Herb Benham: Never the Twain did he meet, but you'd never know it
| Monday, Jul 13 2009 03:06 PM
Last Updated Monday, Jul 13 2009 09:40 PM
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Mark Bagby's winning essay
To coincide with the release of "Who Is Mark Twain?," Borders and HarperStudio sponsored a writing contest to find the next Mark Twain.
One of Twain's pieces, Conversations with Satan, published in the book, was left unfinished.
Bagby's entry:
But then my guest brought me out of my rambling memories, noting the lateness of the hour and said he must take leave of my hospitality, though he wished he could stay. But, he quickly added, a bit too hastily, I think, that we would meet again. For good, if I could pardon the expression.
"Not too soon, I hope," I said.
"In due time," Satan replied. "The company is mostly entertaining, and interesting, but it can be a bit tiresome, and there will be some things you will not care for -- the restriction on smoking, for example."
Well, that stopped me dead, or as near to it as I could be, alive. "No smoking?" I whispered.
"You don't know the half of it," he said. "I fire all the furnaces with tobacco. You, of course, have to stoke the fire with bundle after bundle of tobacco. All that highly desired pleasure, going up in smoke, with no pleasure for anyone, but myself. And in those awful American stoves, no less."
That was just too much for me. I said, "Damnation, indeed."
"Oh, that reminds me," he said. "Profanity is outlawed, too."
My knees buckled, then. My guest noted my discomfort and commented that that was enough unpleasantness for one evening, and that he really hadn't intended to repay my graciousness by making me contemplate an eternity without smoking or swearing.
But finally, he said, "Clemens, you know, it's for good reason we call it Hell," and then he left, just like that, ironically enough, in a wisp of smoke, that smelled for all the world like Virginia leaf, with just a whiff of brimstone mixed in.
Reports of his writing skill were not greatly exaggerated, it appears.
Mark Bagby, a Mark Twain fan, recently won a national contest. That's in national. All over the country.
Bagby, 52, who works as the communications director for Calcot when he's not winning national contests, beat more than 100 people in completing a previously unpublished essay by Twain titled "Conversations with Satan." Sponsored by HarperStudio in conjunction with Borders Books, the contest (300 words, max) was called "I am the Next Mark Twain."
Bagby won a copy of "Who is Mark Twain?" As if that weren't prize enough, his essay was published on Borders.com and he will read his work at the local Borders before family, friends and anybody else who wanders over and wonders what the guy in the old-fashioned white suit with the slow drawl is doing in front of the latest Stephenie Meyer best-seller.
"I already had the book," Bagby said wryly -- wryly being the sort of thing for which Twain was known.
This is all water down the Mississippi because Bagby would have been thrilled with winning the competition and receiving nothing but the honor itself.
"To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself." (Mark Twain)
Bagby came to the competition not only having read almost everything Twain ever wrote, but having played the character dozens of times in local productions.
"I did a series of two-hour shows at the Spotlight a few years ago where I had to memorize 14,000 words," Bagby said.
Fourteen thousand words? Bagby must have been good because the only thing harder than memorizing 14,000 words is paying attention to someone reciting them.
There are parallels in the lives of Bagby and Twain (Twain, however, did not grow up in McAlester, Okla., nor was he concerned about the steep drop in cotton acreage in California). Both spent time in the newspaper business.
"Hated to do it but I couldn't find honest employment. ... I could report on anything whether it happened or not," Twain wrote.
Both married, Bagby to Heidi with whom they have one child, Ryan, and two grandchildren.
And both liked dogs.
"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." (Twain).
If anybody was primed to finish well in the national contest, it was Bagby. All he needed was inspiration, which he found one day on the treadmill. Exercise was one of those things Twain and Bagby do not have in common.
"I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting." (Twain)
While it took Twain seven years to finish "Huckleberry Finn" Bagby knocked out the conclusion to "Conversations with Satan," in about 45 minutes. Bagby's work is understated and funny. The call a month later informing him that he had won, was reward enough.
