The name of the publisher is Inevitable Doom Press, of which no record exists in any country on the face of the earth, although there was an Inevitable Doom Soup Company operating out of Cleveland in the 1950s and ’60s. Inevitable Doom Soup was a thriving business with ninety-six varieties of soup, consommé, and chili con carne. In 1968, several cans of their Crunchy Bean Chili with Goat Meat, contaminated by botulism, left nineteen customers indisputably dead and resulted in the bankruptcy of the firm following successful legal actions brought by families of the victims. More than a few in the media and in the hotly competitive soup industry noted a certain irony in the company’s name, in light of the Crunchy Bean tragedy. Fate is funny. Personally, I would feel uncomfortable eating any product produced by an enterprise calling itself the Inevitable Doom Soup Company, though I will admit to being a finicky eater. Not that I am entirely lacking in culinary adventurousness; I would, for instance, have no problem eating any product whatsoever produced by an entity calling itself the Possible Doom Soup Company.
Where was I?
Oh, yes: I was telling you what little is known about the mysterious publisher of The Book of Counted Sorrows. Inevitable Doom Press never produced another book (or any soups, for that matter), never paid taxes, never sued or was itself sued in a court of law. The publisher’s colophon, which appears at the bottom of the title page and at the top of the copyright page, is an image of a startled hedgehog.
The book is copyright 1928 by one “Leonardo DiCaprio,” but this certainly cannot be the acclaimed star of James Cameron’s Titanic, because that Leonardo DiCaprio had not been born in 1928, but also because the actor does not make a practice of bracketing his name with quotation marks as does the “Leonardo Di Caprio” who holds the copyright on Counted Sorrows. Since this mysterious volume first came into my possession, in 1980, I have hired a series of private detectives in a thus far vain attempt to learn just one telling fact about “Leonardo DiCaprio,” and in pursuit of this enigmatic figure I have spent a sum of money that, were I to cite it here, would make you vomit. Considering my abject failure to sweep up even a single crumb of knowledge about “Leonardo DiCaprio,” the book might as well have been copyright by ” “.
I have been able, however, to ascertain the name of the first person ever to own The Book of Counted Sorrows. His name will be known to those of you who are film buffs and/or knowledgeable about the history of performing capuchin monkeys.
Before continuing, I would like to pause to brush my teeth. While composing this introduction, I have been eating string cheese, and now my teeth feel furry. I dearly love string cheese, but this fuzzy plaque is the regrettable and unavoidable consequence of indulging in the stuff. Annoying, yes, but better than botulism.
Until I return, you may wish to stretch your legs or have a beverage.
3
The Hideous Fate of Langford Crispin.
I wish someone would produce a pleasant-tasting toothpaste with something other than a mint-based flavor. The insistent, not to say relentless, not to say psychotic use of one mint or another in all available products in this category has made toothpaste a cliché in a tube. I’m convinced a huge market exists for cinnamon- or lemon-flavored toothpaste, not to mention chocolate, and I for one would buy an entire case of veal-Parmesan toothpaste if I discovered it in the market. The same criticism could be leveled at mouthwashes and Christmas candy canes. A good lobster-flavored mouthwash or a salmon candy cane would go a long way toward improving the quality of modem American life and make our world seem less medieval. I forgot to floss.
Excuse me.
4
The Hideous Fate of Langford Crispin, Resumed.
I didn’t intend to take quite so long for a flossing break, but once the task was completed, I had to carry the used floss to the former carriage master’s cottage adjacent to the old carriage garages at the back of the estate, which is a considerable distance from the main house, especially as one cannot walk it in a straight line due to the 2,743 works of topiary that grace the back lawn.