The use of bullshit in mortar was very prevalent

> in the 19 cent; It gave color n /USA documentation;

> Most writers and authors including Audabon,Poe, Washington Irving, 
> Cooper, all found publishers either in France or in Great Britain
> .. because besides American broadsheets 

There actually is an element of the manner in which historically 
Americans have related to books... and combine that with the move west. 
McMurty in Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, despite everything else 
going on that we don't need in his longish essay (besides the fact that 
most of our popular concepts of the wild west is a mythical history made 
up), points out that in the 19th century a good deal of the Americas as 
we know of them these days were essentially dismally illiterate. Some of 
that pioneer population did speak German, or French, or Spanish. It has 
something with why McMurty is trying to build the largest used bookstore 
in Texas in the world... a rival to the Strand. And there is the whole 
issue of the historical movement of the book business from trash, 
libelous slander, misinformation and popular bodice ripper crap, 
copyright infringement similar to what we hear about w/ China and DVD's 
etc. to what we now consider legitimate technical publications. When we 
look back on the history of books, and literature we see what is the 
better of what is left over. We do not see all of the garbage that is 
left further behind. All due respect to Sharpshooter who at least has 
the uuber-kool to read diaries. When I first encountered the access of 
the Library of Congress I dove into 19th century local Upstate NY 
literature (women's movement and all) and was amazed at how much poetry 
had come from my homeland. I was inspired to suggest to a poet/publisher 
back home a retrospective collection of regional literature... his 
comment, "It was garbage poetry then it is garbage poetry now." I do not 
quite agree with that, then again I pay as much attention to the demise 
of Anna Nichole Smith as I do the mortar wars, but that was the gist of 
it. Americans have for quite some time taken their bearings from Europe 
and very strongly so up until WW2 when we began just a bit to catch onto 
our own culture.

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