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More. - 2005-02-15 19:19:38
"In his first almanac, published in 1732, Franklin created a fictitious "author" named Richard Saunders. The advertisement published in the Pennsylvania Gazette stated that Poor Richard's Almanac would announce "the predicted death of his friend Titan Leeds." Franklin/Saunders narrowed it down not just to the date, but to the exact second when three planets aligned ("October 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 m., P.M., at the very instant of...")
"This enraged Leeds, who didn't take kindly to a prediction of his own death by someone who wasn't his friend. In next year's Poor Richard's Almanac, a bestseller because of this mini-scandal, Franklin/Saunders wrote that he had been "treated in a very gross and unhandsome manner" by Titan Leeds. "Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any man so indecently and so scurrilously," he wrote, "and moreover, his esteem and affection for me was extraordinary." Franklin wouldn't let it go, writing in the 1735 edition of his almanac, "I say, having received much abuse from the ghost of Titan Leeds, who pretends to still be living...I cannot help but say, that tho' I take it patiently, I take it very unkindly." He continued, arguing that because the real Leeds would never have treated him so poorly, this proved that in fact he was dead. "And whatever he may pretend, 'tis undoubtedly true that he is really defunct and dead."
"When Leeds finally did die in 1738, Franklin wouldn't throw in the towel. He printed a letter from Leed's ghost admitting that "I did actually die at that moment, precisely at the hour you mentioned, with a variation of 5 minutes, 53 seconds." He then had Leed's ghost issue one more prediction: John Jerman--another one of his competitors in the almanac market who had also hired Franklin as a printer--would convert to Catholicism. This was an outrageous claim, especially in a time of anti-papist prejudice. After four years of Franklin needling him in print, Jerman took his business to another printer."
"Until his final breath, Franklin engaged in similar pranks. His last published piece was under an assumed persona, of which he had at least one hundred throughout his life. Under the pseudonym "Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim," he wrote letters to newspapers with an ironic, over-the-top zeal favoring slavery, letters meant to shame American slave owners. Ben Franklin: American Hero? American Weirdo?"
--Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, by Kembrew McLeod.* * * * * * * * * * * *
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