Bigfoot! Honored During Banned Book Week
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 23rd, 2008
Shelley Cox, Rare Book Librarian (ret.) of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, informs me she will be reading from a book of mine at an upcoming event.
Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America.
Cox writes:
“Just a note to let you know that I will be reading from your banned and burned book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, at the southern Illinois celebration of Banned Book Week, on Oct 2, 2008, 7:00 PM, at the Longbranch Coffee House in Carbondale. This celebration has been going on for 4 years.
“I thought that it would be interesting for people to know that books are still burned because of their author’s thoughts, even though the burners are a bunch of publicity-hunting hoaxers….If the library is willing, I would donate a few of your more recent books to a collection they have of authors who have attended/graduated from SIU. It has not been kept up over the years but it did have a few of your earlier books in it when I left. The books in the open stacks disappeared years ago, unfortunately.”
Here is the visual of this summer’s book-burning incident, which occurred pre-Georgia Bigfoot hoax. (Warning, the language is harsh, childish, profane, and reflective of M. Whitton’s and R. Dyer’s own homophobic issues.)
I appreciate Shelley Cox’s notable honor for Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America during Banned Book Week.
Cox is also to be thanked for being a patron of the “Save the Museum” movement.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Wow, that book burned up almost as fast as their reputations. Idiots like those two give all of us Southerners a bad name. Please believe me when I say, we’re NOT all a bunch of stereotypical toothless, inbred, rednecks. Most of us READ books. Not burn them. Being a native of south Louisiana (Honey Island swamp monster country), I’m truly ashamed of these morons.
What complete and total idiots! And why aren’t these guys in jail or at least a courtroom by now?
Sorry I goofed on the time of the gathering–it’s 5:30 on Thursday, Oct. 2, at the Longbranch Coffee House, 100 E. Jackson St., Carbondale. I hope to bolster Loren’s reputation at his alma mater, defend our right to read, and maybe turn a few new readers onto Loren’s books and even the museum.
I’ve been attending these forums every year–I was a founding member in 2004–and this is the first time anyone presented a book that was publicly burned in the same calendar year. A new high and new low for the First Amendment!