity." A British officer on the scene
conceded only that Arnold, like Wooster before him, had "opposed us with
more obstinacy than skill," a statement of begrudging respect.
------------------------------------------------------------------
> As far as I know, Manning's film crticism *did not even appear* in
> the paper with which the studio claimed that Manning was affiliated.
As far as I know, Shakespeare's plays *did not even appear*
in the public theatres with which he was supposedly affiliated.
> Do you actually know of any evidence of Manning's
> authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable evidence for other
> Ridgefield Press movie critics"?
He was widely quoted. No doubt the persons quoting him knew him
personally.
> > > > <<LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Manning was a film critic only a
> > > > Hollywood studio could love -- he always said what you wanted him to
>>> > say. If Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to a movie, David Manning
> > > > would give three.
> > > >
>>> > If he sounds too good to be true that's because he is. Over the weekend,
>>> > Newsweek exposed Manning as a fake made up by someone in the advertising
> > > > department of Columbia Pictures.
>
> > > A fictitious person was exposed in this instance, Art. If Manning
> > > were a real, identifiable person whose identity Columbia had tried to
> > > appropriate, the exposure of the imposture would almost surely have
> > > been much quicker, since there would be people who knew the real David
> > > Manning. And if a real person such as William Shakespeare who was
> > > plainly involved in a major acting company had not written his works,
> > > he would VERy likely have been exposed just as Manning was. Why did
it
> > > take centuries for an uninformed Looney to do so?
>
> > One word: "Freemasonry."
>
> Freemasonry has nothing to do with Shakespeare authorship, Art.
The Shakespeare authorship coverup then.
Masonic Crackpot Cryptography
In the year 1798 a John Browne issued _The Master Key_ through all the
Degrees of a Freemason's Lodge. It was printed in what to all appearance
is a very complicated cipher. In reality it is quite simple, the letters
of the name:
B R O W N E being substitued
for the vowels A E I O U Y
-Waite's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
X X X
> What does it have to do with
> Shakespeare, or with the "abundant evidence" you have yet to produce? You
> mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and wide-ranging
> evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable evidence"
> even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ridgeville Residence Evidence
http://www.acorn-online.com/A-F.htm
Wayne Boring: Superman's Man
<<If you were among the many fans of Superman between 1940 and the
1960s, you saw the work of Wayne Boring, a Ridgefield cartoonist who
brought the man of steel to life for millions who read the newspaper
comics. Born in 1916 in Minneapolis, Mr. Boring studied at the Chicago
Art Institute where he took a course by J. Allen St. John, the
then-famous illustrator of the Tarzan books, to learn how to produce the
muscular, Tarzan-like figure. In 1940, after a stint as a newspaper
illustrator and some freelance comics work, he was hired to help
illustrate the new but growing Superman strip, started in 1938 by Joe
Shuster and Jerry Siegel. At first he "ghosted" strips, filling in
bodies after Shuster drew the faces. By the mid-1940s, he was the sole
illustrator of the daily and Sunday comics and by 1965 had drawn more
than 1,350 Sunday and 8,300 daily Superman strips, and also did some of
the comic books. In 1957, he moved to Lincoln Lane in Ridgefield. Eleven
years later, DC Comics started cost cutting and dismissed several of its
veteran artists, including Mr. Boring. He then ghosted backgrounds for
Prince Valiant series by Hal Foster, who lived in Redding, until 1972.
He also drew for Marvel comics on and off, but late in life was forced
to work as a bank security guard. He died in 1982. "Wayne Boring's
Superman is one of the most enduring characters in the comics hobby," a
comic art historian has written. "Boring's stylized artwork and fine
linework along with his ability to handle science fiction subjects has
made him one of the most popular artists of his time, and among the most
remembered in comics history."
Hiram Davis: The Last Blue
When Hiram Davis died in 1947, he was one of only two Connecticut
veterans of the Civil War and the last who had made his home in
Ridgefield. A native of Wilton, he was only 15 when he served as a
drummer boy in Sheridan’s army in the Shenandoah Valley and was with the
general on his 20-mile dash from Winchester, immortalized in the Thomas
Buchanan Reed poem, "Sheridan’s Ride." He lived in Ridgefield from 1865
until moving to Florida late in life. He was a stonemason and "it was
said there was scarcely a chimney in Ridgefield which had not been built
or repaired by him." He served as a state representative in 1908, as a
borough warden, and in the fire department. He was a Mason, Odd Fellow,
and the last member of the Edwin D. Pickett Post of the Grand Army of
the Republic, Ridgefield’s organization for Civil War veterans.
Myles Eason: Actor with a Green Thumb
Myles Eason, an actor and director on three continents, had a different
claim to fame in Ridgefield: he was the only male member of the
Ridgefield Garden Club. Born in Australia in 1915, Mr. Eason spent eight
years in the Royal Artillery, serving in World War II with the famed
"Desert Rats" in Africa and with Field Marshal Montgomery. In 1946, he
joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon, and was named
actor of the year by The London Times for performances as Romeo and
Richard II. On stage and in films in both England and the U.S., Mr.
Eason appeared with Margaret Rutherford, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne,
Claudette Colbert, and Sir John Gielgud. He directed Joseph Cotton,
Thomas Mitchell and Agnes Moorehead in the mystery play, Prescription:
Murder. At his funeral in 1977, fellow Australian Cyril Ritchard (q.v.)
read the eulogy.
Cyril Ritchard: Hook Here
Millions knew him, not by his name but by his character. For Cyril
Ritchard played Captain Hook alongside Mary Martin when the acclaimed
Broadway production of Peter Pan was staged live for television March 7,
1955, making TV history with its huge audience and high quality. His
face and his voice were famous and he enjoyed telling of the time he was
spotted by a gang of teenagers who surrounded him. "I thought they were
going to attack me, but instead they stared and exclaimed: 'You're
Captain Hook!' I'm glad the reason for their attention was curiosity,
not animosity." The witty Australia-born actor starred in countless
stage and screen productions around the world and over a career that
started before World War I and ended in 1977 when he collapsed on stage
of a heart attack. He bought his Danbury Road home, Lone Rock, in 1960,
and "absolutely loved Ridgefield and that little house," actress and
longtime friend Kathleen Eason of Olmstead Lane said. "He couldn't wait
to get out of New York and to his Shangri-La, as he called it." Five
years before, his beloved wife, actress Madge Elliott, had died, and he
even had her remains moved from New York to St. Mary's Cemetery. Born
Cyril Trimnell-Ritchard (a name he shortened to fit on marquees) in
1898, Mr. Ritchard appeared in comedies, Shakespeare, musicals, and even
operas. "I have four notes, two of them good," he said of his singing.
He was often seen about town with his poodle, Trim (a trimmed version of
his trimmed name), and contributed to many local organizations including
the Ridgefield Workshop for the Performing Arts. He read the Declaration
of Independence at a 1976 Bicentennial ceremony here. "I was shocked
when they asked me to do this," he told the crowd. "I'm not an American.
I'm a citizen of Australia. And I love the British. So there!" A devout
Catholic who attended daily Mass, he was a benefactor of St. Mary's
Parish. His funeral was there, with the Mass celebrated by longtime
friend and TV celebrity, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
Michael Chekhov: Actor, Director, Coach
Mikhail Alexandrovich Chekhov, nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov, was
born in Russia in 1891 and by the age of 21 was already a noted actor in
his homeland. By 1923, he was a director at the Moscow Art Theatre, but
his innovative methods eventually led the Communists to label him "alien
and reactionary" and a "sick artist." Michael Chekhov emigrated to
Germany and then England, establishing a well-respected method of
training actors. In 1939, as war was breaking out, he moved his Chekhov
Theatre Studio from England to the old Ridgefield School for Boys on
North Salem Road. While here, Mr. Chekhov made his first appearance in
an English-speaking role on the public stage – a Russian War Relief
dramatic program on the stage of the old high school (the soon-to-be
Ridgefield Playhouse), performing in each of the three short plays
presented. By 1945 he was in Hollywood, where he taught and acted in
films – his portrayal of the psychoanalyst in Alfred Hitchcock’s
Spellbound won him an Academy Award nomination. Among his students were
Marilyn Monroe, Jack Palance, Anthony Quinn, Yul Brynner, Gregory Peck,
and Akim Tamiroff. He died in 1955, but his school lives on as the
Chekhov Theatre Ensemble in New York City.
Ralph Edwards: Truth or Consequences
Ralph Edwards, a leading personality in both radio and early television
who is still a force in TV today, lived in Ridgefield for 12 years, but
first met the town in a war bond drive. A native of Colorado, Mr.
Edwards got his start in radio as a writer and an announcer, and in
1940, invented one of the most successful on-air programs ever: Truth or
Consequences. On radio and early television, Mr. Edwards both produced
and starred in the quiz show that was so popular, Hot Springs, New
Mexico, changed its name to Truth or Consequences in 1950; a park there
is named Ralph Edwards Park. In December 1944, Mr. Edwards ran a Truth
or Consequences show at the Ridgefield Playhouse (now Webster Bank) as
part of a war bond rally. The radio show continued till 1957, but the TV
version, mostly starring Edwards' discovery Bob Barker, ran from 1950 to
1988 – altogether, nearly a half century. He also created such
long-running shows as This Is Your Life and Name That Tune. In 1958,
Edwards and his wife, Barbara, bought a house on the corner of North
Street and Stonecrest Road, and lived there off and on until 1971.
