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Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Such number as may be deemed to perform the stated task in a timely and efficient manner within the strictures of the following agreement:

Whereas the party of the first part, also known as “Lawyer,” and the party of the second part, also known as “Light Bulb,” do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed-upon duties, i.e., the illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties.

The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following steps:

1.) The party of the first part (Lawyer) shall, with or without elevation, at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder, or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and rotate the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a counterclockwise direction, said direction being non- negotiable. Said grasping and rotation of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be undertaken by the party of the first part (Lawyer) with every reasonable caution by the party of the first part (Lawyer) to maintain the structural integrity of the party of the second part (Light Bulb), notwithstanding the aforementioned failure of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) to perform the aforementioned customary and agreed-upon duties. The foregoing notwithstanding, however, both parties stipulate that structural failure of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) may be incidental to the aforementioned failure to perform, and in such case the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall be held blameless for such structural failure insofar as this agreement is concerned so long as the non-negotiable directional codicil (counterclockwise) is observed by the party of the first part (Lawyer) throughout.

2.) Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part (Light Bulb) becomes separated from the party of the third part (“Receptacle”), the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a manner consistent with all applicable state, local, and federal statutes.

3.) Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of beginning installation of the party of the fourth part (“New Light Bulb”). This installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in Step 1 of this document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, said direction also being non-negotiable.

NOTE: The above-described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part (Lawyer), by said party of the first part (Lawyer), by his heirs and assigns, or by any and all persons authorized by him to do so, the objective being to produce a level of illumination in the immediate vicinity of the aforementioned front (north) door consistent with maximization of commerce and revenue for the party of the fifth part, also known as “The Firm.”

| Humor

Population: One

The U.S. population is growing, but there seems to be plenty of room. These places are occupied by a single person:

  • New Amsterdam, Ind.
  • Hibberts, Maine
  • Lost Springs, Wyo.
  • Monowi, Neb.

The 2000 census says the population of Ervings, N.H., is now zero. “The only taxable property in Erving’s location are telephone poles.”

| Society · Trivia

Nonsense

Oh that my lungs could bleat like buttered peas;
But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch,
And are as mangy as the Irish seas
That offer wary windmills to the rich.
I grant that rainbows being lulled asleep,
Snort like a woodknife in a lady’s eyes;
Which makes her grieve to see a pudding creep,
For creeping puddings only please the wise.
Not that a hard-roed herring should presume
To swing a tithe-pig in a catskin purse;
For fear the hailstones which did fall at Rome,
By lessening of the fault should make it worse.
For ’tis most certain winter woolsacks grow
From geese to swans if men could keep them so,
Till that the sheep-shorn planets gave the hint
To pickle pancakes in Geneva print.
Some men there were that did suppose the skie
Was made of carbonadoed antidotes;
But my opinion is, a whale’s left eye,
Need not be coined all King Harry groats.
The reason’s plain, for Charon’s western barge
Running a tilt at the subjunctive mood,
Beckoned to Bednal Green, and gave him charge
To fasten padlocks with Antarctic food.
The end will be the millponds must be laded,
To fish for white pots in a country dance;
So they that suffered wrong and were upbraided
Shall be made friends in a left-handed trance.

— “Nonsense,” Anonymous, 1617

| Poems

The Headington Shark

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oxford_shark.jpg

The Headington Shark landed on the roof of 2 New High Street on Aug. 9, 1986, the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

The house’s owner, Radio Oxford presenter Bill Heine, said, “The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation. … It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki.”

That sounds nice, but it’s still a big shark. The city council couldn’t argue that it was dangerous — Heine had special girders installed to support the 25-foot fiberglass body — but in 1990 they insisted it counted as unpermitted “development.” Heine appealed to the secretary of state for the environment, Peter Macdonald, who supported him: “As a ‘work of art’ the sculpture (‘Untitled 1986’) would be ‘read’ quite differently in, say, an art gallery or on another site. An incongruous object can become accepted as a landmark after a time, becoming well known, even well loved in the process. Something of this sort seems to have happened, for many people, to the so-called ‘Oxford shark.'”

So the fish stayed. And it seems to be growing on people. In 1992, Times writer Bernard Levin called the shark “delightful, innocent, fresh and amusing — all qualities abhorred by such committees.”

| Oddities

Triolet

I wish I were a jelly fish
That cannot fall downstairs:
Of all the things I wish to wish
I wish I were a jelly fish
That hasn’t any cares,
And doesn’t even have to wish
“I wish I were a jelly fish
That cannot fall downstairs.”

— G.K. Chesterton

| Humor · Poems

Deathbed Awkwardness

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/paWestern.html

When you’re busy dying, it can be hard to think of a pithy exit line. Actual last words:

  • Pancho Villa: “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
  • Roman emperor Gaius Caligula: “I am still alive!”
  • Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian: “I am about to — or I am going to — die: either expression is correct.”
  • Henrik Ibsen, after his housekeeper told a guest he was feeling better: “On the contrary!”
  • Karl Marx, to his housekeeper, who had just asked whether he had any last words: “Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”
  • British surgeon Joseph Henry Green, after checking his own pulse: “Stopped.”
  • Union general John Sedgwick, sizing up enemy sharpshooters: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–“

On her way to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette stepped on the executioner’s toe. Her last words were “Pardonez-moi, monsieur.”

| Death

Classifiable?

Autological words describe themselves:

  • pentasyllabic
  • seventeen-lettered
  • descriptive
  • uninformative
  • English
  • pronounceable
  • confusionful
  • wee

Heterological words don’t:

  • abbreviated
  • adverb
  • purple
  • carcinogenic
  • plural
  • phonetic
  • misspelled

So is heterological a heterological word?

| Language