4,584 words
Part 2 of 2
An Unexpected Party
The Fortean Society was founded on January 26, 1931, with a great fanfare of sounding brasses, tinkling cymbals, after-dinner speeches, and press releases. Thereafter the Society did practically nothing for six years.
T.T. with Pet Python, 1930
Circus Day Was Not Yet Over
2,062 words
Part 1 of 2
An unlikely linchpin of Postwar America’s Far Right was a slick-haired, grinning ad copywriter and ex-actor with the mad moniker of Tiffany Thayer (1902-1959). Thayer earned a handsome pile as scribe of radio jingles (Pall Mall cigarettes) and “meretricious bestsellers” (Time, May 26, 1956)—quite enough for an apartment on swank Sutton Place and a summer house on not-yet-swank Nantucket—but his most enduring legacy was likely his Fortean Society, (more…)
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April 1935, anno XIII, finally a foreword
The body of this ms. was written and left my hands in February 1933. 40 publishers have refused it. No typescript of mine has been read by so many people or brought me a more interesting correspondence. It is here printed verbatim, unaltered. I had not seen the ms. from the time it left Rapallo till it returned here with the galley proof. It is printed as record of what I saw in February 1933. The September preface (1933) indicated a flutter of hope, that has grown steadily more fluttery and less hopeful. (more…)
1,417 words
The rise and fall of nations and cultures is too abstract for most people. But fiction, especially that informed by journalism, can shows how the sweeping patterns of history play out the micro level. Individual stories can be just as informative as any grand history of the clash of civilizations.
H.L. Mencken, who died 57 years ago this week, was the greatest newspaperman of his age, or perhaps of any age. (more…)
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Editor’s Note:
The Code of Manu (circa. 200 BC – 200 AD) is the earliest known work of Hindu law. The following discussion is from section no. 57 of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ. The translation is by H. L. Mencken. The paragraph breaks have been introduced for online readability. The ellipses are Nietzsche’s.