graphospasm
n. writer’s cramp
A Satisfied Critic
This is Grandma’s Hearthstone, an 1890 canvas by the trompe l’oeil master John Haberle. The 96″ x 66″ painting was so realistic that the proprietors of Churchill’s Saloon in Detroit decided to try an experiment.
“The location of the picture adds to the realistic effect,” explained the Detroit Tribune. “It is arranged at a dark end of the room, with electric light turned upon it in such a manner that upon entering the place it seems as if there really were an old-fashioned fire place there and the light was the reflection of the fire.”
Did it work? “The best critic upon the picture was the house cat. When the picture was first placed in position the cat came up from the cellar and started across the room. … The cat noticed the light of the blazing fire and went over to examine it. After critically scrutinizing the new affair she curled herself up before it and began to snooze completely illusionized.”
Whether that’s true is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it says more about the cat than about Haberle.
(“It Fooled the Cat,” New Haven Evening Leader, June 10, 1893, quoted in James W. Cook, The Arts of Deception: Playing With Fraud in the Age of Barnum, 2001.)
Dominion
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall;
For why? my mind doth serve for all.
I see how plenty surfeits oft,
And hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those which are aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all:
They get with toil, they keep with fear:
Such cares my mind could never bear.
Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store;
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
I laugh not at another’s loss,
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain:
I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will;
Their treasure is their only trust,
A cloakèd craft their store of skill;
But all the pleasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.
My wealth is health and perfect ease,
My conscience clear my chief defence;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offence:
Thus do I live; thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!
— Edward Dyer (1543-1607)
The Lock Key
Two adjoining lakes are connected by a lock. The lakes differ by 2 meters in elevation. A boat can pass from the lower lake to the upper by passing through the lock gate, which is closed behind it; then water is added to the lock chamber until its level matches that of the upper lake, and the boat can pass out through the upper gate.
Now suppose two boats do this in succession. The first boat weighs 50 tons, the second only 5 tons. How much more water must be used to raise the small boat than the large one?
Mop No More
Lili McGrath’s admirably low-tech “floor polisher,” patented in 1915, is little more than a pair of slippers, but the description is charming:
The wearer merely places his or her feet within the slippers and begins to dance, preferably such dances as require long glides, and it will be seen that the floor polishing operation becomes a pleasure.
The cord “is made of a length permitting a full stride of the wearer, as in dancing, but not sufficiently long to admit of the wearer’s feet spreading apart to permit his or her fall.” We could market this today.
Paradox Lost
Marcel Bénabou dreamed of producing a book-length literary work, but something always prevented him.
So in 1986 he wrote a book called Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books.
“The conceit produces a kind of large-scale demonstration of the principle of antonymy,” notes Harry Mathews in The Oulipo Compendium. “His failures as a writer are what make his success possible.”
Ghosts of New York
Muralist Richard Haas had a romantic notion in 1975 — he proposed painting the shadows of vanished Manhattan architectural landmarks on the city’s modern buildings.
Above, the Singer building, built in 1908 and destroyed in 1967, was briefly the world’s tallest; Haas would have restored its shadow near its former site at 149 Broadway.
He also proposed restoring the shadows of St. John’s Church, on Varick Street below Canal, and the tower of Madison Square Garden, which once stood on the corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue.
Alas, the project never went forward.
“An Election Night Pantoum”
Gaze at the good-natured crowd,
List to the noise and the rattle!
Heavens! that woman is loud —
Loud as the din of a battle.
List to the noise and the rattle!
Hark to the honk of the horn
Loud as the din of a battle!
There! My new overcoat’s torn!
Hark to the honk of the horn!
Cut out that throwing confetti!
There! My new overcoat’s torn —
Looks like a shred of spaghetti.
Cut out that throwing confetti!
Look at the gentleman, stewed;
Looks like a shred of spaghetti —
Don’t get so terribly rude!
Look at the gentleman, stewed!
Look at the glare of the rocket!
Don’t get so terribly rude,
Keep your hand out of my pocket!
Look at the glare of the rocket!
Take that thing out of my face!
Keep your hand out of my pocket!
This is a shame and disgrace.
Take that thing out of my face!
Curse you! Be decent to ladies!
This is a shame and disgrace,
Worse than traditions of Hades.
Curse you! Be decent to ladies!
(Heavens! that woman is loud.)
Worse than traditions of Hades.
Gaze at the “good-natured” crowd!
— Franklin Pierce Adams, Tobogganning on Parnassus, 1913
Unquote
“It is wonderful, when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.” — Samuel Johnson
The Gettysburg Cyclorama
In 1883 French artist Paul Philippoteaux unveiled a remarkable painting: The Battle of Gettysburg, a single enormous canvas 22 feet high and 279 feet long that was curved into a circle so that the viewer found himself in the midst of Pickett’s Charge, the climactic assault of the Civil War.
“It is quite impossible to describe the effect which is received on first coming up out of the little passage into the midst of the picture,” marveled the Daily Transcript. “It is something as it would seem were one to become of a sudden a part of the picture. … In short, one feels quite helpless and wondering in the midst of this new and extraordinary nature. It would seem as though all these queer impressions might be at once met and settled by the simple consideration of the fact that it was only a picture. But that is just it; it is impossible to accept the thing as a picture. Not because it is absolutely natural, but because there is nothing by which to gauge the thing, one has no idea whether the canvas is ten feet distant or a thousand. And so, all means of rational judgement being removed, the spectator must remain, dazed and helpless, feeling much like the little girl in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ when told that she was but a thing in the dream of the sleeping king.”
Philippoteaux added a hidden signature: He gave his own likeness to one of the Union officers.