robert michael ballantyne - kouroo contexture

ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

Robert Michael Ballantyne “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

mailto:[email protected]?subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

mailto:[email protected] subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdf

ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE

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April 24, Sunday: Robert Michael Ballantyne was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, a scion of a well-known family of printers and publishers. His father was newspaper editor and printer Sandy Ballantyne. One uncle was James Ballantyne, printer for the most famous writer in Scotland, Sir Walter Scott, and he grew up in and around the Scott home. This was the Ballantyne Press:

When Sir Walter made bad investments, this Ballantyne family would also be financially ruined.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

1st day 24th of 4 M / Our forenoon Meeting was pretty well attended, & our frd Abigail Robinson was largely engaged in testimony beyond any thing we have heard from her in some time — “What will a Man give up in exchange for his soul” was her opening which branched out into much wise counsil & warning & the Youth was feelingly included in the testimony. — Hannah Dennis was also lively in a short communicationIn the Afternoon, the Meeting small but a season of some favour — With John & Richard & set the evening at D Buffums

1825

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdf



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NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT








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Early in this year Sir Walter Scott’s publishers and business associates, Ballantynes, found themselves bankrupt to the tune of some £130,000. The English government began to consider a proposal to forbid the Scots from printing their own banknotes. A publishing firm had once gotten off paying a shilling and threepence on the pound on a similar debt of £300,000 but Ballantyne, at Scott’s insistence, would in the end pay off its entire debt.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1826









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The 4th series of Sir Walter Scott’s TALES OF A GRANDFATHER and the 2d volume of his HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. In New-York, his LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT ADDRESSED TO J.G. [JOHN GIBSON] LOCKHART (Illustrated by George Cruikshank; Harper’s Family Library; J. & J. Harper).

In two years the author had paid off nearly £40,000 of his publisher’s debt. He had a fainting fit. By a couple of years after Scott’s death in 1832, nearly £90,000 had been paid off by income including that from a LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT written by his son-in-law Lockhart. The remainder would be paid off by copyright income over the next 14 years. In this year also, his play “The Doom of Devergoil.”

From the 2nd act of this white delight, a snippet of tribalist tunefulness would eventually be added by Louisa

1830

LETTERS ON DEMON...





http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/30/1830_SirWalterScott.pdf


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May Alcott which would prove useful to young folks tussling on the living-room couch:

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“I’d rather stay here, thank you.”

“Well, you can’t, there isn’t room. Go and make yourself useful, since you are too big to be ornamental. I thought you hated to be tied to a woman’s apron-string?” retorted Jo, quoting certain rebellious words of his own.

“Ah, that depends on who wears the apron!” and Laurie gave an audacious tweak at the tassel.

“Are you going?” demanded Jo, diving for the pillow.

He fled at once, and the minute it was well ‘Up with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee,’ she slipped away to return no more till the young gentleman departed in high dudgeon.








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September 21, Friday: Maria W. Stewart, a free black New Englander who had been reduced to domestic service after being cheated out of inheriting her dead husband’s estate, desiring, like Emerson, to do nothing which she could not do with her whole heart, made a speech about the wrong she had been forced to endure, in the Franklin Hall in Boston.1

Walter Scott died in Abbotsford, Roxburgh, Scotland at the age of 61. “About half past one on 21st September Sir Walter breathed his last in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day so warm that every window was wide open — and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around his bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.”

1832

1. Although this speech has often been cited by historians as the 1st public lecture delivered by an American woman (apparently unaware that Maria W. Stewart had made a public speech in the previous year), Catherine A. Brekus, in STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS: FEMALE PREACHING IN AMERICA, 1740-1845 (Gender and American History Series; Chapel Hill and London: U of North Carolina P, 1998, pages 38, 49, 197), contends that this sort of reconstruction actually is far off the mark. During the 1740s and 1750s, black and white women emboldened by a new “heart-centered piety” were, while being careful not to formally interpret Scripture, publicly exhorting lay men and women to seek emotional conversions. Brekus has discovered the names of only 13 full-time female public exhorters during this period, none of whom left letters or written accounts of their own, but nevertheless has been able to conclude on the basis of ministers' journals, letters, memoirs, and revival accounts that “scores or even hundreds of women may have witnessed to their faith every Sunday” by speaking and praying out loud in Separate churches.






