This is hilarious ! And, Shepard at his best !
An incredible and hilarious literary hoax of the 1950's which totally embarrassed the Main Stream Media
Seen on RumorMillNews: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=216605
Posted By: MrFusion
Date: Monday, 26-Sep-2011 23:05:09
You may have heard the late Jean Shepherd even if you haven't heard of him (yes, him): He narrated the now classic holiday movie A Christmas Story (Red Rider BB gun, "you'll shoot your eye out", etc.), which was based on his original, semi-autobiographical story. But in the 1950's he had an all night radio talk show on WOR in New York. One night he was discussing the phoniness of popular culture, and he came up with a social experiment. He asked his listeners to go into book stores and ask for a non-existent book. In concert with his callers, he come up with the title "I, Libertine", and a fictitious author, Frederick R. Ewing, and a fictitous publisher, Excelsior Press. In the interview below, done 10 years later, he describes the tidal wave which resulted from this pebble dropped in the ocean. Eventually, the book just had to be written, which was done by his friend, famed science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (writing as Frederick R. Ewing, of course). You won't believe the entirely true but now forgotten events described in this interview, with legendary radio host, Long John Nebel:
MP3, 9.5Mb:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/MS/shep_nebel_0168.mp3
The blog hosting the MP3:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/06/the-i-libertine.html
There is even a free audio book, if you can stand to listen to the intentionally "turgid" prose (as described on the cover!):
http://www.uvulaaudio.com/books.html
Wall Street Journal article on it: The 1956 Wall Street Journal front page article revealing the hoax
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=216686
An incredible and hilarious literary hoax of the 1950's which totally embarrassed the Main Stream Media
Seen on RumorMillNews: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=216605
Posted By: MrFusion
Date: Monday, 26-Sep-2011 23:05:09
You may have heard the late Jean Shepherd even if you haven't heard of him (yes, him): He narrated the now classic holiday movie A Christmas Story (Red Rider BB gun, "you'll shoot your eye out", etc.), which was based on his original, semi-autobiographical story. But in the 1950's he had an all night radio talk show on WOR in New York. One night he was discussing the phoniness of popular culture, and he came up with a social experiment. He asked his listeners to go into book stores and ask for a non-existent book. In concert with his callers, he come up with the title "I, Libertine", and a fictitious author, Frederick R. Ewing, and a fictitous publisher, Excelsior Press. In the interview below, done 10 years later, he describes the tidal wave which resulted from this pebble dropped in the ocean. Eventually, the book just had to be written, which was done by his friend, famed science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (writing as Frederick R. Ewing, of course). You won't believe the entirely true but now forgotten events described in this interview, with legendary radio host, Long John Nebel:
MP3, 9.5Mb:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/MS/shep_nebel_0168.mp3
The blog hosting the MP3:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/06/the-i-libertine.html
There is even a free audio book, if you can stand to listen to the intentionally "turgid" prose (as described on the cover!):
http://www.uvulaaudio.com/books.html
Wall Street Journal article on it: The 1956 Wall Street Journal front page article revealing the hoax
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=216686