Posted on 11/01/2018 7:10:31 PM PDT by Western Phil
How He Probably Died To this day, physicians argue over the cause of his death. Alcoholism was ruled out because he did not have signs of alcohol withdrawal. On his deathbed he lapsed in and out of a coma and babbled incoherently. The most logical explanation for his death is that a few days before his death, he began to drink heavily, wandered drunk into the streets and fell into the hands of a gang of vote-repeaters. It was election day, and elections in Baltimore were won by the people who could threaten and force the most people to vote for them. So gangs went out and threatened to kill anyone who didn’t do what they told them to do. They forced people to vote, then change clothes and go back to the polls to vote again and again. That would explain why Poe was found in horrible clothes that could not possibly have been his. The most likely cause of his death was brain damage from being beaten by the thugs.
(Excerpt) Read more at drmirkin.com ...
OMG - Gabe is still alive ? He’s got to be 90 something by now ...
Tough life...Seems like death surrounded his life and reflected his writing.
Vote-repeaters in Baltimore. The doc isn’t joking.
And yet, the fellow was famous for his stories and poetry... how did they ever think they would get away with pressing Edgar Allen Poe into that service?
An odd, sad mind too.
Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied,—
‘If you seek for Eldorado!
I love this poem.
Since we're on Poe, I happen to enjoy Alan Parsons Project Raven. Seems fitting - sad, mysterious, haunting interpretation.
Weird. Just weird.
Dr. Mirkin is only about 80 or so. He’s a fitness fanatic & has been riding a bicycle since he wore out his knees running. He lives in Florida.
The basic message is to dedicate yourself to a lofty dream/goal. I like the rhythm of the words and the persistence of thought.
So interesting! I grew up loving and reciting The Raven. Learned from my father. I LOVE Poe and named my first beautiful but crazy white odd-eyed cat Moskoestrom after the short story Descent into the Maelstrom. Thanks for the post. A nice reminder to revisit Poe. I’ve read so many of his poems and stories. Wonderful interesting mind.
Poe is great ... Kipling is the best.
Poe certainly was competent in the horror and weirdness genre. His poems and prose are standards in high school literature. “For the love of God, Montresor” (The Cask of Amontillado). The love of God was possibly only an abstract, distant thing to Poe during his known life. Did the tragedy of his final days finally bring Poe kneeling in a plea for mercy to God’s throne before he passed away? That’s something only God, and Poe, knows. Sometimes God works a save by allowing a person their fill of hell on earth.
Well, that’s what it’s adapted from. But I don’t think I want to go to shades for advice.
Agreed.
Oh, you can put any old thing into a poem and that makes it great?
I have always loved his phrase “pallid bust of pallas.”
The problem is the dimensions into which the persistence is pushed. That’s in the poem too. A strange, weird, ethics-free territory, to get that Eldorado (golden stuff). On a par with the load of compromisin’ to the way to the rhinestone cowboy’s horizon.
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