You cannot spell “inspire” without “ire”.

It will not be readily believed by anyone acquainted with the name Rufus Griswold (and the slurs and slanders that frequently preface or append it) that I have been honored with the Very Inspiring Blogger award, the title of which justifies an expectation on the part of its recipient that he, in the first place, inspires, and in the second actively maintains a blog.  I will let those who have found their way to these pages judge for themselves what inspiration may be found within, and will have to hope that having two very occasional blogs is as good as having one blog humming with activity.  This distinction has been bestowed upon me by the generous and tolerant Undine, author of the indispensable World of Poe blog and, as devotees of Edgar Allan Poe are concerned, one of the good ones.  Her deftly told and illuminating writings chronicling the life and shattering the myths of the wretch Poe’s troubled existence never fail to fill me with a strange, sometimes bitter nostalgia that I cherish.

 Accepting the award obliges me to divulge seven indiscriminate facts about myself, as well as to recognize the efforts of seven other bloggers.  I’ll not pretend that I am reluctant to share morsels of Griswoldia with you people; neither will I conceal the truth that I do not actually regularly frequent a great many blogs (I would certainly confer the award unto Undine had she not before now been so acknowledged, but as she nominated me I would be reluctant to do so lest the whiff of puffery pervade the blogosphere).  I am certain, however, that I can come up with some other bloggers of note if I search the misty recesses of my memory adequately.  There is one thing, however, that will likely render somewhat abortive any nominations I choose to make; the fact that fewer people read my blogs than were in attendance at Poe’s funeral.

I begin with the blogs of my choosing, in no order whatsoever...

ONE

Rob Velella is the blogger responsible for both The Poe Calendar blog and The American Literary blog.  The former, detailing episodes in the life of the vile Edgar Allan Poe, is far better than its subject deserves.

http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/

http://poecalendar.blogspot.com/

TWO

Lovers of classic old time radio shows will enjoy the Times Past Old Time Radio blog, with a seemingly endless supply of shows in the public domain available for download.

http://otrarchive.blogspot.com/

THREE

Do you want information?  Fans of “The Prisoner” will no doubt learn much from Moor Larkin who runs the Number Six Was Innocent blog, freeing Patrick McGoohan’s television masterpiece from the cult-myths that have been spawned by fans over the years.

http://numbersixwasinnocent.blogspot.com/

FOUR
Only for the articles (wink wink), I present the BiblioBabes, which combines two of my favorite things...And books!
http://www.bibliobabes.ca/

FIVE
For a plethora of genuine correspondence on just about any topic you seek check out Letters of Note, maintained by Shaun Usher.
 http://www.lettersofnote.com/

SIX
While this is not strictly a blog, it is amazing and hilarious.  Real Garfield strips with the eponymous feline lovingly removed from each panel to reveal Jon Arbuckle’s descent into madness one day at a time.

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

That is all I have.

And now, with no further delay, here are seven miscellaneous details about myself…

 ONE

“Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.” – Ambrose Bierce, Cynic

I find mayonnaise to be the most detestable food stuff ever to be invented by man.  It is the Edgar Allan Poe of condiments as far as I am concerned.  To so much as open a jar of that vile substance in the same room where you are preparing a sandwich that I am meant to eat is to announce that our relationship is at an end.  If you were to spit in my lunch you would not witness a more horrified reaction from me than if even a single gob of mayonnaise were to come into contact with it.  I attribute two different reasons for my hatred of the white poison: First and foremost, it is offensive to every one of the five senses (yes, it even sounds disgusting).  The second reason is perhaps the result of my youthful gullibility.  When I was seven my brother Randolph, nine years my senior, told me of a predawn encounter he had had with the ‘mayonnaise man’ when he was a child.  He described a malformed figure in stained and tattered apparel descending from a horse-drawn cart that carried a number of empty jars, one of which the grunting figure removed from the cart and carried nearer the front door of our childhood home.  Once there he opened his rags to reveal the festering sores that overlay him like a second garment, weeping with purulence, and removed the lid from the jar.  He then began slowly, deliberately kneading his wounds, beginning at the forehead and working systematically downward, to harvest the white translucent fluid.  Twenty minutes passed as Randolph watched in revulsion until the jar was more or less filled to capacity and its lid replaced to seal in the goodness. 

