Of Words, Birds and Bathwater -or- Is Print Really Dead?

With the Kindle, and now the introduction of the unfortunately-named iPad--

(a moniker which was supposed to call to mind a user-friendly suite of products. But which instead sounds like it should involve commercials where two women walk in a sunny field and speak confidentially about monthly discomfort)...

--Er, where was I?

Oh. Yes.... With the introduction of the Kindle and iPad, our friend the Paper Book might be viewed as having taken a hit.

But ever since ancient Egyptian best-selling authors said, "Hey, I've still got two more chapters to write and I've run completely out of wallspace. I'm feeling optimistic about that pile of dried fronds over there," the printed word has shown its ability to evolve.

Wholly-Accurate and Completely Trustworthy History of the Printed Word To-Date

• Dawn of Time, noonish- First dirty limerick on cave wall well-received by early fans. Critics, however, dub it "the work of Neanderthals."

• 3800 BC- Ancient Sumerians develop increasingly more elaborate pictograms, these featuring familiar images of birds, bare feet, sheaves, and a man in a bowler hat with an apple in front of his face. The hieroglyphics were originally used to share religious rituals, and to pass down favorite beer recipes. Old Mesopotamia, Old Mesopotamia Lite, Pain in the Asp and Golden Sarcophagus were top award winners at the 3787 BC "Pharaoh of the Brew" competition.
  

• 3200 BC- Ancient Egyptians realize tombs are not terribly portable, growing tired of forcing slaves to roll the tomb from place to place using clever pulley and lever systems every time they want to share sports scores and the livestock market. Egyptians develop new fad of writing directly on barges and slaves.

• 2800 BC- Writing on stone tablets invented after space on slaves becomes limited. These tablets are portable, but heavy and prone to damage.

• 200 AD- Chinese win the race as Word Superpower, inventing inkblock printing on fabric two seconds before the Egyptians. Japanese adapt the technique for mass producing colorful images of big-eyed young girls in schoolgirl uniforms and brandishing superpowers.

• 400 AD- European monks use pulp paper to craft elaborate illuminated manuscripts with the forethought of displaying them in the British Library 1500 years later, along with Beatles lyrics on cocktail napkins.

• 1824 AD- Industrial revolution makes mass printing possible, creating a whole print industry including publishing houses, editors, and slush pile readers hired specifically to reject Charles Dickens' work.

• 1836 AD- Charles Dickens invents self-publishing. And cliffhangers.
  

• 2005 AD- Self-publishing meets the information age, allowing everyone, including your great-aunt who smells like mothballs to finally share her 1,000 page collection of incisive cat haiku.

• 2010 AD- iPad and Kindle demonstrate that they can go where the printed page has never gone before.... Except for the bathtub.

So as you can see, print is designed to evolve and adapt. And as human society, we must adapt with it.

Why, now that we've created a hard tablet with words printed on it, which is heavy and prone to damage, where will we go next?

My theory is we're probably just one step away from having the very walls of our homes used as a surface to receive and view all important information...

We'll learn eventually.
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Humorbloggers

The Tudor Bunch -or- "It's the Story of a Lovely Monarch"

I had the good fortune to see comedian Eddie Izzard perform last night. This man's hysterical take on world history is a little like a trip through a carnival fun house; nothing looks quite right, everything you know is turned upside down, and you can't wait to see what's in the next room.

So as a little tribute today-- and to follow through on that "Kings" part of the Of Cabbages and Kings-- I give you the only part of history Eddie Izzard HASN'T covered--

And the only area of knowledge I have worth sharing. And that is the reign of Richard III of England.

Aw, stop yer yawning-- I promise, it'll be funny...


It was the early 1480s-- the period known as "the Messy Ages" in England.

• The French wanted England for themselves
  

• Groups within England wanted a bigger piece of the pie and chips

• And Sauron was building his army of Orcs to take over Middle Earth...

(The little-known Orc power-struggle is represented here by mushy peas.)

