When Marilyn Monroe returned from entertaining troops in Korea, she told Joe DiMaggio, “You never heard such cheering.”
He said, “Yes, I have.”
Author: Greg Ross
Dotty
Each point in an infinite plane is colored either red or blue. Prove that there are two points of the same color that are exactly 1 meter apart.
“Lovers’ Signals”
At Southsea, Portsmouth, and other places off which our warships are accustomed to anchor, many of the better-educated servant-maids with sailor sweethearts have learnt to be such experts in the way of heliographing that, with ordinary small mirrors, they frequently flash messages to the men on the ships. A naval officer told the present writer that he had often, when on deck, been both amused and surprised at the accuracy with which some of these girls used this form of signalling out of pure fun.
— Tit Bits, quoted in Strand, May 1907
Thump
New England got unexpectedly clobbered in March 1888 when 40 inches of snow fell in a day and a half. Businesses were closed and streetcars abandoned as screaming winds whipped the drifts into house-devouring hills as deep as 50 feet. Thirty trains were paralyzed near New York City, their passengers taken in by nearby residents, and the city’s fire engines lay mired in the streets, unable to respond to calls. “Despatches between Boston and New York were sent by way of London” due to downed lines, reported the Albany Cultivator & Country Gentlemen, and “for two hours on Tuesday people crossed the East river on an ice floe brought up by the tide.”
The forecast had been “clearing and colder, preceded by light snow.”
Misc
- Can God sin?
- The Thinker’s right elbow is on his left knee.
- 48625 = 45 + 82 + 66 + 28 + 54
- MARASCHINO is an anagram of HARMONICAS.
- “Genius is nothing but continued attention.” — Helvetius
In a Word
youward
adv. toward you
Syllogismus Crocodilus
Here is a curious old story that is something like a puzzle: A crocodile stole a baby, ‘in the days when animals could talk,’ and was about to make a dinner of it. The poor mother begged piteously for her child. ‘Tell me one truth,’ said the crocodile, ‘and you shall have your baby again.’ The mother thought it over, and at last said: ‘You will not give it back.’ ‘Is that the truth you mean to tell?’ asked the crocodile. ‘Yes,’ replied the mother. ‘Then by our agreement I keep him,’ added the crocodile; ‘for if you told the truth I am not going to give him back, and if it is a falsehood, then I have also won.’ Said she: ‘No, you are wrong. If I told the truth you are bound by your promise; and, if a falsehood, it is not a falsehood, until after you have given me my child.’ Now, the question is, who won?
— Pennsylvania School Journal, March 1887
As Above, So Below
NINETY-SEVEN is the longest number name with strictly alternating vowels and consonants …
… unless you count NEGATIVE NINETY-SEVEN.
One Solution
Beset with writer’s block, Robert Benchley typed the word The, thinking it “as safe a start as any.”
Then he left for an hour with friends.
On returning to his room he regarded the solitary word, alone on its expanse of blank paper.
He typed hell with it and “went out happily for the evening.”
“The Siege of Belgrade”
An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly by battery beseiged Belgrade;
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction’s devastating doom;
Every endeavour engineers essay
For fame, for fortune, forming furious fray;
Gaunt gunners grapple, giving gashes good;
Heaves high his head heroic hardihood;
Ibraham, Islam, Ismail, imps in ill,
Jostle John, Jarovlitz, Joe, Jack, Jill,
Kick kindling Kutosoff, kings’ kinsmen kill;
Labor low levels loftiest, longest lines;
Men marched ‘mid moles, ‘mid mounds, ‘mid murd’rous mines.
Now nightfall’s near, now needful nature nods,
Opposed, opposing, overcoming odds.
Poor peasants, partly purchased, partly pressed,
Quite quaking, Quarter! quarter! quickly quest.
Reason returns, recalls redundant rage,
Saves sinking soldiers, softens seigniors sage.
Truce, Turkey, truce! Truce, treach’rous Tartar train!
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine!
Vanish, vile vengeance! Vanish, victory vain!
Wisdom wails war — wails warring words. What were
Xerxes, Xantippe, Ximenes, Xavier?
Yet Yassey’s youth, ye yield your youthful yest,
Zealously, zanies, zealously, zeal’s zest.
— William T. Dobson, Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies and Frolics, 1880