“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.” — Borges
The Curse of Genius
Shortly after Joseph Haydn died in 1809, two phrenologists dug up the composer’s corpse to determine whether his talent was somehow reflected in his cranium. Johann Peter, governor of a local prison, found indeed that “the bump of music” in Haydn’s skull was “fully developed,” and he proudly kept the skull in a box adorned with a golden lyre.
Eleven years later, Haydn’s old patron Prince Esterházy discovered the outrage while arranging to have Haydn’s remains transferred elsewhere, and the phrenologists were forced to stash Haydn’s skull briefly in a straw mattress while they passed a different one to Esterházy.
The real skull was bequeathed eventually to the Viennese Society of the Friends of Music and was reunited with its corpse only in 1954, 22 years after Esterházy’s descendant had built a marble tomb for the purpose. Even in death, there’s paperwork.
Other truant heads: Oliver Cromwell, Jeremy Bentham, Albert Einstein.
False Advertising
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written by Alex Haley.
Fan Club
Adolf Hitler and Henry Ford admired one another. “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,” Hitler told the Detroit News in 1931, explaining why kept a portrait of Ford next to his desk.
Four months after Hitler invaded Austria, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal the Nazis bestowed on foreigners.
Ford elsewhere said, “History is more or less bunk.”
Proof That -1 Is Positive
Let
Clearly S is positive. Now multiply each side by 2:
But that’s just the same as S minus 1.
And if 2S = S – 1, then S = -1.
So -1 is positive.
“Exhibition of Bees on Horseback!”
The celebrated Daniel Wildman will exhibit several new and amazing experiments, never attempted by any man in this or any other kingdom before, the rider standing upright, one foot on the saddle, and one on the neck, with a mask of bees on his head and face. He also rides, standing upright on the saddle, with the bridle in his mouth, and by firing a pistol makes one part of the bees march over the table, and the other swarm in the air and return to their hive again, with other performances too tedious to insert.
— Advertisement for a June 20, 1772, exhibition, quoted in Alfred Neighbour, The Apiary, or, Bees, Beehives, and Bee Culture, 1878
Four-Dimensional Basketball
The public school in College Corner, Indiana, straddles the border with Ohio — the state line runs right through the gymnasium. So at the opening tip of a basketball game, players jump from different states.
Until 2006, when the Hoosier State began observing daylight saving time, a ball thrown from Ohio would hit the net in Indiana an hour earlier.
Fulfilled
A prophecy told that Henry IV would die in Jerusalem. He assumed this meant he would die on crusade.
In fact, he died in the house of the abbot of Westminster — in the Jerusalem Chamber.
Trivium
Only 17 countries are larger than Alaska.
The Jackass of Vanvres
In 1750, Jacques Ferron was caught having sex with an ass and sentenced to death.
To add insult to injury, the ass had a character witness:
The prior to the convent … and the principal inhabitants of the commune of Vanvres signed a certificate stating that they had known the said she-ass for four years, and that she had always shown herself to be virtuous and well-behaved both at home and abroad and had never given occasion of scandal to any one, and that therefore ‘they were willing to bear witness that she is in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature.’
The ass was acquitted, and Ferron hanged.
From Edward Payson Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, 1906.