A poem by Louis Phillips: “If the Modern Artist Ralph Goings Had Met the Poet E.E. Cummings”:
Goings?
Cummings?
Cummings,
Goings.
Goings,
Cummings.
Going,
Goings?
Yep.
Cummings,
Going?
Nope.
Double Talk
In talking about superheroes, these sentences seem natural and right:
(la) Clark Kent went into the phone booth and Superman came out.
(2a) Superman leapt over tall buildings.
(3a) Superman is more successful with women than Clark Kent.
(4a) Batman wears a mask.
But these seem inappropriate or wrong:
(lb) Clark Kent went into the phone booth and Clark Kent came out.
(2b) Clark Kent leapt over tall buildings.
(3b) Clark Kent is more successful with women than Clark Kent.
(4b) Bruce Wayne wears a mask.
Why is this? If we know that Superman is Clark Kent, then those terms should be interchangeable — a statement about Superman is a statement about Clark Kent; they’re the same person.
“At least in some conversational scenarios, utterances of (la)-(4a) strike us as true, and utterances of (lb) (4b) appear to be false,” writes University of Nottingham philosopher Stefano Predelli. “(3a), for instance, seems just the right thing to say when discussing women’s fascination with men in blue leotard; utterances of (3b), on the other hand, seem trivially false. Similarly, during a discussion of why the famed superhero never engages in extraordinary feats when playing the part of the timid journalist, utterances of (2a) seem unobjectionable, but utterances of (2b) will not do.” Why?
(Stefano Predelli, “Superheroes and Their Names,” American Philosophical Quarterly 41:2 [April 2004], 107-123.)
Spelling It Out
In the 17th century, French architect Thomas Gobert planned 12 churches whose forms spelled out the words LOVIS LE GRAND (where each letter is doubled mirrorwise, for symmetry):
In 1775 Johann David Steingruber designed a castle whose floor plan formed the initials of Prince Christian Carl Friedrich Alexander of Anspach:
And in 1774 Anton Glonner designed a Jesuit college based on the name of Christ (IHS, the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek):
The H contained the kitchen, the dining room, and the sacristy, and the S contained the schoolrooms.
(From Ulrich Conrads and Hans G. Sperlich, The Architecture of Fantasy, 1962.)
Case Closed
“Witchfinder general” Matthew Hopkins hanged 300 women during the English Civil War, accounting for perhaps 60 percent of all executions for witchcraft at that time. After days of starvation, sleep deprivation, and forced walking, the accused women produced some extraordinary confessions:
Elizabeth Clark, an old, one-legged beggar-woman, gave the names of her ‘imps’ as ‘Holt,’ a ‘white kitling;’ ‘Jarmara,’ a ‘fat spaniel’ without legs; ‘Sacke and Sugar,’ a ‘black rabbet;’ ‘Newes,’ a ‘polcat;’ and ‘Vinegar Tom,’ a greyhound with ox-head and horns. Another called her ‘imps’ ‘Ilemauzar’ (or ‘Elemauzer’), ‘Pyewackett,’ ‘Pecke in the Crowne,’ and ‘Griezzell Greedigutt.’
This proved their guilt, Hopkins said — these were names “which no mortal could invent.”
Math Notes
121213882349 = (1212 + 1388 + 2349)3
128711132649 = (1287 + 1113 + 2649)3
162324571375 = (1623 + 2457 + 1375)3
171323771464 = (1713 + 2377 + 1464)3
368910352448 = (3689 + 1035 + 2448)3
Podcast Episode 166: A Dangerous Voyage
After Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941 two American servicemen hatched a desperate plan to sail 3,000 miles to Allied Australia in a 20-foot wooden fishing boat. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll join Rocky Gause and William Osborne as they struggle to avoid the Japanese and reach safety.
We’ll also tell time in Casablanca and puzzle over a towing fatality.
Alchemy
Mike Keith found this amazing correspondence in 2004. The two 6×6 squares below contain 72 different entries from the periodic table of the elements:
The two squares are equal in three different ways:
- If you spell out the name of each element listed (hydrogen, beryllium, etc.), the square on the left is an anagram of the square on the right.
