April Fool's Flim Flam

One of Herman Melville’s last novels, The Confidence Man, begins on April Fool’s Day. A con man sneaks onto a riverboat traveling down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Allegedly, Melville’s inspiration was William Thompson a true-life gonif for whom the term confidence man was coined.

Another fraudster whose antics became common parlance was George C. Parker. Throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th century, his livelihood came from “selling” New York City landmarks including the Brooklyn Bridge. From his peculations, we get the phrase, “Believe that, and I have a bridge to sell you.”

Cinema embraces the scoundrel: Newman and Redford in The Sting, Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel and his Oz counterpart, the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, W.C. Fields as Larson E. Whipsnade in You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man and, my personal favorite, The Flim-Flam Man.

In this 1967 film, George C. Scott plays Mordecai C. Jones, M.B.S., C.S. D.D – Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty Dealing. His portrayal embodies the larcenous soul , but soft-heart, of a confidence man. Alas, real life scammers can be less benevolent.

So tomorrow, if perchance an April Fool's practical joke comes your way remember the motto of Ken Kesey and his merry band - Never Trust a Prankster. As ever - BB

"The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it." Ken Kesey in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

On Dad & Dada

My father was a small town general practitioner. I remember him taking his black bag on house calls and leaving in the wee hours of the morning to deliver babies. Combined with rounds at the hospital, office hours, etc., Dad always felt he was giving his children a short shrift. To alleviate this, he would organize excursions to occupy his horde of hellions as he bonded with us.

One of my favorites was the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Dad let us wander the halls trying to keep his eye on us - more for the museum's welfare than our own. I think he felt any transgressor would go the way of the kidnappers in O Henry's The Ransom of Red Chief.

At first I spent my time in the Armory among halberds, claymores, scimitars and muskets. Eventually I began to roam through other exhibits. At age 11 or 12, I became fascinated by a bicycle wheel bolted to a white stool aptly titled Bicycle Wheel. A bored docent noticed me and asked why my interest. My response was something erudite like "I don't know. It looks cool." He proceeded to explain Dada and show me the work of Duchamp, Arp, Ernst and others.

Excitedly, I ran to my father, dragged him over and professed my love of Dada. "It's anti-art. It ridicules the meaninglessness of the modern world." As he shook his head, his face revealed a mixture of feelings. Pride in my newly acquired knowledge; relief in my attraction in something other than weaponry; dismay over my embrace of the absurd.

I would see that look many times in subsequent years as I expanded my interests. In art from the surreal to the abstract, in music from the psychedelic to free-form jazz, in literature from the Transcendentalists to the Beats. I delighted in anything different and bizarre.

Through it all Dad would relish in my boundless curiosity and take solace that I had a sister and three brothers whom he deemed more conventional. As ever - BB

"It is a wise father that knows his own child." - William Shakespeare