ON OCTOBER 29 OF LAST YEAR, I published an article titled “on william strunk and elements of style (and concise vigorous writing)” on my Neal Umphred Dot Com website. It’s as boring as the title makes it sound—you’d have to give a damn about the most important figure and the most important book in the history of American writing on the inses and outses of writing readably! So who does these days?
In the piece, I posted an image of the 1919 edition of Strunk’s The Elements Of Style and noted that I had found it on Jerry Morris’s My Sentimental Library site. Jerry’s site was one of the few that had decent photographs of these rare books on the Internet.
Last week I received a message from Mr Morris that he had received several new subscribers who he was able to trace back to my post above. I was pleased to know that my readers were actually taking my advice and visiting recommended websites for further edification.
Mr Morris also informed me that he had picked Neal Umphred Dot Com as the ‘Blog of the Month’ on his Biblio-Connection site. Except for John Ross’s The Round Place In The Middle Site—but John and I have a mutual admiration thing happening so it’s not the same—this is the first time any of my work has received such attention from another blogger!
These are screenshots of the Biblio-Connecting website.
So if you do give a damn about grammar and punctuation in the English language and the beating(s) it has taken at the hands of torturous texters, bloviating bloggers, and other sadistic sages (including journalists for ‘name’ websites who haven’t read The Elements Of Style), then click on over to Jerry’s sites and subscribe.
FEATURED IMAGE: The photo at the top of this page is of Gene Clark. As there is nothing in the article above dealing with rather rare records or the collecting of those records, I thought I’d give Gene a little space. Like hundreds of thousands of other teenagers who bought Columbia 4-43271, Mr. Tambourine Man / I Knew I’d Want You, in early 1965, I was buying the record solely for the mesmerizing A-side. If the B-side was ever played on Top 40 radio in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I never heard it.
I hadn’t a clue what the flip-side was, nor did I really care that much. I was taken aback when I finally flipped the 45 over on my green plastic portable teenage mono record player: I Knew I’d Want You was almost as good as Mr. Tambourine Man! I was hooked and became a lifelong Gene Clark fan.
After leaving the Byrds in early 1966, he released a fine solo album, GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS (1967), that sold zip and was deleted within the year. He followed that with more exceptional albums: THE FANTASTIC EXPEDITION OF DILLARD & CLARK (1969), WHITE LIGHT (1971), and NO OTHER (1973). Unfortunately, Clark never seemed to be in the right place at the right time and his career never took off. He died in 1991, a broke-down, 47-year old, singer-songwriter who is more recognized now than at any time in his solo career.
congratulations neal