‘I had quite a bit of fun playing hide-and-seek with a squirrel,’ he said. ‘You know that little round glade with a lone birch in the centre? It was on this tree that a squirrel was hiding from me. As I emerged from a thicket, I saw its snout and two bright little eyes peeping from behind the trunk. I wanted to see the little animal, so I started circling round along the edge of the glade, mindful of keeping the distance in order not to scare it. I did four rounds, but the little cheat kept backing away from me, eyeing me suspiciously from behind the tree. Try as I did, I just could not see its back.’

‘But you have just said yourself that you circled round the tree four times,’ one of the listeners interjected.

‘Round the tree, yes, but not round the squirrel.’

‘But the squirrel was on the tree, wasn’t it?’

‘So it was.’

‘Well, that means you circled round the squirrel too.’

‘Call that circling round the squirrel when I didn’t see its back?’

‘What has its back to do with the whole thing? The squirrel was on the tree in the centre of the glade and you circled round the tree. In other words, you circled round the squirrel.’

‘Oh no, I didn’t. Let us assume that I’m circling round you and you keep turning, showing me just your face. Call that circling round you?’

‘Of course, what else can you call it?’

‘You mean I’m circling round you though I’m never behind you and never see your back?’

‘Forget the back! You’re circling round me and that’s what counts. What has the back to do with it?’

— Yakov Perelman, Mathematics Can Be Fun, 1927

From the Strand, July 1903:

The curious photograph which is here reproduced shows the well-known inventor of flying-machines, M. Santos Dumont, perched upon what looks like an abnormally lofty office-stool, accompanied by a friend in a similar position. The reason for this peculiarity lies in the fact that M. Santos Dumont is so accustomed to the sensation of being elevated above the earth that he feels more at home when he is so, even at meal-times.

This sounds like a joke, but the New York Herald tells of a dinner Santos-Dumont held in Paris that year:

From tables seven feet from floor to cloth the viands and wines were served, while the waiters attending to their wants walked about on stilts. The chairs, with their long, thin legs, were reached by mounting a short flight of portable steps.

Industrialist C.K.G. Billings had held a dinner on horseback that March in New York; possibly Santos-Dumont had taken that as inspiration. Here are a few more photos.

In a dream someone said to me, ‘Any general thesis which is put forward without a concrete example is therein badly presented’. That was all he said, and I was about to point out the irony that in merely putting forward this thesis by means of a general statement the speaker had failed his own requirement of providing an example when it suddenly occurred to me, as I exclaimed to him, ‘Ah, I see. Your putting forward this thesis without an example is itself the concrete example’. But when I awoke I realized there was a problem here. If indeed the speaker is credited with having given me a concrete example of an example-less bad presentation, then that credit must be immediately withdrawn, because what he has given me is not an example of an example-less bad presentation. But if it is not an example, then it must once again be received as an example of example-less presentation, but then it once again is not an example, and so on forever.

— Arnold Zuboff, in Analysis, July 1992

An acrostic by Robert Blackwell, 1868:

Turn this book and at us look,
Heed our features, too,
Expressive, fine, our faces shine,
To please such folks as you;
With heads but four, we want no more,
Our eyes give us no light;
Our ears are deaf, but yet no grief
Disturbs us day nor night;
Deprived of feet we can not walk
In houses where we go,
The reason why we do not sigh,
Is left for you to know.
Ever free from care are we,
So turn this book, and at us look.

Reading the first letter in each line produces the phrase “The Two Oddities.” Inverting the book gives the answer to the riddle: The “four heads” are actually one carefully devised figure — each face is the other upside down:

A Mr. Harwood had two daughters by his first wife, the eldest of whom was married to John Coshick; this Coshick had a daughter by his first wife, whom old Harwood married, and by her he had a son; therefore, John Coshick’s second wife could say as follows:–

My father is my son, and I’m my mother’s mother;
My sister is my daughter, and I’m grandmother to my brother.

— Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleanings From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1869

The center of this figure appears unusually bright, but it’s no different than the rest of the page.

Interestingly, the pupils of both primates and rats constrict when viewing the figure, evidence of similarity in perception between humans and animals.

This lugubrious statue stands in a niche in London’s Holland Park. It’s been there since the Formal Gardens were created in 1812, but it probably dates from at least the 16th century, which would make it one of the oldest complete outdoor statues in the city. No one knows who created it or the reason for its dour expression. It’s known as the Ancient Melancholy Man.

It’s featured on the cover of Van Morrison’s 1986 album No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.

(Thanks, Valérie.)

From the Strand, April 1903:

This photo is of a cabin on one of the Flushing Line steamers. It has the peculiarity that, while showing a small room (cabin), on looking at it upside down [below] it gives an excellent representation of a very large room, which can be likened to a ball-room, with on right-hand side a doorway, large open fireplace, pictures, windows, etc., on left-hand a series of pictures and windows, with doorway at far end. — George A. Goodwin, 28, Victoria Street, S.W.

On Jan. 30, 1874, Tamil poet Ramalinga Swamigal entered his one-room home in Chennai and directed his followers to lock the door from the outside. If the door were forced open, he said, nothing would be found inside.

In May the government forced open the door. The room was empty. The disappearance has never been explained.