tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86762869269510771672024-02-07T14:15:26.762-08:00Smart Aleck's Guides: Subversive Study AidsAdam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-11489124141566925932014-04-14T07:34:00.000-07:002014-04-21T10:27:41.022-07:00Bootleg Soda: Soda Fountain Formulas<i>Another entry in our series of excerpts from </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">Bootleg Soda</a><i>, our book of soda syrup recipes, which also includes more than 50 old timey soda fountain drink formulas, and a bit about the history of soda fountains. </i><br />
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<tr><td valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img src="http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii284/weirdchicago/sagbootlegsoda.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda:</b> 100+ Homemade Soda Syrup Recipes, plus 50+ classic fountain drink formulas. </a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><br />Just $2.99 on Kindle</a>
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Now and then you come to a town or a neighborhood that still has a really good old-fashioned soda fountain (or, more often, an ice ream parlor, though they generally have sofa fountains attached). There’s the Brown Cow in Forest Park, IL, Margie’s Candies in Chicago… we think of soda fountains as a bygone relic of another era, but there really are plenty of places left where you can still order a cherry phosphate. </div>
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But what if you went in and asked for a Midnight on the Midway? Or an Odd Fellows’ Special?</div>
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If you’ve made some of the other recipes in the book and found yourself with a lot of leftover odds and ends of bits of syrup, you have two options. One is to make up a good glass of what kids in our town called Suicide (old time soda fountains called it a Don’t Care, and we call it an Out of Order). Another is to mix them up more carefully into some of these old fashioned drinks that we found in old-timey soda fountain guides!</div>
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Old soda fountains served a LOT of things that you probably don’t see much anymore, even at the best of the modern soda fountains. Drinks with a raw egg mixed in - such egg phosphate and the egg-and-almond Pike’s Peak - were very common in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century (see our whole section on them in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">Bootleg Soda</a></i>). Hot sodas with flavors like beef and clam also used to come up a lot - it was basically a glass of carbonated soup. </div>
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These recipes for special drinks are modified somewhat for ingredients you can’t find anymore, but are about as authentic as we could make them, so you, too can whip them up for the little whippersnappers who are waiting on the Wells Fargo Wagon! Most of these came from issues of <i>The Spatula</i> and <i>The Dispenser’s Formulary </i>from 1900-1920. If it wasn’t already in the syrups, add a dash of citric acid to any to make them closer to proper “phosphates” (substituting for the phosphate acid used at the time). </div>
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Most of them are just mixed together and then added to carbonated water, unless otherwise noted. Serve them at your next party and make sure your friends know that a vote for Roosevelt is a vote for progress!</div>
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<b><i>A few of the 50+ formulas in the book: </i></b></div>
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<b>Princeton McAlpin</b></div>
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1 part orange syrup</div>
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1 part raspberry syrup</div>
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1 part grape JUICE</div>
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1 spoonful of crushed pineapple</div>
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1/2 slice orange</div>
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2 cherries</div>
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(Serve with spoon and straws)</div>
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<b>Taft Phosphate:</b></div>
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2 parts blood orange juice</div>
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1 parts raspberry base/juice</div>
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1 parts of grape juice</div>
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1 part orange juice</div>
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Dash of citric acid</div>
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(Mix juices together then make a syrup out of them with 1 part sugar to 1 part juice, then be like Taft in 1909 and wish you were a supreme court justice instead of president).</div>
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<b>Baseball Special</b></div>
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2 parts raspberry syrup</div>
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2 parts strawberry syrup</div>
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2 parts heavy cream</div>
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1 part pineapple syrup</div>
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1 part cream soda (vanilla) syrup</div>
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3 dashes of orange bitters</div>
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<b>August Special Rickey</b></div>
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2 parts grape juice</div>
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1 part vanilla syrup</div>
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1 part pineapple syrup</div>
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Lime juice</div>
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Shaved ice</div>
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<b>Brunswick Cooler</b></div>
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1 part lemon syrup</div>
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1 part cherry syrup</div>
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1 part orange syrup</div>
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<b>Rex Phosphate (aka The 20</b><span class="s1"><b><sup>th</sup></b></span><b> Century Phosphate)</b></div>
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2 part orange syrup</div>
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1 part pineapple syrup</div>
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1 part strawberry syrup</div>
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Citric acid</div>
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(Unlike most recipes, this one actually called for adding caffeine. Not as big a deal in an era when you could also probably legally ask the soda clerk to add some cocaine to your drink!)</div>
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See 50+ fountain formulas, plus more than a hundred syrup recipes in </div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO BOOTLEG SODA</a></div>
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-80889586377627193352014-04-11T06:58:00.000-07:002014-04-11T06:58:01.817-07:00Bootleg Soda: Ecto Surge<i>Another excerpt from </i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1495652598">Bootleg Soda: A Smart Aleck's Guide</a><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20%20">.</a> Also known as: "What happened when we got one of those SodaStream things at HQ and didn't like the syrups you could buy for it." We're putting up excerpts here all week!</i><br />
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<tr><td valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img src="http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii284/weirdchicago/sagbootlegsoda.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda:</b> 100+ Homemade Soda Syrup Recipes, plus 50+ classic fountain drink formulas.<br /> <br />Just $2.99 on Kindle</a>
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<b>ECTO SURGE</b></div>
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Every year, the city of Chicago dyes the Chicago River green on St. Patrick’s Day. The whole river looks as though it’s flowing with Ecto Cooler, or Surge Soda, two long-lost green drinks whose flavor was sort of tangerine-like (though you can bet that neither ever had anything close to a tangerine in the recipe). </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp807xWWmNfx-jHpH0E3CG8CU2DyL6TCAK53DPe3pXPml6LABFJ5bzCXyz9z2vDfxebXO3aX7yzMQM6WiHJWPkyyV07ydifufQzxNA7byNR3BHRTgLpybgZBTVu6FkzRPXMMLm-Hwi6m4/s1600/IMG_5113_JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp807xWWmNfx-jHpH0E3CG8CU2DyL6TCAK53DPe3pXPml6LABFJ5bzCXyz9z2vDfxebXO3aX7yzMQM6WiHJWPkyyV07ydifufQzxNA7byNR3BHRTgLpybgZBTVu6FkzRPXMMLm-Hwi6m4/s1600/IMG_5113_JPG.jpg" height="246" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Alas, poor Slimer. I knew him, Egon. A fellow of infinite tanginess...</i></div>
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You can use pretty much the same recipe to recreate both of those drinks, and there are lots of different recipes online. However, no two people seem to remember the flavors of these drinks in <i>exactly</i> the same way (even if you found a fresh can of the stuff it probably wouldn’t taste QUITE like you remember), so here’s a recipe for each that can easily be adapted a bit to your taste. It may not be quite authentic (it’ll never be quite right to us unless it’s served out of one of those big tin 56oz Hi-C cans that that you needed to poke holes in), but it’s a good approximation of what we remember:</div>
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<b>Basic Cooler-style Drink:</b></div>
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3/4ths of a packet of Lemon Lime Kool-Aid mix</div>
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3 heaping tablespoons of Tang drink mix</div>
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3/4ths cup of sugar</div>
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1 tablespoon of lemon juice</div>
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1/4<sup>th</sup> cup orange juice.</div>
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Mix all together and stir, and you’ve got yourself a bright green Ecto-type drink! You use a bit less sugar than you normally would when making Kool Aid, because there’s already sugar in the Tang mix. Taste a spoonful to see if it’s quite what you remember, and you can add small amounts of more Tang, orange juice, or Lemon Lime powder to adjust. Our first attempt tasted a bit too strong and actually had to be watered down a bit to hit the “sweet spot.”</div>
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<b>SURGE IT UP:</b></div>
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Take one cup of of the cooler base, adding a hint more tang powder or orange juice, and boil with 1 cup of sugar to make a syrup that looks and tastes similar to the long-lost green pop. Mix 1 part syrup with 4-8 parts carbonated water. </div>
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We can help you resurrect a few other old favorites in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20%20">Bootleg Soda</a>! Check back on Monday for some old time soda fountain formulas!</div>
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-3565768175419177022014-04-10T06:52:00.000-07:002014-04-10T06:52:00.399-07:00Bootleg Soda: Plum Soda<i>Another excerpt from </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20%20">Bootleg Soda: A Smart Aleck's Guide</a><i>. Also known as: "What happened when we got one of those SodaStream things at HQ and didn't like the syrups you could buy for it." We're putting up excerpts all week!</i><br />
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<tr><td valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img src="http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii284/weirdchicago/sagbootlegsoda.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda:</b> 100+ Homemade Soda Syrup Recipes, plus 50+ classic fountain drink formulas.<br /> <br />Just $2.99 on Kindle</a>
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All right. Now that we’ve made a simple fruit soda with juice, let’s move on to one made out of fresh fruit. Which is also very easy, most of the time.
