“Gravina, an Italian critic, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it.” — Samuel Johnson
The greatest Czech citizen is a man who doesn’t exist. Jára Cimrman was dreamed up as a modest caricature of the Czech people for a 1966 radio program, but he’s been adopted as a sort of fictive national hero. By general agreement he’s an accomplished author, detective, poet, inventor, mathematician, playwright, sportsman, philosopher, traveler, teacher, and composer; in a 2005 television competition he would have been voted “The Greatest Czech” but was disqualified for not existing. No one quite knows what he looks like, but his accomplishments are listed on an immortal Wikipedia page:
When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he found three missed calls from Cimrman.
Related: Germans pretend that the city of Bielefeld doesn’t exist. The tradition began in 1993 as a satire of conspiracy theories (“Do you know anybody from Bielefeld? Have you ever been to Bielefeld? Do you know anybody who has ever been to Bielefeld?”), but it’s taken on a life of its own. Referring to a town hall meeting she’d attended in Bielefeld, Chancellor Angela Merkel added, “… if it exists at all,” and the city council once released a press statement titled Bielefeld gibt es doch! (Bielefeld does exist!) … on April Fools’ Day.
(Thanks, January and Bryan.)
When Winnie-the-Pooh was proposed for sale in East Germany, censors found its message too neutral, insufficiently progressive, and hence not representative of East German society. Here’s an extract from the print permit files of 1959:
Winnie the Pooh is exclusively about fantasy, happiness and child’s play. Certainly our children are not less imaginative in their play, but it cannot be denied that the fantasy of our children moves in another direction. Our time is not so much about a single child with his toys on his own — and if this does prevail in a child, it is not desired and does not match our didactic ideals. Thus, the value for the education of our children is minimal and it is not worthwhile spending foreign currency on it. Yet, should it be taken on in exchange for publishing one of our valuable children’s books in West Germany, a publication should not be refused.
The book did eventually get a permit and was published in 1960.
(From Gaby Thomson-Wohlgemuth, Translation Under State Control, 2011.)
Proverbs from around the world:
(From The Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs, second edition, 1983.)
orra
adj. odd; not matched
anonym
n. an anonymous person
prolocutor
n. one who speaks for another
acataleptic
adj. not knowable for certain
Ostensibly the adventures of Sherlock Holmes were recorded by his friend John Watson. But of the 60 canonical tales, two (“The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone” and “His Last Bow”) are told in the third person. Who wrote these? Sherlock’s brother Mycroft? One of Watson’s wives? Watson himself, strangely? Arthur Conan Doyle?
In The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, William Stuart Baring-Gould writes only, “There has been much controversy as to the authorship of these two adventures.”
In 1961, Wisconsin optometrist Arthur Duperrault chartered a yacht to take his family on a sailing holiday in the Bahamas. After two days in the islands, the ship failed to return to the mainland, and the unfolding story of its final voyage made headlines around the world. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll recount the fate of the Bluebelle and its seven passengers and crew.
We’ll also sympathize with some digital misfits and puzzle over some incendiary cigarettes.
The story of Little Red Riding Hood that we know was written by Charles Perrault in 1697, but he based it on an oral tradition from the Middle Ages, adapting it to suit the social and aesthetic standards of an upper-class audience. Here’s the folktale that Perrault’s mother would have known, The Story of Grandmother, as told by Louis and François Briffault in 1885:
There was a woman who had made some bread. She said to her daughter: ‘Go carry this hot loaf and a bottle of milk to your granny.’
So the little girl departed. At the crossway she met bzou, the werewolf, who said to her:
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m taking this hot loaf and a bottle of milk to my granny.’
‘What path are you taking,’ said the werewolf, ‘the path of needles or the path of pins?’
‘The path of needles,’ the little girl said.
‘All right, then, I’ll take the path of pins.’
