The American Holiday Known As Thanksgiving

I never knew that it was the woman who wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb", Sarah Josepha Hale, who campaigned to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Or, as the wikipedia elegantly puts it: "She famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving." I love the stiff prose of wikiworld. Hale was also an advocate for eating the American bird known as turkey. Turkeys are found in the American continent known as North America. Here's your wikipedia history lesson of the day:

Hale is credited as the individual most responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday in the United States; it had previously been celebrated only in New England. Each state scheduled its own holiday, some as early as October and others as late as January; it was largely unknown in the American South. Her advocacy for the national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. In support of the proposed national holiday, she wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States -- Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln did convince him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863.

Impressive. What a legacy! Both "Mary Had a Little Lamb" & Thanksgiving? That's like being credited with creating both smiles & kittens. I need to start writing repeated letters to as many presidents as possible to advocate for McGonagall Supper to become official. (McGonagall Supper is a dinner in honor of bad poetry held on September 29th, the day William McGonagall, the English language's worst poet, died. Mark your calendars! Write to your representative!) In the meantime, happy thanksgiving, & I leave you with the subtly secular Walt Whitman quote I read as our prayer before our family's thanksgiving dinner every year:

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are.

-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1892)

Invitation to the First Ever North American McGonagall Supper

I've been told that my invitation to Tuesday's dinner party & bad poetry reading was too long-winded to even extract the date & time from - but of course, it had to be. Here it is as it stands, & we're very happy to be hosting the first ever North American McGonagall Supper:

On June 12, 1997th, nearby Dundee, on the beautiful silv'ry Tay, on-board the Frigate Unicorn, was held Scotland's first, & as far as my research has revealed, only ever so far, celebrated McGonagall Supper in honor of the recently celebrated Sir William Topaz McGonagall. Dundee's McGonagall Appreciation Society appears to be defunct, & does not return my calls. We resolve that a New World supper in honor of Scotland's worst poet should be held on the day of his death, on some September 29ths, this year being the One-Hundred-&-Seventh Memorial of what such day, in Berkeley, California, nearby the silv'ry Bay. The McGonagall Appreciation Society's website has been mysteriously removed from the internets, on that website formerly-but-no-longer there being a description of the procedure & protocol of a McGonagall Supper, we hereby also resolve to wing it; but I do recall it following somewhat in the spirit of a Robert Burns Supper, he being Scotland's greatest poet, in the stead of celebrating his birth, & therefore being Scotland's worst poet, we honor McGonagall's memorial, & mimic the pomp & circumstance of a Burns Supper, but in reverse & backwardsly, & with worser Scotch.

Familiarity with the celebrated McGonagall's "Poetic Gems" is not a pre-requirement for attendance at a McGonagall Supper, as the point of which is to read aloud from said gems, & you are the better for having avoided them hitherto so far. Queen Victoria successfully avoided ever witnessing the great poet recite by not being in attendance at Balmoral after Sir William walked sixty miles thru the rain from Dundee to ask her if he might replace Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as Poet Laureate; failing to find her in Scotland, he walked home. It may also behoove you to be in a different country to avoid these recitations.

However, if you wish to familiarize yourself with his life & work, here's is a brief excerpt, in his own words, from his autobiography, which he wrote himself:

"The Autobiography of Sir William Topaz McGonagall

"Poet and Tragedian

"Knight of the White Elephant, Burmah

"My Dear Readers of this autobiography, which I am the author of, I beg leave to inform you that I was born in Edinburgh. My parents were born in Ireland, and my father was a handloom weaver, and he learned me the handloom weaving while in Dundee, and I followed it for many years, until it began to fail owing to machinery doing the weaving instead of the handloom. So much so as I couldn't make a living from it. But I may say Dame Fortune has been very kind to me by endowing me with the genius of poetry. I remember how I felt when I received the spirit of poetry. It was in the year of 1877, and in the month of June, when trees and flowers were in full bloom. Well, it being the holiday week in Dundee, I was sitting in my back room in Paton's Lane, Dundee, lamenting to myself because I couldn't get to the Highlands on holiday to see the beautiful scenery, when all of a sudden my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears- 'Write! Write' I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself-- 'I know nothing about poetry.' But still the voice kept ringing in my ears - 'Write, write,' until at last, being overcome with a desire to write poetry, I found paper, pen, and ink, and in a state of frenzy, sat me down to think what would be my first subject for a, poem."

After scotch & spam (in lieu of haggis) has slurred our power of our recitation, I resolve to watch from the strange movie "The Great McGonagall", another celebration of the death & life of Sir William Topaz McGonagall, a film by Spike Milligan & Peter Sellers, which they are the filmmakers of.

Please RSVP, & bring some bottom-shelf scotch &/or a sidedish.