Harvey Fierstein: Celebrating Individuality
Actor, playwright, comedian, and gay activist Harvey Fierstein added
good humor and social enlightenment to the last decade of 20th Century
Ridgefield. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1954, Mr. Fierstein became in
1983 the only person to win Tony awards as both the playwright and the
actor in the same production. The acclaimed Torch Song Trilogy is about
a homosexual man struggling to live in New York. "Everyone wants what
Arnold wants, an apartment they can afford, a job they don’t hate too
much, a chance to go to the store once in a while, and someone to share
it with," he once said of the protagonist. A year after Torch Song, he
won a third Tony for his Broadway adaptation of La Cage Aux Folles. Mr.
Fierstein has appeared in many movies and on television, where he has
both written and starred in productions -- he won an Emmy nomination for
a part he played in Cheers, the TV series. His film credits include such
hits as Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day and Woody Allen's Bullets over
Broadway. "Quoting scripture to cover up prejudice is like spraying
perfume on a dung heap," Mr. Fierstein wrote in response. "In time, the
truth will set itself free."
Varian Fry: Among the Righteous
When he lived in Ridgefield, Varian Fry rarely talked about World War
II, much less his part in it. He was more likely to chat about his
irises or perhaps the state of classics instruction at Ridgefield High
School. But by the late 1990s, 20 years after his death, Mr. Fry was
being recognized around the world as one of the unsung heroes of the
war. A non-Jew, Mr. Fry is credited with saving the lives of some 2,000
Jewish artists, writers and scholars wanted by the Nazis. As a volunteer
agent for the World Rescue Committee, this scholarly intellectual spent
14 months in Marseilles in 1940 and 1941, sneaking out countless Jews
and others wanted by the Nazis – among them painter Marc Chagall,
sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, and painter-poet Max Ernst. His exploits –
and his lack of support from the U.S. government which helped to get him
expelled from France -- are detailed in his 1945 book, Surrender on
Demand, reissued in 1997. His story has been told in major exhibits at
the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (1993-94) and The Jewish
Museum in New York City (1997-98). France awarded him the Legion of
Honor in 1960, and in 1996, Israel posthumously gave him the "Righteous
Among the Nations" award, presented to gentiles who helped to save Jews;
he was the first American ever so honored. Mr. Fry, a writer and editor,
lived on Olmstead Lane and later in Farmingville from 1956 until shortly
before his death in Easton in 1967.
Jolie Gabor: Mama
Jolie Gabor, the colorful mother of the even more colorful Gabor sisters
-- Eva, Magda and Zsa-Zsa -- considered her home in Ridgefield a quiet
retreat compared to her places on Long Island and in California. "I only
get a chance to play bridge in Ridgefield because the social life is so
busy in Southampton and Palm Springs," Ms. Gabor once said. She was born
Jansci Tilleman in Budapest in 1900 -- her wealthy parents, wanting a
boy, named her Jansci -- Johnny. She became a socialite, musician and
actress and, in 1936, age 35 and married, was selected Miss Hungary. She
came to the United States in 1939; when she arrived she had only $100
and a diamond ring. However, she was hardly without means -- daughter
Zsa Zsa, who arrived earlier, was married to Conrad Hilton, the hotel
owner. With Zsa Zsa's help, she established a Madison Avenue jewelry
business that thrived off the reputations of her increasingly popular
and marriage-prone daughters. At one point, among the four of them, the
Gabors had had 21 husbands. Actor George Sanders was married to both
Magda and Zsa Zsa and was attracted to Jolie. "You know, Jolie," he once
wrote her, "I think marriage is for very simple people, not great
artists like us." Zsa Zsa, on the other hand, observed of Sanders: "When
I was married to George Sanders, we were both in love with him. I fell
out of love with him, but he didn't." In 1966, Jolie and her husband,
Count Odon de Szigethy, bought a modest home on Oscaleta Road and
immediately set about glamorizing the place. "I like to make from a
nothing something," she told The Press.
George Washington Gilbert: The Hermit of Ridgefield
Some say George Washington Gilbert snapped when he was deserted by his
sweetheart. Others say he was just odd. For years he lived -- usually
barefoot -- in his family homestead on Florida Hill Road as it fell down
around him. Born in 1847, little is known of his early life until he
began to attract attention as a hermit. Although he never came into town
in his later life, he enjoyed visitors and hundreds of people called on
him each year to hear him spin yarns or pose mathematical questions,
such as "What is a third and a half of a third of ten?" Colonel Edward
M. Knox, a wealthy businessman who had a 50-room mansion nearby, took
pity on Gilbert, and built him a little cottage nearby. "This was
cluttered with old newspapers and magazines, the furniture of his
ancestors, and the old man's memorabilia," said The Press. Among his
most prized possessions was a sword he said his grandfather had captured
from a Hessian officer at the Battle of Monmouth during the Revolution.
On Jan. 6, 1924, during a bitterly cold spell, a neighbor looked in on
Mr. Gilbert and found him frozen to death.
Herbert Lapidus: The Einstein of Odor
Dr. Herbert Lapidus has a nose for a good idea. He's the man behind Odor
Eaters, the deodorizing shoe inserts that have graced more than 300
million feet since he invented them back in 1974. "You have a problem
and you look for a solution," Dr. Lapidus told The Press in 1988.
"Basically, that's what an invention is." The Odor Eaters inspiration
came long before the invention, though, back in his college days in the
early 50s. "I had a roommate who had very smelly feet." Odor Eaters and
a related Lapidus invention, Sneaker Tamers, are so popular that for 25
years, his employer, Combe Inc., has sponsored an International Rotten
Sneaker Contest to find the annual worst-smelling sneaker. The
Columbia/Rutgers graduate started out as a hospital pharmacist in the
Army, worked for Bristol-Myers where he developed Silence Is Golden
cough syrup and worked on Excedrin. In 1970, he joined a then-new Combe
where he developed Odor Eaters and Sneaker Tamers. But his focus wasn't
always on the bottom of the body. Dr. Lapidus, who's lived on Nutmeg
Ridge since 1972, is the man behind Grecian Formula and Just for Men
hair colorings. And he has helped in creating more than two dozen other
Combe products, including Lanacane skin cream, Vagisil, and Sea-Bond for
dentures. But Odor Eaters has long been what he's famous for, earning
him such titles as "the Einstein of odor" or the "expert in odorology."
Clare Boothe Luce: Bold Writer, Politician
Writer, Congresswoman, and Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce “had those
sought-after qualities – good looks, style, a sharp tongue, and great
boldness – that made her one of the most popular and admired women of
her day,”. She and her husband, Time magazine publisher Henry Luce, had
their country home here from 1946 to 1966. She was born into near
poverty in 1903 and her musician father soon abandoned her chorus girl
mother, who worked hard to see that her daughter was well-educated. Mrs.
Luce worked hard to use that education. By 1930, she was a $20-a-week
writer for Vogue; three years later she was managing editor of Vanity
Fair. She wrote plays, movies and books, including a 1940 best seller,
Europe in Spring. Several of her plays were on Broadway, including the
smash hit, The Women. She was nominated for an Academy Award for the
1949 film, Come to the Stable. As a Greenwich resident she served as
Fourth District congressman from 1943 until 1946, when the Luces bought
the 100-acre former estate of Wadsworth R. Lewis (q.v.) on Great Hill
Road. At a PTA meeting here in 1950, she urged more federal support of
schools, particularly “Negro” schools in the South. During the
Eisenhower administration, Mrs. Luce, a staunch Republican, was
appointed U.S. ambassador to Italy. In 1962, she was a rumored U.S.
Senate candidate from Connecticut, but the Luces both changed their
voting address to New York and she ran for the Senate there on the
Conservative ticket. She held such stature in the party that when George
Bush was first running for president, he visited her in Hawaii to get
her support.
Fred Jones: Pet Detective
Fred B. Jones, one of Ridgefield’s last farmers, was also a dog warden
whose feats were famous. Caretaker of the working farm at the Brewster
estate on Lounsbury Road for nearly 60 years, he was dog warden in the
1950s and 60s. In 1960, a New York City newspaper told how one day a
Ridgebury recluse died while walking home from Danbury and his two dogs
refused to let police or the medical examiner approach the body. Mr.
Jones talked to the snarling dogs, then walked into the dead man’s
cabin. The dogs followed him and he locked them inside, reporting he had
just employed some simple dog psychology. A woman once called to demand
that he should do something about the two peacocks fighting in her yard.
“Madam,” he replied patiently, “I am not the peacock warden. I am the
dog warden.”
Mary Mallon: 'Typhoid Mary'
Mary Mallon was born in Ireland in 1869, emigrated to the United States
as a teenager and became a cook in the homes of several wealthy New York
and Connecticut families. Around the turn of the century, she contracted
typhoid fever, but having suffered only flu-like symptoms, probably
didn't know it. However, her body became a carrier of the disease
bacterium. In 1906, while working for a banker's family, six of 11
people living in the household came down with typhoid fever. The banker
hired an investigator who eventually identified Miss Mallon and found 22
other cases of typhoid fever in families where she worked. New York City
health officials took Mary Mallon into custody in 1907 and, without any
charges or trial, kept her in an isolation cottage on North Brother
Island in New York Harbor. Two years later, a brief story on the front
page of the July 22, 1909 Press said: "A woman who worked as cook for
Ridgefield people, and who is called 'Typhoid Mary,' has been kept a
prisoner in quarantine at North Brother Island for the past two years.
