Futility Closet

"Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest." — Alexandre Dumas

Palindromes:

• Campus motto: Bottoms up, Mac!
• Do geese see God?
• Dennis sinned.
• Name now one man's sensuousness. Name now one man.
• Never odd or even.
• Plan no damn Madonna LP!
• Rotary gyrator
• Roy, am I mayor?
• Sex at noon taxes.
• Ten animals I slam in a net.
• Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
• Tarzan raised a Desi Arnaz rat.
• Norma is as selfless as I am, Ron.
• Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus.
• Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
• Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
• Rettebs, I flahd noces, eh? Ttu, but the second half is better. (Stephen Fry)
• Rats drown in WordStar.
• "Sit on a potato pan, Otis!"
• "Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod.
• A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.

And "Gnu dung, sides reversed, is gnu dung."

As a packrat, Edmund Trebus took the cake. He also took washing machines, rotting clothes, wood, motorcycles, windowpanes, and old refrigerators. Before the Polish émigré died in 2002, at age 83, he had filled his four-story London house with mountains of garbage collected at local junk shops and building sites. One room was full of vacuum cleaners, another with cameras. He collected Elvis Presley recordings maniacally.

In their garden, his wife used to sit in a deck chair among towers of crap. When she left in 1981, he filled in the hole. In the end Trebus was living in one corner of the kitchen, with only a Jack Russell terrier for company. He needed ladders to get in and out of the house, which had no running water, working bathroom or electricity.

In 1997, after being buried under one of his own "litter traps," designed to catch burglars, he was hospitalized for gangrene. When he got out, he found that the town council had finally got a court order declaring the house unfit for human habitation. Six men and five trucks took 30 days to remove 515 cubic yards of waste.

He'd filled it up again by 2001.

March 20, 1963

The Honorable Ed Foreman
House of Representatives
Congressional District #16
Washington 25, D.C.

Dear Sir:

My friend over in Terebone Parish received a $1,000 check from the government this year for not raising hogs. So I am going into the not-raising hogs business next year.

What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to raise hogs on and the best kind of hogs not to raise? I would prefer not to raise Razorbacks, but if that is not a good breed not to raise, I will just as gladly not raise any Berkshires or Durocs.

The hardest work in this business is going to be in keeping an inventory on how many hogs I haven't raised.

My friend is very joyful about the future of his business. He has been raising hogs for more than 20 years and the best he ever made was $400, until this year, when he got $1,000 for not raising hogs.

If I can get $1,000 for not raising 50 hogs, then I will get $2,000 for not raising 100 hogs. I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to 4,000 hogs which means that I will have $80,000 coming from the government.

Now, another thing: these hogs I will not raise will not eat 100,000 bushels of corn. So will you pay me anything for not raising 100,000 bushels of corn to feed the hogs I am not raising?

I want to get started as soon as possible as this seems to be a good time of year for not raising hogs.

One more thing, can I raise 10 or 12 hogs on the side while I am in the not-raising-hog business just enough to get a few sides of bacon to eat?

Very truly yours,

J.B. Lee, Jr.
Potential Hog Raiser

hadeharia
n. constant use of the word "hell"

Your lifetime odds of dying …

• on a streetcar: 1 in 1,230,975
• through burning or melting of nightwear: 1 in 738,585
• in a discharge of fireworks: 1 in 615,488
• in an earthquake: 1 in 131,890
• through contact with hornets, wasps, or bees: 1 in 85,882
• by lightning: 1 in 83,930
• due to a cave-in or falling earth: 1 in 65,945
• through contact with hot tap water: 1 in 64,788
• in a legal execution: 1 in 58,618
• by falling, jumping, or being pushed from a high place: 1 in 47,960
• while riding an animal: 1 in 31,836
• by drowning in the bathtub: 1 in 11,469
• in a fall involving a bed, a chair, or other furniture: 1 in 5,031

Chance of dying in an assault by firearm: 1 in 325. Of shooting yourself: 1 in 219.

32 variants of MUAMMAR KHADAFI, according to the Library of Congress:

Muammar Qaddafi, Mo'ammar Gadhafi, Muammar Kaddafi, Muammar Qadhafi, Moammar El Kadhafi, Muammar Gadafi, Mu'ammar al-Qadafi, Moamer El Kazzafi, Moamar al-Gaddafi, Mu'ammar Al Qathafi, Muammar Al Qathafi, Mo'ammar el-Gadhafi, Moamar El Kadhafi, Muammar al-Qadhafi, Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi, Mu'ammar Qadafi, Moamar Gaddafi, Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi, Muammar Khaddafi, Muammar al-Khaddafi, Mu'amar al-Kadafi, Muammar Ghaddafy, Muammar Ghadafi, Muammar Ghaddafi, Muamar Kaddafi, Muammar Quathafi, Muammar Gheddafi, Muamar Al-Kaddafi, Moammar Khadafy, Moammar Qudhafi, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, Mulazim Awwal Mu'ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi

STREETS FULL OF WATER. PLEASE ADVISE.

– Robert Benchley, telegram from Venice

What to write in a slacker's letter of reference:

• "You would be fortunate to get this person to work for you."
• "No one would be better for this position."
• "He doesn't care how many hours he must put in."
• "There is nothing you can teach him."
• "I refer him with no qualifications whatsoever."
• "Waste no time in making him an offer."

"All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly."

"A period novel! About the Civil War! Who needs the Civil War now — who cares?" — Pictorial Review editor Herbert R. Mayes, turning down a prepublication serialization of Gone With the Wind, 1936