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Plum soda is a simple-to-make concoction that’s a great introductory “fresh” soda to try making yourself - you’ll pick up some of the basic skills of making a fruit-based syrup, and you’ll discover a flavor of soda you’ve probably never tried before. A good one, too! You don’t see much of anything plum-flavored in the world, but one sip of a plum soda and you’ll wonder why. It’s sort of a grape-like flavor, so what you get here is a sort of “fresher” tasting version of standard grape soda.</div>
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<b>Ingredients:</b></div>
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1 cup of chopped fresh plum</div>
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1.5 cups sugar</div>
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1 cup of water</div>
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<b>Directions:</b></div>
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Chop up some fresh, crisp plums - about three small ones will get you to a cup’s worth - into small chunks (about 8 chunks per plum). Measure out a cup of the chunks and put them in a saucepan with the cup of water. Heat to boiling, then lower heat simmer, covered, for twenty minutes, uncovering to muddle (mash) the plums about halfway through. A potato masher works well for this, but you can also use a meat tenderizer, the butt end of an ice cream scoop, or anything, really. </div>
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Once it’s done simmering, the water will have taken on the flavor of the fruit. Now it’s time to strain out the chunks and pulp. Our favorite way to strain is through the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0047BIWSK/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0047BIWSK&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">aeropress coffee maker</a> (web link). It strains out the chunks and pulp while pushing through even more of the flavor, and it’s easy to clean up. You can save some of the pulp to use as garnish if you like; some people like real fruit floating in their soda more than others. </div>
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Measure out the liquid “base” you’ve created (it’ll be about a cup) and put it into a saucepan. Add in the sugar - roughly 1.5 parts sugar to 1 part of the liquid (most of the time we use a 2:1 ratio to get it thick and strong enough, but in some cases it just made things <i>too</i> sweet). Heat to boiling while stirring to dissolve sugar, then immediately remove from heat and cool.</div>
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Mix one part of the syrup to 4-8 parts carbonated water. If you don’t use all off the base for the syrup, you can also simmer it with more spices to make a Professor Plum Spice Soda, the recipe for which is in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20%20">Bootleg Soda.</a></div>
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-62174775048773801092014-04-09T06:50:00.000-07:002014-04-09T06:50:00.401-07:00Bootleg Soda: Cranberry Orange Original<i>Another excerpt from </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20%20">Bootleg Soda: A Smart Aleck's Guide</a><i>, the cookbook that resulted from our attempt to make better, more interesting flavors of soda syrups to use with the SodaStream at HQ. We're printing excerpts here all week!</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda:</b> 100+ Homemade Soda Syrup Recipes, plus 50+ classic fountain drink formulas.<br /> <br />Just $2.99 on Kindle</a>
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<b>CRANBERRY ORANGE ORIGINAL</b></div>
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Nothing makes cranberries pop like a bit of orange peel. If you order a hot turkey sandwich at a diner and the cranberry sauce it comes with doesn’t have any orange zest in it, march right back to the kitchen and ask the manager what kind of fool they take you for. Don’t bug the server - it isn’t their fault - but restaurant managers exist solely to take your abuse and apologize for their poor decisions. The chefs, who probably cry themselves to sleep for being forced to serve a cranberry sauce they know is an inferior product, will cheer as you body-slam the manager for daring to insult your taste buds. “Go home and rethink your life,” you should say. “Think about the decisions you made that brought you to this lowly place.” </div>
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Now, normally, we think that anyone who is rude to restaurant staff ought to be forced to spend a few years working customer service in some hick town where they usually settle disputes with knives and spitting matches until they realize that the customer is NOT always right. But even <i>we</i> have our limits. If you pay for a dish with cranberry sauce and they haven’t used orange zest (and hopefully whole berries), then it’s a good sign that the manager is part of some vast conspiracy to overthrow the government because they hate freedom.</div>
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The more care you put into cranberry orange soda, the better it’ll be. Sure, you can just mix up some 100% cranberry juice and some orange juice, and it’ll be good, but the zest is really where it’s at, so we recommend making a proper base with fresh cranberries and orange zest.</div>
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<b>Ingredients:</b></div>
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1 cup of fresh cranberries</div>
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1 heaping tablespoon of orange zest</div>
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1 cup of water</div>
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1-2 teaspoons of freshly-squeezed orange juice.</div>
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2 cups of sugar</div>
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Optional: a tiny dash of citric acid</div>
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<b>Directions:</b></div>
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Add cranberries and zest to water and bring to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes, mashing the cranberries down with a potato masher about halfway through (be careful - they may spurt out how liquid!) Strain, and add orange juice (from the orange you just zested) into the remaining liquid</div>
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Mix one part of the liquid with with 2 parts sugar; boiling to dissolve sugar. Cool; mix one part syrup with 4-8 parts carbonated water. Garnish with an orange slice!</div>
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Come back tomorrow for a syrup made from fresh fruit, of which there are dozens of recipes in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20%20">Bootleg Soda!</a></div>
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-881183681418321782014-04-08T05:08:00.000-07:002014-04-08T05:11:23.698-07:00Bootleg Soda: Celery DeLorean<i>Another excerpt from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">Bootleg Soda: A Smart Aleck's Guide</a>, the results of our attempts to make better, more interesting soda syrups to use with our soda stream (and become experts on soda fountain history while we were at it).</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img src="http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii284/weirdchicago/sagbootlegsoda.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda:</b> 100+ Homemade Soda Syrup Recipes, plus 50+ classic fountain drink formulas.<br /> <br />Just $2.99 on Kindle</a></td><td width="10"></td><td valign="top"><div class="p1">
<b>CELERY DeLOREAN SODA</b><br />
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<div class="p1">
Celery Soda is more common that you might think - there’s probably some in the kosher section of your local supermarket, under the name of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda. It may sound weird, but it’s delicious! People who see you drinking it will think it’s some sort of health food, but it’s really a very good soda in the general vein of ginger ale.<br />
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Dr. Brown’s version is labelled as a “celery soda with other natural flavors.” Well, Doc Brown….where we’re going, we don’t <i>need</i> other natural flavors! A soda made from plain celery seed and sugar is not only delicious, it also turned out to taste very similar to a Dr. Brown’s, at least to our palettes. </div>
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<b>Ingredients:</b></div>
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1 cup water</div>
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1 tablespoon celery seed (NOT celery salt. Seriously. You’ll only make <i>that</i> mistake once). </div>
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1.5 cups sugar</div>
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<b>Directions:</b></div>
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Bring to water and celery seed to a boil, then simmer, covered, for twenty minutes. Strain out seeds. </div>
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Mix in 1.5 cups sugar for every 1 cup of remaining liquid. Boil to dissolve sugars, then cool. Use one part syrup to 4-8 parts carbonated water. </div>
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Here’s a vintage label for Dr. Brown’s Celery Tonic, published in <i>American Bottler</i> accompanied by the harsh phrase “You Must Not Use These Labels!”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntqZAs4MuC7vmeX6F4mrVC7f5AW9R3GNR-p-kaJpJgEBsQ6ZldemtFThjU-NhkBMoxlMThpjIw-RLZLwC5fboeEFH13ZgcSX__1YhqrmOmWJk2KmxOV-3A-Me1terxnx3sT7vr_80gPM/s1600/American_Bottler_-_Google_Books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntqZAs4MuC7vmeX6F4mrVC7f5AW9R3GNR-p-kaJpJgEBsQ6ZldemtFThjU-NhkBMoxlMThpjIw-RLZLwC5fboeEFH13ZgcSX__1YhqrmOmWJk2KmxOV-3A-Me1terxnx3sT7vr_80gPM/s1600/American_Bottler_-_Google_Books.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i> “Bootlegging” was actually a bit problem in the old days of soda fountains; people were always worried that competitors would use their labels to sell inferior beverages, and Coca Cola considered just any beverage with the words “cola” in it to be a copyright infringement, even one called Celery Cola. Interesting to see how they promised that the celery compound would cure what ailed ya - the label reads “A Pure Beverage for the Nerves. Strengthens the Appetite and Aids the Digestion.”</i><br />
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-48278031224546211412014-04-07T09:27:00.000-07:002014-04-07T09:27:05.016-07:00Bootleg Soda: Pumpkin Cream SodaSo, we got one of those SodaStream machines at HQ. We liked being able to carbonate our own water, but we didn't much like the syrups you could buy for it. So we started making our own! Now, several hundred huge kitchen messes later, we've released a new Smart Aleck's Guide called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">Bootleg Soda!</a> </i>It's a collection of more than 100 recipes for homemade soda syrups, including basics like orange and cola, as well as nifty ones like <b>pumpkin root beer, peach habanero, chai cola, cucumber pineapple</b>, and the delicious <b>celery delorean</b>. Also included are 50+ formulas for old-timey soda fountain drinks like the centura phosphate, the kiss me flip, and more, with tons of history, commentary, vintage illustrations (many featuring stupid historical hats) and a guide to old time soda jerk slang.<br />
<br />
We'll put up a new excerpt here every day this week, starting with....<br />
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<tbody>
<tr><td valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img src="http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii284/weirdchicago/sagbootlegsoda.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda:</b> 100+ Homemade Soda Syrup Recipes, plus 50+ classic fountain drink formulas.<br /> <br />Just $2.99 on Kindle</a></td><td width="10"></td><td valign="top"><div class="p1">
<b>PUMPKIN CREAM SODA</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Pumpkin Vanilla is a flavor you see a lot in candles down at Bath and Body Works, so why not make it into a soda? Hey, why not make <i>everything</i> that makes a good candle into a soda? Why aren’t we making “Twilight Woods” or “Island Path” sodas? Why not “Moonlit Path” or “Fresh Linen?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Well, there’s always volume two. For now, though, a vanilla pumpkin syrup actually made for a delicious soda that we <i>highly </i>recommend. Smoother and sweeter than the regular pumpkin spice soda, which is also tasty. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
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Pumpkin flavors in drinks and pastries and room scents are getting more and more popular these days, but a great many pumpkin products aren’t using any real pumpkin at all - lots of them just use cinnamon and clove flavors and call it “pumpkin.” This syrup is for real! You <i>can</i> leave the pumpkin out and just use cinnamon and cloves if you like, and the results will actually have a familiar “pumpkin” taste, but you can taste the difference when you use a bit of the real thing.</div>
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<b>Ingredients:</b></div>
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1 cup water</div>
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3 teaspoons canned pumpkin</div>
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1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon</div>
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1.5 teaspoons ground cloves</div>
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2 teaspoons vanilla extract</div>