It is said she was responsible for six cases of typhoid fever in one
family in this town. She is said to be immune herself, but can
communicate the disease to others. The Press then cited a New York
newspaper story that reported that Miss Mallon had appealed to the U.S.
Supreme Court for release, saying she'd done nothing wrong and had been
illegally jailed without trial. "I never had typhoid in my life and have
always been healthy," she said. "Why should I be banished like a leper
and compelled to live in solitary confinement with only a dog for a
companion?" While she was denied release in 1909, she was freed a year
later after swearing she would not cook again. However, in 1915, an
investigator tracing typhoid outbreaks at a New Jersey sanatorium and a
New York maternity hospital found that Mary Mallon, using aliases to
escape detection, had worked in both places. She was apprehended and
returned to North Brother Island for the rest of her life, dying in 1938
but always maintaining she was not a carrier.
Eugene O'Neill: Nobel Playwright
Eugene O'Neill rarely seemed a happy man. But America's only Nobel
Prize-winning playwright seemed particularly unhappy in Ridgefield. He
disliked the cold winters and what he considered a gloomy house, and he
may have imagined ghosts watching him. What's more, his marriage was in
the process of breaking up. Nonetheless, Mr. O'Neill used Brook Farm on
North Salem Road and its environs as the inspiration for the setting of
one of his best plays, Desire Under the Elms, and he wrote at least five
other plays while here (All God's Chillun Got Wings, Marco Millions, The
Great God Brown, Lazarus Laughed, and Strange Interlude). A native of
New York City, he was born in 1888, the son of an actor, and lived his
first seven years mostly in hotels and on trains. He was expelled from
Princeton, studied briefly at Harvard, and held many jobs -- including a
stint as a newspaper reporter. He began to write plays in 1913 and by
1920 he had won his first Pulitzer Prize for Beyond the Horizon. Mr.
O'Neill bought Brook Farm in 1922 and moved here with his second wife,
Agnes, and son Shane. Silvio Bedini (q.v.), the Smithsonian historian,
grew up nearby and, as a boy, played with Shane O'Neill, whom he found
both lonely and spoiled. To Silvio and his brother Ferdinand (q.v.)
Bedini, Mr. O'Neill was a stern, brooding, almost superhuman presence in
and about the house. Indeed, the playwright suffered from loneliness,
depression and alcoholism (one biographer describes a famous binge in
Brook Farm's cellar after O'Neill broke open a barrel of hard cider with
poet Hart Crane and critic Malcolm Cowley. At one point, as the
playwright poured pitchers of cider, the poet, waving a dead cigar, gave
a recital as the equally drunk critic watched in admiration.) O'Neill
scholars and biographers say he was unhappy at the house, possibly
because of the cold, perhaps because it was not near the sea. At one
point, a biographer said, O'Neill believed "someone was peering over his
shoulder as he wrote, and one night he thought he heard footsteps
outside, going round and round the house." Nonetheless, he found
inspiration in the trees and the stone walls that he employed in Desire
Under the Elms. In 1925, while he was living here, his daughter was
born; when she was 18, Oona O'Neill married comedian-director Charlie
Chaplin, and she remained devoted to him until his death in 1977. She
died in 1991. By 1926 Eugene O'Neill was using Brook Farm only
occasionally, but in a letter to his wife written in September 1927
shortly before he sold the place, O'Neill wrote: "Going to Ridgefield
made me sad. It's so beautiful right now, and I couldn't help feeling
more keenly than ever that that's where our family ought to be. I have
half a mind to open (the house) myself, except that it would be so
lonely all by myself." O'Neill went on to live in many other places here
and abroad, win the Nobel Prize in 1936, and begin a long decline in
health from a neurological disorder that ended in his death in 1953. But
though his output had dwindled in his last 20 years, one of his most
important works, the autobiographical Long Day's Journey into Night, was
completed near his death and published in 1956, earning his fourth
Pulitzer Prize. The only other individual to win that many Pulitzers is
poet Robert Frost.
Frederic Remington: Artist of the West
Frederic Remington’s dream house in Ridgefield quickly turned out to be
his last home. Mr. Remington, a leading artist and sculptor, was at the
height of his career -- his work was being acclaimed, his art was
continuing to develop, and his finances were back in order after some
tough periods. He and his wife Eva moved into “Stony Broke,” a handsome
Barry Avenue home which they had designed themselves, in July 1909. Less
than six months later, on the day after Christmas, Remington was dead,
the result of an attack of appendicitis that he had exacerbated by
treating himself with laxatives. Frederic S. Remington was born in 1861
in Canton, N.Y., and attended Yale’s School of Fine Arts. At
20, he went West and began documenting the lives of cowboys, soldiers
and American Indians in illustrations for many leading magazines, such
as Harper’s and Scribner’s. He became widely praised as a leading
illustrator, but by the turn of the century, Remington wanted
recognition as an artist and was devoting much of his time to painting
-- and even burned many past works he felt were too much like
illustrations. He was being strongly influenced by the Impressionist
movement and picked Ridgefield to be close to some of the leading
impressionists, including his friend Childe Hassam and J. Alden Weir.
During his career he produced more than 3,000 drawings, illustrations,
paintings, and bronzes.
Richard Scarry: Father of Busytown
Bananas Gorilla with his armload of watches. Sergeant Murphy blowing his
whistle. Mr. Fixit and chest of tools. Any kid who grew up from the
1960s onward and who didn't know these folks was deprived. Along with
Huckle Cat, Lowly Worm, and many other characters from the pen of
Richard Scarry, they have been friends to tens of millions of children.
"Scarry revealed to kids that the everyday world was a place that could
be understood -- and that learning was fun," said one biography of the
author and illustrator. Born in 1919 in Boston, Richard Scarry studied
at the Museum of Fine Arts school there. After serving as an Army
lieutenant during World War II, he became a freelance artist in New York
City. In 1950, he illustrated Katherine Jackson's The Animals Merry
Christmas for Simon and Schuster, and a career was born; first editions
of this 19-cent book fetch more than $100 today. Around 1951, he and his
wife Patsy moved to Ridgefield from New York City, renting a place on
the Conklin Farm on North Street -- a locale that inspired many of his
later farm illustrations. In 1953, the couple bought a house nearby, and
the Scarrys could often be seen in town in their MG sports car.
Throughout the 50s Mr. Scarry illustrated books for Golden Press. In
1955, he did Jane Werner's Smokey the Bear, a Golden Book that helped
popularize the rescued cub that became a national symbol for outdoor
fire safety. In 1953, their son was born; though they named him
Richard, he was always called Huck -- like the Busytown cat who would
follow -- and today Huck Scarry is an illustrator of children's books
himself. In 1959, the Scarrys moved to Westport, and 10 years later, to
Switzerland. His first book as an author illustrator was The Best Word
Book Ever, published in 1963, that also introduced Busytown.
Maurice Sendak: Where the Wild Things Come From
Maurice Sendak of Ridgebury is generally acknowledged to be the leading
visionary in children's literature today. Born in Brooklyn in 1928 to
Eastern European immigrants, Mr. Sendak spent much of his childhood in
bed, suffering from a variety of illnesses. He read extensively, drew
comic strips, and illustrated his older brother's stories. His father, a
gifted storyteller, entertained the children with disturbing tales of
the old country that often ended unhappily. "These were the stories he
told us before we went to bed," Mr. Sendak said. "No wonder I'm an
insomniac. I didn't know these stories were considered intensely
inappropriate for children until I repeated them in school and was sent
home to have my mouth washed out. Up until my generation, there was a
soft innocence, a sweetness in books for children which I thought was
inappropriate. It had nothing to do with my childhood or other people's
as I saw it." Mr. Sendak's experience growing up as a poor Jew in
Brooklyn during the Holocaust profoundly influenced his life and work.
The monsters in Where the Wild Things Are were inspired by relatives
who'd fled the Nazis and come to live with his family in New York. "They
are my uncles and aunts, who poked us, pinched us, said absurd,
patronizing things to us, took up all the room, ate up all the food,"
Mr. Sendak said. In his teens, Mr. Sendak studied at the Art Students
League and was only 19 when he illustrated his first book, Atomics for
the Millions, in 1947 (he did the book for his physics teacher in
exchange for a passing grade and a small fee). When he moved to
Ridgefield in 1972, Mr. Sendak had lived in New York City all his life,
and had never needed a car. “I’m a 44-year-old neurotic who just learned
to drive,” Mr. Sendak told a Press reporter. “Maybe you should warn them
that I drive a green Plymouth.” Over his years here, his work has
expanded into the worlds of opera and ballet; he's designed sets and
costumes for several successful productions, including an opera of Where
the Wild Things Are. He believes his art has always been deeply
connected to the music he enjoys. "Designing for operas is as close as I
can get to pretending that I'm a musician," he says.
Theodore C. Sorensen: Adviser to Presidents
“I’m young enough to think I’ll be back in government,” Theodore C.
