Pyle - Apple of Contentment - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

How perfect that "Johnny Appleseed" or John Chapman was born on September the 26th at the busiest time for cider mills and the core time for apple festivals!  You do know, I presume, that he wasn't the same as the folk hero of tall tale fame

nor Disney's American Legends cartoon version.  Fort Wayne, Indiana lays claim to being where he died and celebrates him in many ways, but doesn't mark his grave.  A bit closer to me, Findlay, Ohio notes his work there.  I've never been able to locate any proof of his planting here just a bit north in Michigan.  I guess his influence was sufficient to create the plethora of orchards and cider mills.

As a result I have a real taste for telling apple stories.  For those wanting to separate Johnny Appleseed fact from fiction, there's the inevitable Wikipedia article, but you might also try 9 Facts That Tell the True Story of Johnny Appleseed (my browser said it was still trying to download the page, but it actually was downloaded), the supplemental 10 Things You Didn't Know About Johnny Appleseed, and Smithsonian's The Real Johnny Appleseed Brought Apples and Booze to the American Frontier.  I consider the last article best, if you will only read one.  In several of them you will discover Prohibition actually resulted in almost all of his trees being chopped down!  On a happier note, I was delighted to find the Disney film was accurate in its use of the Swedenborgian hymn you may recall singing: Oh the Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need, the sun, the moon and the apple tree.

Last week I mentioned Howard Pyle in connection with his Book of Pirates, which was actually a collection of his various writings and illustrations about pirates.  None were short enough for here and today's story is long, but it's my favorite apple story.  It comes from Pepper and Salt; or Seasoning for Young Folks, which I recommend along with his The Wonder Clock; or Four and Twenty Marvelous Tales, Being One for Each Hour of the Day and the less easily found in stores and libraries, Twilight Land.  He did other books, but these three are wonderful anthologies of his own tale telling and deserve tasting again and again.  So don't just take a bite out of this story, it's worth gobbling it all up.  When you re-tell it, you barely need to digest it for today's listeners as it tells well even though long.

At times it seems as if the title should be the Apple of Discontentment, since it is reserved for Christine.  Similarly I have a bit of discontentment as my second page is only just legible with the binding tighter than I like.  After that I was able to push it down for better viewing, but even then you will notice a bit of a shadow.

When I talked earlier about the possibility of renaming this the Apple of Discontentment, there are a few other thoughts occurring to me.  As I mentioned earlier this is a long story to tell.  When telling at an apple festival or cider mill where people are wanting to move about, shorter stories are easier.  Go to Jackie Baldwin's old site of ideas from fellow storytellers for Apple stories and folklore resources.

On a personal bit of discontentment, I had a twisted, dead tree tangled in with an apple tree cut down only to discover the apple tree had been using the other tree as a prop!  The apple tree started to tip and, before any additional support could be added, a strong wind storm finished the job.  Neighborhood deer were the only ones eating those apples as it was a roadside volunteer.  Often I've tossed the cores of my favorite apples, Ida Reds and Granny Smiths, out a car window or in my own fields hoping to be another "Johnny Appleseed."  I'm already planning how this tree will be replaced with Granny Smiths currently and then add Ida Reds when I can get them.  (By the way, I have a true story I love to tell about the real Granny Smith of Australia.)

In the meantime, I hope you keep reading from the Public Domain.  Here's my closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain. 
***************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it. 
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

• The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
             - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
             - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain
             - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
             - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
             - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/
             - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html
  
   
  This reminds me, you're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site is so huge, probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online after she could no longer maintain it.  For an example of using the "Wayback Machine", list member, Papa Joe is on both Time Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is gone, but you can still see it.  I put in his site's address, then chose 2006 since it was a later year and clicked until I reached the Library at http://www.pjtss.net/library/. 

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Talk Like a Pirate Day with a Keeping the Public In Public Domain story and more

AARGH! 

Let me shout AHOY, MATEY!  (Pirate volume always seems to be at shout level.)

September 19 is a great date to tell pirate-inspired tales.

September 19, 2016 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. While you might call it a  pseudo-holiday, since it only began in 1995, it even has an interesting story connected with its founding in Albany, Oregon.  According to Wikipedia two men were playing racquetball. One of the men was injured and called out “Arrr.” The pirate-sounding lament lead to the holiday’s invention, although it didn't hurt (at least not as much as the racquetball injury) that Dave Barry decided to promote it in his syndicated humor column.  To the best of my knowledge there's absolutely no restriction on using the title or the above graphic (unlike a few recent events which have had me grumbling, but I guess, when not shouting, pirates do tend to grumble along with an occasional AARGH!)  Even better, at last check there were a few fast food places dispensing free food to Piratical linguists who also bother to dress the part on Talk Like a Pirate Day: Krispy Kreme gave out free doughnuts and, of course, Long John Silver did something, too.  I've gone to their maps, er websites and haven't been able to verify this is still true, but even a free bit of grog is worth calling a nearby store to be sure the treasure is still out there.  By the way, be sure to check the Wikipedia paragraph about "Linguistic Background", too, for how we came to think pirates sounded this way.

Well this is as good an excuse as any for some of those pirate-inspired tales.  If you look here with the label of Pirates you'll find a lot of ideas as that was the Summer Reading Club theme and my 2013 Summer Reading Club program was "Dig for Treasure in the 398s" complete with my puppy puppet Buzz dressed up as a pirate.  Frankly you can take that mate, make him walk the plank, and I guarantee he'll survive doing, what else?, the dog paddle.  Aaaargh!

If that joke doesn't work for you, be sure to visit that post as it includes some online spots for pirate humor.

I also want to give you a bit of an update to that article.  One of the places I suggested you go was to the blog of my storytelling friend, Karen Chace, who always positively overflows with ideas and resources.

When I let Karen know what I was planning, Shiver my timbers!  -- she went to my 2013 article and verified all her links for you.  She also sent me this newer picture of herself.  It does an excellent job of capturing her spirit.  Speaking of spirit, drop down to the resources in my haunted library which always follows segments of Keeping the Public in Public Domain. Karen is there in the Blogroll of Honor I made listing sites who also have Public Domain stories for you.  As you might expect, my friends there are listed alphabetically by last name as I could never hope to rank them otherwise.  Karen's second there, but her blog started way back in 2008 and she probably takes second place to no one when it comes to storytelling resources.

Earlier we were tossing around a few pirate jokes, but pirates aren't all humor, by any means (especially what passes for piracy nowadays -- but we're enjoying the stereotype here) and some even manage to be perfect for spooky storytelling, too, which is perfect for looking ahead to October.
Today's story is from a journal wanting stories passed along and is short enough to tell in any event.

 

Since that's so short, if you want more I recommend heartily Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, yes, including a ghost story.  The stories are all too long to post here.  There are various editions, Pyle died in 1911, and I really thought it was overdue for an ebook online.  A Google search said NO, but fortunately I double-checked and Project Gutenberg says YES.  Prior to that only LibriVox dared to record it and put it online.

The title page gives this subtitle: Fiction, Fact & Fancy concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main.  This is the same edition Project Gutenberg used and is from 1921.  It was only as I was writing the subtitle that I noticed it continued: From the Writing & Pictures of Howard Pyle: Compiled by Merle Johnson.  Compiling is a thankless job, but personally I loved the way the stories feature areas where I've been telling stories all over the "Spanish Main."  Of all the places I especially enjoy the Dominican Republic which is roughly half of Hispaniola, sharing the island with Haiti.

Thinking in a ghostly way today, plus various inquiries from venues have me working ahead and thinking ahead.  October here will probably have spooky stories from the Public Domain so I'm free to hit the road.  Hmmmm.  Hope I don't find any urban legend Vanishing Hitchhikers, as that's not one of my favorite stories, but I put the link to Google's search if you like it.  Although there is a local variant dating back to Prohibition here in our area that I do enjoy telling. . .
*******
Here's my closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain. 
***************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it. 
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

• The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
             - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
             - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain
             - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
             - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
             - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/
             - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html
  
   
  This reminds me, you're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site is so huge, probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online after she could no longer maintain it.  For an example of using the "Wayback Machine", list member, Papa Joe is on both Time Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is gone, but you can still see it.  I put in his site's address, then chose 2006 since it was a later year and clicked until I reached the Library at http://www.pjtss.net/library/. 

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

9/11 and a Coyote story - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

This weekend is the tenth anniversary of a date most people just think of as 911, the same as the North American emergency phone number.

I'll be telling at a memorial service and wanted to share one of the stories I find particularly useful when the subject is death.  There are various versions with some having major changes, but the most frequently published version is here.  (It let me find a copy that reproduced well.)  Coyote is a trickster character who often manages to seem like the cartoon character in his foolishness.  We miss something if that's all we see.  His role in Native American folklore, whether foolish or even by other viewpoints downright immoral, still often manages to create good or, as in this case, set standards by which the world lives.  Another name for those standards is a "pourquois" tale because it explains "why" something came to be the way it is.  Like many tricksters, he also is often a great example of "what not to do."  Today he's in the position of setting in motion the way the world lives . . . and dies.

The most commonly presented version was collected by a Bureau of Indian Affairs doctor, George Benson Kuykendall, back in the 19th century when "ethnology" led many to collect Native American folklore.  Today some would say this is yet another way white Europeans took what wasn't theirs.  Trickster that he is, I bet Coyote laughs at that.  This story comes from Fort Simcoe on the Yakima Indian Reservation in the Northwestern area where yet another trickster, Raven, is said to have spilled out a deluge of languages upon the first people there.  Many of those languages have gone extinct and others are working to preserve any remaining languages and culture.  Yes, much of that would still be around if there hadn't been efforts by many to eliminate it in the Indian Schools.  Not everyone wanted to do that and it's why I believe we should respect the ethnologists and thank them at least for saving what they did.  Kuykendall didn't write the story, merely record it, but I believe it fairly fits public domain by virtue of when he collected it.  I'm not a lawyer, haven't even played one onstage yet, but hope this is acceptable to reproduce as it certainly matches the aims of Public Domain (see my standard closing below for whenever I reproduce something in my "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" segments).

Coyote and Eagle in the Land of the Dead 

(often listed as being Yakima because of where it was collected, but the Wishram people are probably its source)

On this sad anniversary many would probably wish otherwise, but the lesson most often gained from this story is that our bodies have their limits and this is how death releases us from pain.  It's hard for those who remain behind, which brings up yet another tale that the living stand on the shore while our loved ones get into the boat across to the Land of the Dead.  We stand and wave goodbye, while over there those who have already gone there are waving in greeting.  

********

Here's my new closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain. 
***************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it. 
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

• The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
             - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
             - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain
             - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
             - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
             - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/
             - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html
  
   
  This reminds me, you're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site is so huge, probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online after she could no longer maintain it.  For an example of using the "Wayback Machine", list member, Papa Joe is on both Time Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is gone, but you can still see it.  I put in his site's address, then chose 2006 since it was a later year and clicked until I reached the Library at http://www.pjtss.net/library/. 

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Happy Birthday, Star Trek

Space. . . the final frontier
and fifty years ago! on September 8 in 1966 appeared the first Star Trek episode with six t.v. series and 13 films - including this past summer's Star Trek Beyond (debuted 7/22/2016).  Don't have much science fiction material nor storytelling opportunities, but can't overlook a cultural phenomenon like this.

I know they've been super-inclined to make people take down any offiffiffic'al graphics, but I should be able at least to show my own pins.

There have been five Captains:

1.  James T. Kirk (Original series)
2. Jean-Luc Picard (The Next Generation)
3. Benjamin Sisko (Deep Space Nine)
4. Kathryn Janeway (Voyager)
5. Jonathan Archer (Enterprise)

(Was Trek Talks the sixth series?)

Resistance is futile . . .
There will be more than one touring exhibit, from the science/technology end of the spectrum all the way to the arts with one called Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years and a book by the same name.  There will even be a cruise out of Miami, but presumably it's only sailing on the ocean.  Tons of books are coming out, novels, even a teen graphic novel series called Star Trek Academy the publishers hope will be a "Star Trek Hogwarts", as well as miscellaneous nonfiction, including more trivia than Tribbles, even a Star Trek Mad Libs, plus more serious reference books, as well as enough retrospective items brought back to fulfill for their creators the Vulcan wish to "Live long and prosper." (Now where did I put that book that was supposed to teach me Klingon?)  There have been many reference books over the years with Harper Collins revising and enlarging to two volumes its Star Trek Encyclopedia (originally published in 1999) again by the writers of many of those other reference books, Denise and Michael Okuda, a couple who occasionally wrote for both t.v. episodes and the movies. The most interesting combination of fiction and nonfiction comes from National Geographic and claims to be "where sci-fi and real science collide" with its Star Trek; The Official Guide to Our Universe -- The true science behind the Starship Voyages by Andrew Fazekas (& a Foreword by William Shatner) and promises to combine snapshots and scenes from episodes with facts on the solar system, exoplanets, stars, nebulae and more.

How I wish that included transporters!  Even though I suspect, since Star Trek did inspire some scientific and technological advances, initial efforts will be just as difficult as when Doctor McCoy used to worry about his molecules being scattered.  I know I remember reading somewhere that labs have indeed tried to create a way to transport objects (and lab animals?).  It may be filled with problems, but still as Captain Picard loved to say, "Make it so."