From Lee Sallows:
Author: Greg Ross
Fare
The recipe for “Groper, Head and Shoulders Boiled” in Mrs. Beeton’s Everyday Cookery (1923) concludes with the warning “Great care should be taken of the immense gelatinous lips, as these are considered the best part.” In 1948 New Statesman challenged its readers to invent a recipe with a more disgusting last line. L.G. Udall obliged:
GRILLED GORILLA’S FOOT
One foot will suffice for each person.
First shave the upper part of the foot and wash in warm water. With a gimlet (for preference as the skin is very hard) bore a number of holes through the thick skin of the under part of the foot. Grease liberally with lard. Grill slowly for about twenty minutes with the under surface downwards. Then turn the foot over and continue to grill steadily. From time to time place a fork on the foot. When it is quite done it will be found that the toes will curl up firmly over the fork, so that it can be lifted up and put on a hot plate. Leave the fork in the toes and serve immediately.
The other winners are here.
Elevated Thoughts
The joists in the tower in which Montaigne wrote his Essays are inscribed with his favorite quotations from Greek and Latin authors, many of which appear in his writings: “It is not so much things that torment man, as the opinions he has of things.” “Every reasoning has its contrary.” “Wind swells bladders, opinion swells men.”
He wrote, “The room pleases me because it is somewhat difficult of access, and retired, as much on account of the utility of the exercise, as because I there avoid the crowd. Here is my seat, my place, my rest. I try to make it purely my own, and to free this single corner from conjugal, filial, and civil community.”
The numbers in the diagram below correspond to this table in the German Wikipedia. English translations are here.
In large Latin letters on the central rafter are the words “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I PAUSE. I EXAMINE.”
Foundation
An anamorphic portrait of Isaac Asimov, by Marcos Sachs.
More at Sachs’ YouTube channel.
Adages
Aphorisms from Norman Macdonald’s Maxims and Moral Reflections, 1827:
- By speaking contemptibly of our enemies, we disgrace our own hostility.
- We would be successful in most enterprises of life, were we to take that advice to ourselves which we give to others in similar circumstances.
- Severity of punishment deters minor crimes, but renders greater ones more certain and determined.
- Pride, like love, is sure to discover itself; because it can only derive value from the success with which it affects others.
- Were there no fools there would be no flatterers.
- The less we know of ourselves, the worse qualified we are to judge correctly of others.
- No end can be honorable that is dishonorably obtained.
- The better a man is known to himself, the more easily he is understood by others.
- There are two sorts of people that are never contented: they that do not know what they desire, and they that attempt impossibilities.
- The failure of many designs is owing to a confidence of success.
- A sure way, sometimes, to expose our virtue, is to endeavor to conceal it.
- A man is more deserving of success, that claims not adulation as his first conquest.
- We advise others better than ourselves.
- Most men have two principles, one practical, another professional.
- In cunning, our pride oftener dreads disappointment than our interest.
“Most men know how to take offence; but few know how to forgive — pride is always impatient; magnanimity, tolerant and pacific.”
Cover Letters
Is this typeface, by artist and calligrapher Dmitry Lamonov, uppercase or lowercase? It’s both!
He’s done the same thing in Cyrillic.
“A Credit to the GPO”
‘I send you a post card which was delivered safely the day after it was posted. I think the address reflects credit on both the ingenuity of the sender and the cleverness of the Post Office officials.’ — A Folkestone Correspondent
(From Strand, December 1903.) (Click to enlarge.)
UPDATE: A number of readers have asked for the solution. The Strand gives none, and perhaps had none, but a diligent postal worker who viewed the envelope edge-on would have discovered that the circle is composed of four overlapping sets of letters, offset from one another by 45 degrees and each so tall and narrow as to be otherwise unreadable. When they’re viewed at an angle, perspective condenses the letters into four phrases:
By my best reading, the address is C.H. BRUCE, ESQR, EARLS AVENUE, FOLKESTONE, ENGLAND.
“Locker Lotto”
A puzzle by Ying Zhou, Daniel Irving, and Walter Gall of Rhode Island College, from the February 2012 issue of Math Horizons:
A sports team is divided into “red” and “blue” groups of 10 players each. Each player puts his belongings into a bag of his team’s color and puts it into one of 20 lockers, choosing at random. All the players leave the room. Presently one of the red team returns and can’t remember which locker is his. He and the janitor make a bet: The player can keep opening lockers so long as each bag he discovers is red. If he finds his bag, the janitor will give him $7. If not, he’ll owe the janitor $1. Should the player take the bet?
Unquote
“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.” — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
First Things First
The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
— Confucius, The Great Learning, 500 B.C.E