Sorensen told The Press in 1972, shortly after moving to Bennett’s Farm
Road. One of President John F. Kennedy’s closest advisers, Mr. Sorensen
headed Mr. Kennedy’s staff for the eight years he was a U.S. senator,
and then spent three years as the president’s special counsel on
domestic affairs. Five years after the interview, President Jimmy Carter
nominated Mr. Sorensen to be director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, but after a storm of protest connected with charges he had
leaked classified information as a Kennedy adviser, Mr. Sorensen
withdrew. However, the next year, President Carter named him to the
Presidential Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and he was
involved in the late 1970s negotiations that led to turning the Panama
Canal over to Panama in 1999. He served President Clinton as a member of
the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships and has endowed a
grant of his own: the Theodore C. Sorensen Research Fellowship at the
John F. Kennedy Library in Boston to help scholars of domestic policy,
political journalism, polling, and similar subjects. Mr. Sorensen has
written several books, including Kennedy, The Kennedy Legacy, and
Watchmen in the Night: Presidential Accountability after Watergate.
Carleton Stevens: Heroic Messenger and Inventor
Carleton Ross Stevens, barely 20, had one of the most important jobs in
World War I: He delivered the first sectional terms of the armistice to
General Pershing. Sgt. Stevens rode a motorcycle more than 800 miles in
19 hours. He stopped only three times – once when he crashed – and ate
only chocolate. Sgt. Stevens, who had entered the service in June 1918,
was often under fire while on duty as a motorcycle dispatch rider. In
one case, while on a motorcycle trip in France, enemy fire was so heavy
he had to hide in a swamp for five days, with only raw bacon to eat.
Never formally schooled beyond the eighth grade, Mr. Stevens went on to
invent numerous machines and electronic devices, lecture at Yale during
World War II and build a highly successful manufacturing business in
Waterbury. Born in 1898, the Ridgefield native joined American Brass in
Waterbury after the war and began inventing automated machines and
later, electronic devices. (In 1912, as a boy of only 14, he had set up
the first wireless “ham” radio station in Ridgefield and he remained a
ham all his life.) He founded his own company and during World War II,
created devices for the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic
bomb. An Army signal corps major in the Second World War, he lectured at
Yale on the Manhattan Project.
Robert Vaughn: Actor and Scholar
Not many Hollywood stars could be properly addressed as "Dr." But Robert
Vaughn, the actor, is also a political activist and scholar whose Ph.D.
thesis was so good, it was turned into a book. Nearly 30 years later,
Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting is still in print
and regularly assigned to law students. To most people, of course, Mr.
Vaughn is Napoleon Solo of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., or the cowardly fop
in The Magnificent Seven or the heavy drinking friend in The Young
Philadelphians. Over his long career, he has appeared in more than 100
movies, starred in several TV series, appeared as a guest star hundreds
of times in countless programs, and performed on the stage. As late as
the 1990s, he has also done stints as a radio talk show host with a keen
ability at debating politics. His political interests are deep-seated. A
liberal Democrat, he campaigned for John F. Kennedy (who was
assassinated on Vaughn's 31st birthday). He became a friend of Robert
Kennedy and his family, and seriously considered running for office
himself until Bobby Kennedy was also killed. "I lost heart for the
battle," he said later. But he didn't lose heart when it came to
activism, and Mr. Vaughn, a one-time Army infantry drill sergeant, was
the first major member of the film industry to speak out against the
Vietnam War and before he was finished, had delivered more than 1,000
anti-war speeches. Though already famous as an actor (he was Photoplay's
Actor of the Year in 1965), he took the role of journalist in covering
the 1972 Democratic National Convention for radio KABC in Los Angeles.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr. Vaughn won an Emmy in 1977 for his
portrayal of a shifty H.R. Haldeman-type character in Washington: Behind
Closed Doors, a fictionalized mini-series of the Nixon administration.
Born in New York in 1932, Mr. Vaughn was the son of a radio-actor father
and a stage-actress mother. He majored in journalism at the University
of Minnesota where, in 1951, he won an acting contest, decided to move
to Los Angeles and pursue that career. His first starring role was in
Roger Corman's Teenage Caveman in 1958. But it was his Academy Award
nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Young Philadephians that
really launched his career. He and his wife, Linda, a former actress who
has been an activist against child abuse, moved to the historic Sunset
Hall mansion on Old West Mountain Road in 1982. In the mid-1990s, they
sold the place and moved to a new home in Ridgebury where the
multifaceted actor is working on his autobiography.
------------------------------------------------------------
David L. Webb
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <3B203989...@qwest.net>, Okay Fine <ein...@qwest.net>
wrote:
> David--
> Your exchange with Art seems to say that you agree that a name on a title
> page is
> not by itself sufficient to establish authorship.
>
> I think that's progress.
What on earth are you talking about? I've *never* claimed that the
appearance of a name on a title page by itself establishes authorship
conclusively -- indeed, I've remarked *many times* upon the Asa Earl
Carter imposture, and its salutary reminder of the folly of trying to
infer (based upon internal evidence) what a writer's personality,
social origins, educational background, etc. must have been from that
author's fictional works. Rather, as I've said many times, literary
attributions are arrived at by considering such evidence in a larger
context. You must have me confused with someone else.
However, in the instance Art and I were discussing, there was not,
to my knowledge, even anything as suggestive as the author's name on a
title page. Rather, according to all accounts I've seen of the affair,
the studio simply used supposed quotations from the reviews of David
Manning, supposedly a film reviewer for the Ridgefield Press; as far as
I know, *no* such reviews *ever appeared* in the Ridgefield Press under
anyone's name; as far as I can ascertain, the studio simply made up the
encomiums that were sypposedly extracted from nonexistent reviews by a
nonexistent reviewer in a real newspaper.
In that regard, the studio's activities are not so different from
Art's own inventions. Art claims that "The evidence for David
Manning's authorship is abundant and wide-ranging for the small
Connecticut community in which he lived, much more abundant than
comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics," yet he
has not furnished a *single* example of this "abundant evidence," nor
of the evidence for the authorship of other Ridgefield Press film
critics with which it is compared. In short, it appears that, like the
studio, Art simply made it all up.
David Webb
David L. Webb
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <3B20BD66...@erols.com>, Neuendorffer <ph...@erols.com>
(ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
[...]
[Rest of the "quotation" snipped]
Well, Art, I see that, not content with merely inventing things for
which you can supply no evidence, you have descended to a new low
unworthy even of you: intentionally distorting a quotation without
indicating the alteration. Here's the URL for the quotation above:
<http://www.acorn-online.com/arnold.htm>
The quotation does *not* read "Freemason Benedict Arnold," but rather
"General Benedict Arnold." There is no suggestion that the author of
the quotation is a paranoid conspiracy theorist, as your contemptible
alteration might suggest. Arnold was a Freemason, but nobody (except
perhaps a demented conspiracy theorist) would regard that fact as
remotely germane to a discussion of Arnold's defense of Ridgefield.
And you characterize people like Terry Ross as "corrupt"?! I've
never seen him intentionally alter a quotation as you just did.
> > As far as I know, Manning's film crticism *did not even appear* in
> > the paper with which the studio claimed that Manning was affiliated.
> As far as I know, Shakespeare's plays *did not even appear*
> in the public theatres with which he was supposedly affiliated.
Then you are VERy poorly informed, Art. There is plenty of evidence
for the performance of Shakespeare's plays.
> > Do you actually know of any evidence of Manning's
> > authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable evidence for other
> > Ridgefield Press movie critics"?
> He was widely quoted. No doubt the persons quoting him knew him
> personally.
"No doubt the persons quoting him knew him personally"?! There is
no such person, Art.
> > > > > <<LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Manning was a film critic only a
> > > > > Hollywood studio could love -- he always said what you wanted him to
> >>> > say. If Siskel and Ebert gave two thumbs up to a movie, David Manning
> > > > > would give three.
> > > > >
> >>> > If he sounds too good to be true that's because he is. Over the weekend,
> >>> > Newsweek exposed Manning as a fake made up by someone in the advertising
> > > > > department of Columbia Pictures.
[...]
> > > > > Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent of Columbia Pictures and
> >>> > movie-making arm of Sony Corp. pulled ads that quote Manning, who was
> > > > > described as working for the Ridgefield Press in southwestern
> > > > > Connecticut, a real weekly paper with a circulation of 6,500 and
> > > > > no regular film reviewers.>>
> > > > If the Ridgefield Press had *no* regular film reviewers, then
> > > > how could the evidence for Manning's authorship be "abundant and
> > > > wide-ranging, for the small Connecticut community in which he lived,
> > > > much more abundant than comparable evidence for other Ridgefield Press
> > > > movie critics," as you claimed, Art?
> > > They are irregular film reviewers like Jay Prescott Sherman & Mr. SMEE:
> > Then where is the "abundant and wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much
> > more abundant than comparable evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield
> > Press movie reviewers, Art? You mean there isn't any evidence? You mean,
> > you just made up that part? That's what I thought.
[Crackpot cryptography deleted]
> > More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
> > expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
> > wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> > evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
> > what I thought.
[More crackpot cryptography deleted]
> > More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
> > expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
> > wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> > evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
> > what I thought.
[Still more crackpot cryptography, some of apparently supposedly
linking James Bond to Freemasonry, deleted]
> > More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
> > expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
> > wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> > evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
> > what I thought.
> Masonic Crackpot Cryptography
>
> In the year 1798 a John Browne issued _The Master Key_ through all the
> Degrees of a Freemason's Lodge. It was printed in what to all appearance
> is a very complicated cipher. In reality it is quite simple, the letters
> of the name:
> B R O W N E being substitued
> for the vowels A E I O U Y
>
> -Waite's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
What does this have to do with your supposedly "abundant and
wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? You
mean, you have no such evidence? That's what I thought, Art.
