Here’s the nineteenth installment of LiteratEye, a series found only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly
LiteratEye #19: Had It With Airport Hassles? Grab a Rug and Go!
By W.J. Elvin III
June 26, 2009
Last week we looked into imaginary destinations so it seems reasonable to follow up with a look at imaginary transportation – from the perspective of literary hoaxes, of course.
This “hoax,” as it is now known, comes from Australia, though you will now find it scattered around the world-wide web as genuine. It claims to report new findings regarding flying carpets, also known as magic carpets.
Australia sometimes seems a hotbed for literary mischief. It’s probably no hotter than any other bed, just a society engaged in a struggle for cultural identity that makes for a climate more sensitive to fakery. Here in America such things are a bit of yawn. We’ve had fifty years or so of journalists educating us to the fact that our culture is a gob of scandal and artifice, so that today, who cares?
But back to Australia, thinking back to the spinning globe on a brass or wooden holder that decorated the high school geography classroom, maybe it has to do with how Australians walk around upside down. You don’t see as much literary foolery coming out of, say, Canada, where people are more straight-up. Continue reading “LiteratEye #19: Had It With Airport Hassles? Grab a Rug and Go!”