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2 cups of sugar</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Directions:</b></div>
<div class="p1">
Mix together all ingredients except the sugar into in a saucepan and boil, stirring well to dissolve the pumpkin. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for twenty minutes. Enjoy the aroma. Think of Halloweens past. Try to remember the name of that Halloween cartoon where the characters are all in monochrome and a witch turns kids into real werewolves and ghosts (it was <i>Witch’s Night Out)</i>. Add a bit more spice if you want, and if you want to use whole cloves, vanilla beans, and cinnamon sticks, you do it, brother. </div>
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<div class="p1">
Strain the liquid. Even if you’re using ground spices, you’ve got to strain this one or you’ll get a sort of chalky syrup. </div>
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<br />
<b></b></div>
<div class="p1">
Measure out the remaining liquid and put it into a clean saucepan, then mix in two parts sugar to one part of the liquid (ie, if you have one cup of liquid, add two cups of sugar). Dissolve sugar by bringing the liquid to a boil while stirring. Remove from heat as soon as it starts to boil, then let it cool into syrup. Mix one part syrup with 4-8 parts carbonated water, garnish with candy corn zest.<br />
<br />
(note: We also ended up doing a Twilight Woods flavor. Get the recipe in <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JI8QDG0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JI8QDG0&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">The Smart Aleck’s Guide to Bootleg Soda</a>)</b></div>
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-17019424254198659122014-03-16T02:38:00.000-07:002014-03-16T02:38:18.560-07:00Take Over the Class with SMART ALECK'S GUIDES!<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>SHAKESPEARE GUIDES</b></div>
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<td align="center" valign="top"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IZI8TNY/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00IZI8TNY&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO HAMLET</a></b><br />
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The complete "Shakespeare 101" guide, plus the full text of <i>Hamlet </i>with scene-by-scene summary and analysis, character guide, notes on what the heck is wrong with Hamlet, the quarto/folio controversy, film version guide, a hardboiled detective story, tangents about Muppets and Star Wars, and lots of pictures that show Hamlet's stocking-covered butt. Illustrated, with an active table of contents. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IZI8TNY/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00IZI8TNY&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">2.99 on kindle</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J0HT9OC/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00J0HT9OC&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00J0HT9OC&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=chicagunbeli-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=chicagunbeli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00J0HT9OC" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
</td>
<td width="5"></td>
<td align="center" valign="top"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J0HT9OC/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00J0HT9OC&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE: </a></b><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J0HT9OC/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00J0HT9OC&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><b>TRAGEDIES MEGAPACK! </b></a><br />
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The complete "Shakespeare 101" guide, plus the guides to Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth, all in one huge, specially-priced volume! Illustrated, with an active table of contents. Over 260,000 words.<br />
A big value for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J0HT9OC/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00J0HT9OC&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">6.99 on kindle</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<b>AND OF COURSE, OUR ORIGINAL GUIDE:
</b></div>
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="top"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385736509/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0385736509&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0385736509&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=chicagunbeli-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=chicagunbeli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0385736509" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<td width="5"></td>
<td align="center" valign="top"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385736509/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0385736509&linkCode=as2&tag=chicagunbeli-20">THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY (Random House 2009)</a></b><br />
<br />
"Speeding along on humor, Daily Show-style,…the irreverent, often laugh-out-loud approach should win over reluctant readers."<br />
- Publisher's Weekly<br />
<br />
"In the style of acclaimed writers Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), this witty, comedic and appealing volume is sure to appeal"<br />
- School Library Journal<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-76791500653846215212012-12-06T06:00:00.002-08:002012-12-06T06:00:37.557-08:00Illinois Reads!Just received the following note at HQ:<br />
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<i> <big>Congratulations! Under the auspices of the Illinois Reading Council, a brand new literacy program, ILLINOIS READS , a yearly state-wide project to promote reading for all Illinois citizens, will be instituted next year, and your book "Smart-Aleck's Guide to American History", has been chosen as one of the books for the inaugural program. The thirty-six titles chosen, from birth to adult, will be introduced into classrooms, public health facilities, public and school libraries, and bookstores. The website, <a href="http://www.illinoisreads.org/" style="color: purple;">www.illinoisreads.org</a>, will allow adults and students (above age 13) to post book reviews, book trailers, art work, and discussions about the books. We hope we can link to your website, as well as offering additional activities to accompany your book.</big></i></div>
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<big><i> The program will be formally launched on March 13, 2013 at the Illinois Reading Conference in Springfield, Illinois.</i></big></div>
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<big>We here at the Smart Aleck Staff are thrilled! Thanks for all the support we've had in recent years - and keep watching for our new <i>Hamlet</i> guide soon!</big></div>
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<big>What else should we do? We've had to put guides on the backburner lately, since the boss has been so busy with Chicago history books - this fall alone he's under contract for one about the mobsters, one about general Chicago history, one about the silent film business here, and one about Chicago ghosts. Maybe a Smart Aleck's Guide to Al Capone? A Smart Aleck's Guide to Ghost Stories? </big></div>
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Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-39319332614244874242012-09-11T05:44:00.000-07:002012-09-11T05:44:40.425-07:00Coming Soon from the Smart Aleck Staff!Lots of things are happening with the staff. The long-promised <i>Hamlet</i> guide should materialize before the end of 2012, and September will see the release of the new <i>Smart Aleck's Guide to Halloween Specials</i>. This will be a special low-priced ebook with reviews of practically every Halloween TV special ever produced, taken from Adam's long-running <a href="http://www.halloweenspecials.net/">halloweenspecials.net</a> , which is being revamped as a Smart Aleck's Guide site this year! That book will be up as soon as the cover is ready.<br />
<br />
Adam will also have three new "e-singles" out from Llewellyn Press on October 1st, each dealing with his own long-running night job as a historian and ghost hunter in Chicago. Of particular note will be <i>Inside the Murder Castle</i>, which will detail his investigation of the basement below the post office that was built over the infamous "murder castle" of serial killer H.H. Holmes. It looks as thought his may be the only investigation that ever takes place there! Adam is sort of setting himself up as the smart aleck of the ghost biz these days; over the course of the book he spends a great deal of time cracking wise and debunking myths.<br />
<br />
Come November, Adam will have <i>another</i> book out that isn't <i>exactly</i> a Smart Aleck's Guide, but almost might as well be: Globe Press will be publishing a <i>Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks from Chicago History</i>, in which Adam courageously bad-mouths Al Capone, John Dillinger, Marshall Field, Big Bill Thompson, "Bathhouse John" Coughlin, and several other people who are too dead to fight back.Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-64965103922644431822012-04-23T07:41:00.000-07:002012-04-23T07:41:00.445-07:00Lord Buckley's Hipster Edition of Marc Antony's Funeral OrationWe here at the Smart Aleck's Guide normally try to refrain from re-writing Shakespeare into modern slang - it's usually a cheap trick to "bring The Bard down to your level" and demeans us both. And, anyway, our attempts at "modern" slang usually just make things sound like you're reading the instructional manual to a skateboard-themed video game from 1990 (we were very gnarly in 1990).<br />
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But sometimes someone DOES rewrite Shakespeare just for laughs, and the results are fantastic. Case in point: Lord Buckley, his royal hipness, rewriting Marc Antony's speech from <i>Caesar. "</i>Hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies: knock me your lobes. I come to lay Caesar out, not to hip you to him..."<br />
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<br />Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-50684274377394514732012-04-21T07:20:00.000-07:002012-04-21T07:20:00.925-07:00A Muppet Julius Caesar<i>In each of our Shakespeare guides, we take a break midway through analyzing each scene to speculate about what a Muppet version of the play would be like. Here's an excerpt from </i>Julius Caesar<i> guide:</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> This is a question that comes up every time we work on a new play: who would play which role in a Muppet version?</span><br />
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This is especially tricky for this play - it doesn’t have much comic relief (except for right at the beginning, with the cobbler, which, being right at the start, isn’t really comic relief so much as a comic intro). Also, nearly every character is a dignified Roman statesman. Sam the Eagle is the only logical choice for pretty much every character except for the soothsayer (Gonzo, Fozzie and Bunsen Honeydew could all work here). Maybe they could have Wade and Wanda, the old-school singers from season one of <i>The Muppet Show</i>, as Caesar and Calpurnia. Piggy as Portia seems obvious, but it would sure work - she has the same mix of strength and apparent mental instability as Portia. </span><br />
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If we were hired to write the script for A<i> Muppet Julius Caesar</i>, we wouldn’t have much of the actual play in it. We’d do a big backstage story in which Sam the Eagle is trying to mount a very serious production of this immortal play, and, for some reason, thought that Fozzie could be trusted to play the role of Brutus with all due gravity (he’ll try his hardest, but fail). Kermit will work hard to be a good Mark Antony, but Gonzo, who is to be Caesar (Romans thought a big, hooked nose was a sign of esteem), feels that the play is missing something and rewrites it to include a lot more special effects, dancing chickens, spectacular stunts.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> As Caeser, he’ll miraculously survive being stabbed twenty-three times (while whistling a medley of hits from <i>A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)</i> (ta-da!), and the play would go downhill from there, presumably ending with a big song and dance number (we suggest Billy Joel’s “When in Rome”) that includes enough pyrotechnics to blow up the theatre. Hail Caesar!</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2012/04/smart-alecks-guide-to-shakespeare.html"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwuRAd-GAcwP2lt8gmdwPV5EGIy4BinWzNyhOhU4oHHZ-w_T4aUvYdECq74zTH3r0axxkacIQ9Ub29q29JV2VJ4-wyYMHnGC5x51mg1l9fRWRKzS889Sxrn7xu2gGmaXhXAJ9su9_3Vs/s400/SAGJCbanner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-1502020205725623162012-04-20T05:01:00.000-07:002012-04-20T05:01:00.250-07:00Smart Aleck's Guide to Shakespeare: Julius Caesar<table style="text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<br />
The Smart Aleck's Guide to Shakespeare: Julius Caesar </div>
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Just 2.99 on <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VR3RFK">Kindle</a><br />
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_ipad_mkt_lnd?docId=1000493771">Read it on a<b> free</b> Kindle app </a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_ipad_mkt_lnd?docId=1000493771">for your pc, mac, iPad or phone.</a> </span></div>
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<br />
<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/adam-selzer/smart-alecks-guide-to-shakespeare-julius-caesar/paperback/product-20071302.html"> 14.99 in print </a></div>