> > > > But I fear that this affair has depths that you have not yet probed,
> > > > Art. Since David Manning was a fake, surely his name was carefully
> > > > chosen. Indeed, "David Manning" is a perfect anagram of
> > > >
> > > > A. N. in amid dvng.
> > > D-AVID MAN-NING
> > > DAMN AVID GINN!
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > GINN. [Ar.] (Arabian & Mohammedan Myth.) pl of ginnee: A genius or
> > > demon; one of the fabled genii, good and evil spirits, supposed to be
> > > the children of fire, and to have the power of assuming various forms.
> > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The Comedy of Errors Act 3, Scene 1
> > >
> > > DROMIO OF EPHESUS Maud, BRIDGET, (=> BRIDGET)
> > > Marian, CICEL, (=> CECIL)
> > > Gillian, GINN! (=> SILVER in Jap.)
> > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > http://zurix.apana.org.au/asatru/Webpage2/Ftpstone.htm
> > >
> > > <<The Stentoften runestone (ca. 620 C.E.) reads:
> > >
> > > "I, master of the runes, bury here GINN-runes (runes of power).">>
> > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Abbot Bernard led Dante through heaven.
> > >
> > > ABBOT BERNARD (GINN) => ABB(ING)TO(N) BERNARD
> > >
> > > Elizabeth Hall Nash's 2nd husband was Sir John Bernard of Abbington
> > >
> > > The writer THOMAS NASH died in poverty (on St. Bernard's day 1601)
> > That's a great shaggy dog story, Art.
[...]
> > What does it have to do with
> > Shakespeare, or with the "abundant evidence" you have yet to produce? You
> > mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and wide-ranging
> > evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable evidence"
> > even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers?
This has *nothing to do* with Ridgefield Press film critics, so it
certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield of those
critics. Have you adopted a new trolling persona who is merely insane
and not even cleVER, Art? What's the point of that?
> Hiram Davis: The Last Blue
>
> When Hiram Davis died in 1947, he was one of only two Connecticut
> veterans of the Civil War and the last who had made his home in
> Ridgefield. A native of Wilton, he was only 15 when he served as a
> drummer boy in Sheridan’s army in the Shenandoah Valley and was with the
> general on his 20-mile dash from Winchester, immortalized in the Thomas
> Buchanan Reed poem, "Sheridan’s Ride." He lived in Ridgefield from 1865
> until moving to Florida late in life. He was a stonemason and "it was
> said there was scarcely a chimney in Ridgefield which had not been built
> or repaired by him." He served as a state representative in 1908, as a
> borough warden, and in the fire department. He was a Mason, Odd Fellow,
> and the last member of the Edwin D. Pickett Post of the Grand Army of
> the Republic, Ridgefield’s organization for Civil War veterans.
This has *nothing to do* with Ridgefield Press film critics, so it
certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield of those
critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you evidently
don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for Manning's
authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable evidence for
other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you alluded? You mean,
you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Myles Eason: Actor with a Green Thumb
>
> Myles Eason, an actor and director on three continents, had a different
> claim to fame in Ridgefield: he was the only male member of the
> Ridgefield Garden Club. Born in Australia in 1915, Mr. Eason spent eight
> years in the Royal Artillery, serving in World War II with the famed
> "Desert Rats" in Africa and with Field Marshal Montgomery. In 1946, he
> joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon, and was named
> actor of the year by The London Times for performances as Romeo and
> Richard II. On stage and in films in both England and the U.S., Mr.
> Eason appeared with Margaret Rutherford, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne,
> Claudette Colbert, and Sir John Gielgud. He directed Joseph Cotton,
> Thomas Mitchell and Agnes Moorehead in the mystery play, Prescription:
> Murder. At his funeral in 1977, fellow Australian Cyril Ritchard (q.v.)
> read the eulogy.
This has *nothing to do* with Ridgefield Press film critics, so it
certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield of those
critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you evidently
don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for Manning's
authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable evidence for
other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you alluded? You mean,
you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Michael Chekhov: Actor, Director, Coach
>
> Mikhail Alexandrovich Chekhov, nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov, was
> born in Russia in 1891 and by the age of 21 was already a noted actor in
> his homeland. By 1923, he was a director at the Moscow Art Theatre, but
> his innovative methods eventually led the Communists to label him "alien
> and reactionary" and a "sick artist." Michael Chekhov emigrated to
> Germany and then England, establishing a well-respected method of
> training actors. In 1939, as war was breaking out, he moved his Chekhov
> Theatre Studio from England to the old Ridgefield School for Boys on
> North Salem Road. While here, Mr. Chekhov made his first appearance in
> an English-speaking role on the public stage – a Russian War Relief
> dramatic program on the stage of the old high school (the soon-to-be
> Ridgefield Playhouse), performing in each of the three short plays
> presented. By 1945 he was in Hollywood, where he taught and acted in
> films – his portrayal of the psychoanalyst in Alfred Hitchcock’s
> Spellbound won him an Academy Award nomination. Among his students were
> Marilyn Monroe, Jack Palance, Anthony Quinn, Yul Brynner, Gregory Peck,
> and Akim Tamiroff. He died in 1955, but his school lives on as the
> Chekhov Theatre Ensemble in New York City.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Ralph Edwards: Truth or Consequences
>
> Ralph Edwards, a leading personality in both radio and early television
> who is still a force in TV today, lived in Ridgefield for 12 years, but
> first met the town in a war bond drive. A native of Colorado, Mr.
> Edwards got his start in radio as a writer and an announcer, and in
> 1940, invented one of the most successful on-air programs ever: Truth or
> Consequences. On radio and early television, Mr. Edwards both produced
> and starred in the quiz show that was so popular, Hot Springs, New
> Mexico, changed its name to Truth or Consequences in 1950; a park there
> is named Ralph Edwards Park. In December 1944, Mr. Edwards ran a Truth
> or Consequences show at the Ridgefield Playhouse (now Webster Bank) as
> part of a war bond rally. The radio show continued till 1957, but the TV
> version, mostly starring Edwards' discovery Bob Barker, ran from 1950 to
> 1988 – altogether, nearly a half century. He also created such
> long-running shows as This Is Your Life and Name That Tune. In 1958,
> Edwards and his wife, Barbara, bought a house on the corner of North
> Street and Stonecrest Road, and lived there off and on until 1971.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Harvey Fierstein: Celebrating Individuality
>
> Actor, playwright, comedian, and gay activist Harvey Fierstein added
> good humor and social enlightenment to the last decade of 20th Century
> Ridgefield. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1954, Mr. Fierstein became in
> 1983 the only person to win Tony awards as both the playwright and the
> actor in the same production. The acclaimed Torch Song Trilogy is about
> a homosexual man struggling to live in New York. "Everyone wants what
> Arnold wants, an apartment they can afford, a job they don’t hate too
> much, a chance to go to the store once in a while, and someone to share
> it with," he once said of the protagonist. A year after Torch Song, he
> won a third Tony for his Broadway adaptation of La Cage Aux Folles. Mr.
> Fierstein has appeared in many movies and on television, where he has
> both written and starred in productions -- he won an Emmy nomination for
> a part he played in Cheers, the TV series. His film credits include such
> hits as Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day and Woody Allen's Bullets over
> Broadway. "Quoting scripture to cover up prejudice is like spraying
> perfume on a dung heap," Mr. Fierstein wrote in response. "In time, the
> truth will set itself free."
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Varian Fry: Among the Righteous
>
> When he lived in Ridgefield, Varian Fry rarely talked about World War
> II, much less his part in it. He was more likely to chat about his
> irises or perhaps the state of classics instruction at Ridgefield High
> School. But by the late 1990s, 20 years after his death, Mr. Fry was
> being recognized around the world as one of the unsung heroes of the
> war. A non-Jew, Mr. Fry is credited with saving the lives of some 2,000
> Jewish artists, writers and scholars wanted by the Nazis. As a volunteer
> agent for the World Rescue Committee, this scholarly intellectual spent
> 14 months in Marseilles in 1940 and 1941, sneaking out countless Jews
> and others wanted by the Nazis – among them painter Marc Chagall,
> sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, and painter-poet Max Ernst. His exploits –
> and his lack of support from the U.S. government which helped to get him
> expelled from France -- are detailed in his 1945 book, Surrender on
> Demand, reissued in 1997. His story has been told in major exhibits at
> the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (1993-94) and The Jewish
> Museum in New York City (1997-98). France awarded him the Legion of
> Honor in 1960, and in 1996, Israel posthumously gave him the "Righteous
> Among the Nations" award, presented to gentiles who helped to save Jews;
> he was the first American ever so honored. Mr. Fry, a writer and editor,
> lived on Olmstead Lane and later in Farmingville from 1956 until shortly
> before his death in Easton in 1967.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Jolie Gabor: Mama
>
> Jolie Gabor, the colorful mother of the even more colorful Gabor sisters
> -- Eva, Magda and Zsa-Zsa -- considered her home in Ridgefield a quiet
> retreat compared to her places on Long Island and in California. "I only
> get a chance to play bridge in Ridgefield because the social life is so
> busy in Southampton and Palm Springs," Ms. Gabor once said. She was born
> Jansci Tilleman in Budapest in 1900 -- her wealthy parents, wanting a
> boy, named her Jansci -- Johnny. She became a socialite, musician and
> actress and, in 1936, age 35 and married, was selected Miss Hungary. She
> came to the United States in 1939; when she arrived she had only $100
> and a diamond ring. However, she was hardly without means -- daughter
> Zsa Zsa, who arrived earlier, was married to Conrad Hilton, the hotel
> owner. With Zsa Zsa's help, she established a Madison Avenue jewelry
> business that thrived off the reputations of her increasingly popular
> and marriage-prone daughters. At one point, among the four of them, the
> Gabors had had 21 husbands. Actor George Sanders was married to both
> Magda and Zsa Zsa and was attracted to Jolie. "You know, Jolie," he once
> wrote her, "I think marriage is for very simple people, not great
> artists like us." Zsa Zsa, on the other hand, observed of Sanders: "When
> I was married to George Sanders, we were both in love with him. I fell
> out of love with him, but he didn't." In 1966, Jolie and her husband,
> Count Odon de Szigethy, bought a modest home on Oscaleta Road and
> immediately set about glamorizing the place. "I like to make from a
> nothing something," she told The Press.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> George Washington Gilbert: The Hermit of Ridgefield
>
> Some say George Washington Gilbert snapped when he was deserted by his
> sweetheart. Others say he was just odd. For years he lived -- usually
> barefoot -- in his family homestead on Florida Hill Road as it fell down
> around him. Born in 1847, little is known of his early life until he
> began to attract attention as a hermit. Although he never came into town
> in his later life, he enjoyed visitors and hundreds of people called on
> him each year to hear him spin yarns or pose mathematical questions,
> such as "What is a third and a half of a third of ten?" Colonel Edward
> M. Knox, a wealthy businessman who had a 50-room mansion nearby, took
> pity on Gilbert, and built him a little cottage nearby. "This was
> cluttered with old newspapers and magazines, the furniture of his
> ancestors, and the old man's memorabilia," said The Press. Among his
> most prized possessions was a sword he said his grandfather had captured
> from a Hessian officer at the Battle of Monmouth during the Revolution.
