Mark Twain

Jumping Frog Jubilee Gets Some People Hopping Mad

thechive.com | Posted 05.25.2012

Read More: Weird UK, Weird Photos, Calaveras County, Frog Jumping Jubilee, Weird California, Weird Photos & Videos, Mark Twain, Animals in the News, Weird News News

Every year since 1928 in Calaveras County, California, the ‘Jumping Frog Jubilee’ has been an essential part of the annual fair. The extreme s...

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Close and Not-So-Close Encounters With Famous Authors

Dave Astor | Posted 05.23.2012

Literature fans love "encounters" with living or dead authors. These might involve seeing novelists at book signings, listening to them give a talk, or visiting homes/museums connected with famous authors of the past.

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Are You A Mother Hen?

Jane S. Smith | Posted 05.09.2012

Read More: Chickens, Mothers Day, Mark Twain, Children, Charles Darwin, Plutarch, Mother's Day 2012, Mother's Day, Mothers-Day-Pkg, Mother Hen, Parents News

A mother hen is who you want guarding your back. And front. Also warming your nest, finding your dinner and pecking through the grit of daily life to find the sustenance you need.

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Minting Mark Twain

Cindy Lovell | Posted 04.22.2012

Read More: Mark Twain, Mark Twain Coin, Mark Twain Coin Bill, Mark Twain Commemorative Coin, Culture News

Mark Twain liked to take jabs at Congress, but today he might be inclined to hug a few members -- or at least shake their hands.

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Novelists Who Were More Enlightened Than Their Era

Dave Astor | Posted 04.19.2012

Read More: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Women, Stereotypes, John Steinbeck, Wilkie Collins, Novels, Asian Americans, Racism, Alexandre Dumas, Anti-Racism, Biracial, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, African Americans, Books News

The 1800s were of course a time of blatant racism, and many authors reflected that by depicting fictional characters of color in horribly stereotyped ways. Or they omitted those characters entirely, as if the world was populated by whites only.

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'Second Bananas' Who Were First-Rate Authors

Dave Astor | Posted 04.12.2012

Read More: Wilkie Collins, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Herman Melville, Classic Novels, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Underrated Novels, Underrated Authors, Mark Twain, Books News

Why do some 19th-century novelists resemble the pre-2004 Boston Red Sox or some current singers other than Adele? This post will explain!

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There Is Great Power to Be Found in Doing the Thing You Don't Want to Do

Dennis Merritt Jones | Posted 04.03.2012

Read More: Instant Gratification, Authentic Power, Mindfulness, Procrastination Help, Emotional Wellness, Gps-Soul, Procrastination, Procrastination Quotes, Laziness, Emerson, Action, Mark Twain, Success and Motivation, Procrastinate, Delayed Gratification, Healthy Living News

What "duty" might you perform today that would make you, as Mark Twain says, agreeable with yourself?

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Will Val Kilmer Be Redeemed?

HuffingtonPost.com | Sasha Bronner | Posted 03.28.2012

Read More: Val Kilmer One Man Show, My La, Val Kilmer Citizen Twain, Val Kilmer, Val Kilmer Los Angeles, Val Kilmer Mark Twain, Val Kilmer Mary Baker Eddy, Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science, Mark Twain, Los Angeles News

Actor Val Kilmer's once illustrious career has grown dim in the past decade. But over tea at the Viceroy Hotel on an overcast Santa Monica afternoon, ...

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Why We Are Displaying "Hateful Things" at the Mark Twain House

Craig Hotchkiss | Posted 05.26.2012

Read More: Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain House, Mark Twain, Mark Twain Race, Books News

Mark Twain tried to start us talking about race by writing such books as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but he knew that our discussion would have to go on long after his death, and that our tendency would be to try to ignore it, or pay it mere lip service.

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Paramount Moving Forward With 'Huck and Tom'

Posted 05.21.2012

Read More: Video, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain Tom Sawyer, Tom and Huck, Huck and Tom Movie, Mark Twain, Movie News, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn Movie, Tom Sawyer Movie, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Tom, Entertainment News

Mark Twain may have published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" eight years before "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," but don't tell that to Paramount...

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The Gilded Arc of Mark Twain's 'Lesser' Books

Dave Astor | Posted 03.20.2012

Read More: Mark Twain, Twain Gilded Age, Mark Twain Popularity, Twain Pudd'nhead Wilson, Innocents Abroad Twain, Mark Twain Books, Mark Twain Novels, Books News

Mark Twain, of course, is best known for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but several of his supposedly second-tier titles would be first tier for many other authors.

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Serious Novelists Are Sometimes Surprisingly Funny

Dave Astor | Posted 03.06.2012

Read More: John Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Terry McMillan, Humor in Novels, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Philip Roth, Books News

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is an epic tragedy that leaves readers shocked and awed. But, along the way, there are some delightfully funny interludes -- most notably the pre-voyage scene in which Ishmael and Queequeg end up in the same bedroom.

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Graduation, or Biking on Thin Air

Seth Engel | Posted 02.29.2012

Read More: Graduation, Biking, Education System, The Netherlands, Physics Teachers, Mark Twain, Living Abroad, Law School, New York City, Education News

Academic competition isn't inherently bad, but the earlier the pressure to outdo one's classmates begins, the more damage it can potentially cause.

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Blaze Your Own Trail!

Irene Tanner | Posted 02.25.2012

Read More: Katherine Hepurn, Herman Melville, Tolkien, Seuss, Selfreliance, Friedrich Nietzche, Michael Chrichton, Buddha, Quentin Crisp, Individualism, The Lost World, Famous Quotes, Emerson, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Romans 12:2, Culture News

Picture this: I am 16 years old attending my first English 101 class at Women's College, University of North Carolina. Our professor is Elizabeth Bowe...