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Robert Michael Ballantyne, 16 years of age, traveled from Scotland to Canada for employment as an apprentice clerk with the Hudson Bay Company. During six years in the fur trade, he would serve at Upper Fort Garry, Norway House, York Factory, and Tadoussac. During his absence he would be writing frequently and lengthily to his mother, who was in effect his first literary audience. Later he would comment on this:

To this long-letter writing I attribute whatever small amountof facility in composition I may have acquired.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1841







This is R.M. Ballantyne’s illustration of a Christmas ball in Bachelors’ Hall, at the Hudson Bay Company outpost of York Factory in Canada during the 1840s.


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Robert Michael Ballantyne returned from Canada to Scotland and learned that his father Sandy Ballantyne had deceased.

John Charlton Fisher became president of the Québec Library Association and vice-president of The Literary and Historical Society of Québec.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1847








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Henry Youle Hind joined the staff of the Ontario Normal School in Toronto, Canada as lecturer in chemistry and mathematics.

Robert Michael Ballantyne’s HUDSON’S BAY: OR, LIFE IN THE WILDS OF NORTH AMERICA. Here is an illustration from that book, representing a Christmas ball the author had attended in Bachelors’ Hall, at the Hudson Bay Company outpost of York Factory during the 1840s.

His own family’s publishing house being defunct, he went into the employ of the publishing house Messrs Constable.

Our visitor had travelled in a dog cariole. This machine is verynarrow, just broad enough to admit one person. It is a woodenframe covered with deer-skin parchment, painted gaudily, and isgenerally drawn by four Esquimaux dogs.Dogs are invaluable in the Arctic regions, where horses areutterly useless, owing to the depth of snow which covers theearth for so large a portion of the year.The comparatively light weight of the dogs enables them to walkwithout sinking much; and even when the snow is so soft as to

1848




This is R.M. Ballantyne’s illustration of a Christmas ball in Bachelors’ Hall, at the Hudson Bay Company outpost of York Factory in Canada during the 1840s.


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be incapable of supporting them, they are still able to sprawlalong more easily than any other species of quadruped could do.Four are usually attached to a sledge, which they haul with greatvigour; being followed by a driver on snow-shoes, whose severelash is brought to bear so powerfully on the backs of the pooranimals, should any of them be observed to slacken their pace,that they are continually regarding him with deprecatory glancesas they run along.Should the lash give a flourish, there is generally a short yelpfrom the pack; and should it descend amongst them with a vigorouscrack, the vociferous yelling that results is perfectlyterrific.These drivers are sometimes very cruel; and when a pack of dogshave had a fight, and got their traces hopelessly ravelled (asis often the case), they have been known to fall on their kneesin their passion, seize one of the poor dogs by the nose withtheir teeth, and almost bite it off.Dogs are used for dragging carioles, which vehicles are used bygentlemen in the Company's service who are either too old or toolazy to walk on snow-shoes. The cariole is in form not unlike a slipper bath, both in shapeand size. It is lined with buffalo robes, in the midst of abundle of which the occupant reclines luxuriously, while thedogs drag him slowly through the soft snow, and among the treesand bushes of the forest; or scamper with him over the hard-beaten surface of a lake or river; while the machine is preventedfrom capsizing by a voyageur who walks behind on snow-shoes,holding on to a line attached to the back part of the cariole.The weather during winter is so cold that it is often a matterof the greatest difficulty for the traveller to keep his toesfrom freezing, despite the buffalo robes; and sometimes, whenthe dogs start fresh in the morning, with a good breakfast, abright, clear, frosty day, and a long expanse of comparativelyopen country before them, where the snow from exposure hasbecome quite hard, away they go with a loud yelp, upsetting thedriver in the bolt, who rises to heap undeserved and veryimproper epithets upon the poor brutes, who, careering over theground at the rate of eleven miles an hour, swing the miserablecariole over the snow, tear it through the bushes, bang it firston one side, then on the other, against stumps and trees, yellingall the while, partly with frantic glee at the thought of havingbolted, and partly with fearful anticipation of the tremendouswelting that is to come; until at last the cariole gets jammedhard and fast among the trees of the forest, or plunges down asteep bank of a river head over heels till they reach the foot- a horrible and struggling compound of dogs, traveller, traces,parchment, buffalo robes, blankets, and snow!