P.S.
For Leviaphiles, recently discovered, a McGonagall poem about Melville's muse:

The Famous Tay Whale

'TWAS in the month of December, and in the year 1883,
That a monster whale came to Dundee,
Resolved for a few days to sport and play,
And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay.

So the monster whale did sport and play
Among the innocent little fishes in the beautiful Tay,
Until he was seen by some men one day,
And they resolved to catch him without delay.

When it came to be known a whale was seen in the Tay,
Some men began to talk and to say,
We must try and catch this monster of a whale,
So come on, brave boys, and never say fail.

Then the people together in crowds did run,
Resolved to capture the whale and to have some fun!
So small boats were launched on the silvery Tay,
While the monster of the deep did sport and play.

Oh! it was a most fearful and beautiful sight,
To see it lashing the water with its tail all its might,
And making the water ascend like a shower of hail,
With one lash of its ugly and mighty tail.

Then the water did descend on the men in the boats,
Which wet their trousers and also their coats;
But it only made them the more determined to catch the whale,
But the whale shook at them his tail.

Then the whale began to puff and to blow,
While the men and the boats after him did go,
Armed well with harpoons for the fray,
Which they fired at him without dismay.

And they laughed and grinned just like wild baboons,
While they fired at him their sharp harpoons:
But when struck with,the harpoons he dived below,
Which filled his pursuers' hearts with woe.

Because they guessed they had lost a prize,
Which caused the tears to well up in their eyes;
And in that their anticipations were only right,
Because he sped on to Stonehaven with all his might:

And was first seen by the crew of a Gourdon fishing boat
Which they thought was a big coble upturned afloat;
But when they drew near they saw it was a whale,
So they resolved to tow it ashore without fail.

So they got a rope from each boat tied round his tail,
And landed their burden at Stonehaven without fail;
And when the people saw it their voices they did raise,
Declaring that the brave fishermen deserved great praise.

And my opinion is that God sent the whale in time of need,
No matter what other people may think or what is their creed;
I know fishermen in general are often very poor,
And God in His goodness sent it drive poverty from their door.

So Mr John Wood has bought it for two hundred and twenty-six pound,
And has brought it to Dundee all safe and all sound;
Which measures 40 feet in length from the snout to the tail,
So I advise the people far and near to see it without fail.

Then hurrah! for the mighty monster whale,
Which has got 17 feet 4 inches from tip to tip of a tail!
Which can be seen for a sixpence or a shilling,
That is to say, if the people all are willing.

And that invite in facebooks' format is here. For more on all this, & including our exclusive William McGonagall hip-hop, click on this label. If you are out of the country, I encourage you to read aloud a McGonagall poem or watch Mr Milligan's movie on Tuesday.

The Bridgiest Muse: What more Brooklyn Bridge Poetry, Part II & Final & Cock-&-Bull!

This website was nearly rent irreparably after a filthy political cleavage & rap-warfare, a few months ago. After hip-hop legend William McGonagall, famed bard of the Tay Bridge in Dundee, dissed:

The New Yorkers boast about their Brooklyn Bridge,
But in comparison to thee it seems like a midge,
Because thou spannest the Silvery Tay
A mile and more longer I venture to say;
Besides the railway carriages are pulled across by a rope,
Therefore Brooklyn Bridge cannot with thee cope;

Brooklynites didn't take this well, & for months it raged back & forth with odes & tight lyrics & nasty radio smear attacks. NOW! When we thought the issue had been resolved by popular election, the Huffington Post goes & publishes a completely one-sided unbalanced article about Brooklyn Bridge poetry, with NOT ONE MENTION of Dundee's famous bridge. And the media gives this a free pass.

It may seem odd for a bridge to be a focal point for poetry, but the Brooklyn Bridge has inspired a remarkable number of good (and some great) poems. The Russian Futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky was moved when he first saw it in 1925, as he described in his poem "Brooklyn Bridge:"

...it stretches on cables of string
to the feet of the stars.

I stare
as an eskimo gapes at a train,
I seize on it
as a tick fastens to an ear.
Brooklyn Bridge--
yes....
That's quite a thing!

At the time of Mayakovsky's visit, the American poet Hart Crane was writing his great poem "The Bridge." Crane lived, for a while, in an apartment overlooking the East River, and in his visionary mind the Brooklyn Bridge became a springboard to the spiritual. Here's an excerpt from the opening:

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

In 1956, the beat poet Jack Kerouac celebrated the bridge in another visionary poem (Kerouac's visions may have had a little...help) called "The Brooklyn Bridge Blues":

I looked at the red winter
disgusting dusk of the world,
saw the alleys beyond,
Brooklyn, Wolfe's redbrick
jungle (that I'd only
last night walkt, unto
Gowanus Cana!)----O!
--& I remembered the dreams
the dreams about racks
and Joan Adams and drear
and a tear appeared
in my eye over the river
on the Bridge of Sights
that as soon as I'd
(c r o c o d i l e)
crossed it, had taken
me to the shore
I was looking for!
Svaha! I am
the perfect man
the Buddha of This World

In case you're new to the Beats, you shouldn't worry if the poem doesn't make total sense. You might want to worry (c r o c o d i l e) if it does.

