gelett burgess week i failed to mention during yesterday’s post on x-animals that this week is gelett burgess week at the ragbag. why does gelett burgess week coincide with passover? only my jyotishi knows, but what i can tell you is who mr. burgess was and why it is that i think i can wring a week’s worth of posts from his exploits. Gelett Burgess was born Jan. 30, 1866, in Boston, MA. He made an early mark on the world by carving his initials, in the form of a monogram based on the Phoenician alphabet, near the top of every church steeple in the city. At 15, he took advantage of a practice of The Boston Transcript, of printing hard-to-find poems for readers who ask for them, by having a friend write and ask them to locate one of Burgess’s own writings. When the paper couldn’t find the work, Burgess graciously supplied a copy—and that’s how he first got into print. He served as instructor in topographical drawing at the University of California at Berkeley until an unfortunate incident in 1894, involving the deliberate toppling of a temperance statue that he considered an eyesore. Tho the landscape’s rearrangement was alleged (by Burgess) to have been cheered by students, the school’s administration took a dimmer view, and he abruptly found himself unemployed. That’s when he veered onto the career path that led to lasting fame. He later referred to his Berkeley period as one of “unseemly dignity”. In 1895, he became founding editor of The Lark, a San Francisco-based magazine devoted to humorous poetry—which, in the 1890s, meant a healthy dollop of nonsense. He contributed a steady stream of quatrains in that genre, all accompanied by his uniquely-styled cartoons, and most of which had rhyming titles. It was at The Lark that he penned his famous purple cow poem: “I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.” (In later years, growing tired of hearing a recital of that quatrain practically every time he met someone for the first time, he composed a sequel: “Ah, yes! I wrote ‘The Purple Cow’ — I’m sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I’ll kill you if you quote it!”) Burgess continued writing and illustrating books with his beauty queen wife (and author in her own right) Estelle Loomis for the rest of his long life. He also wrote short stories in the mystery genre, introduced America to the cubism movement, coined the word blurb (when he attributed the effusively complimentary jacket copy of one of his books to a Miss Belinda Blurb), and founded the San Francisco Boys Club—the first of its kind in America. He kicked the bucket in 1951. if you are a hater of art hijinx, nonsense versification, idiosyncratic cartoonery, humorisms of all manner, poetastering, and/or cautionary tales for wayward children, you would do best to abstain from visiting this internet domain for the next few days. __ source: excerpted from toonopedia

gelett burgess week

i failed to mention during yesterday’s post on x-animals that this week is gelett burgess week at the ragbag. why does gelett burgess week coincide with passover? only my jyotishi knows, but what i can tell you is who mr. burgess was and why it is that i think i can wring a week’s worth of posts from his exploits.

Gelett Burgess was born Jan. 30, 1866, in Boston, MA. He made an early mark on the world by carving his initials, in the form of a monogram based on the Phoenician alphabet, near the top of every church steeple in the city. At 15, he took advantage of a practice of The Boston Transcript, of printing hard-to-find poems for readers who ask for them, by having a friend write and ask them to locate one of Burgess’s own writings. When the paper couldn’t find the work, Burgess graciously supplied a copy—and that’s how he first got into print.

He served as instructor in topographical drawing at the University of California at Berkeley until an unfortunate incident in 1894, involving the deliberate toppling of a temperance statue that he considered an eyesore. Tho the landscape’s rearrangement was alleged (by Burgess) to have been cheered by students, the school’s administration took a dimmer view, and he abruptly found himself unemployed. That’s when he veered onto the career path that led to lasting fame. He later referred to his Berkeley period as one of “unseemly dignity”.

In 1895, he became founding editor of The Lark, a San Francisco-based magazine devoted to humorous poetry—which, in the 1890s, meant a healthy dollop of nonsense. He contributed a steady stream of quatrains in that genre, all accompanied by his uniquely-styled cartoons, and most of which had rhyming titles. It was at The Lark that he penned his famous purple cow poem: “I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.” (In later years, growing tired of hearing a recital of that quatrain practically every time he met someone for the first time, he composed a sequel: “Ah, yes! I wrote ‘The Purple Cow’ — I’m sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I’ll kill you if you quote it!”)

Burgess continued writing and illustrating books with his beauty queen wife (and author in her own right) Estelle Loomis for the rest of his long life. He also wrote short stories in the mystery genre, introduced America to the cubism movement, coined the word blurb (when he attributed the effusively complimentary jacket copy of one of his books to a Miss Belinda Blurb), and founded the San Francisco Boys Club—the first of its kind in America. He kicked the bucket in 1951.

if you are a hater of art hijinx, nonsense versification, idiosyncratic cartoonery, humorisms of all manner, poetastering, and/or cautionary tales for wayward children, you would do best to abstain from visiting this internet domain for the next few days.

__

source: excerpted from toonopedia

March 30, 2010
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