antithalian
adj. opposed to fun
A Keystone Phantom
For decades, western Pennsylvanians have heard stories of an unlucky power company employee who was disfigured by a bolt of lightning. The ghost of Charlie No-Face haunted the local rail tunnels, it was said, where it would trap unsuspecting motorists.
Most don’t know that the legends have a basis in fact. Raymond Robinson was 8 years old in 1919 when he touched an electrical line on the Morado Bridge near Beaver Falls and lost his eyes, nose, ears, and one arm.
Robinson spent most of the next 60 years at home with his family, where he made belts, wallets, and doormats to sell for a modest income. He stayed indoors by day to avoid a public panic, but at night he would go for long walks along State Route 351, where surprised neighbors sometimes encountered him feeling his way with a walking stick.
By all accounts Robinson was well liked, though understandably shy, and he graciously accepted the cigarettes and beer that strangers offered him. It’s not clear whether he knew of the legend he’d inspired, but it’s survived him by two decades now — he died in 1985, at age 74.
R.I.P.
Grave inscription of a horse thief:
He found a rope and picked it up,
And with it walked away.
It happened that to other end
A horse was hitched, they say.
They took the rope and tied it up
Unto a hickory limb.
It happened that the other end
Was somehow hitched to him.
From Frederic William Unger, Epitaphs, 1904
Graduate Work
In 1947, the University of Chicago rejected Kurt Vonnegut’s master’s thesis, calling it “unprofessional.”
Twenty-four years later, in 1971, they granted the degree — accepting Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle as a thesis in anthropology.
Just So You Know
If you catch a sturgeon in the United Kingdom, it belongs to the queen.
It’s part of her royal prerogative — the sturgeon’s excellence makes it a “royal fish.”
The same goes for whales: The king gets the head and the queen the tail. Sorry.
See Other Cufflink
Full names of Portuguese monarchs, 1828-1910:
- 1828-1834: Miguel Maria do Patrocínio João Carlos Francisco de Assis Xavier de Paula Pedro de Alcântara António Rafael Gabriel Joaquim José Gonzaga Evaristo de Bragança
- 1834-1853: Maria da Glória Joana Carlota Leopoldina da Cruz Francisca Xavier de Paula Isidora Micaela Gabriela Rafaela Gonzaga de Áustria e Bragança
- 1853-1861: Pedro de Alcântara Maria Fernando Miguel Rafael Gonzaga Xavier João António Leopoldo Vítor Francisco de Assis Júlio Amélio de Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha e Bragança
- 1861-1889: Luís Filipe Maria Fernando Pedro de Alcântara António Miguel Rafael Gabriel Gonzaga Xavier Francisco de Assis João Augusto Júlio Valfando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha e Bragança
- 1889-1908: Carlos Fernando Luís Maria Victor Miguel Rafael Gabriel Gonzaga Xavier Francisco de Assis José Simão de Bragança
- 1908-1910: Manuel Maria Filipe Carlos Amélio Luís Miguel Rafael Gabriel Gonzaga Francisco de Assis Eugénio de Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha e Bragança
In 1910 the monarchy was abolished, perhaps because of a shortage of ink.
Unquote
“Quit. That’s what reporter Milt Sosin did today.”
— Resignation notice discovered on a Miami News bulletin board after an editor insisted that beat reporters use “short and punchy paragraphs”
What’s in a Name
The disciples of Descartes made a perfect anagram upon the Latinised name of their master, ‘Renatus Cartesius,’ one which not only takes up every letter, but which also expresses their opinion of that master’s speciality–‘Tu scis res naturae’ (Thou knowest the things of nature).
— William T. Dobson, Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities, 1882
Jackpot
A guaranteed way to win at roulette, from Eugene Northrop’s Riddles in Mathematics (1945):
- Bet $1 on red.
- If you win, go to step 6. If you lose, bet $2 on red.
- If you win, go to step 6. If you lose, bet $4 on red.
- If you win, go to step 6. If you lose, bet $8 on red.
- (And so on.)
- When you win, you’ll be $1 ahead. Go back to step 1.
“Theoretically, of course, it is possible for the bank to wipe you out financially. Actually, however, runs of more than 10 or 12 successive blacks or reds are extremely rare, and your stake at the twelfth play would be only $2048. When you do win you will, as before, be $1 ahead of the bank. You can then begin all over again. Simple, isn’t it?”
The Tomahawk Story
When Alec Guinness was filming The Swan in North Carolina in 1955, someone gave him a tomahawk purchased at a local fairground. Guinness thought it too heavy to take with him, so as he was departing he paid a porter to slip it into Grace Kelly’s bed.
Years later, while performing in London, he found the tomahawk in his own bed.
This meant war. Guinness bided his time until the princess visited America on a poetry tour, then he contacted the English actor with whom she was traveling and persuaded him to leave the tomahawk in her bed. (“Do you know Alec Guinness?” she asked him the next day. “No, I’ve never met him,” he said.)
Guinness thought no more about it until 1980, when he visited Hollywood to accept an honorary Oscar and found the tomahawk in his hotel bed. He waited until Kelly’s next tour of England and arranged to have it left in her suitcase.
She died in 1982, so that was the last laugh. There was no one to share it with — in 25 years, neither of them had ever acknowledged that this was happening.