Oh, it makes perfect sense to us, HUFFINGTON POST! You go & lick your bridge on its central girders. "I seize on it as a tick fastens to an ear." Disgusting. True poets know a real bridge when they look on it in so grand array.

Poll Closed! Brooklyn Bridge slams New Tay Bridge in popular vote!

Oh no! The poll in the sidebar is closed & the Brooklyn Bridge has WON by a margin of 53%-46%!! It is a whopping but Pyrrhic victory! If you missed the rap battle / dirty mudslinging campaign, here is a brief recap of the arguments:

19th Century Dundee poet William Topaz McGonagall's "An Address to the New Tay Bridge" rediscovered as a revolutionary proto-hip-hop:


The Brooklyn Bridge's poet D.B. Steinem HAMMERS BACK:


William Topaz McGonagall raps nostalgic about the Tay Bridge Disaster:


A mysteriously-funded PAC releases this radio spot asking Brooklyn Bridge: "BUT IS IT LONG ENOUGH?"

Another radio ad appears in time, maturely reasoning "Tay Bridge, Schmay bridge".

An artist renders the Brooklyn Bridge in bold asian strokes.

The polls close &, in a shocking upset, the Brooklyn Bridge has been voted America's Bridge. The New Tay Bridge loyalists regroup.

Hip-Hop Legend William McGonagall Returns: The Tay Bridge Disaster

As everyone by now knows, William McGonagall is a nineteenth century rapper. Considered Britain's Worst Poet, he is fastly being revalued as a revolutionary futurist emcee. In collaboration with Gold Diamonds, another track from the forthcoming hip-hop album about bridges, specifically the Tay Bridge near by Dundee. This song predates the New Tay bridge's construction & dedication (listen here & here) memorializing the windy destruction of the great Old Tay Bridge. 1879!!!

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay." [...]

Read the rest of the original poem here. Download this mp3 here. More hip-hop from the itwaslost.org community webloggists here.

Crickets & Rats on the Brooklyn Bridge

I notice it's been a week since my political attack ad hit the radio waves - the Brooklyn Bridge: IS IT LONG ENOUGH? And yet, I haven't heard a peep from Brooklyn.

The rap battle between the New Tay Bridge & the Brooklyn Bridge can be traced to several "hip-hop" songs, all available in our 2009 debut EP, rap songs about bridges, from bridges, for bridges. They are here.

I mention this all, because I have added a poll to the lefthand sidebar, just below the tweetosphere feed, to get a feel for how the electorate is responding to the attacks, before the 2009 election. James Carville worries that William McGonagall's negatives may have been ratcheted way up after all the radio spots, but we're in crunch time here Turd Blossom.

Our friend Dr Eley-Nelson was kind enough to e-mail this doggerel in support of our hip-hop work set to classic bad 19th Century poetry about bridges:

From: "Dr. ___ Nelson" _____@gmail.com

To: "James Welsch" _@itwaslost.org
Subject: Benefactum

Nice work. I'm sure McGonagall's spirit is suffused with warm well being. Or rather,

James Welsch, you have to music put
A poem about trains and their attendant soot
Or rather of the bridge's o'er which they roll
Which strikes this writer as being rather droll
Your take on the work of William McGonagall
Will surely be well received by all.

Brooklyn Bridge Attack Ad: "BUT IS IT LONG ENOUGH??"

D.B. Steinem says his Brooklyn Bridge is the "fulfillment of an artists dream."

But do the facts check out!!??

At fifty-nine hundred feet long, the so-called BROOKLYN bridge stretches almost five thousand feet shorter than the beautiful NEW TAY RAIL BRIDGE in Dundee.

Is that long enough for America?

At 10,710 feet, the New Tay Bridge is the longest railway bridge of the present day.

William Topaz McGonagall wrote that the beautiful New Tay Bridge is "strong enough all windy storms to defy".

Can we even trust the Brooklyn Bridge to stand up to the wimpiest little gale?
Can America risk finding out?

Doing the most basic investigation on the Brooklyn Bridge on the WIKIPEDIA, we learned that suspension bridge-making pioneer John A. Roebling, whilst surveying for the Brooklyn Bridge, got his foot "badly injured by a ferry, pinning it against a pylon; within a few weeks, he died of tetanus." What's the matter, John A. Roebling, jaw too LOCKED UP to complete the Brooklyn Bridge? Succeeding him, his son Washington Roebling, came down with a little case of THE BENDS. Does this sound like confident leadership to you, or does it sound like typical New York politics, typical Kennedyesque nepotism? LOCKJAW? DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS? That doesn't sound like competent bridgebuilding, that sounds like DEAD bridgebuilding.

