Rimshot

An Englishman and an Irishman signed on a vessel to work their passage to the United States. The captain insisted the Irishman produce references but did not ask the Englishman for any. This infuriated the Irishman. One day the two men were washing down the deck. The Englishman threw a bucket overboard to get more water and in the process fell overboard and was swallowed up by the sea. The Irishman went to the captain.

‘You remember,’ he said, ‘that you made me give references but not that Englishman.’

‘Yes,’ said the captain, ‘I remember all the fuss you made about it, too.’

‘Well,’ said the Irishman, ‘I just want you to know that the Englishman has now gone off with your pail.’

— Ralph Louis Woods, Modern Handbook of Humor, 1967

| Humor

Writers’ Fancies

“If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation.” — Samuel Johnson

“I suppose that even the most pleasurable of imaginable occupations, that of batting baseballs through the windows of the RCA Building, would pall a little as the days ran on.” — James Thurber

Isaac Asimov, a claustrophile, used to envy the keepers of New York subway newsstands, “for I imagined they could board it up whenever they wanted to, put the light on, lie on a cot at the bottom, and read magazines. I used to fantasize doing so, with the warm rumble of the subway trains intermittently passing.”

| Literature

So It Goes

A whimsical traveler on one of the main trails in the State of Georgia painted, on a large rock, the words, ‘Turn Me Over.’ Other travelers heaved and struggled to turn the rock over. On the underside of it they found painted, ‘Now Turn Me Back That I May Fool Another.’

— H. Allen Smith, The Compleat Practical Joker, 1953

| Humor

King for a Day

In 1913, German acrobat Otto Witte was traveling through the Balkans when Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. A fellow circus performer noted Witte’s resemblance to Prince Halim Eddine, whom a local faction were entreating to head the new state.

Witte maintained that he forged a couple of telegrams, arrived in the fledgling nation posing as Eddine, took control of the military, and was proclaimed king. For five days he disported with harem girls, ordered amnesty for prisoners, and distributed gold among the local chieftains. When inquiries began to arrive from Constantinople, he slipped out of town “to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”

Skeptics note that this story is uncomfortably close to The Prisoner of Zenda, whose first film adaptation had appeared in that year. But Witte insisted the story was true, pointing to his official identity card, issued by the Berlin police, which listed his occupation as “circus entertainer” and “onetime king of Albania.” He seems to have convinced at least himself of the tale — when Witte died in 1958, Time noted that he would accept only mail that was addressed to “Otto I, ex-King of Albania.”

| Hoaxes

Sole Flambe

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=yNl0AAAAEBAJ&dq=3557481

In 1971, Fred E. Stuart patented a “firearm mounted in a shoe heel.” He envisions military personnel and police using it when “regular weapons have been lost or become jammed.”

The shoes can fire regular bullets, frangible projectiles, or even tear gas, and can be fitted with multiple barrels that fire independently.

Combine this with a reversible sole and you have the makings of a perfect murder — a concealed weapon that confuses the crime scene.

| Technology

“Mathematical Genius”

The Cincinnati Gazette says that ‘William Marcy, a colored boy from Kentucky, who was in that city lately, can add up columns of figures of any length, divide any given sum, multiply millions by thousands within five minutes from the time the figures are given to him, and with such exactness as to render it truly wonderful. Recently, in the presence of a party of gentlemen, he added a column of figures, eight in a line, and one hundred and eighty lines, making the sum total of several millions, within six minutes. The feat was so astounding, and apparently incredible, that several of the party took off their coats, and, dividing the sum, went to work, and in two hours after they commenced produced identically the same answers. The boy is not quite seventeen years of age; he cannot read nor write, and in every other branch of an English education is entirely deficient.’

— The National Magazine, December 1853

| Oddities

Every Little Thing

hoover doodle

Herbert Hoover drew this doodle while being interviewed. When he tossed it in a White House wastebasket, a guest retrieved it and asked him to sign it. The guest then sold it to collector Thomas Madigan … who resold it for a substantial sum.

Thereupon the doodle was published in newspapers across the country, often with expert interpretations. “Generally this man is highly efficient, a man who figures things out and who is at his best tackling difficult tasks,” opined one for the Chicago Tribune. Another objected: “It is the normal thing for a man to do — to occupy himself scribbling with a pencil when talking over the telephone or listening to someone. It would be significant if the president did not do this.”

Before it was over, the doodle had been converted into a fabric pattern for children’s rompers, which even Hoover’s granddaughter was said to have worn. If the president had an opinion about all this, he kept it to himself.

| History

A Well-Tempered Cartwheel

http://books.google.com/books?id=TbUvAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&vq=circular+canon#v=onepage&q=circular%20canon&f=false

From Strand, August 1906:

A circular canon is so named not because of its circular form, but because it completes the circle of fifths–i.e., it goes through all the keys, each a perfect fifth above the other, until it returns to the original key. The one under notice is written in triple counterpoint, any part sounding equally well in the top, middle, or lowest voice, and each bar is in three different keys at once, all harmonizing.

This rendering is a bit indistinct, I’m afraid — if I can find a clearer version I’ll post it.

| Art · Oddities

“Truly Eerie Wordplay”

In the November 2010 Word Ways, Mike Keith notes a striking coincidence:

Bible’s Machine and Welding
6499 Blue Springs Pkwy
Mosheim, TN 37818

That’s the address of a machine shop in eastern Tennessee, presumably owned by a family named Bible. Enter the zip code in a calculator and turn it upside down.

| Language