</td><td width="25"></td><td valign="top"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">Finally - a study guide that doesn't assume you're an idiot! The team that brought you the acclaimed SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY is back with a fantastic new series of "study guides for the smart kids" about Shakespeare - including all the stuff your school board would probably rather you didn't find out about. There's something here for everyone, from middle schoolers trying to get through English class to grad students who've read every play a million times, all WITHOUT resorting to re-writing the plays to include the word "dude." Each illustrated Shakespeare guide contains:</span><br />
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<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
- Complete text of the play, plus detailed summaries and analysis of every scene, with an active Table of Contents and internal links for easy navigation.</div>
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<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
- All the info you need about Shakespeare's life, times and language (30k words!), including sections on Elizabethan slang, cheat sheets on how money and nobility worked, the history Shakespeare expected his audience to know, tips on how to survive if you get beamed back to 1593, and a useful essay on the roles of sex, violence, and poop in Elizabethan life and literature - like an Elizabethan version of of <i>What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
- Guides to movie versions of the play, the sources Shakespeare used in creating the works, a history of the individual play, guides to controversies about each play that make scholars throw folding chairs at one another, and more.</div>
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- Numerous illustrations, many of which contain hilarious mustaches and stupid hats.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
- Tangents about the Muppets, Star Wars, or whatever else the staff feels like (we don't let the Texas School Board tell US what to do!)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
- A general lack of worksheets, vocabulary words, sentence diagrams, and other stuff that would suck all the life out of the plays. </div>
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">
- A section on Shakespeare's "Lost" plays (with several chances to earn $5).</div>
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And a whole lot more. Twice as informative, and ten times as entertaining, as the next leading brand of study guides - Smart Aleck's Guides have the courtesy to assume that their readers are not complete morons to start with. The Smart Aleck Staff is confident that they can help you understand and enjoy Shakespeare without resorting to any cheap tricks to "bring him down to your level." They don't really care if you get a good grade or not, but with one guide, you could end up knowing more about Shakespeare than your teacher!</div>
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The CAESAR guide contains all of this, plus sections on Rome 101, Latin Words to Know, a script for a peer pressure skit starring Brutus (you could talk that guy into anything if you used the word "noble" enough), Lupercalia (party naked!), ancient Roman graffiti, and more!</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-90799411052508950802012-04-12T06:23:00.001-07:002012-04-12T10:44:25.759-07:00Romeo's Stupid HatsWhen one goes combing through historical photos and paintings, one runs into a lot of stupid hats. We found enough while researching the history book to make it a running gag - and we found just about as many in depictions of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>. Here are a couple:<br />
<div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKPYTCQKZMb7CiIQPKPagWpijEInd-UXbeTJRgQ_7e9U7gbVcnC0Gw8WGYzDwReo-IH4vHFjjotaWyDP-vVVzNwAwhUYMm7r_b9zMx5s0h8LejSF_zu-tDTSDXJpIoB6tPfWyc40ttH8/s1600/Artifact+26484+(from+collection+26466)+__+Shakespeare+in+Performance+__+Internet+Shakespeare+Editions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKPYTCQKZMb7CiIQPKPagWpijEInd-UXbeTJRgQ_7e9U7gbVcnC0Gw8WGYzDwReo-IH4vHFjjotaWyDP-vVVzNwAwhUYMm7r_b9zMx5s0h8LejSF_zu-tDTSDXJpIoB6tPfWyc40ttH8/s320/Artifact+26484+(from+collection+26466)+__+Shakespeare+in+Performance+__+Internet+Shakespeare+Editions.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A fez tops this illustration of Romeo in which he looks like a goth Ronald McDonald. We'd LOVE to see a version of this play with Ronald as Romeo and Birdy the Early Bird as Juliet. Mayor McCheese can be the prince. Mack Tonight can be brought back to be Mercutio, and that "professor" guy could be the friar. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-rN1nIG7JuxlY_dAqfESEviFsSsDvKSRFg1KwnVwrMHUhXE255faJrWF-5Xg3mFGKWEXTfewq1u_0cNCGaJpvZyD756gU0J1PHH-HjTCDwgmZsBZeoirTdMR_c14us2vf3AKXQ3b1Qyo/s1600/Romeo-and-Juliet-before-Father-Lawrence-Karl-Ludwig-Friedrich-Becker.jpg+1,122%C3%971,003+pixels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-rN1nIG7JuxlY_dAqfESEviFsSsDvKSRFg1KwnVwrMHUhXE255faJrWF-5Xg3mFGKWEXTfewq1u_0cNCGaJpvZyD756gU0J1PHH-HjTCDwgmZsBZeoirTdMR_c14us2vf3AKXQ3b1Qyo/s320/Romeo-and-Juliet-before-Father-Lawrence-Karl-Ludwig-Friedrich-Becker.jpg+1,122%C3%971,003+pixels.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">German painter Karl Becker showed Romeo in a feathered hat - most stupid Romeo hats involve feathers. Romeo here is a dead ringer for a young "Weird Al" Yankovic. Al can pull off a poodle hat - but can he handle this one?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Get the full guide for more Stupid Romeo Hats!</div><div><br />
</div><div align="center"><a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2012/04/smart-alecks-guide-to-shakespeare-romeo.htm" title="SAGRomeoBanner by adam1117, on Flickr"><img alt="SAGRomeoBanner" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5240/6919042144_a9a554003a.jpg" width="450" /></a></div>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-31762245423205050262012-04-11T06:36:00.000-07:002012-04-11T06:36:25.067-07:00Swearing in Romeo and JulietYou know how sometimes people act like Shakespeare was a wild, crazy, sleazy guy in order to make kids think he's hip? We here at the Smart Aleck's Guide remember a time when a guy came into our high school to promote Shakespeare and told us that the works were originally full of swear words that editors just left out.<br />
<br />
The guy struck as a little desperate. Attempts to "bring Shakespeare down to your level" are generally about as lame as attempts to "make history come alive." If you <i>really</i> want to understand Romeo and Juliet, shouldn't you have your teacher organize a big sword fight in the middle of your local downtown? (If you don't have one of those, use Wal Mart).<br />
<br />
Some of the details of Shakespeare's life can be pieced together, but what <i>kind of guy</i> he was is sort of in dispute. You <i>can</i> argue that he was "Wild Bill" Shakespeare, who partied hard, carried on affairs with people of both genders, and got in a lot of fights. He <i>was</i> a theatre person, after all, and just about ever reliable "personal anecdote" we have about him is about him being a smart aleck. But you can also, from the same evidence, argue that he was a good, upstanding man who took care of his family, and was about as sober as anyone was in those days (when weak ale was safer to drink than water). He never went to jail, after all, and never killed anyone, so far as we know (unlike a couple of his fellow playwrights).<br />
<br />
Still, WERE there swear words in his plays?<br />
<br />
We can think of at least a couple of examples. There're some awfully naughty sex puns hidden between the lines (ask your teacher to explain the "thus she makes her great Ps" joke in <i>Twelfth Night</i> at your own risk), but Shakespeare didn't really use the dreaded S word or the word turd, so far as we know (unlike Ben Jonson).<br />
<br />
There were SOME words changed, though - in some cases, when we have more than one early versions of the text, the various versions are greatly different. Some say that this represents Shakespeare's own revisions, and some say it was the printers either screwing things up or cleaning them up. In most cases, you could make an argument either way (though suggesting that Shakespeare ever revised anything himself is the kind of thing that will still get some academics to bean you with a folding chair).<br />
<br />
And <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> features one clear example of a swear word that got cleaned up. In Act 2, Scene 1, Mercutio gives a talk about Romeo and Rosaline, Romeo's previous crush, whom he thinks Romeo is out looking for.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;">This is how it appears in the first quarto, as well as in most modern text:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;"><br />
</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> Now will he sit under a medlar tree, </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> Romeo, that she were, O, that she were </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> An open et cetera, thou a poperin pear! </span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><i><br />
</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The word here is in the last line, where the text says "O, that she were an open et cetera, thou a poperin pear." It's the "et cetera" that seems to be wrong - based on the meter, there are a couple of extra syllables in that last line. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Anyway, there are three texts of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> - two "quarto" versions (copies about the size of a modern paperback that were sold in Shakespeare's lifetime) and the one in <i>First Folio, </i>the "boxed set" of Shakespeare's plays that came out a few years after he died. The first quarto says "open et cetera." The second quarto and the folio say "Open or," which fits the meter, but doesn't make any sense.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">No scholar dared to say it until well into the 20th century, but the "real" word here is clearly "arse," the British version of the dreaded a-word. It's fairly obvious, given that Mercutio was just talking about medlars, a kind of fruit that was commonly known in Shakespeare's day as an "open arse" because, well, it sort of looked like an open butt. See?</span><br />
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</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qATEpz11jWFWBD5uqXS4GSrTacgS4ZwA0GgpHbS_sKxdMDhA7_Rf8xrnwM-DeRRv6yTO2p387QmRW961zhJD7gsiWakOKskDNYEfZ6jNMxgD4Vmbiim3UvMwikwdBWu_95zsUcvAFXw/s1600/SAG+SHAKESPEARE+ROMEO+GM2.doc+%5BCompatibility+Mode%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qATEpz11jWFWBD5uqXS4GSrTacgS4ZwA0GgpHbS_sKxdMDhA7_Rf8xrnwM-DeRRv6yTO2p387QmRW961zhJD7gsiWakOKskDNYEfZ6jNMxgD4Vmbiim3UvMwikwdBWu_95zsUcvAFXw/s1600/SAG+SHAKESPEARE+ROMEO+GM2.doc+%5BCompatibility+Mode%5D.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It's always interesting to see how various productions will do this line. An early 80s BBC version actually has Mercutio say "et cetera," but he pauses before saying it and indicates his nether regions, so you know he's using it as a euphemism (the best part of that version is a young Alan Rickman as Tybalt...it's amusing to imagine him adding "Potter!" to the end of lines, as in "Peace? I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee...POTTER!"). The 1996 version with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio had Mercutio go ahead and say the a-word. Most versions we've seen just leave this whole part altogether.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This is the kind of stuff we talk about in our Shakespeare guides. The first one, a guide to <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, is out now:</span><br />
<br />
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2012/04/smart-alecks-guide-to-shakespeare-romeo.htm" title="SAGRomeoBanner by adam1117, on Flickr"><br />
<img alt="SAGRomeoBanner" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5240/6919042144_a9a554003a.jpg" width="450" /></a></div>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-26453048409399386162012-04-10T04:15:00.001-07:002012-04-10T05:05:11.581-07:00Smart Aleck's Guide to Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet<table><tbody>
<tr><td valign="top" width="160"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQe57_-D9A5bd7Ot8LY6f5U-TMVTLWTOIdhlXvk3TFy1hPVsvnVEtfQOAbubk88QJMIAnVTIJrwHLaO3FWzdZOF4RmlAXTNkhz99QBf42M-Q_GpgKPu_kaZydwuF4gF7jnlVaBeznwSeg/s1600/sagrjteaser+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQe57_-D9A5bd7Ot8LY6f5U-TMVTLWTOIdhlXvk3TFy1hPVsvnVEtfQOAbubk88QJMIAnVTIJrwHLaO3FWzdZOF4RmlAXTNkhz99QBf42M-Q_GpgKPu_kaZydwuF4gF7jnlVaBeznwSeg/s200/sagrjteaser+copy.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Or a <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/free-nook-apps/379002321/"><b>free</b> NOOK app </a></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/free-nook-apps/379002321/">for pc, mac, iPad, or phone</a></span></div><div><br />
363 page Print edition available<br />
