Several nights ago sitting at my computer, I was innocently searching for animated gifs of the ‘Clever girl…’ Jurassic Park scene when Angry Jim walked by. “Hey, look up ‘His Master’s Voice‘”, he said. A moment later the screen went from raptors to variations of an adorable little dog looking quizzically into a phonograph. “Do you know that picture?” Why yes, says I. That’s the logo for RCA records, and it’s a cute puppy named Nipper all confused about technology. He thinks it’s people! “Yeah, he’s sitting on a coffin.”

WHAAAAAAAAAAT?

“He’s sitting on a coffin. His master’s coffin. The recording he’s listening to is his dead master’s voice, and he’s confused because he thinks it’s him.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Nooooooooo! This is even worse than that ‘Bayard of Dogs’ plaque at the top of the Kaaterskills! Noooooo!!! Nipper can never understand his master’s not coming back, especially when you play recordings of his voice! This image has now become an icon of the futility of hope and joy!

…A slight bit of freaking out later, further research revealed the sad story behind ‘His Master’s Voice’ to mostly bear out. A stray taken in by set painter Mark Barraud, Nipper was so named ‘because of his love of people’s ankles’. After Barraud passed away, his brother Francis Barraud took Nipper in. Francis noticed the confusion and interest Nipper had in the playing phonograph, particularly in recordings of his late brother’s voice. He decided it would make an excellent subject for a painting, and in 1899 completed the creatively titled ‘Dog Looking And Listening To A Phonograph’.

Francis first attempted to sell the painting to the Edison company, as it was their cylinder phonograph pictured. They passed, and he decided to cheer up the picture with a brighter horn, the kind seen on gramophones. Not having one, he went to The Gramophone Company, Ltd. to borrow one as reference. Upon finding out about the adorable painting, they asked Francis to specifically paint their latest model, and a classic image was born. Apparently if you look at the original painting from an angle, you can see the original, painted-over Edison cylinder player underneath.

It is important (well, important to record nerds) to note that this is a painting eventually titled ‘His Master’s Voice’, something that would’ve only been possible on cylinder recordings, as they could be both played AND recorded at home. That’s how Francis even had recordings of his brother’s voice, because Barraud likely dictated to the machine. Gramophone players weren’t intended for recording, only playing, which would’ve made it unusual for Nipper to hear ‘His Master’s Voice’, unless his master happened to be Sir Harry Lauder or something. Yes, I am familiar with the many Scots-themed songs of Sir Harry Lauder. That’s what happens when you’re pals with a cylinder collector.

In both Francis’ account and the polished PR story on RCA’s website, no mention is made of the dog sitting upon his master’s coffin, probably because people everywhere would start associating RCA with ‘bursting into tears’. It could be the surface is a tabletop, or some other extremely shiny, narrow, beveled dark-wood surface. Sure, that’s it! But the image of a tiny dog sitting atop his master’s last earthly remains, confused at hearing his disembodied voice but not seeing his comforting hand anywhere, is what I’ll now think of every time I see the RCA logo. THANKS ANGRY JIM.

If you’d like to know more about Nipper, here’s a site for and by ‘Nipperheads’.

Drunk Talk Show Kids from Drunk Talk Show on Vimeo.

Just because America broke off from people that loved sticking whole animals in aspic doesn’t make Jell-O the apex of culture. If I recall the Chinese used spoons with flat bottoms so stuff wouldn’t spill while Europeans were still dunking witches.

This is exactly like the imagined joy of owning an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle but REAL.

Tee hee hee hee.

Remember when America saw Mexicans as comical bumbling lazy thieves instead of a swarm of brown locusts stealing all our best jobs (and probably women too)? Ah, for the golden days of a gentler racism.

Funny enough, Frito switched to the Frito Bandito from a wholesome all-American scamp called ‘The Frito Kid’. You can learn all about him here, and here, or you can experience interacting with him firsthand over at Angry Jim’s site. The audio comes from an old Disney setup where you popped a coin in and animatronic Frito Kid would call down delicious, salty Fritos from a guy in a mountain mine. Snacktacular!

Currently he’s featuring friends’ bands in image and video, but hopefully will get around to posting the many spaces he’s captured. Formats include digital 3-D, scanned Viewmaster slides, and analglyph (aka traditional cyan and red). Woo! Three deeeeeeee…

So the other day I stopped by my favorite New York City book shop,  The Housing Works Book Store. I found a nice old copy of a Mark Twain book I hadn’t read yet called Extracts from Adam’s Diary.

It looked like maybe a first edition, and was only 20 bucks! I’m a Mark Twain enthusiast. (if you have only read Huck Finn, I highly recommend you check out his travelogue The Innocents Abroad. It’s surpassingly modern in its style. Well maybe that’s no surprise. He’s obviously influenced a lot of modern writing.)  Well, this book was only 20 bucks because it isn’t in great shape. the binding was falling apart. But it’s still a nice old book. So I bought it.

I was pleasantly suprised. It’s a fun book with illustrations on every other page depicting hyroglyphics supposedly made by Adam (of old testament fame) followed by Mark Twain’s humorous translations. This alone made the purchase worth it.

But after I hastily bought the book I noticed an extra suprise. A bookplate. A clever bookplate with an image of the gallows. The bookplate says “Will M. Clemens” and the book is inscribed in pencil “Cousin of Samuel L Clemens (Mark Twain)”

Well, well, well. This was quite the find. Was this a first edition sent by Mark Twain himself to a relative? When I got to the internet I had to do some research.

The first promising lead I found was this San Fransisco Call Newspaper clip from the library of congress dated 1895 which says in part “There is no brighter light in New York newspaper circles than Will M. Clemens – a cousin of MArk Twain.”

Here it was. In a couple minutes with google I had found the original owner of this 100+ year old book. Isn’t modern technology rad! But for some reason I was skeptical. So I did a bit more research. It appeared that this fellow had done some biographical sketches of Twain and his contemporaries. So I searched google books to see what else he had written and if Mark Twain himself had ever mentioned him.

THEN, I found this excerpt from the book  The Mythologizing of Mark Twain. It was not what I had hoped but it reveals an entertaining bit of history. Will M. Clemens apparently had tried to cash in on Mark Twain’s fame by writing books about him. Surely he was a fan, and intended to flatter, but Twain was not flattered. Copyright rules were not as defined back then and this was one of Twain’s pet peeves. His books were being reprinted without permission and he wasn’t getting paid. So when Will Clemens wrote to Mark Twain to ask permission to write this book about Twain, he received the following reply.

He said, ”I am sorry to object, but I really must. Such books as you propose are not proper to publish during my lifetime. A man’s history is his own property until the grave extinguishes his ownership in it.” Then Twain wrote to a patron seeking legal assistance, “Here is this troublesome cuss, Will M. Clemens, turning up again. I won’t have it.” I’m risking copyright violation myself now, so I’ll just say you can read a bit more about the situation in the above link.

So was the previous owner of my book really Twain’s cousin? Well, it looks like Will Clemens may  have lied to someone about the situation. Or someone at that paper came to that conclusion on their own. Or maybe he was a distant relative. But if he was, Samuel Clemens surely held no love for this hanger-on long lost cousin.

Speaking of copyright wars, you can read Extracts from Adam’s Diary online (it looks just like mine) and see the illustrations at google book search. Of course, this book has long since been in public domain.