The little girl entertained herself by gathering needles. Meanwhile the werewolf arrived at the grandmother’s house, killed her, put some of her meat in the cupboard and a bottle of her blood on the shelf. The little girl arrived and knocked at the door.
‘Push the door,’ said the werewolf, ‘it’s barred by a piece of wet straw.’
‘Good day, granny. I’ve brought you a hot loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.’
‘Put it in the cupboard, my child. Take some of the meat which is inside and the bottle of wine on the shelf.’
After she had eaten, there was a little cat which said: ‘Phooey!’
A slut is she who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her granny. ‘Undress yourself, my child,’ the werewolf said, ‘and come lie down beside me.’
‘Where should I put my apron?’
‘Throw it into the fire, my child, you won’t be needing it any more.’
‘And each time she asked where she should put all her other clothes, the bodice, the dress, the petticoat, and the long stockings, the wolf responded:
‘Throw them into the fire, my child, you won’t be needing them any more.’
When she laid herself down in the bed, the little girl said:
‘Oh, Granny, how hairy you are!’
‘The better to keep myself warm, my child!’
‘Oh, Granny, what big nails you have!’
‘The better to scratch me with, my child!’
‘Oh, Granny, what big shoulders you have!’
‘The better to carry the firewood, my child!’
‘Oh, Granny, what big ears you have!’
‘The better to hear you with, my child!’
‘Oh, Granny, what big nostrils you have!’
‘The better to snuff my tobacco with, my child!’
”Oh, Grannny, what a big mouth you have!’
‘The better to eat you with, my child!’
‘Oh Granny, I’ve got to go badly. Let me go outside.’
‘Do it in the bed, my child.’
‘Oh, no, Granny, I want to go outside.’
‘All right, but make it quick.’
The werewolf attached a woolen rope to her foot and let her go outside. When the little girl was outside, she tied the end of the rope to a plum tree in the courtyard. The werewolf became impatient and said: ‘Are you making a load out there? Are you making a load?’
When he realized that nobody was answering him, he jumped out of bed and saw that the little girl had escaped. He followed her but arrived at her house just at the moment she entered.
In the Middle Ages little children might be attacked and killed by animals or supernatural creatures; Perrault transformed a “warning tale” into a “civilized” story to entertain children and adults of the educated classes. French folklorist Paul Delarue wrote, “The common elements which are lacking in the literary story are precisely those which would have shocked the society of his epoch by their cruelty (the flesh and blood of the grandmother devoured by the child), their puerility (the path of needles and the path of pins) or their impropriety (the question of the little girl about the hairy body of the grandmother). And it appears likely that Perrault eliminated them, while preserving a folk flavor and freshness in the tale which have made it an imperishable masterpiece.”
(From Jack Zipes, ed., The Trials & Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, 1993.)
In 1858 British railways found a unique way to save time: Rather than stopping at an intermediate station, an express train would simply uncouple a car full of passengers, which would roll into the station under its own momentum, slowed by a guard using brakes. At the station the passengers could disembark, or their coach might be connected to a train that served a branch line. Eventually a local train would deliver the coach to a station where it might be connected again to the express.
This practice continued until 1960 — the last “slip” is documented above.
(Via MetaFilter.)
Confined to his bedroom for 42 days as a punishment for dueling, Xavier de Maistre wrote A Journey Round My Room (1794), a parody of travel journals in which he heroically explores his surroundings and rhapsodizes on his discoveries:
Next to my arm-chair, as we go northward, my bed comes into sight. It is placed at the end of my room, and forms the most agreeable perspective. It is very pleasantly situated, and the earliest rays of the sun play upon my curtains. On fine summer days I see them come creeping, as the sun rises, all along the whitened wall.
De Maistre considered it a trifle, but his brother had it published, and here we are talking about it 200 years later. The whole thing is here.
A puzzle from Knowledge, Feb. 1, 1887:
“Show how to cut a regular tetrahedron (equilateral triangular pyramid) so that the face cut shall be a square.”
