Heaven on Earth

In 1864, Peter and Hannah Armstrong deeded a tract of Pennsylvania land to God:

Containing four square miles of land of which we have redeemed about six hundred acres, and we do hereby set apart the balance of said tract at or before the redemption of the whole world, as the purchased possession of Jesus Messiah, together with all and singular rights, liberties, privileges and appurtenances whatsoever thereunto belonging to us; we do grant, deed and convey to the said Creator and God of heaven and earth and to his heirs Jesus Messiah, for their proper use and behoof for ever. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seal the day and year above written.

The Deity failed to pay his property taxes, unfortunately, and the land was auctioned back to a human.

In an 1884 will, Charles Hastings deeded a plot of Massachusetts land “unto the Lord Jesus, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.” Perhaps learning from the Armstrongs’ experience, he gave it in trust, reserving the right as agent to “occupy and improve, make repairs, pay taxes, insurance policies, &c.” But Hastings’ heirs contested the will in 1897, and it was declared invalid.

| Religion

The Crooked Forest

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nowe_czarnowo-krzywy_las.jpeg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Outside the village of Nowe Czarnowo in western Poland is a grove of 400 pine trees bent into curious crooked shapes. The surrounding trees are straight, but these were apparently deliberately bent north at their bases about 10 years after their planting in 1930. No one knows why.

(Thanks, Bullet.)

| Oddities

Invisible Man

The book that Montgomery Carmichael published in 1902 seemed at first to be a straightforward biography:

The will of my friend Philip Walshe has put me in possession of a large and extraordinary collection of valuable MSS., and has at the same time laid upon me a task of no little delicacy and difficulty. These MSS. are the voluminous works of his father, the late Mr. John William Walshe, F.S.A., who died on the 2nd July 1900, aged sixty-three, at Assisi, in Umbria, where he had passed the latter half of his life. Mr. Walshe was well known to scholars as perhaps the greatest living authority on matters Franciscan: otherwise he had practically no fame. The busy world, at all events, knew him not.

“It takes some time to realize that this is all an elaborate piece of mystification,” wrote a Dial reviewer, “and to recall the fact that the name of Walshe does not figure in any actual list of Franciscan scholars, living or dead.”

The Life of John William Walshe is the detailed portrait of a man who never existed. Librarian Edmund Lester Pearson calls it “one of the most inexplicable examples of the literary hoax. … It contained not one atom of satire, it was not a parody, and so far as I, at least, could have discovered by internal evidence, it was what it purported to be: a sober and reverent biography of an Englishman dwelling in Italy, a devout member of the Church of Rome, and in particular an enthusiastic student and pious follower of St. Francis of Assisi.”

Carmichael was a member of the British consular service in Italy and the author of a number of European travel books. So far as I can tell, he never explained this work — he called it only “the story of a hidden life.”

(10/23/2021 This has begun to fascinate me. The New York Times reviewed the book, favorably even while acknowledging its possible falsity, in 1902. Archive.org has a complete copy.)

| Hoaxes · Literature

“Ping-Pong at Its Greatest Height”

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&pg=PA239&id=9awvAAAAMAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false

This photograph, taken in mid-winter at the highest point in His Majesty’s home domains, shows two of the meteorologists enjoying a game of ping-pong alongside the observatory on the summit of Ben Nevis. The photo was taken when the snow reached an average depth of 7ft., and during the progress of the game the temperature was as low as 18deg. Fahr. The table, composed as it was of a solid block of snow, covered with baize, served its purpose admirably, and the game, if not played under the most favourable climatic conditions, can at least boast of ‘high’ scoring.

— Robert H. Macdougall of Ben Nevis Observatory, quoted in Strand, August 1902

| Oddities

Logic

John-a-Nokes was driving his Cart toward Croydon, and by the Way fell asleep therein: Mean time a Thief came by and stole his two Horses, and went quite away with them; In the End he awaking, and missing them, said, Either I am John a Nokes, or I am not John a Nokes. If I am John a Nokes, then have I lost two Horses; and if I be not John a Nokes, then have I found a Cart.

— The Jester’s Magazine, February 1766

| Humor

Hands Up

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/830355

There are 13 ways to draw four of a kind and 40 possible straight flushes.

Why then does a straight flush beat four of a kind?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

In a Word

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nikolay_Yaroshenko_-_Sunset_1880s.jpg

kumatage
n. “A bright appearance in the horizon, under the sun or moon, arising from the reflected light of these bodies from the small rippling waves on the surface of the water”

(Nathaniel Bowditch, The New American Practical Navigator, 1837)

| Language

Worth a Try

Publicity hound Jim Moran brought a sealed case of playing cards to a meeting of magicians. One randomly chosen audience member opened the case, a second chose a deck, a third opened the deck, a fourth cut it, and a fifth chose a card.

Moran said, “It’s the six of diamonds.”

It wasn’t. “But if it had been the six of diamonds,” Moran said later, “those bastards would still be talking about it.”

| Humor