> On Jan. 6, 1924, during a bitterly cold spell, a neighbor looked in on
> Mr. Gilbert and found him frozen to death.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Herbert Lapidus: The Einstein of Odor
>
> Dr. Herbert Lapidus has a nose for a good idea. He's the man behind Odor
> Eaters, the deodorizing shoe inserts that have graced more than 300
> million feet since he invented them back in 1974. "You have a problem
> and you look for a solution," Dr. Lapidus told The Press in 1988.
> "Basically, that's what an invention is." The Odor Eaters inspiration
> came long before the invention, though, back in his college days in the
> early 50s. "I had a roommate who had very smelly feet." Odor Eaters and
> a related Lapidus invention, Sneaker Tamers, are so popular that for 25
> years, his employer, Combe Inc., has sponsored an International Rotten
> Sneaker Contest to find the annual worst-smelling sneaker. The
> Columbia/Rutgers graduate started out as a hospital pharmacist in the
> Army, worked for Bristol-Myers where he developed Silence Is Golden
> cough syrup and worked on Excedrin. In 1970, he joined a then-new Combe
> where he developed Odor Eaters and Sneaker Tamers. But his focus wasn't
> always on the bottom of the body. Dr. Lapidus, who's lived on Nutmeg
> Ridge since 1972, is the man behind Grecian Formula and Just for Men
> hair colorings. And he has helped in creating more than two dozen other
> Combe products, including Lanacane skin cream, Vagisil, and Sea-Bond for
> dentures. But Odor Eaters has long been what he's famous for, earning
> him such titles as "the Einstein of odor" or the "expert in odorology."
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Fred Jones: Pet Detective
>
> Fred B. Jones, one of Ridgefield’s last farmers, was also a dog warden
> whose feats were famous. Caretaker of the working farm at the Brewster
> estate on Lounsbury Road for nearly 60 years, he was dog warden in the
> 1950s and 60s. In 1960, a New York City newspaper told how one day a
> Ridgebury recluse died while walking home from Danbury and his two dogs
> refused to let police or the medical examiner approach the body. Mr.
> Jones talked to the snarling dogs, then walked into the dead man’s
> cabin. The dogs followed him and he locked them inside, reporting he had
> just employed some simple dog psychology. A woman once called to demand
> that he should do something about the two peacocks fighting in her yard.
> “Madam,” he replied patiently, “I am not the peacock warden. I am the
> dog warden.”
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Frederic Remington: Artist of the West
>
> Frederic Remington’s dream house in Ridgefield quickly turned out to be
> his last home. Mr. Remington, a leading artist and sculptor, was at the
> height of his career -- his work was being acclaimed, his art was
> continuing to develop, and his finances were back in order after some
> tough periods. He and his wife Eva moved into “Stony Broke,” a handsome
> Barry Avenue home which they had designed themselves, in July 1909. Less
> than six months later, on the day after Christmas, Remington was dead,
> the result of an attack of appendicitis that he had exacerbated by
> treating himself with laxatives. Frederic S. Remington was born in 1861
> in Canton, N.Y., and attended Yale’s School of Fine Arts. At
> 20, he went West and began documenting the lives of cowboys, soldiers
> and American Indians in illustrations for many leading magazines, such
> as Harper’s and Scribner’s. He became widely praised as a leading
> illustrator, but by the turn of the century, Remington wanted
> recognition as an artist and was devoting much of his time to painting
> -- and even burned many past works he felt were too much like
> illustrations. He was being strongly influenced by the Impressionist
> movement and picked Ridgefield to be close to some of the leading
> impressionists, including his friend Childe Hassam and J. Alden Weir.
> During his career he produced more than 3,000 drawings, illustrations,
> paintings, and bronzes.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Theodore C. Sorensen: Adviser to Presidents
>
> “I’m young enough to think I’ll be back in government,” Theodore C.
> Sorensen told The Press in 1972, shortly after moving to Bennett’s Farm
> Road. One of President John F. Kennedy’s closest advisers, Mr. Sorensen
> headed Mr. Kennedy’s staff for the eight years he was a U.S. senator,
> and then spent three years as the president’s special counsel on
> domestic affairs. Five years after the interview, President Jimmy Carter
> nominated Mr. Sorensen to be director of the Central Intelligence
> Agency, but after a storm of protest connected with charges he had
> leaked classified information as a Kennedy adviser, Mr. Sorensen
> withdrew. However, the next year, President Carter named him to the
> Presidential Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and he was
> involved in the late 1970s negotiations that led to turning the Panama
> Canal over to Panama in 1999. He served President Clinton as a member of
> the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships and has endowed a
> grant of his own: the Theodore C. Sorensen Research Fellowship at the
> John F. Kennedy Library in Boston to help scholars of domestic policy,
> political journalism, polling, and similar subjects. Mr. Sorensen has
> written several books, including Kennedy, The Kennedy Legacy, and
> Watchmen in the Night: Presidential Accountability after Watergate.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
> Carleton Stevens: Heroic Messenger and Inventor
>
> Carleton Ross Stevens, barely 20, had one of the most important jobs in
> World War I: He delivered the first sectional terms of the armistice to
> General Pershing. Sgt. Stevens rode a motorcycle more than 800 miles in
> 19 hours. He stopped only three times – once when he crashed – and ate
> only chocolate. Sgt. Stevens, who had entered the service in June 1918,
> was often under fire while on duty as a motorcycle dispatch rider. In
> one case, while on a motorcycle trip in France, enemy fire was so heavy
> he had to hide in a swamp for five days, with only raw bacon to eat.
> Never formally schooled beyond the eighth grade, Mr. Stevens went on to
> invent numerous machines and electronic devices, lecture at Yale during
> World War II and build a highly successful manufacturing business in
> Waterbury. Born in 1898, the Ridgefield native joined American Brass in
> Waterbury after the war and began inventing automated machines and
> later, electronic devices. (In 1912, as a boy of only 14, he had set up
> the first wireless “ham” radio station in Ridgefield and he remained a
> ham all his life.) He founded his own company and during World War II,
> created devices for the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic
> bomb. An Army signal corps major in the Second World War, he lectured at
> Yale on the Manhattan Project.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics. Even if you had any such evidence (which you
evidently don't), where is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for
Manning's authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you
alluded? You mean, you just made that up? That's what I thought, Art.
This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence in Ridgefield
of those critics.
Even if you had any such evidence (which you evidently don't), where
is the "abundant and wide-ranging" evidence for Manning's authorship
that is "much more abundant than comparable evidence for other
Ridgefield Press movie critics" to which you alluded? So far you
haven't done *any* of the following:
(1) Presented *any* evidence of the authorship and activities of *any*
of the Ridgefield Press film reviewers, regular or irregular;
(2) Presented *any* evidence of Manning's authorship (or indeed of his
existence) apart from the invented quotes;
(3) Shown that the latter (nonexistent) evidence is more "abundant"
than the former (nonexistent) evidence.
You mean, you just made it *all* up? That's what I thought, Art.
