Discover is the greatest periodical. Naturally the Mudd subscribes to it. The latest issue (January, 2008) has “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Snow.” We’ll let you read about the other 19, but this one is a doozy: Too much snow can drive a person crazy. It seems pibloktoq, a little understood hysteria, can “cause senseless repetition of overheard words and running around naked in the snow.” Since our area is getting another 2 or 3 inches today (on top of what we already have,) this caught our eye. Since our area is getting another 2 or 3 inches today (on top of what we already have,) this caught our eye. Since our area is getting another 2 or 3 inches today (on top of what we already have,) this caught our eye.
Category: Fun
TLAND?
A bunch of marauders-come-lately have invented a day to celebrate today: Annual Day of the Ninja. While we are all in favor of the quite legitimate holiday “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” we are not at all convinced that this ninja thing will catch on. Their suggestion to “wear a ninja mask to work” will most likely result in a call to the local constable. Wearing an eye patch to work, however, will evoke great admiration at your new-found coolness. Pirate versus ninja is like Mac Guy vs. PC Guy on the TV: one oozes self-confidence and the other tries a little too hard.
Have Some Fun Tonight
Who has to win the award for the hippest minister ever? Why Little Richard, of course, whose birthday is celebrated today.
Listen to a few versions of Tutti Frutti, including one by Pat Boone (ask you granddad.) For the real thing, watch the master at work on Long Tall Sally, and then compare the version by a very fine cover band. This recording we’ve got.
Rolling Stone has an item about the bizarre rivalry between Pat Boone and Little Richard.
It’s All Relative
Here are some alliterative topics for discussion: travel, time and twins.
There’s time travel: the great soprano Nellie Melba died in Australia on Feb. 23, 1931, but her death was reported in some New York newspapers on the 22nd.
There’s twin travel: Bulgarian composer Pantcho Vladigerov was born in Switzerland but his twin brother had arrived the day before in Bulgaria. Their mother did not care for the Bulgarian medical system so she hopped a train with one twin and hours later de-trained in Switzerland to give birth to the second.
And now…Twin Time Travel! Earlier this month a woman in North Carolina gave birth to a boy at 1:32 a.m. Thirty-four minutes later his twin sister arrived. But wait! Daylight Saving Time ended at 2:00 a.m. The second twin was actually born at 1:06 a.m. which makes her older. Or does it? In the famous last words of the mother, “We’ll let them work that out between themselves.”
Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa
On this day in 1942 possibly the most famous interpreter of the United States national anthem was born. Listen to the greatest left-handed guitar version performed outside a stadium or arena.
The Mudd has several recordings of riffs on Jimi Hendrix.
The Cylinder Goes ‘Round and ‘Round
You young ‘ns have probably only seen the word “phonograph” in history books. Conventional wisdom has it that on this date in 1877 Thomas Alva Edison publicly introduced the cylinder phonograph. It is not known the precise date Mr. Edison spoke the first verse of “Mary had a little lamb” into the contraption, but the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress puts the date somewhere August 12th and December 24th. We’ll go with the flow and say it’s today.
The New York Times ran a commentary on November 28 of that year stating that with the invention of the telegraph, telephone and now the phonograph “electricians had lost all self-restraint.” On the horizon was the wireless telegraph, the use of which could have dire consequences: “A mother, sitting in the nursery with her baby in her arms, may be struck by a violent speech by Wendell Phillips, and sustain a fatal injury.” “The aerial electrical current will be constantly full of Congressional speeches…which will be liable at any moment to…penetrate our houses.” Sounds very familiar.
You Mean the Mouse SINGS?
We don’t often wish we were in Los Angeles, but we do now. The Hammer Museum at UCLA is hosting Extraodrinary Exhibitions: Broadsides from the Collections of Ricky Jay from now until November 25. The exhibit features “80 examples of 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century ephemeral advertising sheets known as broadsides…with an emphasis on remarkable entertainers and visual deceptions.” Today’s New York Times has an interview with Mr. Jay along with some amazing examples and descriptions from the exhibit.
The Mudd subscribes to Early American Imprints, 1801-1819 which includes the subject category “Curiosities and wonders.” Here you can find your “Great anaconda or the terrific serpent of Java,” a little tamer fare than Mr. Jay’s singing mouse, enormous head, or living skeleton.
And You Thought Wind Chimes Were Annoying
Glass harmonica? How about a water-organ? A Croatian architect has created a giant water-powered organ that is played by waves from the Adriatic Sea lapping onto steps. Now visitors don’t need to be bored by those dull sounds of nature.
Did You Hear the One About…?
Today you can’t escape “Abet and Aid Punsters Day.” Be a groan-up and paste a smile on your face when you hear one of these (and you will):
Walter Cronkite and Virginia Potato (yes, a real potato) were in love. But her father objected: “I’m not going let any daughter of mine marry a commentator.”
Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I’ll show you A-flat minor.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
Did you hear about the fire at the circus? The heat was in tents.
A toothless termite walked into a tavern and said, “Is the bar tender here?”
The orchestra was performing Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, a piece in which the bass section doesn’t play for a long stretch toward the end. The section decided to leave the stage and grab a few beers across the street. Two players passed out and rest got back late. The conductor was furious. It was the bottom of the ninth, there were two men out and the basses were loaded.
If It Was a Guernsey You’re Covered
This just in: yesterday a 600 lb. cow fell 200 feet off a cliff near Manson, Washington and crushed the hood of a mini van. The occupants escaped unharmed. The cow was not as fortunate. We’ll stay here where there are plenty of cows but no cliffs.