for <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/adam-selzer/the-smart-alecks-guide-to-shakespeare-romeo-and-juliet/paperback/product-20049158.html;jsessionid=AF2349A9876F1C3218EBC4289CBDB55C">14.99</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></td><td width="15"></td><td valign="top"><!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?--> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">Finally - a study guide that doesn't assume you're an idiot! The team that brought you the acclaimed SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY is back with a fantastic new series of "study guides for the smart kids" about Shakespeare - including all the stuff your school board would probably rather you didn't find out about. There's something here for everyone, from middle schoolers trying to get through English class to grad students who've read every play a million times, all WITHOUT resorting to re-writing the plays to include the ford "dude." Each illustrated Shakespeare guide contains:</span><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- Complete text of the play, plus detailed summaries and analysis of every scene, with an active Table of Contents and internal links for easy navigation.</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- All the info you need about Shakespeare's life, times and language (100+ pages!), including sections on Elizabethan slang, cheat sheets on how money and nobility worked, the history Shakespeare expected his audience to know, tips on how to survive if you get beamed back to 1593, and a useful essay on the roles of sex, violence, and poop in Elizabethan life and literature - like an Elizabethan version of of <i>What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew</i>.</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- Guides to movie versions of the play, the sources Shakespeare used in creating the works, a history of the individual play, guides to controversies about each play that make scholars throw folding chairs at one another, and more.</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- Numerous illustrations, many of which contain hilarious mustaches and stupid hats.</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- Tangents about the Muppets, Star Wars, or whatever else the staff feels like (we don't let the Texas School Board tell US what to do!)</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- A general lack of worksheets, vocabulary words, sentence diagrams, and other stuff that would suck all the life out of the plays. </div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">- A section on Shakespeare's "Lost" plays (with several chances to earn $5).</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Arial;">And a whole lot more. Twice as informative, and ten times as entertaining, as the next leading brand of study guides - Smart Aleck's Guides have the courtesy to assume that their readers are not complete morons to start with. The Smart Aleck Staff is confident that they can help you understand and enjoy Shakespeare without resorting to any cheap tricks to "bring him down to your level." They don't really care if you get a good grade or not, but with one guide, you could end up knowing more about Shakespeare than your teacher!</span> <br />
<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-13362199085936548262012-04-08T19:56:00.000-07:002012-04-08T19:56:54.950-07:00Smart Aleck's Guide to Romeo and Juliet: ContentsAs a sort of preview, here're the contents to the new guide:<br />
<br />
<br />
<h1 style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2012246533"><br />
</a></h1><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: none;">PART 1: SHAKESPEARE 101</span></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body2.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">INTRODUCTION:</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body3.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Shakespeare: Was He "Wild Bill" or "William the Bard?"</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body4.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Sex, Violence and Poop: Elizabethan Life</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Your Life, 1593</span></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body7.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Earls, Dukes, And Other People Who Were Allowed To Kick You</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body8.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Elizabethan Money</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body9.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">The Theatre Scene</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body10.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Wild Bill's Rowdy Pals</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body11.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">The History That Everyone Knew Back Then</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body12.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">What Did Shakespeare Look Like?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body13.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Lost Plays (Or: Wanna Make Five Dollars?)</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body14.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Was Shakespeare Gay?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body15.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Was Shakespeare a Racist?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body16.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Wasn't Shakespeare Someone Else?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body17.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Tips on Reading Shakespeare</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body18.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Shakespeare's Language</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body19.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Glossary</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body20.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Scholar Wars</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body21.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">What's So Great About Shakespeare?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body22.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Some Shakespearean Movies</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: none;">Some Shakespeare Books</span></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body24.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">PART 2: ROMEO AND JULIET</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body25.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Parental Advisory</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body26.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Introduction</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body27.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">What Happens in Romeo and Juliet</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body28.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Characters</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body29.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">The Source : Or, Hope You Guys Like Couplets!</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body30.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Mercutio: Gay Atheist Spy?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body31.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Romeo and Juliet Through the Years</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body32.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Movie Versions</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body33.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">AND NOW, THE PLAY</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body34.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 1, Prologue and Scene 1:</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body35.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 1, Scene 2</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body36.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 1: Scene 3:</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body37.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 1: Scene 4:</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body38.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 1: Scene 5:</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body39.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">ROMEO'S STUPID HATS</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body40.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">End of Act Discussion Questions</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body41.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 2: Prologue and Scene 1</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body42.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 2: Scene 2</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body43.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 2: Scene 3</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body44.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 2: Scene 4</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body45.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 2: Scene 5</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body46.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 2: Scene 6</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body47.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">LET'S TALK MUPPETS.</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body48.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 3: Scene 1</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body49.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 3: Scene 2</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body50.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 3: Scene 3</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body51.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 3: Scene 4</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body52.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 3: Scene 5</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body53.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 4: Scene 1</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body54.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 4: Scene 2</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body55.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 4: Scene 3</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body56.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 4: Scenes 4 and 5</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body57.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">END OF ACT CHALLENGE</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body58.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 5: Scene 1</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body59.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 5: Scene 2</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body60.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Act 5: Scene 3</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body61.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">END OF PLAY QUESTIONS</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body62.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">WHO SHOULD SUE WHO?</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body63.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Romeo and Juliet Scorecard</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/body64.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Conclusion</span></a></div><div class="p9" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Text/footnotes.xhtml" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Notes</span></a></div>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-26864148928706590422011-09-22T07:34:00.000-07:002011-09-22T07:35:38.361-07:00On The Evolution of the Words "Pee" and "Poop."(here's a cross-post from <a href="http://www.playgroundjungle.com/">Playground Jungle</a>)<br />
<br />
Folklorists generally ignored fart rhymes and other "naughty" ones up until about the 1970s. Even Iona Opie, a nursery rhyme expert who was no prude, was referring to "unprintable rhymes" in the 1950s. But it can generally be assumed that any time you find a counting-out rhyme about a stink, that rhyme was also used when someone farted.<br />
<br />
Here's one from <i>The Counting Out Rhymes of Children</i>, an 1888 tome by a guy named Henry Carrington Bolton (with a name like that, he just about HAD to be a 19th century scholar):<br />
<br />
<i>Ink, pink, a penny a wink<br />
Oh, how do you stink!</i><br />
-- (Ontario, Canada)<br />
<br />
Another one goes back even further - Mary Cooper recorded it in <i>Tom Thumb's Pretty Song Book</i>, the very oldest surviving collection of nursery rhymes, which she published in<b> 1744</b><br />
<br />
<i>Little robin redbreast sat on a pole<br />
niddle noddle went his head, poop went his hole</i><br />
<br />
<table><tbody>
<tr><td><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=adasel-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0415474337&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></td><td>Eventually people cleaned up the last line - it was later published as "wiggle waggle went his tail," which, of course, doesn't even rhyme. Lame. Incidentally, the "poop" here means "fart." When the word "poop" first appeared in America, it meant "butt." In 1640, a guy named Ned Ward wrote a sentence that went "while he manages his whiffle staff with one hand, he scratches his poop with the other." But a 1714 dictionary actually defined the word "poop" as "to break wind backwards." It didn't start being used in its modern sense until around 1900 (according to the book on the left). So, while "poop" has become a broadly accepted, even polite term for both excretion and that which one excretes, you're really showing that you're a fan of traditional values when you use a much older term, like %&%^.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Another rhyme in the same 1744 collection:<br />
<br />
<i>Piss a bed, piss a bed,<br />
barley butt<br />