 TWO

“I may say I know [Dr. Griswold's] general character for veracity; and have known it since 1848; it is very bad…his boasts of ladies’ favor and correspondence…” - Elizabeth F. Ellet, Cunt

“How the women have affected your condition it irks me to know.  They handle all of us hardly enough, but God! when they get hold of a chap of your poetic temperament they use him up completely—at least for a while.”- Charles Fenno Hoffman, Madman

By the time I died in 1857 I had amassed a library of 3280 items and had read every American poem published prior to 1850.  One would think that poetry was my obsession, but it was a means to an end.  A rear end.  A great many of them.  I had more hot women than irredeemable dissipate Edgar Allan Poe had hot meals.  From barely legal beauties to brainy bookish bluestockings my familiarity with the poetry of our land and my influence within literary circles and publishing houses, to say nothing of my natural charm and charisma, made both my social and professional life abound with the amorous attentions of lusty literary ladies.  Nothing moistens the underthings of a young poetess like the prospect of publication, and though their poetry be long forgotten, their cries of ecstasy will echo always in my memory.  I have been queried as to precisely how many woman I have taken to bed, but a gentleman does not satisfy such puerile and tactless curiosity; though I will say that a quick look at the table of contents of my volume of vulvic verse, “The Female Poets of America”, would provide one with a very conservative estimate.  Alas, these days my romantic exploits are limited to abusing Mr. Longfellow or, in polite company, making the beast with one back.

THREE
"And now for something completely different."
 "Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited." - John Cleese, Tall Person

The rise and progress of the British television comedy form one of the most delightful and instructive chapters in the history of the medium. I am a huge devotee and have amassed quite an impressive DVD collection comprised of programs from the early 1960’s through the present.  My particular favorites include Steptoe & Son, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous, Red Dwarf, The Office, Peep Show, Gavin & Stacey, Hyperdrive and Saxondale.

 FOUR

“But here any foreigner’s literary property is every body’s, and the evil is not utterly unmixed; for it has enabled Mr. Griswold to compile a very acceptable volume of [Thomas Haynes] Bayly’s Poems.” – The N.Y. Tribune

"He takes advantage of a state of things which he declares to be 'immoral, unjust and wicked,' and even while haranguing the loudest, is purloining the fastest." - Joel T. Headley, Ass

People have referred to me as a ‘literary pirate’, a term I do not care for.  Captain Flint was a literary pirate.  I merely engaged in the printing of previously published, usually foreign works in my capacity as anthologist and editor of various literary journals.  There existed no international copyright law in my day, though I was a vociferous proponent of such legislation, and in the spring of 1844 I was selected by the American Copyright Club to petition Congress for that very purpose.  My efforts were so efficacious that two score and seven years later the International Copyright Act of 1891, or Chase Act, was passed.  I had hoped to see international copyright become a reality prior to my passing, but this was not to be.  I rest in peace regardless, secure in the knowledge that the lack of such legislation during my tenure on Earth helped to keep that contemptible swine Edgar Allan Poe in a state of perpetual poverty and under my heel.

 FIVE

“Sir, I may not have been always a Christian, but I am very sure that I have been a gentleman.” - Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Tastemaker

It may surprise many to learn that I am an atheist.  My mother was an extremely pious woman, and in my youth I became well acquainted with the bible.  I left home at the age of 15 a true believer, and in my early twenties I decided that I might pursue a theological profession.  By the close of 1837 I was licensed to preach, “a member and clergyman of the Baptist Church, in good standing”, and in early 1842 I received from that distinguished and most estimable pastor, the Rev. A. D. Gillette of the Eleventh Baptist Church in Philadelphia, the title of “Reverend”.  In the autumn of 1844 Shurtleff [Baptist] College conferred upon me the degree of ‘Doctor of Divinity’; I was “the Reverend Dr. Griswold”.  It was not long afterward, however, that my belief in God began to deteriorate.  When my beautiful young wife Caroline perished before her time along with my infant son, the God of my younger days took on a more malevolent aspect.  I would continue to supplement my income as a pulpitarian, and the titles I bore, though they had in my judgement grown hollow, added a weight of credibility to my endeavors; but the spirit no longer moved me.  I became acquainted with sin and the Lord’s presence began to diminish within me.  But it wasn’t until I truly knew the wretch Edgar Allan Poe that my faith was utterly obliterated.  Surely no sane or just deity would have endowed a degenerate animal such as he with the preternatural literary gifts that he exhibited throughout his miserable existence.

 SIX

“No more—no more of song to-night;
Oh, let no more thy music flow!
Those notes that once could wake delight,
Come o'er me like a spirit-blight,
A breathing of the faded past,
Whose freshest hopes to earth were cast
    Long, long ago.” – Charles Fenno Hoffman, Madman

This may be my favorite audio recording:

 SEVEN

“Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained "the power of words"-denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue”- Edgar Allan Poe, Poet Inebriate

I hate Edgar Allan Poe.  I hate him with a hate that is more than hate, more that I can even begin to adequately articulate.  My loathing for Poe exists independently of any envy on my part regarding his literary achievements or bitterness concerning his flirtations with Fanny Osgood.  It is not the result of a difference of opinion as to our respective estimations of other literary men, nor a defensive posture assumed in response to the thousand injuries of Poe I had borne.  It is a biological, instinctive revulsion felt by every cell in my body, and I am its servant.  It has cast a long shadow over both my life and death…and my soul from out that shadow shall be lifted-nevermore!