orgiophant
n. one who presides over orgies
The Python
A python I should not advise,
It needs a doctor for its eyes,
And has the measles yearly.
However, if you feel inclined
To get one (to improve your mind,
And not from fashion merely),
Allow no music near its cage;
And when it flies into a rage
Chastise it most severely.
I had an Aunt in Yucatan
Who bought a Python from a man
And kept it for a pet.
She died because she never knew
These simple little rules and few;–
The snake is living yet.
— Hilaire Belloc
Spaghetti Trees
In 1957, as a joke, the BBC TV program Panorama reported a bumper harvest from the “spaghetti trees” of Ticino, Switzerland, thanks to a mild winter and the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.”
Britons at the time knew pasta mainly as canned spaghetti with tomato sauce; hundreds of viewers called to ask for advice about growing their own trees.
The BBC reportedly told them to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”
Awkward Moments
Songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel Broadcasting following the 9/11 attacks:
- The Animals – “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”
- Louis Armstrong – “What A Wonderful World”
- The Bangles – “Walk Like An Egyptian”
- Pat Benatar – “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”
- Filter – “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
- Fuel – “Bad Day”
- Gap Band – “You Dropped A Bomb On Me”
- Godsmack – “Bad Religion”
- Alanis Morissette – “Ironic”
- The Surfaris – “Wipeout”
- Tool – “Intolerance”
CCB also flagged Maureen McGovern’s “We May Never Love Like This Again” … because it was featured in the movie The Towering Inferno.
Jersey Devil
The Jersey Devil may be a figment, but it’s an admirably hard-working one. Since 1840 the creature has been haunting the southern Pine Barrens, killing livestock, leaving strange tracks, flying, barking, attacking trolleys, eating chickens, biting dogs, and generally expressing a vituperative disapproval of Garden State settlement.
Its appearance matches its disposition. This drawing was made for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in 1909, but eyewitnesses have also reported a ram’s head, a long neck, thin wings, short legs, thick black hair, a monkey’s arms and hands, a dog’s face, split hooves, a foot-long tail, and “the general appearance of a kangaroo.”
Laugh if you will, but don’t underestimate it: To date the Devil has been shot, electrocuted, and hosed by the West Collingswood fire department, but sightings have continued through 1991, when a pizza deliveryman encountered a white horselike creature in Edison. Watch your back.
Unquote
“I declare this thing open, whatever it is.” — Prince Philip, opening the Vancouver City Hall
Three Laws of Comedy
John Cleese’s “three laws of comedy”:
- No puns.
- No puns.
- No puns.
“I find it rather easy to portray a businessman,” he once said. “Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.”
Poe’s Death
What killed Edgar Allan Poe?
On Oct. 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and wearing clothes that were not his own. The man who found him said he was “in great distress, and … in need of immediate assistance.” He remained incoherent and died four days later. He was only 40.
An acquaintance said it was drunkenness, but he turned out to be a supporter of the temperance movement who distorted the facts. The attending physician wrote that “Edgar Allan Poe did not die under the effect of any intoxicant, nor was the smell of liquor upon his breath or person.”
Well, what, then? Other theories include a rare brain disease, diabetes, enzyme deficiency, syphilis, even rabies. Some people think Poe was accosted, drugged, and used as a pawn in a plot to stuff ballot boxes that day.
There’s no surviving death certificate, so we’ll never really know. Today Poe lies in the churchyard at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, where mystery follows him even in death: Every year since 1949, the grave has been visited by a mystery man in the early hours of the poet’s birthday, Jan. 19. Dressed in black and carrying a silver-tipped cane, the “Poe Toaster” kneels at the grave and makes a toast with Martel cognac. He leaves behind the half-empty bottle and three red roses.
Famous Atheists
Famous atheists:
- Ingmar Bergman
- Ambrose Bierce
- George Carlin
- Denis Diderot
- Sigmund Freud
- David Hume
- John Stuart Mill
- Bertrand Russell
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Percy Shelley
- B.F. Skinner
“One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it,” wrote Mark Twain. “They have also believed the world was flat.”
“Be All My Socks Remembered”
An excerpt from Fox in Socks, Prince of Denmark:
ACT 4, Scene 2
[Enter FOX and KNOX]
FOX: Try to say this my lord Knox, prithee –
Through three cheese trees, or not through three cheese trees,
That is the question –
whether ’tis nobler In the trees for three free fleas to fly,
Or to take a freezy breeze that blew
While these fleas flew and by blowing
Freeze these three trees. To breeze, to freeze –
No more; and by a breeze to blow
we freeze the trees and the thousand natural trees
That cheese is heir to – ’tis a cheese
Devoutly to be freezed.
To breeze, to freeze – To freeze, perchance to sneeze.
Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that freeze of cheese what sneezes may come,
When fleas flew off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
KNOX: Adieu my lord,
This is a speech of fire that fain would blaze
But that this folly doubts it.
[Exeunt]
From the Dr. Seuss Parody Page.