your bum is so heavy<br />
you can't get up</i>.<br />
<br />
This later turned up in Joyce's <u>Ulysses.</u>. "Piss" meant the same thing then as it does now - in fact, it's one of the older words in the English language. People starting saying the first initial, "pee" (I suppose we should spell it "p---" ) when "piss" started to be considered impolite. Even the cleaned-up versions of the rhymes are pretty well out of circulation now, as far as we can tell, but the 1700s were not a terribly prudish time.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/smart-alecks-guide-to-naughty.html"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6083/6120921789_b3bab785e5.jpg" width="440" alt="BANNER PLAYGROUND white"></a>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-31689241140485618052011-09-22T07:26:00.000-07:002011-09-22T07:35:24.788-07:00Grave Robbing: Interview with a professional "subject gatherer."<div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Nearly half a century after the Anatomy Act was passed in the U.K., granting medical schools the bodies of poor people who had no friends to pay for a burial, colleges in the states were still desperate for bodies - desperate enough that you could bring a body to most medical schools and trade it in for cash or valuable prizes, no questions asked. Here’s an interview with Charles Keeton, “Professor of Subject-Gathering” conducted by the Cincinnati <i>Enquirer</i> in 1878. Keeton was proud of his profession, since his labors were performed in the interest of science:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Enquirer; How long have you been in the business?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">KEETON: About eleven years, sir. I began with Mr. Cunningham, “Old Cunny,” they called hi, eleven years ago, and have followed the business every winter since that.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Does it pay pretty well?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Not now. It used to pay, for we got a good price for subjects, but there isn’t much money in it now.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Why don’t they pay so much now?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Well, sir, the fact is I don’t want to say nothing against anybody, but it ‘pears to me that somebody ain’t exactly doing the fair thing by the profession of subject-gathering. I don’t ‘cuse none of the doctors themselves of going out to get stiffs, but there is something wrong somewhere. The old demonstrators of anatomy at the colleges wouldn’t have stooped to such a thing either, but I think things are changed now. I went to the demonstrator of one college— I ain’t going to call any names— in March, and asked him how many subjects they were going to want for the spring session, and he told me he thought they wouldn’t want any more, that they had enough on hand. Well, you see, I know better than that, and my private ‘pinion is that that ‘ere demonstrator gets his subjects in some queer sort of way. I don’t say that he goes out for ‘em himself, but if he doesn’t he must have some no ‘count men that would as soon rob the grave of a party well connected, with lots of friends, as any other way. Now, now body snatcher as has any respect for hisself or his calling ‘ll do a thing of that sort. There’s plenty of material lying ‘round and rotting, just rotting, sir, and no friends to claim it.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">How long have you been at the business?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It’s about eleven years since I first begun it. I begun with Old Cunny. First he paid me $3 a head; that was while I was learning. Then he gave me $8 apiece, and finally I decided to quit him and go by myself, and so he said he’d give me half, and then we worked together and shared till he died.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Do you make it a regular business, then?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I get my living by it in the winter time.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">What do you get for subjects?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We used to get about $25 apiece for them, but lately the price somehow has got down to $15. The professors buy some subjects for themselves, and they most always get them for about $15.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">How do you usually get the bodies?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Well, we generally go out two together and go to a burying ground. We go to the poor lots, the Potter’s Field, and when we can find any fresh graves we get the bodies.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">You don’t get them from the parts where the better class of people are buried?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">No. Lots of times Cunny and I have been out together and we’d find a fresh grave on a large lot, and Cunny would always say “Come ‘long, honey, we won’t take that.’ When we’d come through to the part where the graves were close together, and we knew it was the poor lot where the people without any friends were buried, then we’d dig down to the coffin, break it open, and put a rope around the neck and pull the body out. I don’t do it that way now, though, for it is just as easy to throw all the dirt out. Then, after throwing it out, I generally get down and open the coffin, and take the body by the waist and lift it out to my partner. He takes it, and gently runs a knife down the back and rips the clothes off, and lets ‘em drop down. Then we slip the head into a sack, press the knees up against the chest, and slip the body in it and tie the sack. That’s all there is to it.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">How do you enjoy the work?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Well, it wasn’t very pleasant at first, of course, but any one gets used to it. It is for the good of science, and I think it is just as right and honorable as for the man what does the dissection. I want to say one thing, though, and that is that the colored people have ‘cused me of robbing the graves and their graveyards. I never have done so. I have took up a good many bodies of colored people wot was buried in the poor lot, but never any other.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">How many do you suppose you have furnished in your experience as a body snatcher?</span></i></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Maybe 500. I got about forty last winter, but it wasn’t a very good winter for it, though.</span></div><br />
For WAY more information:<br />
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<a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/smart-alecks-guide-to-grave-robbing.html"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6187/6120969170_4459b84548.jpg" width="450" alt="BANNER GRAVE ROBBING"></a>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-38723009175333683182011-09-22T07:18:00.000-07:002011-09-22T07:36:42.486-07:00Drafting the Confederate Constitution (Chapter 4 supplemental article)In 1861, big shots from the newly formed Confederate States of America met in Montgomery to draft a provisional constitution for their new country. Only sight changes were made between their provisional draft and the final one.<br />
<br />
Not many changes were made to the original United States constitution - Jefferson Davis gave a speech saying that the new constitution was what the founding fathers intended, and differed only in that it made their original<i> intention </i>more explicit (in a very good example of the still-common fallacy of thinking that the original founding fathers all agreed on <i>anything).</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Of particular note is the addition of a line to the pre-amble which invokes the aid of "Almighty God," a concept left out of the United States constitution altogether. Confederate archives that were captured by the Union in 1865 give an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how this was added.<br />
<br />
After some debate about whether to call the new country The Confederate States of America or The Republic of Washington, a motion was made to ad "invoking the aid of Almighty God" into the pre-amble. One man objected and wanted the line removed. Another wanted it changed to "invoking the aid of almighty God, who is the God of the Bible and the rightful source of all power and government." But, since this might imply that Christianity was the official religion, Judah P. Benjamin, the most notable Jewish confederate big shot, objected. The short "almighty God" line was kept; the longer one and more explicit one was left out.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBo7x2KmXcFk-P2o6lJIlXodfLcd1SCVjvuhB6ySrorSHCjGXkQxoiPFHfO3rnWaZKtbRuB7iwxmTbNcJDUUCuuF_eZ58LWO-eQjaS4-zspmAAsXq8wuWnB4OECljyIPRZqqrHlD5ow-k/s1600/220px-TRR_Cobb_cph.3b27535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBo7x2KmXcFk-P2o6lJIlXodfLcd1SCVjvuhB6ySrorSHCjGXkQxoiPFHfO3rnWaZKtbRuB7iwxmTbNcJDUUCuuF_eZ58LWO-eQjaS4-zspmAAsXq8wuWnB4OECljyIPRZqqrHlD5ow-k/s200/220px-TRR_Cobb_cph.3b27535.jpg" width="174" /></a></div><br />
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There was also an attempt by either Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, the be-mulleted gent above, or his cousin Thomas Howell Cobb, the guy below who looks like a larger, fresh-from-the-fight clone of Stephan Douglas (sources aren't clear about which Cobb it was), to add a line stating "No man shall be compelled to do civil duty on Sunday."<br />
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It was quickly rejected, so whichever Cobb it was tried to insert a law about at least banning the delivery of mail on Sunday. A guy from Louisiana said that the people of Louisiana believed that people could worship God any day they wanted, so Louisiana should be exempt from that law. Texas wanted out too, and in the end the whole line was removed.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, the provisional authors voted down a rule saying that all new states joining the Confederacy had to allow slavery. However, since the final draft very explicitly protected the right to own slaves, such a rule would have been unnecessary. A non-slave state could have joined, but it would have immediately become a slave state.<br />
<br />
For all the talk you hear about "State's Rights" being a major cause, there's precious little of it in the CSA constitution, other than some lip service to the states acting in their "sovereign character." That's the impression one gets from reading accounts of these conventions and meetings - they would talk about state's rights now and then, but there was only one that really loomed large in their mind. Once people got started talking about slavery and their frustration with northern attempts to end it, it was hard to get them to shut up.Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-88689290611871922232011-09-22T05:49:00.000-07:002011-09-22T07:36:42.486-07:00Slavery and the Civil War (Chapter 4 supplemental article)The issue in <i>The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History</i> that generates the most mail is, without question, slavery and the Civil War. There are a LOT of people out there who absolutely insist that it never occurred to anyone that slavery had anything to do with what was going on at the time, and the real fight was about "State's Rights" and that thousand of black soldiers fought for the Confederacy.<br />
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Most of this is a myth - but to say that the war was "about" slavery is over simplifying. Let's take a look....<br />
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For the whole first half of the 19th century, there was no more divisive issue in America than slavery. And every ten years or so, the south would threaten to secede from the union to preserve it. The whole point of the Mexican American War was to add more "slave" states so that slave states would continue to be able to outvote non-slave states in congress.<br />
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By 1860, the growth of the country was robbing the South of its power. Today, no single region holds THAT much power, and for a president to be elected without winning any state in New England or the Southeast is hardly unheard of. But when Lincoln won without even being on the ballot in many Southern counties, people got rather freaked out.<br />
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If you read through the <a href="http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html">articles of secession</a> that a few states issued, the reason they left was very clear: it was to preserve slavery. In fact, they usually mentioned slavery in the first couple of sentences. The new Republican party was thought of as an anti-slavery party (which wasn't totally accurate; it's like when conservatives calls the Democrats the pro-gay marriage party today), and with the country adding new states, we were approaching a situation where all the OTHER states could vote to outlaw slavery, and the south would just have to sit there and take it. This could have affected other issues besides slavery, but if you look at the documents and rhetoric from the time, it's hard to figure out which other issues, if any, were on their minds.<br />
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In fact, the CSA's constitution didn't provide many additional states' rights. In fact, by giving the president a line item veto and a six year term, it could be argued that they made their president MORE powerful (they did give him a single term, but it was largely an age of one term presidents). Really, the CSA constitution was just a minor revision of the USA one, with one particularly glaring change: a section that insured that congress would pass no law restricting slavery <a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/drafting-confederate-constitution.html">(see our article about the drafting of the CSA constitution, including a picture of a guy with a mullet.)</a><br />
