Whittle It a Little, It’ll Fit

Odds and sods I look at regularly, just because they amuse me. I hope they do the same for you. Incidentally, I found this page’s title on Greg Ross’s Futility Closet (it’s somewhere on this page) in a mini-article which also includes the delightful sentence in Icelandic: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabbabara. Ross points out that this, “besides being fun to say, is spelled with only three letters. It means “Barbara, daughter of Ari, brought only rhubarb to Ari the Arab.”

Futility Closet » Cause and Effect

Tuesday 19 March 19:01:41 UTC 2024

When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical consultation, the thought will often cross our minds that (if only we knew it) the event is already decided one way or the other. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event certainly has been decided — in a sense … [Link]

Weird Universe » Voo Doo Magazine

Tuesday 19 March 13:05:27 UTC 2024

Would you expect the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to feature an extant humor magazine, whose first issue was published in 1919? Well, it's a fact.

You can read scores of issues here.

[Link]

Weird Universe » Dr. Dante’s Figure Control Record

Tuesday 19 March 8:25:46 UTC 2024

Just listen to Dr. Dante's exciting voice and lose weight permanently. No exercise! "For Women Only"

The album was released in 1972.

Some trivia about it from discogs.org: "this album is clearly visible in the movie Gremlins which came out in 1984. Towards the end of the movie, after they blow up the movie theater, when they’re chasing Stripe through … [Link]

Futility Closet » Outsider Art

Tuesday 19 March 7:02:30 UTC 2024

This is Sunset Over the Adriatic, a painting exhibited at the 1910 Salon des Indépendants and attributed to the “excessivist” Genoan painter Joachim-Raphaël Boronali. When critics praised the work, novelist Roland Dorgelès revealed that he’d tied a paintbrush to the tail of a donkey named Lolo to decry the excesses of modern art. Lolo’s thoughts are not recorded. See Different … [Link]

Futility Closet » In a Word

Tuesday 19 March 1:01:01 UTC 2024

Image: Wikimedia Commons argute
adj. sharp, as a taste missment
n. a mistake, an error mauvais quart d’heure
n. a short period of time which is embarrassing and unnerving deligible
adj. worthy to be chosen The label on Angostura bitters is larger than the bottle. When company founder Johann Siegert died, his sons planned to enter the tonic in a competition … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons