The Ambrose Bierce Word of the Day

That's it! Old Gringo. I saw it when it first came out and liked it quite well. Mainly I liked it because I thought it was one of Peck's best roles. I never cared for Peck as an actor but in Gringo he comes across just right -- aging, a bit curmudgeonly but, underneath, very idealistic. In a way, I suppose, Greg Peck was playing himself. But it works. If it's available on VHS or DVD, I recommend it.

Thanks, I love Gregory Peck. I've seen it on recently, and I'll keep an eye out for it.

March 4, 2003

INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. The properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to blacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones of an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have established ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others to get out of. Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid to get in pays twice as much to get out.

POLITICS: a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for a private advantage

Same to you Mr. S!

Everyone's a frickin' critic!!

BTW, thanks for the animated vulture idea, but I might stick with this one for a while....

I do like this one, all kidding aside!

March 5, 2003

FRIENDLESS, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

March 6, 2003

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

March 7, 2003

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to _be_ something from the man who wishes to _do_ something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

March 8, 2003

CONSULT, v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already decided on.

Hey, Larry.

Your definition of "consult" is great. Ambrose Bierce is one of my all time favorite writers. Nice to be back on the site.

Thanks Letty, look at some of the other words, they are very funny. Bierce needs a movie made of his life - I don't think one has ever been made, other than the one already mentioned, with Gregory Peck.

March 9, 2003

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

Larry, do you have any idea who wrote a short story that concerned eminent figures, one of whom was Bierce? The plot involved people on a trolley finding themselves in another dimension and discovering those prominent people who had vanished and were never found.

I found this useful Bierce site, "Bierce on the Screen." These two movies don't sound anything like what you are looking for, but maybe they will strike a chord.

I don't remember a short story like you mention, but I'm going to continue to search - that sounds really interesting. It almost sounds like it could be the plot of a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, but I'm sure I would have heard of it.

Bierce on the Screen

"Ambrose Bierce is the unlikely lead character in the straight-to-video prequel to From Dusk Till Dawn, a 1995 mobster/vampire film. In the original film, a pair of criminal brothers on their way to a Mexican rendesvue kidnap a missionary family. The truck stop chosen for the meeting turns out to be a front for an ancient temple full of vampires.

Scheduled for release on Halloween, 1999, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Hangman's Daughter is set in Mexico in 1913. A group of missionaries, bandits, Mexican revolutionaries, and Ambrose Bierce (Michael Parks, who played the Texas Ranger in the first film) end up at the temple that becomes the truck stop in the first film. In the original ending, Bierce ended up as vampire, endlessly walking the Earth after seeking a quick death. The final print ending has Bierce surviving the encounter, wandering off into the Mexican coutryside. If nothing else, it surely gives one of the most creative twists on the Bierce disappearance.

Ambrose Bierce was one of the characters in a Mexican student film, Ah! Silenciosa by Marcos Cline-Marquez (1999). The film is a brief magical-realism piece about a wealthy Mexican woman opposed to Villa's revolution who tries to save Bierce from execution."

The only movie that you mentioned with which I am familiar, is "From Dusk to Dawn," and I'll have to do a refresh on that one.

I think HCE might know quite a bit about Bierce.

Thanks, Larry. I'll keep looking.

HCE?

Sorry, Larry. He was HereComesEverybody in a former life. Here, on A2K, he's beedlesquoink, or something of that nature. He wrote and sang a great tune called Cowboy from Boston, which includes such real life characters as Zapata, Bierce, etc. He is a great fan of Ambrose Bierce and could probably come up with the short story that I just searched everywhere for. Finally, wrote my sister who is a Google unto her self.

Thanks, I've seen beedle around here.

I did some more searching and might as well post what I found. I didn't know how bad you wanted the answer to the question, not that I mind searching, I enjoy it - and I found some great sites - what an interesting character he was.

Bierce himself ironically wrote at least two stories about people disappearing:
"The Difficulty of Crossing a Field" and "Charles Ashmore's Trail."

Robert Heinlein wrote a short story with Bierce as a character, this might be a good candidate.

Heinlein page

near bottom of page

". . .The title "Lost Legion" (Super Science, November) has nothing obvious to do with the story to which it is attached, which has some nice young people developing super powers under the tutelage of Ambrose Bierce. Heinlein later included it in one of his collections under the title 'Lost Legacy' . . ."

These are mysteries, probably not helpful:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/ambrose.htm

"Oakley Hall uses San Francisco of the 1880s and 1890s as the setting for Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Swords and Ambrose Bierce and the Death of Kings, two mysteries featuring the journalist, satirist, and short story writer Ambrose Bierce as an amateur detective. Tom Redmond, a journalist mentored by Bierce, narrates the books. Bierce and Redmond act as a team, with Redmond doing most of the legwork and Bierce doing most of the deductive work. Bierce drives the plot forward -- he steps into both stories at crucial times to give Redmond direction and ultimately drives each mystery to its solution. Since the mysteries involve high profile victims (Hawaiian nobility in Ambrose Bierce and the Death of Kings) or high profile suspects (railroad and mining magnates' families in Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades), Bierce's fame allows him to move in society circles that Redmond cannnot reach on his own and gives access to information crucial to the solution of both cases."

Adam Niswander, author, sci-fi

http://www.ioba.org/newsletter/V8/niswander.html

"The Repository features Ambrose Bierce, the famous writer, who now is an investigator for Satan's Legions making a report to his boss about their failed battle with a fellowship of magicians."