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One the fighting began, no one really thought of it as a war to end slavery - they thought of it as a dust-up to get things back to "normal." But once it became clear that this was not going to be a three month conflict, but an actual war, ending slavery seemed like a good move for a variety of reasons. It gave the north a rallying cry, along with a new supply of soldiers in freed slaves. But another issue was that if the war DIDN'T end slavery, but just brought the south back to the union, we would just end up fighting the same war over again sooner or later.<br />
<br />
Most of the "it wasn't slavery" brigade sends us the same false information - usually a quote from Grant saying that if he thought it was about slavery, he would have fought for the other side (which, as we state in a sidebar, was just a quote someone made up to make him look bad when he was running for president in 1872), or the common story that thousands of black soldiers fought for the confederacy - they weren't allowed to join at all until the very last weeks of the war, when they were desperate enough to offer freedom for service. None are known to have seen combat. Prior to that, the south was always fearful of a slave revolt, and arming black people was the last thing they wanted to do. They wouldn't even consider black union soldiers to be actual soldiers when negotiating the release of prisoners.<br />
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But that's not to say that every soldier in the CSA army was fighting to protect slavery, or that every soldier in the Union was out to end it. Indeed, your average soldier probably didn't care too much one way or the other. The reason they fought was that there was a war going on. From the point of view of a confederate soldier, there was an army marching into their home state, ready to burn down their home and everything around them. Very few of the soldiers actually owned any slaves, but all of them felt that they had SOMETHING to protect. When a ruling came down that men who owned enough slaves were exempt from service, soldiers sneered that this was a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight." And in the union, when the draft came around and men could get out of it by paying $300 (roughly a year's salary for many working class men at the time), soldiers THERE sneered that it was a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight."<br />
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Then again, most wars are.Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-1959550301059926662011-09-08T05:52:00.000-07:002011-12-21T05:24:04.853-08:00Ask the Smart Aleck Staff: The Boston Tea PartyHere comes some reader mail from Ava, a reader in Nebraska,<br />
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<i>In your book, you say that the Boston Tea Party was a protest against the government giving tax breaks to a business. So why do the tea party guys dress up like colonists? And why did the Boston Tea Party people dress up like Native Americans?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Great quest, Ava! First of all, here's a multiple choice question for you:<br />
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<i>Which party is most often guilty of making wild claims about how The Founding Fathers would agree with them?</i><br />
<i>a. Democrats</i><br />
<i>b. Republicans</i><br />
<i>c. Libertarians</i><br />
<i>d. whichever party is not currently in power</i>.<br />
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The answer is usually D (and, therefore, C - those guys are never in charge).<br />
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Both sides are making ridiculous generalizations to imply that the framers of our country all felt the same way on any given issue (especially issues relating to things they couldn't have imagined in the 18th century).<br />
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Exactly who counts as a Founding Father and who doesn't is a bit of an X factor - some count everyone who lived in the 1700s, some just count the people who fought in the wars and/or served in congress, and some just pick and choose at random. But any way you slice it, the Founding Fathers were a rather diverse bunch (for a bunch of rich white guys). They didn't agree on much back then, and they wouldn't agree on much now. When you ask what the founding fathers would think of any given issue, you really have to take it on a founding father by founding father basis.<br />
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And even then, their individual views evolved over time - it's impossible to guess what they'd make of the situation now. Even if we dug them up (you know that we here on the Smart Aleck Staff just LOVE grave robbing) to see if they'd registered their disapproval by rolling over in their graves (as one does), it would take some hardcore forensics to figure out WHEN they'd rolled over (or how many times). Even if they were facing down, they might have rolled over at the Missouri Compromise, then again the Nebraska Kansas Act, and again during Bloody Kansas.<br />
<br />
As for the costumes, one thing conservatives and liberals have in common is that their protest rallies tend to be taken as an invitation to put on stupid costumes, say stupid things, and act obnoxious (see also: <i>the Smart Aleck's Guide to Making an Ass Of Yourself) </i>(one that we're <i>definitely</i> qualified to write!). Protest rallies in the 1770s were probably no different.<br />
<br />
But we digress (as we do). In the 18th century, the East India Company was BIG business - it actually controlled parts of India for a time. In the 1770s, the British government gave them a legal monopoly on importing and exporting tea - colonists who wanted to buy tea from anyone who wasn't one of their consignees had to buy tea from smugglers. Smugglers didn't pay taxes, so they were able to keep their prices low. To help the East India Company, the government gave them MASSIVE tax breaks, allowing them to lower their prices and push competitors out of business.<br />
<br />
But there was no spending cut attached to the tax break, so the government made up for the loss of revenue by passing The Townsend Acts, which added some taxes for colonists, including one on tea. They were not exactly crippling taxes, but the colonists were rather miffed that they had to pick up the slack to allow for a company to get a tax break.<br />
<br />
So they organized boycotts, and started pushing locally-grown tea that didn't need to be imported (but apparently was not very good). It worked well enough that in 1770 the government repealed most of the taxes in the Townsend Acts - except for the one on tea, which they left in place just to show that they could. For a few years, taxes on both the company and the colonies went up and down. By 1773, the East India Company was basically operating tax free, and were allowed to do their own exporting, cutting out middlemen and helping keep their prices far lower than any competitors. Some in parliament wanted to do away with the tea tax, since it was just annoying the colonists, but they had set it up so that the revenues it brought in were what paid the wages of local officials, like judges.<br />
<br />
With the smaller-time dealers and smugglers out of business, the East India Company now controlled the tea trade - if they didn't name your store as a consignee, you'd be going out of business. Several people who WERE consignees resigned in protest. In 1773, seven East India Company ships were sent to the colonies, but since their consignees had resigned, six had to be sent back - all except the one bound for Boston, where the governor had talked the consignees out of resigning.<br />
<br />
Sam Adams (brother of John) held a meeting at which people passed a resolution urging the ship to turn around and go home. 25 people guarded it against being unloaded. On the last night before the deadline by which they had to either pay the duties and unload the tea or go home, another meeting was held, attended by some 7000 people.<br />
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According to legend, when it became apparent that the governor wasn't about to let the ships go home without paying the duties on their cargo, Adams said "this meeting can do nothing further to save the country," which was the coded signal for the tea partiers to take action. As with most of these legends, it isn't exactly right - the phrase may or may not have been a code, and Adams may have tried to STOP people from leaving because he wasn't done talking yet. <br />
<br />
But hundreds DID leave, and one group (from 30 to 130, depending on who you ask) boarded the ship, supposedly dressed as Mohawk Indians (to conceal their identities and guard against being accused of treason, though it's hard to imagine the disguises actually fooling anyone - we here at the Smart Aleck's Guide think there's just something about a protest that makes people want to get dressed up in pointless costumes). Once on board, they dumped the tea in the water.<br />
<br />
What they were there for is probably a mixed bag - some <i>might</i> have been generally anti-tax, but it seems like the issue most were protesting was paying taxes to allow for a company's tax break. We don't know of anyone railing that parliament should have been cutting spending altogether and eliminating the need for taxes.<br />
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Others, of course, were probably just there because it sounded like a real party.<br />
<br />
No one at the time really seems to have thought they made much of a point, and even most of the pro-independence colonists seem to have found the whole affair sort of embarrassing - the sort of thing that made them look like they were nuts. The British responded with MORE "intolerable acts."<br />
<br />
But the bottom line is that the party was about saying "this sucks, let's change it." This is something both parties can get behind - neither has a monopoly on the Boston Tea Party. But it's certainly VERY difficult to imagine the modern "tea partiers" having any issue with the government making things easier on the East India Company. In any case, the common notion that all of the "founding fathers" favored small government, low taxes, and the rest of the Libertarian Party platform goes against the basics of human nature. The "Framers" were arguing about what the part in the Constitution about promoting the general welfare meant before the ink was even dry.Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-9919416857455410632011-09-08T05:09:00.000-07:002014-04-06T20:46:41.332-07:00Victorian "Mummy Unwrapping Parties:" Fact or Fiction?One often comes across mention of the Victorian fad for "unwrapping parties." In those days, you could buy an actual mummy at any decent antiquities auction, and many of them were bought and publicly "unwrapped." According to the oft-repeated story, it became a huge fad among the upper class to host "unwrapping parties," where a mummy would be unrolled in one's parlor, with the trinkets found within the folds given out as gifts.<br />
<br />
While we here at the Smart Aleck's Guide were working on our <a href="http://smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/smart-alecks-guide-to-grave-robbing.html">guide to grave robbing,</a> we went looking for accounts of actual unwrapping parties. As far as we can tell, the term "unwrapping party" didn't appear in print until the very late 20th century. We never found a single account of anyone unwrapping a mummy for the fun of it at a social function. There are no diary entries like:<br />
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<i>Today was the big unwrapping party of Lord Autumnbottom's estate...the creature was gruesome and the smell horrid, and Henry and I were so covered with yellow dust that a man outdoors thought we were urchins and suggested that we die and decrease the surplus population. Henry says we must get a mummy of our own before Ascot, but I'm not at all sure I shouldn't rather simply play whist.</i><br />
<br />
Public unwrappings DID happen. Here's the "party" invitation that probably sparked the urban legend - it's advertised a gathering at Lord Londesborough's home with "a mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past two:"<br />
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But while this sure looks like a party invite, it wasn't a social gathering. Surviving accounts of what went on that 10th day of June, 1850, make it sound less like a party than an academic lecture. Most attendees were members of the Society of Antiquaries. </div>
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There were many other notable unwrapping (including a highly-publicized one in Boston at which a man unwrapped a "princess" who turned out to have a wiener), but most of them were held in lecture halls and universities, not at private homes. Many accounts indicate that having one at a party would have stunk up the house (even by Victorian standards), and that the dust and dried bitumen would have gotten all over everything. Unwrappings were not something to attend in party clothes!</div>
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Full details of what we "uncovered*" are in our new book, The Smart Aleck's Guide to Grave Robbing!</div>
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<a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/smart-alecks-guide-to-grave-robbing.html"><img alt="BANNER GRAVE ROBBING" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6187/6120969170_4459b84548.jpg" width="450" /></a><br />