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s rule became, and would remain, that in every case he would write as far as possible from a personal knowledge of the scenes described. At this point he produced a volume based on his personal experiences as an employee of the Hudson Bay Company from 1841 to 1847, complete with his own illustrations, SNOWFLAKES AND SUNBEAMS; OR, THE YOUNG FUR TRADERS. A TALE OF THE FAR NORTH2 (he also produced in this year MISTER FOX. A CHILDREN’S NURSERY RHYME).

1856

2. In the following year Henry Thoreau would obtain information from this for his Indian Notebook #10.




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/56/1856_YoungFurTraders.pdf


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Here was R.M. Ballantyne at age 30 (two years earlier):






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Henry Thoreau read, and made notes on in his Indian Notebook #10, Robert Michael Ballantyne’s 1856 SNOW FLAKES AND SUNBEAMS; OR, THE YOUNG FUR TRADERS.

Ballantyne’s THE CORAL ISLAND. Due to an infelicity that had crept into this writing, Ballantyne would in the future insist upon visiting all his sites, to gain first-hand knowledge of the subject matter and research the backgrounds of his stories. Despite this infelicity, Robert Lewis Stevenson would be so impressed with Ballantyne’s THE CORAL ISLAND as a youth, that as an adult writer he would echo themes from it in his TREASURE ISLAND. There would be nothing covert about this borrowing, as he would straightforwardly

1857

THE YOUNG FUR TRADERS






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memorialize Ballantyne in his Introduction:

To the Hesitating PurchaserIf sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons, And buccaneers, and buried gold, And all the old romance, retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of today: So be it, and fall on! If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave: So be it, also! And may I And all my pirates share the grave Where these and their creations lie!

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT








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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s UNGAVA: A TALE OF ESKIMO LAND, MARTIN RATTLER, and HANDBOOK TO THE NEW GOLDFIELDS.

1858





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE DOG CRUSOE AND HIS MASTER and THE WORLD OF ICE.

1860





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE GORILLA HUNTERS, THE GOLDEN DREAM, and THE RED ERIC.

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks andslight dangers of every possible description, such as tumblinginto ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen theirnervous system.... They ought to practice leaping off heightsinto deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a streamover a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They oughtnever to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely becausethere is a possibility of their falling off and breaking theirnecks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter allkinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapplewith risks and dangers incident to man’s career with cool,cautious self-possession....

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

1861








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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS, FIGHTING THE WHALES, THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST, MAN ON THE OCEAN, and FAST IN THE ICE.

1863





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s GASCOYNE, THE LIFEBOAT, CHASING THE SUN, and FREAKS ON THE FELLS.

1864





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE LIGHTHOUSE.

1865





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Robert Michael Ballantyne got married with Jane Dickson Grant. The couple would produce four sons and two daughters.

1866





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After serving as a London fireman while doing needed literary research, Robert Michael Ballantyne produced in this year SILVER LAKE and FIGHTING THE FLAMES.

... when a fire occurred in any part of London at the time ofwhich we write, the fire-station nearest to it at once sent outits engines and men, and telegraphed to the then head or centrestation at Watling Street. London was divided into fourdistricts, each district containing several fire stations, andbeing presided over by a foreman. From Watling Street the newswas telegraphed to the foremen’s stations, whence it wastransmitted to the stations of their respective districts, sothat in a few minutes after the breaking out of a fire the factwas known to the firemen all over London.As we have said, the stations nearest to the scene ofconflagration turned out engines and men; but the other stationsfurnished a man each. Thus machinery was set in motion whichmoved, as it were, the whole metropolis; and while the engineswere going to the fire at full speed, single men were settingout from every point of the compass to walk to it, with theirsailors’ caps on their heads and their helmets on their arms.And this took place in the case of every alarm of fire, becausefire is an element that will not brook delay, and it does notdo to wait to ascertain whether it is worth while to turn outsuch a force of men for it or not.In order, however, to prevent this unnecessary assembling of menwhen the fire was found to be trifling, or when, as was sometimesthe case, it was a false alarm, the fireman in charge of theengine that arrived first, at once sent a man back to the stationwith a “stop,” that is, with an order to telegraph to the centralstation that the fire turns out to be only a chimney or a falsealarm, and that all hands who have started from the distantstations may be “stopped.” The “stop” was at once telegraphedto the foremen, from whom it was passed (just as the “call” hadbeen) to the outlying stations, and this second telegram mightarrive within quarter of an hour of the first.Of course the man from each station had set out before that time,and the “stop” was too late for him, but it was his duty to callat the various fire stations he happened to pass on the way,where he soon found out whether he was to “go on” or to “goback.”If no telegram had been received, he went on to the fire;sometimes walking four or five miles to it, “at not less thanfour miles an hour.” On coming up to the scene of conflagration,he put on his helmet, thrust his cap into the breast of his coat,and reported himself to the chief of the fire brigade (who wasusually on the spot), or to the foreman in command, and found,probably, that he had arrived just in time to be of great servicein the way of relieving the men who first attacked the flames.

