In All Candor
November 30, 2010
On my other, more static website, Gridleyville.com, I’ve long concluded the introduction with a joke:
“It should be obvious by now that this website has nothing to do with the hamlet of Gridleyville, situated near Candor, New York. Sam Gridley greatly admires the name of that town but, in all candor, has never been there.”
The pun always makes me laugh rather than groan, which is all anyone needs to know about my sense of humor. As my wife often grumbles, no one else finds it funny.
But, come to discover, the jest has a deeper layer of meaning. It seems that about 1919 the eminent writer and philosopher Kenneth Burke rented a summer cottage in Candor for $5, from a man named Sam Gridley.
Although the price matches my idea of good commerce, that wasn’t I. Nor was it an ancestor of mine, I don’t think. We’ve never had real estate moguls in the family.
But wait, there’s more: In 2007 the U.S. Navy commissioned a ship named the USS Gridley, and it belongs to the Burke class of destroyers.
This is enough for a conspiracy theory.
But the truth remains: I still haven’t set foot in the real Gridleyville. Perhaps I will, though, to see whether the Burkean aura suffuses visitors with a deeper understanding of human nature—and of weird coincidence.
The News from Gridleyville 
December 12, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Meant to thank you for the post ages ago. What a wealth of memories Kenneth Burke brings back of my college years and the many literary influences that I was lucky enough to be introduced to: William Carlos Williams, Malcolm Cowley, etc.. I’ve never heard of Kenneth Burke before and now will be on the lookout to learn more about him. One of his admirers, Stanley Cavell wrote “Pursuits of Happiness”, which is a book than no lover of American movie romantic comedies could life without.
In a strange way that I can’t fully explain, it seems perfectly natural that you and Gridleyville and
the other Sam Gridley and Burke should all be connected in some existential way, or even some extra-existential way. It also think that you are a natural heir to all those literary traditions.
You do have to go to Gridleyville and check out the aura. I live in Washington State now, and we can have our auras photograped at the mall. I’m trying to adjust. And weird coincidences, yes, I’m too old not to think that sometimes there’s more there than meets the eye.
Hope everyone in Gridleyville has a Happy Holiday!
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