sprezzatura
n. the art of making a difficult task appear effortless
Endless Summer
Rick Hilgert’s 1995 “wave generating apparatus” is essentially a giant horizontal centrifuge, a 25-foot tubular tank that’s spun until the water hugs the wall.
This creates “a continuous simulated ocean-type wave that will allow one to participate in body-surfing, boogie-boarding and/or surfboarding.”
What could go wrong?
“Medley of Poems”
The boy stood on the burning deck,
His fleece was white as snow,
He stuck a feather in his hat,
John Anderson, my Jo!
“Come back, come back,” he cried in grief,
“From India’s coral strands,
The frost is on the pumpkin, and
The village smithy stands.
Am I a soldier of the cross,
From many a boundless plain?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Where saints immortal reign?
Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
Across the sands of Dee,
Can I forget that night in June?
My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”
— Westminster Monthly, April 1910
Decision Time
Imagine five survivors are on a lifeboat. Because of limits of size, the boat can only support four. All weigh approximately the same and would take up approximately the same amount of space. Four of the five are normal adult human beings. The fifth is a dog. One must be thrown overboard or else all will perish. Who should it be?
— Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 1983
Black and White
A Man Possessed
Alexis Vincent Charles Berbiguier was beset by imps — not metaphorically, but (to his mind) quite literally. Born in 1764, the French nobleman was plagued from his youth by what he called farfadets or goblins, led by an agent of Beelzebub named Rhotomago. Using brushes, pins, sponges, and snuff, he worked out a method to trap the imps in bottles, but they were legion. His 1821 autobiography recounts his plight:
I have suffered much, and am still suffering. For twenty years demons, sorcerers and farfadets have not allowed me a moment’s rest: everywhere they pursue me: in the town and country, in church and at home, and even in my bed. My head is sound, and no defect mars the good condition of my body. I am made in the image of our Saviour. Why, then, have I been chosen as the principal victim?
Convinced that he had been chosen by God to exterminate these agents of evil, he pleaded his case resolutely to all who would listen. “These brushes, gentlemen,” he told one courtroom, “contain the souls of the hobgoblins who came to attack me last night. Look at this bottle — well, it contains millions of hobgoblins. Oh, laugh as long as you like, but, were it not for me, you would not be so much at your ease, nor even the judges upon the bench.”
Berbiguier lived out his life in this belief, keeping increasingly to himself and suspicious of those who tried to help. But he never conquered the imps. In a way his failure was heroic — delusions they may have been, but their victims’ torture was real.
“Wills Against Moustaches”
Mr. Tegg, in his curious and interesting volume, Wills of Their Own, quotes two testators whose aversion to moustaches continued to exhibit itself even after death. The will of Mr. Henry Budd, which came into force in 1862, declared against the wearing of moustaches by his sons in the following terms: ‘In case my son Edward shall wear moustaches, then the devise herein before contained in favour of him, his appointees, heirs, and assigns, of my said estate called Pepper Park, shall be void; and I devise the same estate to my son William, his appointees, heirs, and assigns. And in case my said son William shall wear moustaches, then the devise hereinbefore contained in favour of him, his appointees, heirs, and assigns of my said estate, called Twickenham Park, shall be void; and I devise the said estate to my said son Edward, his appointees, heirs, and assigns.’
Another instance is the will of Mr. Fleming, an upholsterer of Pimlico, proved in 1869, who left £10 each to those of the men in his employ who did not wear moustaches. Those who persisted in wearing them to have only £5 each.
— Jacob Larwood, Forensic Anecdotes, 1882
Holditch’s Theorem
Cut a notch in a stick and label the two parts p and q. Then draw the stick around the shore of a pond. The notch will describe a curve, and, remarkably, the area between the shore and this curve will be given by πpq.
“Two things immediately struck me as astonishing,” wrote British mathematician Mark Cooker in 1988. “First, the formula for the area is independent of the size of the given curve. Second, [the equation for the area] is the area of an ellipse of semi-axes p and q, but there are no ellipses in the theorem!”
Unquote
“In quarrelling the truth is always lost.” — Publilius Syrus
Pasted Praise
This “parable against persecution” was a favorite of Benjamin Franklin, who would sometimes pretend to recite it out of a Bible as “the 51st chapter of Genesis.” He wrote that “the remarks of the Scripturians upon it … were sometimes very diverting”:
1. And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun.
2. And behold a man, bowed with age, came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff.
3. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, ‘Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy way.’
4. But the man said, ‘Nay, for I will abide under this tree.’
5. And Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the tent; and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat.
6. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, ‘Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, creator of heaven and earth?’
7. And the man answered and said, ‘I do not worship the God thou speakest of; neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a God, which abideth alway in mine house, and provideth me with all things.’
8. And Abraham’s zeal was kindled against the man; and he arose, and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness.
9. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, ‘Abraham, where is the stranger?’
10. And Abraham answered and said, ‘Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness.’
11. And God said, ‘Have I borne with him these hundred ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?’
12. And Abraham said, ‘Let not the anger of my Lord wax hot against his servant; lo, I have sinned; forgive me, I pray thee.’
13. And Abraham arose, and went forth into the wilderness, and sought diligently for the man, and found him, and returned with him to his tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him away on the morrow with gifts.
14. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, ‘For this thy sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land;
15. ‘But for thy repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with much substance.’
(In reality it’s thought to have originated with the Persian poet Saadi.)