David Webb
Neuendorffer
"David L. Webb" wrote:
>
> Well, Art, I see that, not content with merely inventing things for
> which you can supply no evidence, you have descended to a new low
> unworthy even of you: intentionally distorting a quotation without
> indicating the alteration. Here's the URL for the quotation above:
>
> <http://www.acorn-online.com/arnold.htm>
>
> The quotation does *not* read "Freemason Benedict Arnold," but rather
> "General Benedict Arnold." There is no suggestion that the author of
> the quotation is a paranoid conspiracy theorist, as your contemptible
> alteration might suggest. Arnold was a Freemason, but nobody (except
> perhaps a demented conspiracy theorist) would regard that fact as
> remotely germane to a discussion of Arnold's defense of Ridgefield.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
A remote Germane: a Hessian officer at the Battle of Monmouth
---------------------------------------------------------------------
George Washington Gilbert: The Hermit of Ridgefield
<<Although he never came into town in his later life,
he enjoyed visitors and hundreds of people called on him
each year to hear him spin yarns or pose mathematical questions,
such as "What is a third and a half of a third of ten?" Colonel Edward
M. Knox, a wealthy businessman who had a 50-room mansion nearby, took
pity on Gilbert, and built him a little cottage nearby. "This was
cluttered with old newspapers and magazines, the furniture of his
ancestors, and the old man's memorabilia," said The Press. Among his
most prized possessions was a sword he said his grandfather had captured
from a Hessian officer at the Battle of Monmouth during the Revolution.
On Jan. 6, 1924, during a bitterly cold spell, a neighbor looked in on
Mr. Gilbert and found him frozen to death.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> And you characterize people like Terry Ross as "corrupt"?! I've
> never seen him intentionally alter a quotation as you just did.
I characterized people like Terry Ross as "corrupted" not "corrupt".
> > > As far as I know, Manning's film crticism *did not even appear* in
> > > the paper with which the studio claimed that Manning was affiliated.
>
> > As far as I know, Shakespeare's plays *did not even appear*
> > in the public theatres with which he was supposedly affiliated.
>
> Then you are VERy poorly informed, Art. There is plenty of evidence
> for the performance of Shakespeare's plays.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Who? MANNINGham?
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<[Among Thomas Greene's fellow students at the Middle Temple] there was
John MANNINGham, the now-famous diarist who described a performance of
*Twelfth Night* in the Middle Temple hall on February 2, 1602 and told a
bawdy anecdote about Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Manningham knew
Greene, and quotes him in his diary for February 5, 1603:
"There is best sport always when you put a woman on the case.">>
The following poem which alludes to Susan Vere's want of an adequate
dowry was recorded by John Manningham of the Middle Temple during
the year 1602-3, when she was about 15 and Oxford was still alive:
LA[DY] SUSAN VERE
Nothing's your lott, that's more then can be told
For nothing is more precious then gold.
From The Diary of John Manningham of the Middle Temple 1602-1603,
ed. Robert Parker Sorlien (Hanover, NH: University Press of
New England, 1976), p. 182."
------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Do you actually know of any evidence of Manning's
> > > authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
> > > evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics"?
>
> > He was widely quoted. No doubt the persons quoting him knew him
> > personally.
>
> "No doubt the persons quoting him knew him personally"?!
> There is no such person, Art.
No doubt, Susan Vere knew MANNINGham personally then.
> > > More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
> > > expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
> > > wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> > > evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
> > > what I thought.
>
> > Masonic Crackpot Cryptography
> >
> > In the year 1798 a John Browne issued _The Master Key_ through all the
> > Degrees of a Freemason's Lodge. It was printed in what to all appearance
> > is a very complicated cipher. In reality it is quite simple, the letters
> > of the name:
> > B R O W N E being substitued
> > for the vowels A E I O U Y
> >
> > -Waite's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
>
> What does this have to do with your supposedly "abundant and
> wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"But why fly in the face of facts? Few people love the writings
of Sir Thomas Browne, but those who do are of the salt of the Earth."
— Virginia Woolf
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/index.shtml
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Neuendorffer wrote:
October 19, 1605, Sir Thomas Brown, wrote _Pseudodoxia
Epidemica_, or _Vulgar Errors_ published when he was 16.
Sir Thomas died in 1682, on his 77th birthday. (Interestingly,
Pseudodoxia has a chapter that deals in part with such coincidences.)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Like Romeo Henry Wriothesley was the son & heir of MONTAGU's:
And as widow of the Treasurer of the Chamber (Thomas Heneage d.1592)
Southampton's mother (Mary BROWNE MONTAGU Wriothesley Heneage)
paid William Shakespeare 20 pounds FOR WORK NOT DONE:
<<1595-3-15:Royal record. An entry in the accounts of the Treasurer of
the Chamber reads: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare and Richard
Burbage, servaunts to the Lord Chamberleyne, upon the Councille's
warrant dated at Whitehall XVth Marcij 1594, for two severall comedies
or enterludes shewed by them before her majestie in Christmas tyme
laste part viz St. Stephen's daye and Innocents daye..." (Public
Record Office, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts No. 542, f. 207b).>>
------------------------------------------------------------
<<Like Edmund Shakespeare he was unmarried and had an illegitimate son
-- buried in St. Giles, Cripplegate, an infant a fortnight old, in 1606.
He himself was bured in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, on 16 August 1608. He
left his house in Holywell Street to the daughter of Robert Browne. We
have met this player before in the correspondence of Edward Alleyn:
"Rownd a bowte vs yt hathe bene all moste in every howsse abowt vs &
wholle howsholdes deyed & yt my frend the baylle doth scape but he
smealles monstrusly for feare & dares staye no wheare for ther hathe
deyed this laste weacke in generall 1603. . . & as for other newes of
this & that I cane tealle youe none but that Robart brownes wife in
shordech & all her chelldren & howshowld be dead & heare dores sheat
vpe."
originally a Worcester's man, [Browne] spent much of his time playing
abroad in Germany. His family was wiped out by plague in 1593, but he
married again: William Sly left him his share in the Globe, and made
Browne's wife his residuary legatee. To Phillips; apprentice, James
Sands, Sly left the considerabel sum of L40. After making his will Sly
bethought him of Cuthbert Burbage,a nd left him his sword and his hat;
to the poor, 40s.>> - _William Shakespeare_ by Rowse.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Brownists: A nonconformist sect founded by Robert Browne
c 1550-1633. They aimed at a democratic form of Church Government
without a distinct priesthood, and may be regarded as forerunners
of the Independents. Many emigrated to New England.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
<<Robert Browne was the unattractive, ill-tempered wife-beating
founder of the Independents, who were to win (temporarily) with
Oliver Cromwell.>> - _William Shakespeare_ by Rowse.
<<Robert Browne boasted of having been imprisoned
in 32 different jails.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Twelfth Night Act 3, Scene 2
SIR ANDREW An't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy
I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.
--------------------------------------------------------------
> > > What does it have to do with Shakespeare,
> > > or with the "abundant evidence" you have yet to produce? You
> > > mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and wide-ranging
> > > evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable evidence"
> > > even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers?
>
> > Ridgeville Residence Evidence
> > http://www.acorn-online.com/A-F.htm
> >
> > Wayne Boring: Superman's Man
> >
> > <<If you were among the many fans of Superman between 1940 and the
> > 1960s, you saw the work of Wayne Boring, a Ridgefield cartoonist who
> > brought the man of steel to life for millions who read the newspaper
> > comics.>>
> This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
> critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence
> in Ridgefield of those critics.
Sez you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
(ph...@errors.compost) wrote:
> > (ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
[...]
> > > <<Freemason (B)enedict (A)rnold came to Ridgefield in April of 1777
> > > to fight the British who had landed at Compo Beach at Westport, Conn.,
> > > and marched north to Danbury, where the Redcoats burned many homes and
> > > community buildings.
[Rest deleted]
> "David L. Webb" wrote:
> >
> > Well, Art, I see that, not content with merely inventing things for
> > which you can supply no evidence, you have descended to a new low
> > unworthy even of you: intentionally distorting a quotation without
> > indicating the alteration. Here's the URL for the quotation above:
> >
> > <http://www.acorn-online.com/arnold.htm>
> >
> > The quotation does *not* read "Freemason Benedict Arnold," but rather
> > "General Benedict Arnold." There is no suggestion that the author of
> > the quotation is a paranoid conspiracy theorist, as your contemptible
> > alteration might suggest. Arnold was a Freemason, but nobody (except
> > perhaps a demented conspiracy theorist) would regard that fact as
> > remotely germane to a discussion of Arnold's defense of Ridgefield.
> A remote Germane: a Hessian officer at the Battle of Monmouth
[Irrelevant twaddle deleted]
> > And you characterize people like Terry Ross as "corrupt"?! I've
> > never seen him intentionally alter a quotation as you just did.
> I characterized people like Terry Ross as "corrupted" not "corrupt".
No, Art; can't you get *ANYTHING* right? Can't you quote *ANYTHING*,
even your *OWN POST*, without distorting it?! You characterized "the
authorities with some expertise" as "corrupt." Here is the URL for your
post from the Google archives:
...and here is the text: I wrote
> Newcomers are best advised to listen to authorities with some
> expertise rather than to poorly informed conspiracy theorists,
> cryptographic crackpots, nutcase numerologists, and others whose
> excesses you so deftly parody, Art.
...to which you responded:
-------------------------
The "authorities with some expertise" are stupid or corrupt or both.
-------------------------
Are you trying to surpass Paul Streitz for sheer incompetence, Art? If
so, you're succeeding splendidly. Even Stephanie Caruana did not, to my
knowledge, willfully alter quotations. True, her paraphrases were apt to
be rather too free, but surely that was merely a consequence of her
colander-like memory, not of any intent to deceive. And even Stephanie
could usually recall her *own words*! You must be trying to outdo Richard
Kennedy, who did well to remember his own name from one post to the next.
