Comments on: Allison for Oct. 27

By: Darrel Blaine Ford

Darrel Blaine Ford — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:47:39 +0000

Dear Meghan Edwards, You wrote on October 27 that you had several pictures of Walt’s spectacles. How can I access them. If the rules permit can you e-mail them to me. waltwhitmanofli@aol.com Regards, Darrel/walt

By: Looking for Whitman, or “Shut the Front Door!” at bavatuesdays

Looking for Whitman, or “Shut the Front Door!” at bavatuesdays — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:20:10 +0000

[…] you better believe this course breaks that mold, in fact Allison’s very next post about the Whitman Lincoln platonic and unrequited love affair was commented on by D…, a Whitman impersonator who has been interpreting the Gray Poet for 7 decades—-as […]

By: Erin Longbottom

Erin Longbottom — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:53:09 +0000

Allison,
I think we have generally come to the same conclusion about the Whitman/Lincoln relationship. I was also thinking about the fact that plenty of other people probably felt the same way about Lincoln, we’re just not reading about them. At Ford’s theatre there was a description of Lincoln going down to Richmond after it fell, and the slaves basically groveling at his feet thanking him for being their “savior.” Of course we don’t know how many of those people were stalking Lincoln on a regular basis…

By: Allison Crerie

Allison Crerie — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:03:15 +0000

Well, crap.

By: mscanlon

mscanlon — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:06:01 +0000

Amen, Meg. You can borrow the beard and give it a go whenever you want. Welcome, Mr. Ford!

Allison, I don’t want you to be too bitter when I tell you that “By Blue Ontario’s Shore” was not assigned. But contain your irritation at your needy boyfriend since you ended up doing an interesting intertextual reading with it!
p.s. I think the “foulest crime” is slavery, actually.

By: meghanedwards

meghanedwards — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:06:30 +0000

I have several pictures of the eyeglasses; I’ll have them posted by Wednesday or Thursday. I think that being a Whitman impersonator=the coolest job in the world.

By: Reverend

Reverend — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:14:01 +0000

Shut the front door, you have a Whitman impersonator commenting on your blog? FTW!

By: Allison Crerie

Allison Crerie — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:02:29 +0000

I will not have pictures of his glasses on my blog b/c I don’t own a camera, but I know many of my “comrades” will on their blogs. You can find these blogs via: http://marywash.lookingforwhitman.org/

Look for posts titled “D.C. Field Trip” and the like.

By: Darrel Blaine Ford

Darrel Blaine Ford — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:50:33 +0000

In response to another earlier blog concerning Walt & family. Walt truly loved his mother & siblings. His relationship with his father was problematical. There is considerable evidence that his father was one of those bitter, disappointed, bright men, denied an education, who live submerged in the common herd, without the consoling friendships of educated, original thinking equals. Walter Sr. was said by Walt to have associated with that brilliant, founding father, Thomas Paine. Paine is not honored in the lands, whose successful revolutions were facilitated by his pen & brilliant analysis, the US & France. Tho honored & esteemed by Washington, Jefferson & with reservations by Adams, as America drifted from the "Enlightenment" deism into the waves of dim Christian revivalism, it was encouraged to revile Paine as a "dirty little atheist" (Theodore Roosevelt's characterization or character assassination). To get back to Walt & family. He wrote lovingly about his family in early short stories. He was the kindly father figure to his younger siblings, in contrast to Waltr Sr., a harsh, probaly alcoholic, father. Walt's comments, written down by the faithful, son figure, amanuemsis, and disciple, Horace Traubel, breathe his love for his family & the extant correspondance with them further attests to his love & devotion. During the Civil War, he pulled every string in Washington, to get brother George exchanged. With help from future President Garfield, , Walt got him released from Libby Prison, Richmond, VA in time to save him from death by disease & starvation. In his old age Walt used money from wealthy, British & American admirers designed to provide a country, home removed from the ghastly heat & disease of Camden summers, to build a mausoleum at Harley Cemetary, so that six, farflung family members could be joined in death. Walt had a family that he treasured. By the way, Walt unlike his father, tho he was also denied much of an education, became an autodidact & rather than rejecting, his plebian acquaintances, & later the sick & wounded soldiers, languishing in the horrible military hospitals, found a basis for friendship, unsullied by condescension, with ignorant working men & farm boys, the great unwashed. Few of those men & women knew that he was a literary man. He was so genuine a person that he could relate to them as well as to the haute monde & the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, & an Oscar Wilde.

By: Darrel Blaine Ford

Darrel Blaine Ford — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:04:49 +0000

Camerada, I have been a student of Whitman for 7 decades & a personator of the Good Gray Poet for 25 years. I read everything I can find about Walt, ie. how he looked & sounded to his contemporaries-the better to portray him. Last Sunday I was honored to channel Walt at an impressive funeral for Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore. I fashioned a eulogy for Walt to deliver using various quotes from Walt’s journalism & biograhical writings (they met when Poe was a well known editor & Walt was an inexperienced tyro journalist in 1843. What I would like to have from you is a description of Walt’s eyeglasses. One of his few vanities was his love affair with the camera, but he was never photographed wearing specs. I have known that he wore them but have never read a description or seen a photo of them. Regards, Darrel/Walt