Mark Bagby, the winner of the I Am the Next Mark Twain writing contest, presented his winning piece at Borders in Bakersfield, CA. Bagby, a professional Mark Twain interpreter, read two short stories from Who Is Mark Twain? but started out the afternoon of wit and satire with a short bit on compliments.

I can understand why Ashton Kutcher is having difficulty keeping his composure during his monologue because, really…Mark Twain on a tiny motorbike? With a fruity cocktail in a bar? Comedy gold.

When I was a child, I wrote letters to Santa every year, but I never heard back from him. Imagine how exciting this must have been for Susie, receiving correspondence from someone who lives among the stars. It would be equally exciting realizing how much Santa looked like her father!

Meanwhile, Caitlin, one of the staff members at the Mark Twain House, posted a scary story about the Graveyard Shift Friday night ghost tours – voices have been heard coming from different parts of the house, freaking everyone out! Twain definitely believed in ghosts*, and he wrote a few ghost stories in his time, but the question is, do you believe in ghosts?

* Twain is quoted in Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review as writing on the death of his daughter Jean: “The spirits of the dead hallow a house, for me.”

Look at that fine craftmanship!  Can you imagine how much time this must have taken?  It certainly isn’t the work of bored children – the seven-and-a-half-foot long model house was built by Lego master builders at the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield, MA, in front of an audience.  Talk about pressure!  The model is on display at the Mark Twain House & Museum on a long-term loan, but before it took up residence there, it moved around the country as part of a traveling show.

Care to take a guess as to how many Legos there are?

More views of the house can be seen online, but this would also be something to see in person!

So true.

For those wondering, DeQuille is short for Dan DeQuille, the pen name of William Wright.  Wright was also a writer who worked at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise with Twain in the 1860s, and they were the paper’s star writing team.  The two became great friends and maintained correspondance long after Twain left Nevada.

Still corresponding today I see, although in much shorter form.

The background image for Mark Twain’s Twitter seems to be of the W. M. Black steamboat, which paddled up and down the Missouri River for 37 years, until 1973.

What is most interesting about the tweet though, is that it comes from a quotation that is often misattributed to Twain:

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.” This quote is by the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal (1623-62), written in a letter to a friend. The original French version was: “Je n’ai fait cette lettre – ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte” – TwainQuotes.com

But it sounds like something Twain would write, doesn’t it?

These days quick doodles could be drawn by a designer and saved with electronic notes attached to them, manipulated with the click of a mouse.  While some illustrations are amazing, there’s something about these pen & ink sketches that really add character to Twain’s manuscript.  Plus, he’s not half bad…

While I don’t condone tearing pages out of books, this is certainly worth the visual experience.

Have you seen any interesting Twain art?