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Is A Newspaper Column Literature?

Errol Louis | Posted 02.13.2012

Read More: Newspapers, Newspaper Columns, Literature, New York Sun, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Books News

It's only a matter of time before the newspaper column takes its rightful place as a recognized and respected form of literature, every bit as vital as its more celebrated cousins, the short story and the novel.

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Celebrating a Virtually Forgotten Media Maestro

David Tereshchuk | Posted 02.02.2012

Read More: Theodore Roosevelt, Columnists, Finlay Peter Dunne, Commentary, Chicago Tribune, Mark Twain, Civil Discourse, Political Incivility, Media News

December's days are to dwindle down to year's-end, and I'm already into holiday time's mental excursions. They're taking me off-road a bit, into the b...

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Ben Stiller, Winston Churchill & More: Today's Famous Birthdays

The Huffington Post | Laura Hibbard | Posted 01.30.2012

Read More: Winston Churchill, November 30, Famous Birthdays, Ben Stiller, The Big Bang Theory, Celebrity Birthdays, The Office, Mark Twain, November 30th, Celebrity News

In a world with nearly 7 billion people, chances are someone famous is celebrating their birthday today. And indeed: Ben Stiller, Winston Churchi...

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Tom Sawyer Takes Over Google

The Huffington Post | Catharine Smith | Posted 11.30.2011

Read More: Google, Video, Mark Twain Google, Google Logo, Google Mark Twain, Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Slidepollajax, Google Doodle, Google Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer Google, Technology News

Tom Sawyer has taken over the Google home page. In honor of Mark Twain's 176th birthday, Google.com proudly displayed a panoramic scene featuring ...

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Your Grammar Is Not Married to Your Gramper

Ellen Siminoff | Posted 01.29.2012

Read More: James Joyce, Grammar, Mark Twain, Huck Finn, Anthony Burgess, Education News

Poor grammar is ugly. To any lover of the English language who values a correctly constructed sentence, it can signify a lack of intelligence or effort. Are many of us limiting ourselves in terms of potential success by u'sing apo'strophes every time we see an 's?

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Smile. They Can't Commoditize Creativity.

Nick Jefferson | Posted 01.23.2012

Read More: Creativity, John Stuart Mill, Labor, Advertising, Lady GaGa, Business, Mark Twain, Silicon Valley, Business News

One of the marked characteristics of the 'readjustment' through which we are all living, both sides of The Pond, is that, for the first time, white collar jobs are under just as much pressure from this creeping commoditization.

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15 Most Hilarious Author Quotes

Andy Borowitz | Posted 10.26.2011

Read More: George Carlin, Bernie Mac, Hunter S. Thompson, Humor Books, Slidepollajax, Authors-Twitter, Fran Lebowitz, Mark Twain, David Sedaris, Books News

While editing my new book, The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to the Onion, I made a discovery: "If Mark Twain had had Twitter, he would have been amazing at it. But he probably wouldn't have gotten around to writing Huckleberry Finn."

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Paranormal Parlor Games

Varla Ventura | Posted 12.13.2011

Read More: Ghosts, Ouija Board, Mark Twain, Psychic, Emily Grant Hutchings, Weird News News

After passing a winter using the Ouija without much paranormal activity, my sister and I discovered something that set a series of creepy communications in motion.

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The Past Is Never Dead With the N-Word

Irene Monroe | Posted 12.06.2011

Read More: Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Rick Perry 2012, Huckleberry Finn N-Word, Niggerhead, Jessie Jackson Obama, Dr-Laura-Schlessinger-and-Nword, Mark Twain, Rick Perry Niggerhead, Black Voices News

In a supposedly post-racial society, one would think that the n-word was buried and long gone with it troubled eras of race relations in this country. However, as we all try to move from America's ugly racial past, there are still rock solid vestiges of it.

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No Personal Letters Lately? You're Not Alone

AP | RANDOLPH E. SCHMID | Posted 12.03.2011

Read More: Postage Stamps, Postal Service Survey, U.S. Postal Service, Postal Service, Personal Letters, Mark Twain, Fifty News

WASHINGTON — Mom might get a quick note in the mail. Sister might get a birthday card. But that's about it. For the typical American household t...

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Boardwalk Empires, Mockingbirds, Concertos & Rocket Science: Conversations with The Jayhawks, Bela Fleck and Vince Giordano

Mike Ragogna | Posted 11.22.2011

Read More: Diane Lane, Howard Levy, Ginger Baker, Martin Scorsese, Garrison Keillor, The Aviator, Mamie Smith, Dick Hyman, Phish, Gary Louris, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, The Byrds, Roy Wooten, A Prairie Home Companion, Martha Wainwright, Ghost World, Bela Fleck, Peter Gelb, Edgar Meyer, Michael Penn, Earl Scruggs, Evelyn Glennie, Zakir Hussain, Rufus Wainwright, Bela Bartok, The Beverly Hillbillies, Captain Kirk, Zelig, Lewis Rusell, Mark Olson, Leon Redbone, Jane Green, Aztec Two-Step, Steve Buscemi, The New Grass Revival, Sam Bush, Woody Allen, Neil Young, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Miles Davis, Star Trek, Jeff Coffin, John Coltrane, The Cotton Club, Louis Armstrong, Buffalo Springfield, Jerry Douglas, Richard Gere, Mark Twain, Charlie Parker, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Ray Bradbury, Dve Matthews, Randall Poster, Nellie Mckay, Victor Wooten, The Jayhawks, Joshua Bell, Boradwalk Empire, Kathy Brier, Catherine Russell, Sophie Tucker, Leonardo Dicaprio, Saturday Night Live, Richard Thompson, Mark O'Connor, Stewart Lerman, Johnwilliams, Entertainment News

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