Futility Closet

The space shuttle Challenger breaks up 73 seconds after liftoff, Jan. 28, 1986.

Some of the astronauts probably survived the breakup and may even have been conscious as their cabin tumbled toward the sea — three of their emergency air packs were later found activated.

On the Isle of Portland, in the English Channel, it’s considered bad luck to say the word rabbit.

So people use the term “underground mutton.”

Solution to No Tips Either Way — meals requested by entertainers and death-row inmates:

A. Neil Diamond (“Love on the Rocks”)
5. Chinese takeout, coffee

B. Nelly (“Hot in Herre”)
7. Baked salmon, french fries, fruit platter, salad, soda

C. Smokey Robinson (“Tears of a Clown”):
1. BBQ chicken wings, chips, fruit, ginger ale

D. B.B. King (“The Thrill Is Gone”)
8. Nothing

E. Cornelius Goss (beat a Dallas homeowner to death with a board):
2. 1 apple, 1 orange, 1 banana, coconut, peaches

F. Gerald Mitchell (shotgunned two customers during a Houston drug deal)
6. 1 bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers

G. James Collier (shot two Wichita Falls residents while stalking his daughter)
9. Thirty jumbo shrimp, cocktail sauce, baked potato, French fries, ketchup, butter, one T-bone steak, one chocolate malt, one gallon of vanilla ice cream, and three cans of Big Red

H. James Powell (raped and murdered a 10-year-old in Beaumont)
3. One pot of coffee

I. Paul Nuncio (strangled a 61-year-old in Plainview)
4. Enchiladas, burritos, chocolate ice cream, cantaloupe (whole, split in half)

The fishermen of Laguna in southern Brazil have a unique arrangement with local bottlenose dolphins. A pod of dolphins will drive fish toward the beach, where fishermen stand in the surf. When they see a dolphin roll over, the men throw out their nets, and the dolphins eat the escaping fish.

No one trained the dolphins to do this. It’s been going on since at least 1847.

Quisquis amat. veniat. Veneri volo frangere costas
fustibus et lumbos debilitare deae.
Si potest illa mihi tenerum pertundere pectus
quit ego non possim caput illae frangere fuste?

Whoever loves, go to hell. I want to break Venus’ ribs
with a club and deform her hips.
If she can break my tender heart
why can’t I hit her over the head?

– Ancient graffito, Pompeii, A.D. 79

Okay, you’re a chef. Which of these trays was requested for a singer’s dressing room, and which is the last meal of a Texas death-row inmate?

A. Neil Diamond (“Love on the Rocks”)
B. Nelly (“Hot in Herre”)
C. Smokey Robinson (“Tears of a Clown”)
D. B.B. King (“The Thrill Is Gone”)
E. Cornelius Goss (beat a Dallas homeowner to death with a board)
F. Gerald Mitchell (shotgunned two customers during a Houston drug deal)
G. James Collier (shot two Wichita Falls residents while stalking his daughter)
H. James Powell (raped and murdered a 10-year-old in Beaumont)
I. Paul Nuncio (strangled a 61-year-old in Plainview)

1. BBQ chicken wings, chips, fruit, ginger ale
2. 1 apple, 1 orange, 1 banana, coconut, peaches
3. One pot of coffee
4. Enchiladas, burritos, chocolate ice cream, cantaloupe (whole, split in half)
5. Chinese takeout, coffee
6. 1 bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers
7. Baked salmon, french fries, fruit platter, salad, soda
8. Nothing
9. Thirty jumbo shrimp, cocktail sauce, baked potato, French fries, ketchup, butter, one T-bone steak, one chocolate malt, one gallon of vanilla ice cream, and three cans of Big Red

(Answers)

Even mountains can have body doubles. New Zealand’s Mount Taranaki (left) has stood in for Japan’s Mount Fuji in several films … including The Last Samurai.

“A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.” — Samuel Johnson

If you’re going to make prophecies, it pays to be a little vague. The supporters of Ursula Southeil (1488-1561) claimed she’d correctly foreseen the automobile, the telegraph, air travel, and submarines. But one prediction failed to come true:

The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.

“Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason,” wrote Jonathan Swift, “their long beards, and pretenses to foretell events.”

The pied piper is not just a fairy tale. Something specific and terrible appears to have happened in the German town of Hamelin on June 26, 1284. What it was is uncertain, but it seems to have claimed the town’s children, perhaps in a mass drowning, burial, epidemic or exodus. An inscription from 1603 reads:

Anno 1284 am dage Johannis et Pauli
war der 26. junii
Dorch einen piper mit allerlei farve bekledet
gewesen CXXX kinder verledet binnen Hamelen gebo[re]n
to calvarie bi den koppen verloren

In the year of 1284, on John’s and Paul’s day
was the 26th of June
By a piper, dressed in all kinds of colors,
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced
and lost at the place of execution near the Koppen.

Rats weren’t added to the story until the late 16th century. The site of the children’s disappearance, on Coppenbrugge mountain, is now a site of pagan worship, and a law forbids singing and music in one street of Hamelin, out of respect for the victims … though we may never know what their fate was.