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By not looking all the places he wasn't, I presume

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Joseph Nebus

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Aug 6, 2012, 11:45:49 PM8/6/12
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In the October 4, 1939 installment of The Fred Allen Show,
the Mighty Allen Art Players did a sketch about How Stanley Found
Livingston.

(Available at http://archive.org/details/Fred_Allen_Show with the
title you might expect.)

How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a
biggish place. Fred Allen plotted the sketch as a string of incidents
of Stanley (played by Allen) asking the locals if they'd seen another
white guy, and that seems like a viable enough strategy, except that
I'd expect the number of alternative possible paths would get so big
so fast that ... well, why didn't Stanley end up more lost than
Livingston?

I'm aware that Livingston had no idea he was lost.

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Joseph Nebus

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Aug 6, 2012, 11:48:42 PM8/6/12
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In <jvq31d$qi8$1...@reader1.panix.com> nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) writes:


> In the October 4, 1939 installment of The Fred Allen Show,
>the Mighty Allen Art Players did a sketch about How Stanley Found
>Livingston.

Sorry, that went to the wrong newsgroup, although I suppose
it'll set off my most interesting thread of the year this way.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

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Aug 6, 2012, 11:49:28 PM8/6/12
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In article <jvq36q$1i2$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>In <jvq31d$qi8$1...@reader1.panix.com> nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) writes:
>
>
>> In the October 4, 1939 installment of The Fred Allen Show,
>>the Mighty Allen Art Players did a sketch about How Stanley Found
>>Livingston.
>
> Sorry, that went to the wrong newsgroup, although I suppose
>it'll set off my most interesting thread of the year this way.
>

You presume.
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columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Robert Carnegie

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Aug 7, 2012, 9:03:33 AM8/7/12
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone> says he was writing home
but only one batch of letters got through. I suppose /he/ knew where he was.
By the way, I don't know whether "Livingston" is an acceptable variation;
it appears once in the Wikipedia page, and may or may not be a mistake.
"Living stone" may be a reference to something that Jesus said, although
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livingston_Village> apparently is due to
a Norse-sounding Levingi family in the 12th century.

I suppose that "Which way to the white missionary?" must have been the approach,
plus any evidence previously provided by Livingstone.

Brian M. Scott

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Aug 7, 2012, 9:22:54 AM8/7/12
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On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 06:03:33 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in
<news:4a08c744-36a5-42fa...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livingston_Village>
> apparently is due to a Norse-sounding Levingi family in
> the 12th century.

No, <Villa Levingi> is 'Leving's town'. <Leving> is a
masculine name from Old English <Leofing> or <Lyfing>.

Brian

Quadibloc

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Aug 7, 2012, 2:34:54 PM8/7/12
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On Aug 6, 9:45 pm, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:

>         How *did* Stanley find Livingston?  I mean, Africa's kind of a
> biggish place.

True, but wasn't Stanley aware of where in Africa Livingstone was
headed?

John Savard

Brenda Clough

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Aug 7, 2012, 7:09:23 PM8/7/12
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There is also the point that Livingston was not exactly incognito. As
the only white man in hundreds of miles, probably all the local people
knew of him. All Stanley would have to do is to get his guides to ask
around.

brenda


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Greg Goss

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Aug 7, 2012, 7:33:42 PM8/7/12
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Brenda Clough <Brenda...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On 8/7/2012 2:34 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Aug 6, 9:45 pm, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>>
>>> How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a
>>> biggish place.
>>
>> True, but wasn't Stanley aware of where in Africa Livingstone was
>> headed?
>>
>> John Savard
>
>There is also the point that Livingston was not exactly incognito. As
>the only white man in hundreds of miles, probably all the local people
>knew of him. All Stanley would have to do is to get his guides to ask
>around.

Yeah, but in a village enviromnent, "local people" means "within
twenty miles". There are a lot of twenty-mile circles near the upper
Nile.
--
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Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

Rod Speed

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Aug 7, 2012, 7:43:27 PM8/7/12
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"Greg Goss" <go...@gossg.org> wrote in message
news:a8dmut...@mid.individual.net...
> Brenda Clough <Brenda...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>On 8/7/2012 2:34 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
>>> On Aug 6, 9:45 pm, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>>>
>>>> How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a
>>>> biggish place.
>>>
>>> True, but wasn't Stanley aware of where in Africa Livingstone was
>>> headed?
>>>
>>> John Savard
>>
>>There is also the point that Livingston was not exactly incognito. As
>>the only white man in hundreds of miles, probably all the local people
>>knew of him. All Stanley would have to do is to get his guides to ask
>>around.
>
> Yeah, but in a village enviromnent, "local people" means "within twenty
> miles".

I doubt it. Bet the story about something as unusual as that
spread a hell of a lot more quickly than over just that area.

> There are a lot of twenty-mile circles near the upper Nile.

But I bet the word got around even quicker than he did.

Larry Headlund

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Aug 8, 2012, 1:33:36 PM8/8/12
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Stanley himself wrote "How I Found Livingstone (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5157) which will get details, with some of the details in doubt.

The short answer is the outside world had some idea where he might be (Ujiji but couldn't just ring him up for confirmation.
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