The Mysterious Mr. Cobb

[Jonathan Townsend]

What's the start of Mr. Cobb's history? His Jack stories don't exactly read like the art and artifice text.

BTW ... the Calder sculpture is of the kid who later on became an artist in his own right and started making mobile sculptures (that Alex Calder).

[Jonathan Townsend]

Okay so looking at the Jack stories - ... where was he in 1901 - 1905?

How did he get the illustrations for those done? Was Hurst involved?

[Jonathan Townsend]

That introductory image in cartoons magazine - the wings/ears and eyes on the critter up and center... similar to Seuss indeed.

Okay back to tracing your mister Cobb and his earlier works. congrats on the history project.

[Jonathan Townsend]

trying to follow this

You mentioned someone named cobb born 1844.
You mentioned someone named cobb attributed as author of some tales published after 1905.

Any more about this or any other cobbs?

the Smith illustrations are interesting. Any more of his work (any books/retrospectives) or mentions of him being hired as illustrator between 1890 and 1901?

Were the first "Tom Swift" tales from about then? IIRC that was managed by a publishing house hiring authors and using a template for the book/plot/narrative structures.

[Jonathan Townsend]

I kinda prefer the Whitley Streiber Communion version with alien visitations, text dictated while abducted and illustrations fixed up to show humanlike hands. Last shot is a cut to some CGI of clear cardlike objects getting dealt down to a table which lights up the area under the cards individually. What he heck throw in a pyramid or two. Maybe earlier someone could rant that the secret of the text is the way symbols form when you look through the pages - explaining the page layouts.

We could also have a version of Tom Swift where Victor Appleton was running an orphanage and made up the stories to keep the kids amused. Later on he started writing. Then his son stayed on and also picked up the storytelling.

Is there more information about where this Cobb guy was working before he started authoring books?

[Jonathan Townsend]

Great to find him editing the Radford Review as of 1897-1898
which puts him in the right place/time for other tales to be told.

[Jonathan Townsend]

... key character that stood out was Bill Hanscom. ...guess who I found that wasn't from Chicago, and born in 1869?

A William E. Hanscom. ..

any details on the guy? other mentions in print? (height, hair color... hands?)

[Jonathan Townsend]

Blue Pencil - these guys? (bottom of the page center)

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1900 ... corporated

Getting to the book linked about speculation ... but not quoting:
...no honest man is spared, no thief injured?

[Jonathan Townsend]

I like the way you're putting forward some literary context for the "erdnase" book. It appears very much a book of its time.

Not sure how all this relates to Cobb. The amateur magician/card handler is also of interest.

Imagine someone in a future version of Los Angeles coming across the film Ghostbusters. And from that inferring the invention of NYC. Their peer group nixes the idea of an actual New York and cites Gotham City and Metropolis as the extent of the American story world at that time.

Lem and Borges have written on the topic of how the author uses text to create his ideal reader.

[JT now->how typo changes meaning in post. oops sorry]

[Jonathan Townsend]

Understood you are establishing literary context (1900 Chicago/ gaming clubs) for a work. That's helpful in general. Did folks in the Blue Pencil club make mention of the "erdnase" book? Any comments about tricks or advantage play? You've got a bunch of editors/critics who could all be involved in writing a book as a goof. Kinda like Murder on the Orient Express but instead of a body we have a book.

The behavior of magicians regarding the "erdnase" text makes for its own study. Any sociology students in the house?

Okay back to the handy Bill Hanscom - he visit the local magic clubs?

[Jonathan Townsend]

League of Editorial Gentleman use a blue pencil to clean up the city?

[Jonathan Townsend]

I see the page, an illustration, a poem using a word that's gone out of acceptable use and ... need some help with the connection you mentioned.

[Tom Sawyer]

The signature (at least the second one) is that of Joseph A. Lemon (one version of his signature). That is clear from Allan Holtz's blog on comic strips (article by Alex Jay).

[Jonathan Townsend]

is that green/red significantly different from other books of that time?

[Jonathan Townsend]

I'm not following the trail from mock chinese names to the blue pencil group.

what do you presuppose the reader understands at this point in your story?

or on the more abstract side: how many book pages does one need before one could run the text together and reasonably expect to find "we wrote that book" on a diagonal?