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* - Yeah, when you talk about researching grave robbing, making puns about stories you "dug up" just comes with the territory.Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-37143440478631984852011-09-06T14:40:00.000-07:002013-12-29T09:26:30.132-08:00Smart Aleck's Guide to Naughty Playground Songs and Children's Folklore<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO NAUGHTY PLAYGROUND SONGS and CHILDREN'S FOLKLORE</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Supplemental material:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">mp3 to:</span></div>
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<a href="http://www2.adamselzer.com/burning.mp3" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"The Burning of the School" (six verse version)</a></div>
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<a href="http://www2.adamselzer.com/scurvy.mp3" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"Drink Your Juice (Or You'll Get Scurvy)"</a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The staff who brought you the acclaimed SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY (Random House 2009) is back with a look at the history of the songs and jokes you repeated when the teacher wasn't around, from Miss Suzy and her steam boat to the numerous songs about killing teachers, eating underwear, and coming down with the case of diarrhea, with an additional look at the dirty jokes, ghost stories, pranks and customs that have been passed from kid to kid for generations. Tracing many songs back hundreds of years (while debunking myths about the "origins" of others) using data from their popular <a href="http://www.playgroundjungle.com/">PLAYGROUND JUNGLE</a> blog, the guide is fascinating, hilarious, and will bring back memories for everyone. Those jokes are older than you thought! </span></div>
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With their usual "brainy but lighthearted" approach, theSmart Aleck Staff's latest guide includes fascinating looks at the history and mythology surrounding "Miss Mary Mack," "Miss Suzy Had a Steamboat," "Me Chinese," "A Boy's Occupation," "Ring Around the Rosie" (which was not about the plague, but may have been about a prostitute), and dozens more, examining their variations, evolution, and origins in soldier slang, 18th century tavern songs and ancient folk ballads.</div>
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In addition to rhymes, songs, and jokes, the staff delves into customs like "Jinx," "Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board," and "Cooties," as well as section on "wicked four square moves," with side trips along the way into the evolution of the word "poop," the various synonyms for "level" used by video game players in the '80s, and the history of fart jokes, plus the staff's trademark hilarious "assignments" and "experiments to try at home." A fascinating history lesson and a great nostalgia trip for children of the 80s, in particular, though it' will surely bring back memories for anyone who ever spent any time at a school or camp.</div>
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This full-length (over 50,000 words) ebook contains an active table of contents, active internal links, and a handy active index of first lines, as well as an appendix full of original songs such as "Drink Your Juice (or You'll Get Scurvy)" and "Glumpy, The Elf Who Sawed His Leg Off." A wonderful resource for writers - or anyone who wants to be the hit of their next party.</div>
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<a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/smart-alecks-guide-to-naughty.html"><img alt="BANNER PLAYGROUND white" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6083/6120921789_b3bab785e5.jpg" width="440" /></a></div>
Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-9378927001340669462011-09-05T16:07:00.000-07:002012-02-17T05:28:13.984-08:00Smart Aleck's Guide to Grave Robbing ebook<table><tbody>
<tr><td valign="top" width="200"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><b>THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO GRAVE ROBBING</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNBJ7f6l-rdfJCZwMxytRInc7LAzEsL-HdAMQnroV3yCN8iRfFqeDsN2ahGO5gmITA-LaGqtS-7oxqAlRWjs5Wwuh_i5lBECGUzpMQPAqVCEKvBrnNmaIOWLRD8dSZ6f5ZGjYGq8RxG5Q/s1600/SAG+GRAVE+ROBBING+COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNBJ7f6l-rdfJCZwMxytRInc7LAzEsL-HdAMQnroV3yCN8iRfFqeDsN2ahGO5gmITA-LaGqtS-7oxqAlRWjs5Wwuh_i5lBECGUzpMQPAqVCEKvBrnNmaIOWLRD8dSZ6f5ZGjYGq8RxG5Q/s200/SAG+GRAVE+ROBBING+COVER.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="150" /></a></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Only 2.99 on</span>:</b></div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LDJXGS"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Kindle </span></b></a></div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">or</span></b></div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940012992895">Nook</a></span></b><br />
<b>or </b><br />
<b><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/smart-alecks-guide-to-grave/id497296196?mt=11&uo=4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">iPad</span></a></b></div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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</div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Don't have one of those?</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_ipad_mkt_lnd?docId=1000493771">Read it on a<b> free</b> Kindle app </a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_ipad_mkt_lnd?docId=1000493771">for your pc, mac, iPad or phone.</a> </div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Or a <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/free-nook-apps/379002321/"><b>free</b> NOOK app </a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/free-nook-apps/379002321/">for pc, mac, iPad, or phone</a><br />
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<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/smart-alecks-guide-to-grave/id497296196?mt=11&uo=4" target="itunes_store"><img alt="The Smart Aleck's Guide to Grave Robbing - Adam Selzer & Smart Aleck Staff" src="http://r.mzstatic.com/images/web/linkmaker/badge_bookstore-lrg.gif" style="border: 0;" /></a><br />
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<b style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL:</span></b><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/mariettaortwostu00robi">Marietta: Or, The Students</a> - the wicked Victorian grave-robbing melodrama <small>(get the pdf; the two-column format makes the other versions a bit wonky)</small></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"Grave Robbing in Lincoln Park" - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">our "Chicago Unbelievable" Podcast with Daniel Kraus</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/ChicagoUnbelievableGraveRobbingWeek">Download mp3 from archive.org</a> or <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chicago-unbelievable/id424820365?uo=4" target="itunes_store"><img alt="Chicago Unbelievable" src="http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/images/web/linkmaker/badge_itunes-sm.gif" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; cursor: move;" /></a></span></div><div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.chicagounbelievable.com/2011/03/podcast-grave-robbing-in-lincoln-park.html" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Pictures and Info</a></div></td></tr>
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</div></div></div></div><div></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div></div></td><td width="30"></td><td valign="top" width="250"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i>Hey, kids....wanna see a dead body?</i><br />
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</div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In this out-of-left-field follow-up to the acclaimed <i>SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY</i> (Random House, 2009), the Smart Aleck Staff delves into the history, theory and practice of robbing graves. <b>It's everything you need to launch YOUR career as a 19th century resurrection man - the Smart Aleck way!</b></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">With their trademark humor somehow staying (mostly) in the bounds of good taste, the staff delves the days when anyone who came into possession of a dead body could trade it for cash or valuable prizes at medical schools, no questions asked. They investigate the history of mummy "unwrapping parties" and conduct interviews with horror novelists and archaeologists, and retell stories of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> murderers who found that simply killing a person to sell the remains to colleges saved them a lot of digging. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>THE SMART ALECK'S GUIDE TO GRAVE ROBBING is fascinating, disgusting, and entertaining.</b> </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> As a text book, it comes complete with quizzes, assignments, and experiments to try at home. It even includes </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">a handy set of rhymes to help you remember whether "coffin liquor" is safe to drink based on the color and texture! </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not for the faint of heart, but horror fans, trivia buffs, and the historically inclined will find much to enjoy (albeit not before dinner). <b>This</b> <b>full-length ebook contains an active table of contents and lots of illustrations.</b> The new ibook edition is newly-formatted for iPads.</span></div></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8676286926951077167.post-23332724357541742582011-09-02T18:27:00.000-07:002011-09-06T14:46:44.948-07:00Are there dark origins behind "Step On A Crack and Break Your Mother's Back?"<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>(the following is a cross-post from one of our blogs, <a href="http://www.playgroundjungle.com/2011/09/stepping-on-crack.html">Playground Jungle)</a>:</i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Here’s one that everyone knew to chant while walking down the sidewalk:</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back</i>.</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This has been recorded in print since at least the late 19th century, often with a few additions:</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Step on a line, break your mother’s spine</span></i></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Step on a hole, break your mother’s sugar bowl</span></i></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Step on a nail, you’ll put your dad in jail</span></i></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So the thing to step on here is probably a bowl. Everything else will kill people or, at least, uproot your life considerably. One can survive the loss of a sugar bowl. Health nuts will even say that you’ll benefit from it.</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">One person I knew added another:</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Giggle while you pee, you’ll turn into an old dead tree.</span></i></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Stepping on cracks has long been subject to superstition. In addition to the danger of breaking your mother’s back, a 1905 book, <i>Superstition and Education</i>, lists several other grim superstitions: that if you step on a crack, you will have bad luck, or that you will <i>not</i> get a surprise at home that you otherwise would have.</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Many claim that the <i>original</i> rhyme was “step on a crack and your mother will turn black,” and that the superstition went that stepping on a crack meant that you’d have a black baby. Indeed, Iona Opie noted that that one was fairly common in parts of the UK in the 1950s, but there’s no real reason to think it’s the <i>original</i>, not just another variation that came and went - the idea that it was the original probably comes from people who pick that one line out of Opie's long entry on the subject. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At the same time, kids were saying that if you stepped on a crack, you’d be chased by bears. This idea was invented by A.A. Milne in his poem “Lines and Squares,” but, from Opie’s description, was a more widespread superstition than the racial one. You have to watch out when people tell you the "original meanings" of things - like the supposed "secret origins" or nursery rhymes that go around, they're seldom true. And this is coming from the blog that connects songs about pooping in your overalls back to ancient ballads about making violins out of dead bodies.</span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 28px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">These are all, in any case, some of those superstitions that no one really <i>believes</i>. While the good luck brought from a penny can be debatable, most kids figure out right away that people who step on cracks in the sidewalk don’t come home to dead mothers and don’t get chased by bears (at least not very often).</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>The Smart Aleck's Guide to Naughty Playground Rhymes and Children's Folklore</i> ebook will be out next week!</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div><p align="center"><a href="http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/smart-alecks-guide-to-naughty.html"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6083/6120921789_b3bab785e5.jpg" width="440" alt="BANNER PLAYGROUND white"></a>Adam Selzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16068653440362135301noreply@blogger.com