Metta Victoria Victor

Celebrating Women's History Month, we lead off with a short piece by Metta Victoria Victor from her hilarious book "A Good Boy's Diary." We have read from Mrs. Victor's works before, most notably, one of her "Miss Slimmens" stories (Episode #265, January 29, 2006). Eventually, we will serialize "Miss Slimmens' Window," one of the funniest books ever written. It's rough doing her voice though, so it may have to wait a while.

In Kate Sanborn's 1885 book "The Wit of Women" she writes, "Mrs. Metta Victoria Victor, who died recently, has written an immense amount of humorous sketches. Her 'Miss Slimmens,' the boarding-house keeper, is a marked character, and will be remembered by many." 

Mrs. Victor wrote under an assortment of pen names, male and female, as well as her own. The Miss Slimmens books were originally published with the pen name of "Mrs. Mark Peabody." She wrote adventure stories, mysteries, romances, and anything else she could crank out. Her husband, Orville J. Victor, was the General Editor of Beadle and Adams, the major Dime Novel publishing house in the U. S. and England. Perhaps the most significant effort of her career was a novel called "Maum Guinea," a story of slavery that was only surpassed by Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in stirring up abolitionist feelings. Abe Lincoln was reported to have said, "It is as absorbing as 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"

Oddly enough, there is a tenuous connection between Mrs. Victor's novel and the Beecher family. When it was published in England, the book caused quite a stir, and sold tens of thousands of copies there, along with Mr. Victor's "The American Rebellion,. Some facts and Reflections for the Consideration of the British People," which also dealt with the scourge of slavery. When Henry Ward Beecher toured England as an emissary for Lincoln to (successfully) convince the British people not to recognize the Confederacy or to buy cotton from them, he later told Mr. Victor, "My dear fellow, your little book and Mrs. Victor's novel were a telling series of shots in the right spot."

So listen and enjoy Mrs. Victor's funny story, but realize that her humor was a small part of her accomplishments as a highly influential author of her day.

iTunes redux

Well, Apple removed a post I placed last night on their discussions board. It was called "Simply Amazing" and in it I essentially complained about their "selection" process for putting podcasts in the "featured" section of iTunes. I'm sorry I didn't save the post so I could place it here, but it was pretty late at night & I was tired. 

They sent me a charming form letter:

Your post, "Simply Amazing. " was removed from the Apple forums as it does not follow the guidelines specified in our terms of use. These areas are intended to address technical issues about Apple products. Posts that do not conform to the Apple Discussions Use Agreement are inappropriate.

Reasons that your post was removed may include but are not limited to:

-Off topic or non-technical posts

-Non-constructive rants or complaints

Still, it is their business, and if they don't want to host a discussion of how they pick podcasts for their featured spots, that's their privilege. But the plain fact is that while they are including podcast listings on iTunes for "free," they are also reaping the benefit of having lots of free content for users to attract and keep them.

My big complaint is that Mister Ron's Basement has never -- I mean never -- been featured on the iTunes "New and Notable" or even "Featured" menus, either on the front page or in the Comedy category where the Basement resides.

If being the first podcast on iTunes to reach the One Thousand mark isn't notable, then what is? If creating a well researched (and at times exciting, funny, and fascinating) three part three-hour long audio documentary isn't notable, then what is?

I'm certain that currently featured programs such as "Vomitus Prime" "Air Out My Shorts" and "Lucky ***** Radio" (actually featured twice in the same menu!) are obviously outstanding high-class efforts, and that what I need to do is stop producing family-friendly, well researched programs of classic American humor, and dig around in the gutter some more.

And the excuse I have heard some people give -- that I need to have more "subscribers" (I currently average about three thousand downloads a day and a tad under a hundred subscribers) to get listed -- simply doesn't hold water, as iTunes often highly promotes podcasts that have just been created by major corporations or often something that just strikes their fancy, even though they haven't been around long enough to have any subscribers at all.

Well, that's my rant for today. I do remember that I did end my post by stating that other podcasters should not be discouraged by iTunes' policies. The rewards of podcasting are in the act of creation itself, or as somebody we know once said, "The Journey is the Reward."

Rarities

Searching deeper and deeper into the realms of early American humor has uncovered the existence of relics that I dream of encountering in one form or another. Some of these I have actually gotten my grubby little hands on; other relics sit and sit in my ebay search list, waiting for somebody to uncover them in their attic and get listed.

A prime example is the St. Jacobs Oil Family Calendar for 1883, and possibly 1884. The 1883 edition, according to reviews I have read in period newspapers, contains at least one Spoopendyke story written especially for the publication by Stanley Huntley, as well as other pieces created for it by the nation's leading humorists of the time. I  did actually buy a copy of the 1885 edition (from a book dealer -- not on ebay), from which I read a handful of Bill Nye stories on the Basement. Stanley Huntley's name is listed in the front of the booklet as a contributor, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what he wrote for it. It is possible that he helped edit the Calendar, as he is the only contributor who is credited with being an editor of any sort.

The 1884 edition of the Calendar is a complete mystery to me. Back in the 1880s, the St. Jacobs Oil company of Baltimore gave away millions of these things, either by mail or via participating pharmacies. I have discovered that there are at least a few people out there who collect St. Jacobs Oil bottles, postcards, advertisements, and other ephemera. But so far,  I still haven't encountered either the 1883 or 1884 edition.

A couple of other Stanley Huntley treasures that have eluded me include copies of the New York children's newspaper that featured the serialized story "Daddy Hoppler." Huntley wrote the first couple of chapters of this story, then went to sea for his health for a few months. His wife Florence continued and finished the tale under his name, because she needed the money, and the editors were none the wiser. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the name of the children's periodical is, and cannot find a clue to where this story might be found. The other rarity that has so far been beyond my reach is his science fiction story, A Trip to the South Pole, which was collected in the 1973 book At the Mountains of Murkiness and Other Parodies, edited by George Locke. The book claims the story was originally published back in 1899, fourteen years after Huntley died, so it may be something that Florence dug out of his papers and published somewhere to raise money, or it may have been reprinted in 1899 from someplace else, or may have been by someone else named Stanley Huntley! In any event, I have found copies of this book on some dealers lists for outrageous amounts of money, so I will probably have to wait a long time to see it.

Another Huntley rarity, of course, would be the many issues of Drake's Travellers' Magazine (yes, that is how it is spelled) that Huntley edited and wrote many humorous pieces for. I have one issue, and it was a fluke finding it. I am always looking for more. 

There are rarities by other authors that I am always looking for. I do need to find a few holes in my Philander Doesticks (Mortimer Thomson) collection, especially his early newspaper pieces that were not reprinted in books. David L. Roath, author of The Five Love Adventures of Solomon Slug, apparently edited a humor periodical in the 1850s called Roath's Monthly Magazine. Boy, would I love to find some of those!

There's a wealth of writing (not in books) by James M. Bailey, Fanny Fern, M. Quad, and Max Adeler that are in (so far) undigitized newspapers. These things are high up on my want list. And speaking of Max Adeler, I have read that Charles Heber Clark adopted that pen name based on a character in a story he read as a child, but no one has ever encountered that story, and it remains a mystery.

As more and more old paper gets digitized, more of these important parts of our humorous heritage will become available to future generations. Let us hope that this happens a lot more than it has so far, because all too much of it disintegrates and vanishes every day.