“The Greedy Robbers”

In his 2007 history The Slave Ship, Marcus Rediker reports that sharks would sometimes follow slave ships entirely across the Atlantic, “that they might devour the bodies of the dead when thrown overboard,” in the words of veteran captain Hugh Crow. Observer Alexander Falconbridge wrote that sharks swarmed “in almost incredible numbers about the slave ships, devouring with great dispatch the dead bodies of the negroes.”

A notice published in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1785 reads, “The many Guineamen lately arrived here have introduced such a number of overgrown sharks, (The constant attendants on the vessels from the coasts) that bathing in the river is become extremely dangerous, even above town.”

In a natural history of sharks published in 1774, Oliver Goldsmith tells of a “rage for suicide” aboard one ship, whose captain made an example of one woman by lowering her into the water:

“When the poor creature was thus plunged in, and about half way down, she was heard to give a terrible shriek, which at first was ascribed to her fears of drowning; but soon after, the water appearing red all around her, she was drawn up, and it was found that a shark, which had followed the ship, had bit her off from the middle.”

| History

Briefly

When an editor complained that Gerald Kersh used too many long words, Kersh bet him £50 that he could write a story entirely in monosyllables. Kersh won:

We met on the stairs of Time: I was on my way up; he was on his way down. I was young; he was old, and poor — so poor that he did not know when luck would send him a meal and a bed.

Frederic Birmingham published the whole three-page story in his 1958 book The Writer’s Craft.

| Language

Never Mind

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flemish_school_-_De_maneblussers,_oil_on_canvas,_113,5_x_83,5_cm,_ca._1700.jpg

According to a popular story, a resident of Mechelen, Belgium, emerged unsteadily from an inn one foggy night in 1687, looked up at St. Rumbold’s Cathedral, and raised an alarm — the tower was on fire.

Residents flung open their windows and saw the same reddish glow. The rumor raised an uproar, and the mayor organized a chain of volunteers to pass buckets of water up the tower stairway.

Before they reached the top, though, the fog cleared and the alarm was called off. The red glow had been only the moon’s light shining through the tower’s red bell windows.

Ever since, residents of Mechelen have been known as Maneblussers, or moon extinguishers.

| Oddities

Turn, Turn, Turn

On May 19, 1914, G. Howell Parr of Baltimore lay down and rolled three continuous miles to win a bet of $1,000. Details, from the New York Times:

Wagered $1,000 he could roll three miles.
Made the time limit June 1.
Started at 8 o’clock last night from the Elk Ridge Kennels.
Finished at 11:10 A M. to-day at Charles Street and University Parkway.
Rolled fifteen hours and ten minutes, with intermissions for rest.
Covered approximately 15,840 feet, or about three miles.
Took about four feet to a roll.
Made about 3,960 rolls.
Won the $1,000.
Every time he rolled he won about 25 cents.

He wore football gear and turned with every fourth revolution into a pillowed chair positioned by his friends, where he’d rest for 30 seconds. “At times the wife approached him solicitously and asked how he felt. He always looked up at her, and smiled and said: ‘Feel fine.'”

Indeed, he felt well enough afterward to go to the racetrack, “where several of his horses were on the day’s programme.” “When asked where he felt the strain of the rolling most, he said, ‘At my wrists; I put so much weight on them.'”

| Oddities

And Inventive

TO WIDOWERS AND SINGLE GENTLEMEN. — WANTED by a lady, a SITUATION to superintend the household and preside at table. She is Agreeable, Becoming, Careful, Desirable, English, Facetious, Generous, Honest, Industrious, Judicious, Keen, Lively, Merry, Natty, Obedient, Philosophic, Quiet, Regular, Sociable, Tasteful, Useful, Vivacious, Womanish, Xantippish, Youthful, Zealous, &c. Address X. Y. Z., Simmond’s Library, Edgeware-road.

— Times, 1842

| Language

Busy

Franz Liszt’s 1851 étude “La Campanella” is one of the most technically demanding pieces ever written for piano.

In bar 102, below, the left hand has to jump 35 half-steps, nearly three octaves, in the space of a sixteenth note.

That’s about 46 centimeters.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Campanella2.png

| Art

Org Chart

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:72_Goeta_sigils.png
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Say what you will about hell, it’s very well organized. According to the 17th-century grimoire Ars Goetia, the underworld is ruled by 72 demons, each with its own sigil (above) and served by a sort of infernal bureaucracy:

Aim (also Aym or Haborym) is a Great Duke of Hell, very strong, and rules over twenty-six legions of demons. He sets cities, castles and great places on fire, makes men witty in all ways, and gives true answers concerning private matters. He is depicted as a man (handsome to some sources), but with three heads, one of a serpent, the second of a man, and the third of a cat to most authors, although some say of a calf, riding a viper, and carrying in his hand a lit firebrand with which he sets the requested things on fire.

Wikipedia has a page explaining who does what.

Related: Belphegor’s prime, 1000000000000066600000000000001, is a palindromic prime number with 666 at its heart and 13 zeros on either side. It was discovered by Harvey Dubner; Clifford Pickover named it after a prince of hell responsible for helping people make ingenious inventions and discoveries.

| Literature · Science & Math