According to John McPhee’s 1993 essay “Irons in the Fire,” the Austin, Nevada, ranching family Saralegui used to identify its cattle with the brand COW.
Trivia
Roman Surprise
What’s the largest number that can be expressed in Roman numerals? If no single letter can appear more than three times in a row, then the highest we can go is 3,999, or MMMCMXCIX.
These 3,999 values contain in total 30,000 characters, and, pleasingly, reader Ian Duff finds that 5,600 are Is, 2,000 are Vs, 6,000 are Xs, 2,000 are Ls, 6,000 are Cs, 2,000 are Ds, and 6,400 are Ms.
(Thanks, Ian.)
Inspiration
The creature from the Black Lagoon has the best possible pedigree. As director Jack Arnold was planning the iconic monster’s 1954 debut, his eye fell on his Academy Award nomination certificate for With These Hands, a documentary he’d worked on three years earlier.
“I said, ‘If we put a gilled head on [the Oscar statuette], plus fins and scales, that would look pretty much like the kind of creature we’re trying to get,'” he told Cinefantastique in 1975. “So they made a mold out of rubber, and gradually the costume took shape.”
Former Disney animator Milicent Patrick and makeup artist Bud Westmore collaborated on the creature. “They gave him some human characteristics, which helped to make him sympathetic,” Arnold said. Today the film is regarded as a classic of monster horror — but it didn’t earn an Oscar.
Shapes of Things
In 2016, University of Buenos Aires computer science student Gonzalo Ciruelos worked out that the roundest country in the world is Sierra Leone, with a roundness index of 0.934 on a scale of 0 to 1.
He’d been inspired by David Barry, who’d found that the world’s most rectangular country is Egypt (0.955 on the same scale).
Metropolitan France is known as the Hexagon. I suppose each country has its claim to fame.
(Gonzalo Ciruelos, “What Is the Roundest Country?”, Math Horizons 26:3 [February 2019], 26-27.)
Tops
At the time of its completion under Hadrian, the Pantheon in Rome had the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome.
It still does. It’s held that record for nearly 2,000 years.
Words and Numbers
fIVe + sIX + seVen
5 + 6 + 7 = 18
IV + IX + V = 18
These are the only three consecutive numbers whose sum equals that of the Roman numerals embedded in their names.
Misc
- Émile Zola described a work of art as “a corner of nature seen through a temperament.”
- Early printings of Webster’s New International Dictionary defined RAFTMAN as “a raftman.”
- Horace’s motto was Nihil admirari, “Be surprised at nothing.”
- In the 1960s the Bureau of Land Management renamed Whorehouse Meadow, Oregon, to Naughty Girl Meadow on its maps. In 1981, after a public outcry, it changed it back.
- “Never read a pop-up book about giraffes.” — Sean Lock
Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, cooperated as Humphrey Carpenter prepared his biography, believing that the book wouldn’t be published until after his passing. Eventually he was forced to write,
My dear Humphrey
I have done my best to die before this book is published. It now seems possible that I may not succeed. Since you know that I am not enthusiastic about it you are generous to give me space for a postscript.
Same Thing
In 1998, as aerospace engineer Homer Hickam’s memoir Rocket Boys was being adapted for the screen, Universal Studios’ research warned that women over 30 would not see a movie with that title.
So the name was changed to October Sky — the same 10 letters in a different order.
Misc
- Lady Godiva’s horse was named Aethenoth.
- UGHA in BROUGHAM is silent.
- 7 × 58 × 73 × 28 = 7587328
- APHELIOTROPISMS is an anagram of OMPHALOTRIPSIES.
- “The French for London is Paris.” — Ionesco
“No general proposition is worth a damn.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (a general proposition)
Kennedy’s Waffles
For no reason, here’s a recipe for waffles that John Kennedy ate in the White House, “his breakfast treat for special occasions”:
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 egg yolks
1 cup and 1 tablespoon sifted cake flour
7/8 cup milk or 1 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
4 teaspoons baking powderCream the sugar and butter. Add the egg yolks and beat. Then add the flour and milk alternately. This mixture may be kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it. When you are ready to bake it, fold in the egg whites, and add the baking powder and salt. Bake on a waffle iron. Serves 3.
“President Kennedy liked melted butter and maple syrup on his waffles.”
From White House chef François Rysavy’s 1972 collection A Treasury of White House Cooking.