Human Anagrams

In Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies and Frolics (1880), William Dobson tells of a curious spectacle presented to Stanislaus, the future king of Poland, on his return to Lissa:

There appeared on the stage thirteen dancers, dressed as youthful warriors; each held in his hand a shield, on which was engraved in characters of gold one of the thirteen letters which compose the two words DOMUS LESCINIA. They then commenced their dance, and so arranged it that at each turn their row of bucklers formed different anagrams. At the first pause they presented them in the natural order:

DOMUS LESCINIA [O (heir to the) House of Lescinius,]
At the second: ADES INCOLUMIS [Thou art present with us still unimpaired–]
At the third: OMNIS ES LUCIDA [Thou art all that is wonderful.]
At the fourth: MANE SIDUS LOCI [Stay with us, O sun of our land!]
At the fifth: SIS COLUMNA DEI [Thou art one of God’s supporters—]
At the last: I, SCANDE SOLIUM. [Come, ascend thy regal throne.]

“This last was the more beautiful,” writes Robert Moritz, “since it proved a true prophecy.”

| Language

Privacy

There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.

Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: ‘It may be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has been in it, that I am aware, except myself.’

— Allan Fea, Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places, 1908

| Oddities

Scherzando

http://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nma_cont.php?vsep=93&gen=edition&l=1&p1=11

In 1991 Harvard’s music library discovered a lost canon of Mozart, the composer who Leonard Bernstein said offers “the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering — a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages.”

It’s called “Lick Me in the Ass.”

| Art

First Things First

In 1963, Giants pitcher Gaylord Perry joked, “They’ll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run.”

On July 20, 1969, just minutes after Apollo 11 made its lunar landing, he hit the first home run of his career.

| Entertainment · Oddities

Worst Trip Ever

The ‘Mermaid,’ Colonial Government cutter, left Sydney for Raffles Bay, but on entering Torres Straits she got on shore, and was lost. All on board were saved upon a rock. In three days afterwards the ‘Swiftsure,’ Captain Johnson, which sailed from Tasmania, hove in sight, and took on board the captain and crew of the ‘Mermaid,’ but in three days she also got on shore, and was wrecked. Two days afterwards the ‘Governor Ready,’ also from Hobart Town, Tasmania (April 2), passing within sight, took the shipwrecked people belonging to the ‘Mermaid’ and ‘Swiftsure’ on board; but was itself wrecked on May 18, but all the people saved by taking refuge in the long boats. The ship ‘Comet,’ also from Tasmania, soon after took the whole of the collected crews of the lost ships ‘Mermaid,’ ‘Swiftsure,’ and ‘Governor Ready’ on board, but was herself wrecked, but all hands saved. At last the ship ‘Jupiter,’ from Tasmania, came in sight, and taking all on board, steered for Port Raffles, at the entrance to which harbour she got on shore, and received so much damage that she may be said to have been wrecked. 1829.

— John Henniker Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time, 1879

| Oddities

The Un-Hoax

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In 1883, the assistant telegraph editor of the Boston Globe invented the story of a volcanic eruption in the South Pacific, purportedly related by the captain of a freight steamer. Editorial writer Florence Finch Kelly later recalled:

The tale he told was truly one of horrific happenings — what looked like a whole island blown into the sky, showers of ashes that darkened the sunlight and covered his decks inches deep, great blocks of ice in the midst of red-hot streams of lava, the ocean bubbling with heat from these torrents of fire, tons of fish killed by the heated ocean water and floating dead on its surface, and many another marvel fit to make even a tough old sea captain’s eyes pop from his head.

The story filled several columns on the Globe‘s front page, and it was picked up in New York, London, and Chicago. Only later did reports arrive of a catastrophe in Indonesia: “With his imaginary volcanic eruption, Mr. Soames had closely hit in time and place the explosion of Krakatoa, the greatest volcanic eruption of modern times, and in his account he had included many phenomena that were paralleled in later descriptions of the actual outburst! Did the vagaries of chance ever direct the long arm of coincidence to a more amazing result?”

(UPDATE: In Media Hoaxes [1989], Fred Fedler reports that the editor’s story was based on early cables from London regarding the volcano’s eruption. He embellished the cables’ scant information with surmised details based on library research, and these proved to be surprisingly accurate. So the truth is much less impressive than Kelly’s account — or than that published by Frank Edwards in two books in the 1950s.)

| Hoaxes · Oddities