Edward IV had inherited the throne from his pious yet slightly dim father-- we all know how that can happen. And Eddie 4, he was a bit of a ladies' man.

Eddie 4 was tall and handsome-- plus he was the king-- so for the purposes of our discussions here, he was the MARCIA BRADY of this story.

Now his little brother was Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Richard was small and without the flash of his brother, but he was smart as a whip. So basically Richard was the JAN BRADY in this tale.

Well, Eddie 4, he did some kingly things: a battle here... a rebellion quelling there... a WHOLE LOT of ladies of the court. And during this time, Richard fought loyally for him, and governed much of Northern England.

So Eddie 4 grew old, and caught a few diseases, and got hit in the nose with a football. This ruined his looks and eventually killed him. And it became clear to everyone that his pre-adolescent son-- who would be Eddie 5-- would be taking over the throne.

Until Richard announced:

"Hey, wait-- information has just come to light that Eddie Junior and his kid brother are actually illegitimate. So I'll be their Protector and run the kingdom until this whole thing gets sorted out.

Cheers, folks."

And the boys were sent to the Tower of London, which had fewer souvenir shops then, and they never were seen again.

Now, at this point, there are two schools of thought.

One is that Richard-- hating that everything had been "Edward, Edward, Edward" all this time-- stole the throne and snuffed the boys and thought no one would really notice...

Because, you know, they didn't have YouTube then.



And the other school of thought is that Richard really was this super-nice uncle who wanted to protect the boys from potential French usurpers, and he either:

• Smuggled them out of the country to safety
• They were murdered by traitors to the king, or
  
• They died of an excess of lollipops and puppies.

Anyway, Richard ruled until 1484. But during his reign, he did some very good things:

• He was a smart strategist
• The commoners began to prosper under him
• And he really gave the Orcs what-for

But then Henry Tudor over in France decided to finally make his play for the throne. And during the Battle of Bosworth Field against the Tudor sympathizers, Richard was killed-- really ruining Richard's day.

As a marketing person, here's the part I find really interesting...

Once Henry Tudor became King Henry VII, Henry Tudor's people were like a cross between today's political spin doctors and journalists for the Weekly World News.

I mean, they'd do ANYTHING for a story, say ANYTHING to make Richard III look bad, so the people would forget they were actually doing pretty well under his reign. Why, they'd publicize headlines like:

"'King Richard in Cahoots with Space Aliens,' Says Abducted and Probed Serf..."

"'Richard III Married My Ox,' Reveals Upset Farmer..."

"Corpse Shows King Tricky Dick Had Second Evil Head"...

Anyway, so one day Henry Tudor and his people noticed all these portraits of Richard III lying around the National Gallery and Henry said:

"Hmmm... This guy doesn't really LOOK evil. In fact, he looks like a fairly decent guy. That won't do at ALL!... Let's give him a hump on his back, and a withered arm and a squinky eye!"

And the king's portrait artist, always up for an artistic challenge, started to get into it. "And devil's horns?"

"Okay, devil's horns," said Henry.

"And a mustache?"

"A mustache, then."

"A pearl earring!"

"No, I believe that's another painting."

So they forwent the pearl earring, but did get on with much of the other stuff, and that is why today, with this great technology we have, we can see that many of his portraits were actually altered to give Richard one raised shoulder, and an angrier expression, and devil's horns.

And with an enthusiastic smear campaign that still permeates history books today, the Tudors went on to reign enthusiastically for many hundreds of years...

Meaning-- that's the way they became the Tudor Bunch.

(For those seeking actual information on Richard III wholly unrelated to Brady Bunch metaphors, I suggest you look at the following books:

• The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir
  
• Royal Blood by Bertram Fields
• Richard III, the Princes in the Tower by A.J. Pollard

And check out the revisionist views at the Richard III Society here.)


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Henry Tudor tried to rub out the existence of Humor-blogs after he was done with Richard III. But you can see, they're still alive, well and mostly free of devils' horns.

Who in the Hunan is General Tso?

