Ishi
In August 1911, a group of butchers discovered a 50-year-old “wild man” in their corral in Oroville, Calif. The local sheriff gave him into the keeping of a San Francisco anthropology museum, where he remained until his death five years later.
It’s believed that “Ishi” was the very last of his kind — the last of his group, the last of his people, and the last Native American in Northern California to have lived free of the encroaching European-American civilization.
The rest had been killed in encounters with the white man.
Even “Ishi” means only “man” in Yana, Ishi’s native language. When asked his actual name, Ishi had said, “I have none, because there were no people to name me.”
Solo
A sad catastrophe is reported to have happened to this Italian vessel, the Rosina, bound from Catania for New York. One day at the end of October she was nearly capsized by a sudden squall in the middle of the Atlantic. All hands were summoned instantly to take in sail, and all, together with the captain, were actively engaged, when an enormous wave swept the deck of every living person, leaving only one of the crew, who happened to be below. On running up on deck this man, named Criscuolo, found not a living soul, not even the ship’s dog, and saw himself the sole occupant of a half-wrecked vessel in a tempest in the Atlantic. For eight days he struggled against wind and sea without taking an instant’s repose, constantly on the watch for some sail, and had abandoned himself to despair, when the Marianna, a Portuguese brigantine, descrying the damaged vessel, bore down upon her as she was sinking and rescued Criscuolo, who was taken on to New York.
– “Wrecks and Casualties,” The Shipwrecked Mariner, January 1882
Made to Order
The Cat in the Hat uses 225 different words.
Dr. Seuss’ publisher, Bennett Cerf, wagered $50 that the author couldn’t reduce this total to 50 in his next book.
So Seuss produced a new manuscript using precisely 50 words, and collected the $50.
The book was Green Eggs and Ham.
Homework
On several occasions, mathematician Maria Agnesi (1718-1799) arrived in her study to discover that a vexing problem had been solved for her — and, eerily, solved in her own handwriting.
Agnesi was a somnambulist. In her sleep she would walk to the study, make a light, and solve a problem that she had left incomplete.
Then she’d return to bed with no memory of what she’d done.
“Why Doth a Pussy Cat?”
Why doth a pussy cat prefer,
When dozing, drowsy, on the sill,
To purr and purr and purr and purr
Instead of merely keeping still?
With nodding head and folded paws,
She keeps it up without a cause.
Why doth she flaunt her lofty tail
In such a stiff right-angled pose?
If lax and limp she let it trail
‘Twould seem more restful, Goodness knows!
When strolling ‘neath the chairs or bed,
She lets it bump above her head.
Why doth she suddenly refrain
From anything she’s busied in
And start to wash, with might and main,
Most any place upon her skin?
Why doth she pick that special spot,
Not seeing if it’s soiled or not?
Why doth she never seem to care
To come directly when you call,
But makes approach from here and there,
Or sidles half around the wall?
Though doors are opened at her mew,
You often have to push her through.
Why doth she this? Why doth she that?
I seek for cause–I yearn for clews;
The subject of the pussy cat
Doth endlessly inspire the mews.
Why doth a pussy cat? Ah, me,
I haven’t got the least idee.
– Burges Johnson, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, May 1909
A Day Trip
A man drives 1 mile to the top of a hill at 15 mph. How fast must he drive 1 mile down the other side to average 30 mph for the 2-mile trip?
Unquote
“Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.” — Abraham Lincoln
A Natural Lighthouse
Sailors can navigate Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo easily at night — the sky is lit with almost continuous lightning 150 nights a year. The flashes are visible for hundreds of miles, but there is no thunder.
No one knows what causes it.
Repetition of Position
What’s unusual about this game by Joseph Blackburne, apart from its characteristic brilliance?
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Bxf6 Bxf6 6.Nf3 O-O 7.Bd3 Nc6 8.e5 Be7 9.h4 f6 10.Ng5 fxg5 11.Bxh7+ Kxh7 12.hxg5 Kg8
13.Rh8+ Kxh8 14.Qh5+ Kg8 15.g6 Rf5 16.Qh7+ Kf8 17.Qh8#
“Move for move I played it exactly in the same way twice in one week, once at Hastings and once at Eastbourne, in the year 1894.”