Request for Question Clarification by
pinkfreud-ga
on
02 Apr 2004 23:04 PST
I have read the book "The Decline and Fall of Practically Everyone,"
by Will Cuppy, and while it's very enjoyable, it is almost certainly
not the book you want. No swamp creatures. It's an amusing re-telling
of tales from history.
However, Will Cuppy's "How to Become Extinct" could very well be your book.
"The words funny and environmental seldom see each other's company.
It's almost as though they're ashamed of each other. With that in
mind, we take note of that rare bird, the funny nature writer.
Sixty-five years ago, Will Cuppy published How to Tell Your Friends
From the Apes, the first book of his humorous trilogy on natural
history. In the second book of the series, How to Become Extinct, Mr.
Cuppy wrote, 'The dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been
invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct.' The success of the
third book in the trilogy, How to Attract the Wombat, earned him a
short-lived show on NBC radio. Will Cuppy was born in Indiana in 1884.
He lived much of his life as a hermit on the then undeveloped Jones
Beach of New York. He died in 1949, a suicide. Ironically, the
following year his most successful book was published, The Decline and
Fall of Practically Everybody. In it, Will Cuppy tells you all the
stuff that didn't get included in most history books, including the
fact that every time Hannibal used his elephants in battle, he lost."
http://www.loe.org/archives/961206.htm
"HOW TO BECOME EXTINCT
By Will Cuppy, 1941.
This book consists of several 3-4 page essays. In them, Cuppy provides
'mock-scientific observations'. Titles of essays include Are the
Insects Winning?, Do Fish Think, Really? and The Dodo.
EXCERPT: 'Supposing I asked you to explain the difference between the
Tortoise and the Turtle, what would you tell me? Oh, you, would, eh?'
1 (p. 78)."
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/crerar/exhibits/humor6.html
"How to Become Extinct" is a funny look at the evolution of living
creatures. Does this sound like the book you remember?
