“Dear President of the Mark Twain Historical Society,” by Omar B.

Sep 20th, 2009 | By | Category: Prose

Dear President of the Mark Twain Historical Society:

I am in receipt of the letter in which you request (and not very politely!) that I cease blogging under the pen name ‘Marc Twainy’. You state that my use of this nom de plume “tarnishes the legacy of Mr. Mark Twain, an American icon”. It is with no small amount of regret that I inform you that, at this time, complying with your demands is quite impossible.

Before I address your specific concerns, let me first say that I very much appreciated your correspondence. Finally, after so many nights of writing alone except for my Thermos of cold Folgers, the readers of the world are taking notice! And they, or at least the overlords of their historical societies, are saying, “Your voice is so powerful that we consider you a writing terrorist and you must be stopped before you destroy our freedom.” I find this a comfort. I only wish that, instead of mailing me a hard copy, you had posted your letter as a comment on my site-it would have been the first.

Let me give you some background that will lead you to agree that I require a nom de guerre of some sort. My given name, Ralph R., much too unambiguously reveals my immigrant heritage. As a result, publishing as widely as I (hope to) do under that appellation would necessarily draw the unwanted attention of nativists and over-zealous Border Patrol agents. I am a writer; my calling demands that I spend my time on my literary oeuvre, not fortifying my home to rebuff hate criminals or getting fitted for chain mail to lessen the impact of blows from drunken bigots. Luckily for myself and my potential readers, I started using ‘Marc Twainy’ before any trouble arose.  But, rest assured, if you take this name from me, my quasi-American blood will be on your hands, sir.

(In anticipation of a question from you, no, I cannot reveal to you at this or any other time my full legal surname, per my father, who has asked that I no longer use his name in the wake of certain physical and financially-related actions that I supposedly took against him and his female companion).

So, we are agreed that I face the serious problem of having a literarily useless given name. And, if you are an honest historical society president, you will also have no choice but to agree that using a pen name is a perfectly acceptable solution to this problem.  Indeed, some of history’s brightest lights have used names not their own. Just a few examples: Lenin (legal name: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov), W. (legal name: George W. Bush) and Bill Cosby (legal name: William Cosby). Did you also know that your very own Mr. Mark Twain published under the pen name Mr. Mark Twain (legal name: Samuel Clemens)?

Now, as regards my specific pen name, you claim that ‘Marc Twainy’ is a “cheap and unappealing” imitation of ‘Mark Twain’, apparently the name of your Mr. Mark Twain.  You’ll forgive me, but I am laughing so, so hard, due to the fact that, prior to receipt of your letter, sorry to say, I had never heard of your Mr. Mark Twain.

Since I got your note, however, I have done some research. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your Mr. Mark Twain passed away in 1910, nearly 100 years ago.  Do you not think it unlikely that I, a man of many fewer than 100 years old, ever met him? And how is it that I am supposed to have stolen anything from him if I never met him in the first place??! Perhaps you should spend more time thinking before you send off angry dispatches to innocent artists.  

For your benefit, I would like to take a moment to explain to you exactly how I came up with the pen name ‘Marc Twainy.’ First, I took a run-of-the-mill first name, ‘Mark,’ and European-ized it into ‘Marc.’ I birthed ‘Twainy’ without assistance (an immaculate conception, if you will), which demonstrates, if I do say so, my remarkable literary talent. Like all good writing, the term ‘twainy’ conveys multiple meanings simultaneously. First, it is the sound a guitar makes, with a ‘y’ appended (poets call this ‘onomatopoeia-y’). Second, as you may or may not be aware, people occasionally use the phrase, ‘never the twain shall meet.’ The name suggests that notion also, with my signature ‘y’ appended.

Also, my writing style and that of your Mr. Mark Twain could not possibly be more different. You write that your Mr. Mark Twain was a “great American humorist, essayist and fiction writer.” I, on the other hand, generally write comedy and essay-type writing.

Let me give you some examples of my stories You will see that they are true originals and totally dissimilar to the unread and unloved works of your Mr. Mark Twain. First, my story “The Adventures of Chuck Finn” tells the tale of a precocious young insurance investigator who travels down the Colorado River on a raft with a large Asian man.  They encounter obstacle after obstacle, including drug gangs, rogue cops and camping families. Second, I wrote several blog posts about Chuck Finn’s close friend, Todd Sawyer. Like Chuck, Todd works in the insurance industry, as a broker. He lives with his aunt and is a bit of a troublemaker, which makes for great stories, let me tell you. Finally, I write quotable quotes.  For example, after I traveled to San Francisco, I posted on my blog the following, which was not, to my surprise, linked to or remarked upon: “The mildest winter I ever spent was a winter in San Francisco.”

Another difference between your Mr. Mark Twain and yours truly is our audience.  You state that your Mr. Mark Twain’s readership is made up of “nearly the entire English-speaking world.” My niche, on the other hand, is narrower. My audience, as I have learned on the imaginary book tours I conduct in my sleep, consists of female college students, florists and professional bowlers. If you will indulge a digression–I give my readings in Esperanto, which is fascinating because I am not at all fluent. Interestingly, these book tours tend to take place at my old preparatory school. Usually, I end up realizing that I have forgotten to study for a geometry test scheduled for the same time and that I failed to put on trousers.

One other thing, before I forget-you seem quite insecure about your Mr. Mark Twain’s position in society. In your letter you say he is a “giant of American letters.” If that’s true, why had I not heard of him? And why would you need to say it? But, just for this minute, let’s just say that what you said is true.  As representatives of this “giant,” have you no more important activities to pursue than the harassment of me, a non-giant (at least in certain peoples’ eyes and at least if we’re talking about volumes sold up until this time)? It is as if the American Army (here, you) were to send a telegram to the President of Barbados (here, myself) that stated, “Get rid of your military because only we may have one.” While I have not traveled to Barbados, I doubt very much that the residents there would appreciate that (although they might be amenable if they were compensated. I suppose the implication is that I would cede to your wishes if you were to deposit several millions of US dollars in my currently negatively-balanced savings account. If I offend or violate laws of which I am not aware, I retract the previous sentence in its entirety).

As must be apparent to you, I am a realist. I admit that my arguments may not persuade. So allow me to proceed down a different rhetorical path: for the love of God, please do not go running and crying to your lawyers or militia to try to take this name from me. It is all I have or hope to have. Everything else has been taken from me. My wife left. More precisely, she never arrived after I ordered her online. Separately, I was inexplicably passed over for the academic job for which I was considering applying.  Apparently, M.I.T. is more interested in a Ph.D. with specific expertise in the field than they are in your talented, but admittedly uncredentialed and unpublished, correspondent. Finally, in this difficult economic environment I find myself quite the opposite of wealthy. I did, at some point, have a small sum of money, though I seem to have misplaced it.

If none of this convinces, just please confirm for me that you have no problem with my other literary handle: Bernest Hemingways.

With great esteem, I remain,

RR/MT/BH

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Omar B. is a writer and stand-up comedian in Brooklyn. One of his short stories, “Diamonds & Lemons,” was voted one of the top 10 online short stories of 2005 by storySouth. He’s been published in Mother Jones, Mojo Wire, WorldView, Yankee Pot Roast, The Big Jewel, Boulder Planet Newspaper, Uber Nu and Asinine Poetry, among other publications.

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