Whither Humming?

(Image found here.)

Stop the presses if you've read this story before:

In the late 18th century, or maybe it was the early 17th century, a seventeen-year-old whose name was sadly forgotten penned a treatise, also now lost, about humming, connecting it to both the Enlightenment & also the Disillusionment.  How do we know about this treatise, if it is, as I said, lost?  Because before it was lost, it was circulated & people talked about it, duh.

People also copied bits of the treatise into their own treatises, sometimes to argue against it, sometimes to use it as support for their theories.  So we know what this forgotten seventeen-year-old thought about humming: he thought it was better than almost anything.  Not only that, he thought it had spiritual & curative properties.  He thought people should hum to stay well, he thought that you could hum sickness away from the ailing, he thought that humming kept one young.

For years, this intriguing bit of writing, known as the Hum Manifesto, has been sought after by people who seek things like that.  & earlier this month, an intact copy was found in a warehouse in San Bernardino, in a crate of spoiled fish, in the back where the crate had been misplaced.  Initially thought to be an exceptional forgery, scholars have determined it may well be the original & shipped it to the Smithsonian for further study.

But, alas, Trump was doing weird things with postal rates & the manuscript never made it to the archives.  There are rumors it ended up at a bed & breakfast in Lawrence, Kansas, where it sits under a copy of Guns & Ammo, waiting for its moment.  Some say they saw it hitching a ride to Reno on Highway 50 somewhere between Ely & Eureka.  Others claim it defected to China, where it could hum with impunity, having never learned their language.  But wherever it is, & especially where it isn't, I think it would be proud to know it inspired this week's Self Help Radio, a show about humming.

The episode will be available Friday May 25 at noon (central) on the Self Help Radio website.  You will like it, especially if you don't know the words.