How I made a Walt Whitman essay from 1856-57 look as though it was the talk of the internet yesterday.

I'm not referring to "Manly Health and Training," the set of essays, published under a pseudonym and revealed to the world last month, a genuinely a newsworthy matter, which really did belong on Memeorandum, the website that — through some mysterious automated process — presents a one-page picture of what articles and items are getting linked to and discussed.

I'm talking about "An American Primer," a long known, long available essay by Walt Whitman, which was reprinted in the April 1904 issue of The Atlantic. It's about one of my favorite topics, blunt speech — blunt speech, as opposed "delicate lady-words" and "gloved gentlemen words." Whitman — touting America and liberty — comes out for "coarseness, directness, live epithets, expletives, words of opprobrium, resistance." I love that sort of thing, and I think most of America — not the elite, not the civility bullshitters, but most of America — loves it.

So I was moved to blog about it yesterday, after I ran across it by chance, not in anything current, but in an old acrostic puzzle in the New York Times archive, way back in October 2011. I don't think anyone else was looking at "An American Primer" yesterday and getting excited about it and linking to the old April 1904 issue of The Atlantic.

But it popped up on Memerandum:



I guess it was a slow Saturday. But thanks, Memeorandum. Thanks for weighting me however much that was in your algorithm. And thanks for nudging whomever you may have nudged to see what all the buzz is about, whatever it was that Walt Whitman wrote back in 1856-57. I know what it was. I read the whole 6,000-word essay. Out loud. To Meade. And we talked about it for a long time, connected it to the Donald Trump phenomenon, etc. etc. So there were the 2 of us. But I just find it so delightful to think that — via the magic of Memeorandum — somebody else got the idea that "An American Primer" was the thing to talk about and got to reading and talking about it too.

And then there's the little corner of the internet that was my blog last night, and maybe — without the nudge of Memeorandum's absurdly false impression that "An American Primer" was a Topic of the Day — you read it or at least the snippet of it that I posted, and maybe you were hanging out at Althouse on Saturday night, talking with other people about the distaste for delicate lady-words and gloved-gentlemen words and a love for epithets, expletives, and words of opprobrium.

There was BDNYC, who said: "Unreadable." And kentuckyliz, who said: "I found it quite readable once I found the sweet spot in my bifocals." And Paul Zrimsek, who said: "I am yuge, I contain multitudes." And traditionalguy:

Whitman spoke like an earlier version of Trump because Whitman was also giving voice to an implacable will to be strong and free men. That is what made America Great the first time.

It started with Andrew Jackson defeating the murderous British in the West to save the Mississippi River Valley, and then took off with Robert Fulton building his steamboats and DeWit Clinton building his canal locks to go over the Niagara Escarpment at Lockport, NY to complete a transportation circle from New York City to the Great lakes and then down the Mighty Mississippi to New Orleans. And which soon saw Robert Morse building his single wire telegraph to carry the news.

Trump is a messenger and a builder. And nobody cares if he says bad words in his battle to make America Great Again.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ngtrains said: "Robert Morse? how about Samuel?" And I said: "Mm. Yeah. Should I fix that for him. Robert Morse... was he the actor in 'How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying'?" I look it up. And it's just so damned Trumpian....

"Lamb is more Nutritious than any kind of Poultry, Mutton than Lamb, Veal than Mutton, and Beef than Veal; But Pork is more Nutricious than any of these..."

"... for the Juices of Pork, which is more like Human Flesh than any other Flesh is, are more adapted to the Nourishment of a Human Body than the Juices of any other Flesh." 

IN THE COMMENTS: BDNYC points out that I've blogged this before. I'd forgotten! I wonder how often I do such things. I'd like to think this is the first time. Perhaps not. It's interesting to see that I blogged it exactly the same way — except for the placement of the line break — even though I contemplated doing some different things with it, including discussing the chapter titled "A Short Digression on the Pig; or, Why Heaven Hates Ham" in Christopher Hitchens's "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."

[O]ne may note that children if left unmolested by rabbis and imams are very drawn to pigs, especially to baby ones, and that firefighters in general do not like to eat roast pork or crackling. The barbaric vernacular word for roasted human in New Guinea and elsewhere was “long pig”: I have never had the relevant degustatative experience myself, but it seems that we do, if eaten, taste very much like pigs.

"[P]eople who are infatuated with government... have no realistic idea of what an awful husband the government really is."

I said at the end of that post about how the government should pay people to stay home and cook "wholesome, healthy meals" in a program funded with a tax on "harmful foods." I'm starting a new post to highlight some of the great comments.

BDNYC said:

If your wife doesn't fuck you enough, there should be a government program, financed by taxing prostitutes and pronographers, which encourages marital sex by paying wives to have sex on a nightly basis. It will make marriages happier, which will help the economy. There will be a multiplier effect. Or something.

Mogget said:

How do you tell the government you have a headache when it wants to fuck you?

El Pollo Raylan said:

Government is a terrible husband because:

(a) He's a polygamist: e pluribus unions are the norm: he's not looking out for you but your neighbor as well.

(b) He's a terrible lover: his IRS has an anal fetish.

(c) He's a pedophile--unabashedly interested in your kids at ever earlier ages.

(d) He can't control his own urges which means that another government will ultimately have to control him.

(e) He is a gun nut, buying and hoarding ammunition like it's going out of style.

ADDED: betamax3000 has a series of comments about "Government Husband." Here are a few:

Government Husband says you Look Sexy Tonight: let's make Sweet, Sweet Taxes.

Government Husband will Tell you What you are Making For Dinner tonight.

Government Husband looks like Harry Reid, Naked. Give Government Husband a Little Sugar.

Government Husband didn't Mean It, baby. He just gets Angry at the Middle East.

On occasion Government Husband likes to have Anonymous Sex with Foreign Governments in the Public Restrooms at Parks. Do Not question Government Husband's Needs.

Government Husband thinks it is Cute when you and your little friends play 'Democracy.'