Went down to Bumbershoot to cover the cartoonists’ panel at InkSpot and met a number of folks that I’ve been corresponding with.

I also saw Scott K., who wanted to know why I wasn’t working for him (he’s an event security manager). One hundred simoleans a day. “Hmm”, I had to tell him, “there was no valid reason, in fact, that I’m not.”

Despite this he did not immediately offer sign-up bonus.

On the way down and back I read Twain on the Palm, in particular some chapters from his European travelogue, A Tramp Abroad.

An aside: what kind of nonsense publication and title listing scheme is Gutenberg using, for God’s sake? If that link points to the material I downloaded the other day, uh, the listing is FAR from complete.

Oh, I get it.

Here’s the real link: A Tramp Abroad.

Apparently, natural lingo search on Guteberg is not implemented, so “mark twain” yeilds limited results whilst “twain” gets ya the whole package.

So anyway, here’s a NEWS FLASH, direct from 1887: that Mark Twain fella is mmm funnee, bwah, hells yeah. I was chuckling aloud each way, more or less continuously.

Mr. Clemens has been prevailed upon to act as a second in a duel among the French. After his sugggestion “that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely way to get a verdict on the field of honor” has been dismissed, his counterpart in the matter suggests pistols:

He fished out of his vest pocket a couple of little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to be pistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very dainty and pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one of them on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crime now unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave me one of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were to be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French code permitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, for my mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had been put upon it.

He goes on in this vein for more or less the entire chapter, and very interestingly, he does this slick, craftsman’s trick throughout the whole thing: all the gags are based on size – either exaggerations of distance or gargantuan proportions or as seen here, the lilliputian. Anyway, it’s rich reading.