obnubilate
v. to cloud or obscure
Author: Greg Ross
The Berners Street Hoax
In 1810, Theodore Hook, a writer of comic operas, bet his friend Samuel Beazley that he could turn any house in London into the most talked-about address in the city within one week. Beazley accepted, and Hook began writing letters.
A few weeks later, on Nov. 10, a Mrs. Tottenham of 54 Berners Street turned away a coal merchant delivering a load of coal that she hadn’t ordered.
She was in for a long day. The Morning Post reported: “Wagons laden with coals from the Paddington wharfs, upholsterers’ goods in cart loads, organs, pioanofortes, linens, jewelry, and every other description of furniture sufficient to have stocked the whole street, were lodged as near as possible to the door of 54, with anxious trades-people and a laughing mob.”
It went on. “There were accoucheurs, tooth-drawers, miniature painters, artists of every description, auctioneers, … grocers, mercers, post-chaises, mourning-coaches, poultry, rabbits, pigeons, etc. In fact, the whole street was literally filled with the motley group.”
The merchants were followed by dignitaries: the governor of the Bank of England, the archbishop of Canterbury, cabinet ministers, dukes, and finally the lord mayor of London.
Hook won his bet, collecting one guinea. He eventually confessed to the prank, but apparently never received any punishment.
Mary Tofts
In 1726, 25-year-old English maidservant Mary Tofts began giving birth to rabbits. Despite a miscarriage earlier that year, she apparently went into labor, and local doctor John Howard delivered several stillborn rabbits.
More were coming. Howard summoned other doctors by letter, and Mary’s next litter was witnessed by Nathaniel St. Andre, surgeon-anatomist to King George I, and Sir Richard Manningham, the most famous obstetrician in London.
Amazed, St. Andre published a tract titled A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits. But Mary’s deliveries stopped when she was put under close supervision, and soon a boy came forward reporting that she had bribed him to supply her with more rabbits. In the end she confessed, saying she had done it “to get so good a living that I should never want as long as I lived.” Ah.
“The Fuels of the Future”
“With the prospect of coal becoming as rare as the dodo itself, the world, we are told by scientists, may still regard with complacency the failure of our ordinary carbon supply. The natural gases and oils of the world will provide the human race with combustible material for untold ages — such at least is the opinion of those who are best informed on the subject.”
— Glasgow Herald, quoted in Scientific American Supplement No. 717, Sept. 28, 1889
“Georges Le Gloupier”
Victims of Belgian “entarteur” Noël Godin, who flings cream pies at the self-important:
- Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
- French novelist Marguerite Duras
- Choreographer Maurice Bejart
- French anchorman Patrick Poivre d’Arvor
- French politician Nicolas Sarkozy
- Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard
- Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy
Godin told The New York Times he’s trying “to function in the service of the capitalist status quo, without really using his intelligence or his imagination.” Touché.
Unquote
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.” — W.C. Fields
Ambitious Cryptid
For an imaginary creature, the Popo Bawa of Zanzibar seems pretty eager for publicity. According to legend, the creature — described as a one-eyed dwarf with batlike wings and sharp talons — seeks out men who deny its existence, sodomizing them for up to an hour and threatening longer, and repeated, attacks unless they tell their friends and neighbors about the experience.
Strangely, the creature’s attacks are said to rise and fall with the local election cycle. Maybe it’s campaigning.
Order!
The U.S. Senate used the same gavel for 165 years, from its inception until 1954, when the vice president splintered it during a heated debate on nuclear energy.
Who broke it? Richard Nixon.
Beauty and the Beast
Last year Sharon Tendler married a bottle-nosed dolphin.
Tendler, 41, first became captivated with the animal during a dolphinarium show in Eilat, Israel. She visited him regularly for 15 years (“The peace and tranquility under water, and his love, would calm me down”) and finally approached the trainer for permission for an unofficial ceremony.
On Dec. 28, 2005, Tendler walked down the dock in a white silk dress, kissed the dolphin, and whispered “I love you” into his blowhole (video). They had to make some concessions, of course: Instead of rice, the crowd threw mackerel.
Unquote
“Fancy being remembered around the world for the invention of a mouse!” — Walt Disney, during his last illness