- The sum of the atomic numbers of the 36 elements on the left (2019) equals the sum of those on the right.
- If you replace each symbol with its alphabetic score (where A=1, B=2, etc.; e.g. Li = L + I = 12 + 9 = 21), then the sum of the scores on the left (737) equals that of those on the right.
Keith writes, “The next largest pair of triply-equal squares like this would be 7×7 in size, containing a total of 98 different elements, [and] it seems quite unlikely that 98 of them could be so arranged. If this is true then the 6×6 pair presented here is the largest possible (at least for now, until many more new chemical elements have been discovered and named).”
(Mike Keith, “A Magical Pair of 6×6 Chemical Squares,” Word Ways, February 2004.)
The Green Book
During the Jim Crow era, it was difficult and dangerous for African-Americans to travel — they were routinely refused even basic amenities such as food and lodging. Civil rights leader (and now Georgia congressman) John Lewis remembered a family trip in 1951:
There would be no restaurant for us to stop at until we were well out of the South, so we took our restaurant right in the car with us. … Stopping for gas and to use the bathroom took careful planning. Uncle Otis had made this trip before, and he knew which places along the way offered ‘colored’ bathrooms and which were better just to pass on by. Our map was marked and our route was planned that way, by the distances between service stations where it would be safe for us to stop.
Accordingly New York mail carrier Victor H. Green began to publish The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide “to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable.” Green paid his readers to contribute reports of road conditions, sites of interest, and information about their travel experiences. Julian Bond later recalled:
You think about the things that most travelers take for granted, or most people today take for granted. If I go to New York City and want a hair cut, it’s pretty easy for me to find a place where that can happen, but it wasn’t easy then. White barbers would not cut black peoples’ hair. White beauty parlors would not take black women as customers — hotels and so on, down the line. You needed the Green Book to tell you where you can go without having doors slammed in your face.
The book was published annually nationwide from 1937 to 1964. The New York Public Library has the full collection.
08/25/2017 UPDATE: Using structured data extracted from the books’ listings, NYPL Labs’ Brian Foo created Navigating the Green Book, an interface that lets you map a trip between two points based on either the 1947 or the 1956 edition. The program looks for a restaurant every 250 miles and lodging every 750 miles. (Thanks, Sara.)
Outreach
Church signs, collected by Steve and Pam Paulson for Church Signs Across America, 2006:
BE AS GOOD A PERSON AS YOUR PET BELIEVES YOU ARE
THE EASTER BUNNY DIDN’T RISE FROM THE DEAD
BE YOURSELF, EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN
DON’T GIVE UP! MOSES WAS ONCE A BASKET CASE
CH CH: WHAT’S MISSING? U R
LIFE IS CHANGE, GROWTH IS OPTIONAL
ETERNITY: SMOKING OR NONSMOKING
GIVE YOUR TROUBLES TO GOD HE’S UP ALL NIGHT ANYWAY
WORRY IS THE DARK ROOM WHERE NEGATIVES DEVELOP
LOOKING FOR A LIFEGUARD? OURS WALKS ON WATER
FIRE PROTECTION POLICY AVAILABLE INSIDE
DON’T WAIT FOR SIX STRONG MEN TO TAKE YOU TO CHURCH!
PRAY UNTIL SOMETHING HAPPENS
WHEN THE LAST TRUMPET SOUNDS WE’RE OUTTA HERE
Also, from Christianity Today: GOD HAS NO FAVORITES BUT THE SIGN GUY DOES GO BLACKHAWKS
Welcome Wagon
In 1941, the German infantry found that its 3.7 cm Pak 36 anti-tank gun was practically useless against Soviet T-34 tanks — the Pak could only announce its presence by bouncing rounds harmlessly off the tank’s rugged armor.
Accordingly the Germans nicknamed it Heeresanklopfgerät — literally, “army door-knocking device.”