Oak Park Newspaper

Mark Twain, a great writer, an interesting man, a favorite person that I never met (not old enough). He is often known for his wonderful novels of tough times in the south and crazy times out in the west. He was a novelist, journalist, humorist, and icon of clever thought.

He was funny, but also had a sharp tongue on issues that he felt compelled to write about. His views and comments on the Mormon religion are as hot today as they were when first penned. He kept President Ulysses S. Grant's family from going bankrupt by paying for the publication of his autobiography. Grant had died only 5 days after finishing the memoir. Grant was penniless at the time of his death. Mark Twain spoke of the work of Grant: "I had been comparing the memoirs with Caesar's Commentaries... I was able to say in all Apologetic forms that the same high merits distinguished both books - clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, manifest truthfulness, fairness and justice toward friend and foe alike and avoidance of flowery speech. General Grant was just a man, just a human being, just an author...The fact remains and cannot be dislodged that General Grant's book is a great, unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece. There is no higher literature than these modest, simple Memoirs. Their style is at least flawless, and no man can improve upon it."

Mark Twain had not seen or heard Marie Osmond, and he wrote of the Mormon women the following: "I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No--the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure--and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."

Mark Twain was a humorous iconoclast and not too crazy about any religion, as expressed in his writing "The Lowest Animal"; "Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste."

"Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion." Twain

"We have to keep our God placated with prayers, and even then we are never sure of him--how much higher and finer is the Indian's God......Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge."

- Marginalia written in copy of Richard Irving Dodge's
Our Wild Indians

Some Twain Links Below and press
release of the Events.

http://www.salamandersociety.com/marktwain/

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/twain.htm

http://www.online-literature.com/twain/roughing-it/81/

Mark Twain has often been portrayed in film while Mark Twain’s novels and stories have been portrayed in film even more often. Film historian Doug Deuchler has chosen a variety of films and will examine the popular American writer’s life and words through screenings and discussions beginning Thursday, Sept. 23, at 2 p.m. All six films will be shown at the Oak Park Public Library on six Thursday afternoons at 2 p.m.

Film historian Doug Deuchler will lead discussions of each film following each screening.

Thursday, Sept. 23, at 2 p.m.: Two shorter films will kick off the series, including Tom Sawyer (1917), a 59- minute silent movie with musical accompaniment, directed by William Desmond Taylor.

The second film will be The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1984). Robert Preston stars as the title character in Twain's short story about a town that enjoys a national reputation for protecting every citizen against all temptation from infancy through death. And then a mysterious stranger who has nursed a grudge against the town and plots revenge. 40 minutes.

Thursday, Oct. 14, at 2 p.m. : The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939). Directed by Richard Thorpe with Mickey Rooney in the title role. 92 minutes

Thursday, Oct. 21, at 2 p.m.: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949). Bing Crosby plays the title role of Hank Morgan, a 19^th century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, who, after a blow to his head, finds himself transported back to early medieval England at the time of King Arthur. Directed by Tay Garnett. 106 minutes

The Mark Twain Film Festival is part of the “Celebrating Twain: One Author, Three Communities” tri-village commemoration of this great American writer. Mark Twain was born 175 years ago, in 1835. The year 2010 marks the 100^th anniversary of his death in 1910 The communities of Oak Park, River Forest and Foreset Park will celebrate Mark Twain during September and October with this film festival, an art exhibit, three concerts, multiple lectures and book discussions.