> > > > As far as I know, Manning's film crticism *did not even appear* in
> > > > the paper with which the studio claimed that Manning was affiliated.
> > > As far as I know, Shakespeare's plays *did not even appear*
> > > in the public theatres with which he was supposedly affiliated.
> > Then you are VERy poorly informed, Art. There is plenty of evidence
> > for the performance of Shakespeare's plays.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Who? MANNINGham?
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, for one.
> <<[Among Thomas Greene's fellow students at the Middle Temple] there was
> John MANNINGham, the now-famous diarist who described a performance of
> *Twelfth Night* in the Middle Temple hall on February 2, 1602 and told a
> bawdy anecdote about Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Manningham knew
> Greene, and quotes him in his diary for February 5, 1603:
>
> "There is best sport always when you put a woman on the case.">>
>
> The following poem which alludes to Susan Vere's want of an adequate
> dowry was recorded by John Manningham of the Middle Temple during
> the year 1602-3, when she was about 15 and Oxford was still alive:
>
> LA[DY] SUSAN VERE
>
> Nothing's your lott, that's more then can be told
> For nothing is more precious then gold.
>
> From The Diary of John Manningham of the Middle Temple 1602-1603,
> ed. Robert Parker Sorlien (Hanover, NH: University Press of
> New England, 1976), p. 182."
> > > > Do you actually know of any evidence of Manning's
> > > > authorship that is "much more abundant than comparable
> > > > evidence for other Ridgefield Press movie critics"?
> > > He was widely quoted. No doubt the persons quoting him knew him
> > > personally.
> > "No doubt the persons quoting him knew him personally"?!
> > There is no such person, Art.
> No doubt, Susan Vere knew MANNINGham personally then.
There is no connection between John Manningham, who lived some four
centuries ago, and David Manning, who is purely fictitious, Art. Are you
hallucinating a link merely because they happen to have similar surnames?
> > > > More crackpot cryptography in lieu of evidence, Art? That's what I
> > > > expected. You mean, you just made up the part about "abundant and
> > > > wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> > > > evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers? That's
> > > > what I thought.
[Crackpot cryptography deleted]
> > What does this have to do with your supposedly "abundant and
> > wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
> > evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers?
[Irrelevant rubbish about Browne deleted]
Then you have *no evidence*? Just as I thought.
> > > Wayne Boring: Superman's Man
> > >
> > > <<If you were among the many fans of Superman between 1940 and the
> > > 1960s, you saw the work of Wayne Boring, a Ridgefield cartoonist who
> > > brought the man of steel to life for millions who read the newspaper
> > > comics.>>
> > This has *nothing whateVER to do* with Ridgefield Press film
> > critics, so it certainly is not evidence of the residence
> > in Ridgefield of those critics.
> Sez you.
I see that you have *no evidence after all*, much less "abundant and
wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers that you
claimed. All you can do when asked *specifically* for evidence is to
disgorge a list of Ridgefield residents (many of whom died decades ago,
and none of whom is a Ridgefield Press film reviewer) and to reproduce
reams of irrelevant rubbish, which you don't even quote accurately. These
core dumps of yours are getting tiresome, Art.
Not only didn't you quote the selection accurately, but you *ACTUALLY
ALTERED THE QUOTATION*! I think that that's carrying your joke a little
too far, Art. Most of the anti-Stratfordians whom you burlesque are
indeed farcically poorly informed, dismally incompetent, and addicted to
crackpot cryptography, nutcase numerology, and cretinous conspiracy
theories; these defects you parody aptly, but in this case you've
oVERstepped the bounds of good taste -- while most of your targets are
indeed ill-informed, incompetent, and credulous, many are at least honest,
harmless cranks. Few, if any, h.l.a.s. participants would stoop to
willfully altering a text that they claimed to be quoting. You do your
victims an injustice by impugning their integrity, even in the context of
a parodic jest.
David Webb
David L. Webb
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article
<David.L.Webb-0...@old-dialup4-182.dartmouth.edu>, David L.
Webb <David....@Dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> [...] Even Stephanie Caruana did not, to my
> knowledge, willfully alter quotations. [...] And even Stephanie
> could usually recall her *own words*! You must be trying to outdo Richard
> Kennedy, who did well to remember his own name from one post to the next.
[...]
Well? What about it, Art? Why *did* you alter that quotation
without indicating the alteration? I'm assuming that it's attributable
to sheer incompetence rather than to dishonesty; is that right? And
where *is* your "abundant and wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much
more abundant than comparable evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield
Press movie reviewers that you claimed? You mean, you don't have any?
I assume, then, that you were merely being farcically incompetent
rather than mendacious. Is that right?
David Webb
Neuendorffer
> Well? What about it, Art? Why *did* you alter that quotation
> without indicating the alteration? I'm assuming that it's attributable
> to sheer incompetence rather than to dishonesty; is that right? And
> where *is* your "abundant and wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much
> more abundant than comparable evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield
> Press movie reviewers that you claimed? You mean, you don't have any?
> I assume, then, that you were merely being farcically incompetent
> rather than mendacious. Is that right?
Mendacious, a. [L. mendax, -acis, lying, cf. mentiri to lie. Date:
1616!!!] 1. Given to deception or falsehood; lying; as, a mendacious
person. 2. False; counterfeit; containing falsehood; as, a mendacious
statement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulysses - James Joyce ** ( JOYCE: Ulysses, Ithaca )
<<In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper
with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and
Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals
as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of
a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political
complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating
the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. After
completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned the
implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment exposed to the
corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual
polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by
false analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike hoses),
alias (a MENDACIOUS person mentioned in sacred Scripture).>>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic - Thomas Carlyle
( THE HERO AS DIVINITY. ODIN. PAGANISM: SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY. )
<<I find, therefore, that though these Allegory theorists are on the way
towards truth in this matter, they have not reached it either. Pagan
Religion is indeed an Allegory, a Symbol of what men felt and knew about
the Universe; and all Religions are symbols of that, altering always as
that alters: but it seems to me a radical perversion, and even
inversion, of the business, to put that forward as the origin and moving
cause, when it was rather the result and termination. To get beautiful
allegories, a perfect poetic symbol, was not the want of men; but to
know what they were to believe about this Universe, what course they
were to steer in it; what, in this mysterious Life of theirs, they had
to hope and to fear, to do and to forbear doing. The _Pilgrim's
Progress_ is an Allegory, and a beautiful, just and serious one: but
consider whether Bunyan's Allegory could have _preceded_ the Faith it
symbolizes! The Faith had to be already there, standing believed by
everybody; -- of which the Allegory could _then_ become a shadow; and,
with all its seriousness, we may say a _sportful_ shadow, a mere play
of the Fancy, in comparison with that awful Fact and scientific
certainty which it poetically strives to emblem. The Allegory is the
product of the certainty, not the producer of it; not in Bunyan's nor in
any other case. For Paganism, therefore, we have still to inquire,
Whence came that scientific certainty, the parent of such a bewildered
heap of allegories, errors and confusions? How was it, what was it?
Surely it were a foolish attempt to pretend "explaining," in this place,
or in any place, such a phenomenon as that far-distant distracted cloudy
imbroglio of Paganism, -- more like a cloud-field than a distant
continent of firm land and facts! It is no longer a reality, yet it was
one. We ought to understand that this seeming cloud-field was once a
reality; that not poetic allegory, least of all that dupery and
deception was the origin of it. Men, I say, never did believe idle
songs, never risked their soul's life on allegories: men in all times,
especially in early earnest times, have had an instinct for detecting
quacks, for detesting quacks. Let us try if, leaving out both the quack
theory and the allegory one, and listening with affectionate attention
to that far-off confused rumor of the Pagan ages, we cannot ascertain so
much as this at least, That there was a kind of fact at the heart of
them; that they too were not MENDACIOUS and distracted, but in their own
poor way true and sane!>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <3B254352...@erols.com>, Neuendorffer <ph...@erols.com>
(ph...@errors.comedy) wrote:
> "David L. Webb" wrote:
>
> > Well? What about it, Art? Why *did* you alter that quotation
> > without indicating the alteration? I'm assuming that it's attributable
> > to sheer incompetence rather than to dishonesty; is that right? And
> > where *is* your "abundant and wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much
> > more abundant than comparable evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield
> > Press movie reviewers that you claimed? You mean, you don't have any?
> > I assume, then, that you were merely being farcically incompetent
> > rather than mendacious. Is that right?
> Mendacious, a. [L. mendax, -acis, lying, cf. mentiri to lie. Date:
> 1616!!!] 1. Given to deception or falsehood; lying; as, a mendacious
> person. 2. False; counterfeit; containing falsehood; as, a mendacious
> statement.
What's your point, Art? That you can use a dictionary? In view of
your "monimental" howler, I'm skeptical, but I'm willing to grant that
you may have enhanced your lexicographic prowess since then. Besides,
you would be by no means alone -- evidently neither John Baker nor Pat
Dooley knows how to use the OED yet. (Did the dictionary entry
actually include the three exclamation points following the date, Art?
Or are you just making things up, as usual?)
[Irrelevant quotations from Joyce and Carlyle snipped]
Then you have *no answer* to my question concerning your
falsification of a quotation, Art? And you have *no* "abundant and
wide-ranging evidence," evidence "much more abundant than comparable
evidence" even for *irregular* Ridgefield Press movie reviewers?
That's exactly what I expected, Art, on both counts.
David Webb