[Jonathan Townsend]

I also hope folks are okay with links to writings from long ago when some peculiar ways of thinking and language were mainstream. It's not where we are today. What's the "approved outsider" for parody these days?

Okay back to the turn of last century League of Extraordinary Writers and their exposure of cheats...

How far away are these Blue Pencil guys books from the writing/tone/language of L. Frank Baum or the Victor Appleton first Swift books? I'm having some trouble with fine detail for style and language use in that period.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Was it common practice at the time to propercase names used in allusion? In this case the word "angel" rather than "Angel".

BTW one can also find "ed marlo" in the pyramid page... if one enjoys such things.

[Jonathan Townsend]

You're doing fine with that Chicago literature. And the Blue Pencil. Not all here are voracious readers.

The ellipsis feels like a non-sequitur to the unfamiliar. One kind of writing has as its goal to help folks feel clever for following the argument. And ever so much more clever for what they already know - since the argument makes reference to the stuff folks already feel clever for knowing. Taking "know" to mean "decided to feel good about accepting" and clever as "imagining that others would not explore much less consider as serious" - we get to...

Our house (or magic) with cornerstones of great people and significant (even if difficult) tasks to master in the various rooms. To the library we go?

So let's get a little more Vernon and Houdini in the just-so story. And maybe even some Hoffmann. Not all of us know the canon of Connan Doyle or the truth by way of Twain.

[Brad Jeffers]

... not Scottish!

And all this time I was thinking you were this guy ...

[Tom Sawyer]

Robert, I did not even know that you had sent your November 27 PM to me until after I saw this post. In other words, I first saw your message maybe about 15 minutes ago.

--Tom

[Roger M.]

You are certainly not "offending" or "disrespecting" anybody here.

If you want people to respond to your posts though, you likely need to simplify your writing style such that it more effectively presents your evidence and candidate.

Currently your posts are difficult to parse, and as a result almost impossible to respond to.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Wonderful connections.

It's been written that a cubic mile of water contains a great fortune in gold.

[Jason England]

Guys,

Let me know when you get to the Map Room. Just be sure to take back 1 kadam to honor the Hebrew God whose ark this is. Otherwise your staff will be too long and you'll be digging in the wrong place.

Jason

[mam]

Sworn Lip(s):

Have I understood your latest email (and this thread) correctly if your claim is that the tomb of Benjamin F. Cobb is in fact an Erdnase treasure trove? Or is the location that stone structure on your Google map? (Which does not resemble the club, heart, spade, diamond, by the way.)

P.S. When sending out mass emails, you should not use the "to" field but rather the "bcc" field. Otherwise you will expose every recipients' email address (such as my private one) to everyone else receiving that email, in this case a large number of media outlets etc.

[Brad Henderson]

Otherwise your staff will be too long and you'll be digging in the wrong place.

Jason

If I had a nickel for every time THAT has happened to me . . .

[Bill Mullins]

E. S. Andrews of Williamston was a newspaper publisher. There is no reason to believe he had anything to do with Expert at the Card Table.

I read your posts and wonder if you are simply documenting the stream-of-consciousness journey you are taking as you go through google books and what not, or if you are trying to make the case that E.S. Andrews of Williamston/Ben Cobb/ someone is the person who wrote Expert. Or is it all a treasure hunt?

Do you have a thesis you are trying to prove? Could you succinctly state it? Because after reading your posts for several weeks, I don't understand.

And I'm not trying to be snarky here. Erdnase is fascinating, and goodness knows I've spent a ton of time and Forum posts on the subject. I just don't get where ever it is you are going with this.

[Dustin Stinett]

Do you have a thesis you are trying to prove? Could you succinctly state it? Because after reading your posts for several weeks, I don't understand.

Oh good, I thought I was the only one.

[Brad Henderson]

Yeah, I haven't been able to follow any of these posts. I would love to see a clear statement of what the poster believes and the evidence that leads to that belief.

[Richard Kaufman]

I've been sent much additional material of which I could not make head nor tail. I will do as the poster wishes and lock the thread. Good luck ... maybe he'll surprise us all!