[QUOTE=And like Santa Claus, and Father Time, and Honest Politicians, Cecil Adams shall always be with us![/QUOTE]
Honest politicians???
Oh, that didn’t post right, but you get the picture.
JeffB - Esther Pauline Lederer was not the original Ann Landers either.
Therefore, the fact that registrations don’t define the count is irrelevant.
The discussion of who was the first Cecil is around here somewhere, but I’m not sure what you’d search on. I believe he became a teacher in Florida, then retired, but it’s been a few years since I’d heard that.
So you mean like Higgins and Robin Masters?
Elenia28 , your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Elenia28 , whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Elenia28 , there is a Cecil. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Cecil. It would be as dreary as if there were no Elenia28 There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Cecil?You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Cecil, but even if you did not see Cecil coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Cecil, but that is no sign that there is no Cecil. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Elenia28 in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
NoCecil? Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Elenia28 , nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
WITH APOLOGIES TO FRANCIS P. CHURCH.
Certainly, there is some person or persons who writes the weekly columns. And as a member of the Staff, I can definitively say that the aforementioned columns are not written collaboratively by the Staff Members (we get occasional input, but it’s always acknowledged). So the author of the columns is singular. We may then define the author of the columns, whomever that may be, and regardless of that person’s legal name, as Cecil Adams. So, yes, Cecil Adams exists.
Who was?
First time I’ve heard that one. Been around a few years.
If you ever remember who was the first “Dread Curmudgeon Cecil” I’m sure the world would be grateful.
Me, I’d just be glad to remember where I set my coffee cup down most mornings.
I work extensively with Ed Zotti. He protects us Staff from direct contact with Cecil, who is … well, let me be kind and say, he’s not very adept socially. Thus, generally speaking, Staff and SDSAB deal only with Ed.
I can state flatly, there is a real Cecil Adams. This is from a reputable source who was there at the beginning and who Knows.
I can also state that the fact that a name is trademarked is not relevant to one’s physical (as opposed to literary) existence. (Descartes did not conclude: “I am trademarked, therefore I do not exist.”)
Otherwise, Cecil very much enjoys the speculation and commentary about himself. He especially enjoys people who think he’s Ed Zotti. Ed is his editor. The fourth editor, although the longest-serving. So, kind of like confusing the head of PR at the White House with the President, and it cracks him up.
Thus, Staff are forbidden to speak of it.
Are you prepared to state flatly that Ed Zotti and Cecil Adams are two different people? (I know you implied it, but it would be an interesting development if someone of your high position stated it.)
Ann Landers.
My point was that the registration doesn’t provide any evidence as to whether there is one “Cecil Adams” or multiple.
Clique, what clique?
Staff are strongly warned against speaking on this topic, because Cecil doesn’t want us to ruin the long-standing joke. Therefore, because I want to continue as a Moderator and SDSAB member, I am estopped from stating such a thing flatly.
I can state (flatly) publicly-known history. Way back in the long ago, Mike Lenehan (currently executive editor of the READER) knew Cecil Adams (the term “as a friend” isn’t quite applicable, given how anti-social Cecil was and is.) Mike was responsible for getting the column started, and the column has been published continuously ever since.
There have been several editors of the column, I think four, but my memory ain’t what it was. I have met three of them, and they are all distinct people. One of them, I knew in college personally way before he became Cecil’s editor.
Ed Zotti is the most recent editor, and has put up with Cecil for around 20 years. I know Ed personally, I admire him greatly, but he makes way too many mistakes (self-admitted, as well as witnessed by me) for anyone sensible to think that he is the world’s smartest human being.
Yes, but a thought occurs to me which i didn’t have until the drive home.
My question was moved from GQ, which is for questions with factual answers, and is now in ATMB.
So I conclude that we’re not ever meant to know for sure.
Hey, if I can deny the existence of Aliens 3, I can believe in the existence of a Cecil.
Why waste your breath denying the existence of Aliens 3, when there is the much more pressing matter of denying the existence of Aliens 4?
I liked Aliens 4.
I need some kind of combination of Cafe Society and the Pit to reply to this. So I won’t.
I’ve never found this argument very convincing. Cecil may claim to be the “world’s smartest human being,” but he does very little that requires large amounts of intelligence. His work mainly requires that he be a good writer and a good researcher. Ed had written enough for us to know that he is, in fact, a good writer, and because he’s openly Cecil’s editor and fact-checker, he must also be a good researcher. Ergo, he has what it takes to do what Cecil does.
As for mistakes, Cecil’s made his share of mistakes too. Anyone remember the crocodile tears fiasco? How about the QWERTY article, which reported an unsubstantiated legend as fact? And what about the 5 ways to reach 1st base article, in which he misread some baseball rules, and only corrected it 24 years later.
I trust I’ve made my point. There’s nothing special about Ed or Cecil that prevents them from being the same person.
Okay, where’s the line for guys with a crush on Elenia28?
Sorry, I don’t buy it. Nobody was implying that before you, so the only reason you had to state it was because you erroneously thought that it had led me astray. As you unsubtly emphasize with “Appropriate username.” Point of fact, my username is obviously ironic, as I never say anything that’s not true. I may not be as smart as Cecil, but I am as reliable. As noted by C.K., I was not astray, there were indeed multiple editors.
As to Ann Landers, there were more than two of those as well. When the first Ann Landers died her managing editor also carried on while searching for a replacement.
"The original Ann Landers was a nurse whose column ran in the Chicago Sun-Times and was syndicated in about two dozen newspapers. When she died unexpectedly, Eppie applied for the job, along with about thirty other aspiring advice columnists. They were all asked to answer an identical set of hypothetical letters from readers.
"The first set out the dilemma of a woman whose walnut tree was dropping nuts onto her neighbor’s property. They had exchanged words about it. Who owned the walnuts?
"Eppie had been an assiduous networker during her years as a Democratic Party official. She called up her friend Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and put the question to him. The answer was that the neighbor could do anything she wanted with the walnuts except sell them.
“The next question was from a worried Catholic who wanted to marry a Protestant. Eppie turned to her friend Father Theodore Hesburgh, the president of Notre Dame University.”
Hesburgh’s advice? The marriage could proceed, he pronounced, but only if the Protestant agreed to raise the children as Catholics.
When Marshall Field (the publisher of the Sun-Times) called Eppie to offer her the job, his first words were: “Good morning, Ann Landers.”
[Source: New Yorker, 1995-12-04]
In more ways than one.