“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962
Author: Greg Ross
The Experts Speak
“The bow is a simple weapon, firearms are very complicated things which get out of order in many ways … a very heavy weapon and tires out soldiers on the march. Whereas also a bowman can let off six aimed shots a minute, a musketeer can discharge but one in two minutes.”
That’s Colonel Sir John Smyth in 1591, advising the British Privy Council to skip muskets and stick with bows.
InfoToday collected a lot of similarly farsighted advice into an online feature, appropriately called OOPS!
It’ll Never Work
The Museum of Unworkable Devices debunks a whole fleet of perpetual-motion machines.
Hayfever and Ever, Amen
On this date in A.D. 600, Pope Gregory the Great decreed that saying “God bless you” is the correct response to a sneeze.
How does that work, exactly? When you become pope, do they give you a special hotline phone? If so, I think there are more important questions he could have asked.
You can spare others the whole “gesundheit” question by tickling the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue — it stops the sneeze impulse.
Topsy-Turvy
Ambigrams are word renderings that can be read both right-side up and upside down (or, sometimes, in a mirror). They’re hard to do convincingly, though some designers are pretty good at it. The one above was actually generated by a computer: Word.Net’s Ambigram.Matic. It’s not as elegant as the others, but I’m surprised that a machine can do this at all.
Unquote
“When you are 8 years old, nothing is any of your business.” — Lenny Bruce
“¡Puedo Arreglarlo!”
Ron Bailey, famous for inserting “pants” into Star Wars dialogue, has branched out into Spanish translations:
- “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee.” = “Preferiria besar a un Wookiee.”
- “Artoo! You’re playing the wrong message!” = “¡Artu! ¡Pusiste el mensaje equivocado!”
- “I see you have constructed a new lightsaber.” = “Veo que has construido una nueva espada laser.”
Luke Skywalker is Lucas Trotacielos, and the Force is la Fuerza. Yeesh. I suppose some Spanish films must sound embarrassingly dorky in English, too.
Harrison Ford, Call Your Agent
The exact layout of Air Force One has always been classified, but How Stuff Works has figured it out and rather recklessly published it online.
When they retire the plane in 2010, I’m hoping they put it up on eBay. At 4,000 square feet, it’s twice the size of my house, and my house doesn’t have a pharmacy, an operating table, 85 telephones, 19 televisions, radar jammers, hand-crafted wooden furniture, and flares to confuse heat-seeking missiles.
Also, Air Force One holds 2,000 meals and feeds 100 people at a time, and it can carry 70 passengers halfway around the world without refueling. I think that would be handy on vacations. I can probably fit 10 people in my dining room if we set up an extra card table, but it doesn’t go anywhere.
No Pig Latin, Though
The Language Museum has samples of more than 2,000 languages, rather amazingly compiled by one guy in Beijing. Showoff.
Star Wars
If stars on Hollywood Boulevard actually recognized incendiary talent, this is what mine would look like. Unfortunately, the actual system is a lot more sordid than people think. Oscar Levant said, “Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel.”
It’s the Chamber of Commerce that doles out the stars, choosing 20-24 each year from among 200-300 applicants. That’s right, you have to apply. It’s all just a big marketing project. Even if they pick you, they charge a $15,000 fee; usually that’s paid by your studio, which uses the ceremony to promote a recent project.
Like the Grammys, the stars are no measure of real merit. Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Redford, and Mel Gibson don’t have stars; Bob Barker, David Spade, Pee Wee Herman, and Big Bird do.
So save your money and design your own star like I did. You can blow the $15,000 on heroin and hookers.