1867





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If, on the other hand, he found that the “stop” had beentelegraphed, he turned back before having gone much more than amile from his own station, and so went quietly home to bed. Inthe days of which we write the effective and beautiful systemof telegraphy which now exists had not been applied to the firestations of London, and the system of “stops” and “calls,”although in operation, was carried out much less promptly andeffectively by means of messengers.





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After spending time with the tin miners of Cornwall while doing needed literary research, Robert Michael Ballantyne produced in this year DEEP DOWN and SHIFTING WINDS.

1868





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s HUNTING THE LIONS, OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT, ERLING THE BOLD, THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE, UP IN THE CLOUDS, THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS, LOST IN THE FOREST, DIGGING FOR GOLD, and SUNK AT SEA.

1869





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS.

1870





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE IRON HORSE, which was not children’s literature but instead an explanation of the Great Victorian Railway System and its accompanying telegraph setup which Ballantyne extrapolated from extensive interviews with managers, clerks, drivers, guards, and porters.

1871





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST and THE PIONEERS.

1872





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE, FORT DESOLATION, and BLACK IVORY.

In writing this book, my aim has been to give a true picture inoutline of the Slave-Trade as it exists at the present time onthe east coast of Africa. In order to do this, I have selectedfrom the most trust-worthy sources what I believe to be the mosttelling points of “the trade,” and have woven these togetherinto a tale, the warp of which is composed of thick cords offact; the woof of slight lines of fiction, just sufficient tohold the fabric together. Exaggeration has been easily avoided,because –as Dr. Livingstone says in regard to the slave-trade–“exaggeration is impossible” ... I began my tale in the hopethat I might produce something to interest the young (perchance,also, the old) in a most momentous case — the total abolitionof the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that Godmay make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut thechain of slavery, and set the black man free.

— BLACK IVORY

1873

INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE OCEAN AND ITS WONDERS, THE PIRATE CITY, and THE BUTTERFLY’S BALL AND THE GRASSHOPPER’S FEAST.

Come take up your Hats, and away let us hasteTo the Butterfly’s Ball, and the Grasshopper’s Feast.The Trumpeter, Gadfly, has summon’d the Crew,And the Revels are now only waiting for you.

So said little Robert, and pacing along,His merry Companions came forth in a Throng.And on the smooth Grass, by the side of a Wood,Beneath a broad Oak that for Ages had stood,

Saw the Children of Earth, and the Tenants of Air,For an Evening’s Amusement together repair.And there came the Beetle, so blind and so black,Who carried the Emmet, his Friend, on his Back.

1874





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And there was the Gnat and the Dragon-fly too,With all their Relations, Green, Orange, and Blue.And there came the Moth, with his Plumage of Down,And the Hornet in Jacket of Yellow and Brown;

Who with him the Wasp, his Companion, did bring,But they promis’d, that Evening, to lay by their Sting.And the sly little Dormouse crept out of his Hole,And brought to the Feast his blind Brother, the Mole.

And the Snail, with his Horns peeping out of his Shell,Came from a great Distance, the Length of an Ell.A Mushroom their Table, and on it was laidA Water-dock Leaf, which a Table-cloth made.

The Viands were various, to each of their Taste,And the Bee brought her Honey to crown the Repast.Then close on his Haunches, so solemn and wise,The Frog from a Corner, look’d up to the Skies.

And the Squirrel well pleas’d such Diversions to see,Mounted high over Head, and look’d down from a Tree.Then out came the Spider, with Finger so fine,To shew his Dexterity on the tight Line.

From one Branch to another, his Cobwebs he slung,Then quick as an Arrow he darted along,But just in the Middle,—Oh! shocking to tell,From his Rope, in an Instant, poor Harlequin fell.

Yet he touch’d not the Ground, but with Talons outspread,Hung suspended in Air, at the End of a Thread.Then the Grasshopper came with a Jerk and a Spring,Very long was his Leg, though but short was his Wing;

He took but three Leaps, and was soon out of Sight,Then chirp’d his own Praises the rest of the Night.With Step so majestic the Snail did advance,And promis’d the Gazers a Minuet to dance.

