Futility Closet

Anonymous German picture puzzle, 19th century.

Draw your own conclusions.

Imagine two men. The first is standing in a garage. The second runs into the garage carrying a ladder.

Special relativity tells us that a moving object undergoes a length contraction relative to its observer. So the man in the garage sees the ladder shorten to fit in the garage.

But the man with the ladder sees the garage shorten relative to himself — so the ladder doesn't fit.

How is this possible?

Vincent Price and Christopher Lee have the same birthday — May 27.

Canada saw a sensation in 1836 — a woman named Maria Monk claimed to have been a nun in a Montreal convent where priests from the nearby seminary would enter through a secret tunnel, force sex on the terrified nuns, and dispose horribly of any resulting children:

[Father Larkin] first put oil upon the heads of the infants, as is the custom before baptism. When he had baptized the children, they were taken, one after another, by one of the old nuns, in the presence of us all. She pressed her hand upon the mouth and nose of the first so tight that it could not breathe, and in a few minutes, when the hand was removed, it was dead. She then took the other and treated it in the same way. No sound was heard, and both the children were corpses. The greatest indifference was shown by all present during this operation; for all, as I well knew, were long accustomed to such scenes. The little bodies were then taken into the cellar, thrown into the pit I have mentioned, and covered with a quantity of lime.

Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk became a bestseller, but an investigation showed that the whole thing had been a fake; Monk had apparently never even visited the convent. She fled to Philadelphia, wrote an unsuccessful sequel, had a child out of wedlock, and died in 1839.

4⁵ + 1⁵ + 5⁵ + 0⁵ = 4150

Dave Kunst walked around the world. In June 1970 the county surveyor set out from Waseca, Minn., with his brother John, $1,000, and a mule with the portentous name of Willie Makeit. The brothers walked to New York, flew to Portugal, and had got as far as Afghanistan when John was shot by bandits. Dave recovered from his own wounds and resumed the journey, flying from India to Australia when the Soviet Union denied him entrance. His third mule had died when a Perth schoolteacher agreed to haul his supplies with her car while he walked alongside. He finished the trip in October 1974, having walked 20 million steps and worn out 21 pairs of shoes.

He married the schoolteacher.

"He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating of oysters." — James I

A Country Farmer, riding to a merry Meeting on an easy Horse, drank very plentifully 'till Night came on, and his Senses fled. One of the Company resolved to pass a Joke upon him, by perswading the rest to mount him on his Horse, with his Face to the Tail, and turn the Horse loose, who knew very well the Way Home. So up they mounted him, and away went the Horse a Foot-pace, 'till the Farmer fell fast asleep. In an Hour's Time the Horse was at Home, and presently fell a neighing. His Wife came with a Candle in her Hand and, seeing her Husband in that Condition, began to take on bitterly, and waking him, told him the Greatness of his Sin, &c. Upon which he rubs his Eyes; and, looking about, cries out in a great Passion, Puh! hold your Tongue, Woman: Nothing vexes me so much, as that the plaguy Rogues should cut my Horse's Head off.

– The Jester's Magazine, April 1766

Musical directions in Erik Satie's piano works:

• "Wonder about yourself."
• "Provide yourself with shrewdness."
• "Alone, for one moment."
• "Open the head."
• "Superstitiously."
• "In a very particular way."
• "Light as an egg."
• "Like a nightingale with a toothache."
• "Moderately, I insist."
• "A little bit warm."
• "Very Turkish."

One direction — "Very lost" — might have been unnecessary.

In 1626, Dutch artist Roelandt Savery composed this historic portrait of a dodo, one of the few painted from a live specimen.

Unfortunately, he gave it two left feet.