"Besides," says William Topaz McGonagall, "the railway carriages [on the beautiful NEW TAY BRIDGE] are pulled across by a rope, / Therefore Brooklyn Bridge cannot with thee cope."

...is it long enough?...
...wimpiest little gale...
...typical Kennedyesque nepotism...

Sorry, D.B. Steinem, the fulfillment of the artist's dream was built in Dundee in 1883.

Vote NEW TAY BRIDGE in 2009.
Strong enough for Dundee.
Strong enough for America.

FOUND! Rare take of New Tay Bridge by McGonagall Sister and Brother-In-Law

Didn't Hear a Peep from the New Tay Bridge

Unearthed: D.B. Steinman Records Rap Track Regarding Bridge Design and Beauty Before McGonagall, Before His Own Birth!

More William Topaz McGonagall & also The Royal Thibaw Min, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas...

Mr Mary & I were doing some research for our William McGonagall project today, & happened upon some interesting history. First of all, it turns out our idea of throwing a McGonagall supper is already a tradition in Dundee. "The William Topaz McGonagall Appreciation Society held a McGonagall Supper on board the frigate Unicorn on 12 June 1997, during which the courses were allegedly served in reverse order, starting with the coffee and ending with the starters. A short play was performed by local actors."

Sadly the William Topaz McGonagall Appreciation Society's website is down, but I sent an e-mail to the person responsible, asking a few questions about the itineraries & rituals for a McGonagall Supper, & what the significance of June 12th is - I think September 28th, the day of McGonagall's death, might be as good of a night as any. If anyone out there reading this knows anything, please contact me! o [[at]] itwaslost.org.

Then, there are some amazing bits in McGonagall's wiki-biography (the whole thing is worth reading here.) My favorite was his production of Macbeth where "McGonagall believed that the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him, and so refused to die."

Then there's this mysterious tidbit:

In 1892, following the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, he walked from Dundee to Balmoral, a distance of about 60 miles over mountainous terrain and through a violent thunderstorm, "wet to the skin", to ask Queen Victoria if he might be considered for the post of Poet Laureate. Unfortunately, he was informed the Queen was not in residence, and returned home. In 1894, representatives of King Thibaw Min of Burma knighted him as Sir Topaz, Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah, a title he used in his advertising.

We looked up Thibaw Min, the last king of Burma, where it says his full name is The Royal Thibaw Min, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas, Owner of the Royal Peacocks, Lord of the Sea and of the World, Whose face is like the Sun. In his own words, the reason he fell from the throne is:

My late father, the Royal Mindon Min, the golden-footed lord of the white elephant, master of a thousand gold umbrellas, owner of the Royal peacocks, lord of the sea and of the world, whose face was like the sun, always smoked the Esoof cheroot while meditating on his treatment of the bull-faced, earthswallowing English. Had I done the same I should never have lost my throne, but I used the opium-drugged cheroots from Manila and the trash which was sent to me from San Francisco, and I fell.

Our hip-hop rendering of An Address to the New Tay Bridge is below.

Introducing Hip-Hop Legend William McGonagall with Gold Diamonds: "An Address to the New Tay Bridge"

Last Burns Night, after our second bottle of Scotch, & a full evening of Robert Burns' delicious poetry & veggie haggis, we got a hat-tip from Miss Williams that there was a 19th Century Scottish poet who had been voted "Britain's worst poet". We quickly found some of William McGonagall's work & ended the night with his amazing "An Address to the New Tay Bridge". We proposed several projects, including a McGonagall Night some other evening in the year, dedicated to the worst poetry, perhaps with absinthe & spam; & also a hip-hop version of McGonagall's poems. (The New Tay Bridge poem is oddly suited to the genre.) I'm proud to present Mr McGonagall's debut as a rap star, in his first collaboration with the great Gold Diamonds. I warn you, there is also at least one more setting of this poem to funky beats, & probably even more coming, I'm worried there might have to be an entire album of just New Tay Bridges. Any resemblance to the MC Pseudo-Dionysius is a zeitgeistical convergence. Presenting WILLIAM McGONAGALL.

An Address to the New Tay Bridge

BEAUTIFUL new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay,
With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array,
And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye
Strong enough all windy storms to defy.
And as I gaze upon thee my heart feels gay,
Because thou are the greatest railway bridge of the present day,
And can be seen for miles away
From North, South, East or West of the Tay
On a beautiful and clear sunshiny day,
And ought to make the hearts of the "Mars" boys feel gay,
Because thine equal nowhere can be seen,
Only near by Dundee and the bonnie Magdalen Green.

Read the rest of the original poem here.
Download the mp3 here.