But they all laugh’d so loud that he pull’d in his Head,And went in his own little Chamber to Bed.Then, as Evening gave Way to the Shadows of Night,Their Watchman, the Glow-worm, came out with a Light.

Then Home let us hasten, while yet we can see,For no Watchman is waiting for you and for me,So said little Robert, and pacing along,His merry Companions returned in a throng.





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE STORY OF THE ROCK and RIVERS OF ICE.

1875





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s UNDER THE WAVES. Here is the frontispiece of the book, which represents an dangerous accident caused by a diver’s signal “LESS AIR” having been interpreted as a demand “MORE AIR” from the pump at the surface:

Ballantyne’s humor is exacerbated here by gender bias and race bias (the signal tugs coming up from below are misinterpreted by the diver’s anxious wife, women being emotional rather than rational; the pump is manned by a couple of frantic Chinamen, beings without a clue who are attempting to deal with the white man’s machinery).

1876





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE.

1877





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS and JARWIN AND CUFFY.

1878





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s PHILOSOPHER JACK and SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE.

1879





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s POST HASTE, THE LONELY ISLAND, and THE RED MAN’S REVENGE.

1880





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s MY DOGGIE AND I.

1881





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE LIFE OF A SHIP, THE KITTEN PILGRIMS, and THE GIANT OF THE NORTH.

1882





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE, BATTLES WITH THE SEA, THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER, and THE THOROGOOD FAMILY.

November 3, Saturday: The Sudanese followers of the Mahdi in Kurdofan in central Sudan attacked British-Egyptian invaders at El Obeid (al Ubayyid).

TREASURE ISLAND, by Robert Lewis Stevenson. This famous author had been so impressed with Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE CORAL ISLAND as a youth, as to echo themes from it in this famous book (there was nothing covert about this borrowing, as he straightforwardly memorialized Ballantyne in the Introduction).

To the Hesitating PurchaserIf sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons, And buccaneers, and buried gold, And all the old romance, retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of today: So be it, and fall on! If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave: So be it, also! And may I And all my pirates share the grave Where these and their creations lie!

1883





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE YOUNG TRAWLER and DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED.

1884





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s TWICE BOUGHT, THE ISLAND QUEEN, and THE ROVER OF THE ANDES.

1885





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE PRAIRIE CHIEF, THE LIVELY POLL, and RED ROONEY.

1886





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE BIG OTTER and THE FUGITIVES.

1887





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s BLUE LIGHTS and THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS.

1888





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE EAGLE CLIFF, THE CREW OF THE WATER WAGTAIL, and BLOWN TO BITS.

1889





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN, JEFF BENSON, and CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE.

1890





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE COXSWAIN’S BRIDE and THE BUFFALO RUNNERS.

1891





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE HOT SWAMP and HUNTED AND HARRIED.

1892





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s THE WALRUS HUNTERS, AN AUTHOR’S ADVENTURES, and PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF BOOK MAKING.

To this long-letter writing I attribute whatever small amountof facility in composition I may have acquired.

1893





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February 8, Thursday: Robert Michael Ballantyne died in Rome at the age of 68.

At this point Corning & Company of Peoria, Illinois filed for a government-protected trademark on their “Old Quaker” product, “A Friendly Whiskey” that they had been selling as such since October 1, 1878 — and the product was forthwith granted trademark number 24,384. (It seems clear that in the course of this commercial application and government approval process, no-one must have bothered to consult any actual Quakers,

1894





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because of course if any actual Quakers had been consulted there would have been the most vigorous protests.)

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS





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Robert Michael Ballantyne’s WRECKED BUT NOT RUINED (posthumous).

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

1895








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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <[email protected]>.

Prepared: May 30, 2014

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST




mailto:[email protected]

Well, tomorrow is such and such a date and so it began on that date in like 8000BC? Why 8000BC, because it was the beginning of the current interglacial -- or what?

Bearing in mind that this is America, "where everything belongs," the primary intent of such a notice is to prevent some person or corporate entity from misappropriating the materials and sequestering them as property for censorship or for profit.


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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.





HDT WHAT? INDEX

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <[email protected]>. Arrgh.




mailto:[email protected]

robert michael ballantyne - kouroo contexture

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