I popped into Chan An for a bite of hot lunch, and ordered my fav-- General Tso's chicken. The pretty, delicate young lady behind the counter took my order. Then shouted back to the cook in Chinese with a bellow that cracked the plaster.

It's always surprising, that bellow. Especially to new customers. I watch people give her their order, and then wait for 'em to jump in the air and cling to the ceiling fan as she blasts out the good word on their dish.

I like it. Helping people off the ceiling fan gives me something to do while I wait for my food.

So, as I gave nice Mrs. Johnston a leg down from the rafters, it occurred to me. "Who IS General Tso, and why am I eating his chicken?"

I had never considered this before. Possibly because it had just seemed perfectly right. Colonel Sanders... General Tso...

Military status + crispy chicken = yum

It seemed to span cultures.

So while I enjoyed delicious crispy chicken back at the office, I did some in-depth research...

NO, not Wikipedia. Hey, I'm serious about my research and believe in using solid sources. (Also, that was later.)

I went to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a reputable publication where the entry is unlikely to have been written by someone with the username "TsoFanNumeroUno." And Britannica tells us that the man who inspired the dish was none other than Tso Tsung-t'ang. Also known as "Zuo Zongtang."

"Steve" to his buds.

Truthfully, the entry was pretty dry. Unlike that sweet, sweet chicken. So to hold your interest, I'm going to take some liberties and paraphrase here.

And you kiddies out there writing reseach reports using just whatever internet site you find as your sources? You'll want to copy this all down word-for-word and turn it into your teachers as-is. Your teachers will love it. And will probably share your work with all their colleagues in the teacher's lounge.

It'll be a learning experience for everyone.

Okay, back to General Tso. General Tso didn't start out his career a general. Yes, he started out as simply Tso, a guy born into "a well-connected, scholarly family." So basically tenured university professors with a good pension plan.

He passed his preliminary civil service exams, and concentrated on farming studies and geography. This means he was more or less a desk-jockey at the Hsiang-yin Department of Agriculture.

Then in 1850, the Taiping Rebellion began to spread through South China. And so like "Sean of the Dead" only without the zombies, Tso realized he had to take action. He organized the local defenses to rise up and protect the region. And because folks who mattered were still alive when the dust cleared, they said, "Tso, we really like your style."

For his good work, he became one of the top imperial commanders, and eventually Governor-General of Chekian and Fukien.

This made him VERY big in China. Big enough to hold press conferences and everything.

Soon, his role expanded to governor-general of Sheshi and Kansu, because there were Muslim rebels that need quashing, and Tso had proven his mad skilz in the quashing arena.

How'd he do this? Well, remember, Tso had started his career as a civil servant. And what do civil servants like to do most?

Why, slap down some hefty taxes, that's what! So he taxed these people. And he also encouraged economic production, and introduced Western technology. I'm guessing it probably had something to do with an automated online tax collection system, but Britannica doesn't go into the details.

And to finance his troops? Tso put them to work in their spare time, growing grain and cotton. Because, you know, they were on the clock, anyway, and there weren't unions then.

But, Tso kept it going. Stopping a rebellion here, a rebellion there. By 1881, he was this old, blind guy who just wanted to retire, get his gold watch and his office party with cake. You know give a couple of slurred and tearful speeches after putting away too many Tsingtaos.

But they government wouldn't let him. He was sent off to South China to defend the country against the French. And that's where he died.

So where does the chicken come in? Well, that's an interesting story in itself. See, every time Tso would go up against a new group of rebels, the rebel fighters would underestimate his tactical abilities because he'd started out as a mid-level office executive. And so to boost the rebel morale, they'd all chorus, "General Tso's chicken! General Tso's chicken!"

Of course, they were defeated every time. Which is why General Tso's chicken is not only sweet, for the sweet victory he enjoyed, but spicy, because his tactics had an unexpected kick.

And if you believe that, I have a chunk of Great Wall to sell ya.


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The offices at Humor-blogs are filled with empty Chinese food containers. I know it.