There’s a ton about Jones’ body (incidentally, this is the story I’ve gotten the most “I knew this story, but I like how you told it” sorts of emails about). For some reason, I was particularly charmed by a webpage straight out of Portsmouth, NH (R.I.P Yoken’s). They’ve got pictures of the preserved, dead Jones there too.

I love this story. I think my version’s pretty good, but the I love the story of John R. Brinkley. So much good stuff had to be left out to keep this podcast tight. There was a big biography that came out a few years ago called Charlatan that is very comprehensive. But I’d like to give a special shout out to a book called “Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves.” Hell, I’ll even give it an Amazon link. Because it is good (and tells all about Brinkley and the other people who followed his lead and broadcast from Mexico) and because one of its co-authors, a guy named Bill Crawford, gave me one of the best days I had in the last several years when he and a friend/colleague drove me down from Austin, past Brinkley’s Mansion in Del Rio, and down across the border to Acuna (where I interviewed the blind, current manager of a station that descended from Brinkley’s). Then back later that day through the high desert where we came up around this bend and I looked out and saw herds of animals grazing at sunset and learned that they were all Indian and African gazelles and Ibix and whatnot brought in to be hunted–turns out only native Texas animals are included in seasonal hunting laws. After which, I no longer mess with Texas.

There is obviously tons and tons written about Poe and his death. The single most useful thing I found, however, was this sort of literature survey put out by an outfit called the Edgar Allan Poe Historical Society. m.