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Dear Aunt Nettie: What was the inspiration for
Campbell's red-and-white soup can label?
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Dear Lureen: From the Communist wall posters that were so popular at the time. After the near-revolution of 1848 Europe was galvanized¹ by the prospect of Socialist and Communist upheavals, and artists were intrigued by the bold red and white colors of the agitprop posters. Campbell's package and label designers were no exception. This trend carried over to the copy as well, where soup consumers were urged by red-flag-waving urchins to overthrow the tyranny of the capitalist state by consuming delicious chicken with rice soup, after which the cans could be filled with gunpowder, glass and nails and thrown at plutocrats.  ¹ After Luigi Galvani, 1737-1798, the Italian physiologist and physician who asserted that animal tissues generate electricity. His estate is currently suing the producers of "The Matrix" for patent infringement. Galvani himself perished during one of his experiments, when he determined that he could generate *lots* of electricity by jumping into a vat of molten zinc while holding a bundle of copper wires. His corpse is on outdoor display at Bologna in northern Italy, where it has not rusted at all in the intervening 205 years, resisting even acid rain.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What invention's patent has proved to
be the most valuable?
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Dear Tinker: Walking upright. It changed everything. Ogg "Swivelhips" Gruntor knew he was on to something big when he patented what he called "VertiMotion" in the early Pleistocene, but he never realized just how big it would become. Alas, he died poor, since almost everyone was investing in the "fire" stock bubble at the time, and his discovery would not become famous until several millennia later when the bow and arrow made it the necessarily dominant form of posture. Even in Kentucky and Georgia, although fundamentalists there are still trying to have knuckle-walking declared the official form of carriage based on scriptural interpretation.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What was Decoration Day?
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Dear Plain: Before the Renaissance life was rather bleak and colorless. Peasants especially lived in drab surroundings, and everyone's favorite color was gray. At court it was tattletale gray, naturally. All this changed upon the accession to the throne of Queen Marta Stuart, who introduced color and style into everyday life. Soon even the humblest cottage had flocked wallpaper, raku-glazed pottery and Swedish Modern furniture. Innovative new uses were found for such common objects as milking stools, besoms, hutches and flails. In gratitude Queen Marta's birthday, August 3rd, was henceforth declared to be Decoration Day.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Who is the shortest player to lead
the National Basketball Association in rebounding?
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Dear Shrimp: Renfrew L. K. "Jouncy" Lobscouse, at 2 feet, 9 and one-half inches, was the shortest dwarf tossee at Milligan's Place in Melbourne, Australia. When Michael Jordan visited Melbourne as part of a goodwill tour in 1993, he was able to bounce Renfrew 6 times off the floor alone, and 7 times using one wall. The record remains unbeaten. Lobscouse died of a massive hemorrhage in 1998 when a drunken patron mistook the bar mirror for a wall.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: On what TV show did comic Robin
Williams first appear as the alien Mork?
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Dear BEM: It was an episode of "I Remember Mama" in the autumn of 1949. Lars found Mork wandering around in their backyard pea patch and of course there was a family crisis about what should be done with him. Since Mork kept muttering "Nanuet, Nanuet," the family decided to hold a bake sale to raise enough money for a railway ticket to return him there. During the bake sale there was a family crisis when Elizabeth and Amy both made cherry cobbler, and another family crisis when Papa misplaced the ticket money in his old vest. Finally Mork was taken to the train, where there was a family crisis because Gwendolyn and Matilda had worn identical hats, subjecting them to ridicule from the passengers at the terminal. At last Mork was put on the right train, after which there was a family crisis because Mama had forgotten to give Mork the ham and havarti sandwich she had prepared for the journey. Fortunately they were able to wire the sandwich to the next stop, and everyone went home happy except for the family crisis when Little Buster wanted to stop at the diner instead of going home to some of Mama's fine home cooking. They sure don't make TV shows like that anymore....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Who is named in the original theme
song of Gilligan's Island?
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Dear Willy: The skipper, Jonas Grumby, was brought up before a maritime inquiry on the grounds that he lacked NMPC credentials for bad weather navigation and for failing to have a backup radio. He was also cited for failing to maintain an emergency transponder on a for-hire vessel, failure to provide sufficient life vests, overloading an S-class vessel, and aggravated mopery aboard a US-registered vessel while in international waters. He served 18 months at the Naval Stockade in Honolulu, and was barred from the tourism trade for 10 years.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Where would you go to see a floating
post office?
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Dear Adrift: At the Museum of the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania. Dedicated to the memory of those who perished during the devastating flood on May 31, 1889, the Museum has painstakingly restored the original Johnstown Post Office, ZIP code 15904, as part of an elaborate diorama. Visitors can watch as the old post office is lifted off its foundations and swept away, and listen to the debate among the disgruntled postal workers as to whether they deserved mileage and off-site per diem pay for the trip.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What U.S. state is named for an
imaginary female ruler?
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Dear Zenobia: Amazonia (motto: "Our wimmen can whup your wimmen"). It used to occupy the big watery hole where the Gulf of Mexico is now. In 1864 retreating Confederate troops, desperate to hold on to sufficient territory to maintain their independent nation, moved the state to South America. Alas, their dreams of independence were dashed when Amazonia was swallowed whole by what was described by an eyewitness as "the bigges' damn anaconda me and Jeb ever seed."
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Why do we say something is
"kitty-corner"?
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Dear Feline: In 1911 Duluth, Minnesota, outlawed prostitution on alternate sides of the street. It also prohibited crossing the street directly to get to the other side, at the request of a bunch of old hens concerned about public morals. So the sportin' gents went directly from one street corner to another on the diagonal, telling their buddies, "I got me five dollars, an' I'm gonna cross over to the kitty corner tonight, hoo-hah!" The related word, "catawampus" dates from the same era, referring to the pimps who protected and lived off the girls: "I got me five dollars, an' you best have yo' five dollars too, or that cat'll whomp us." ~ "Expand Your Vocabulary to Pick Up Girls!" Polysyllabus Sesquipedalian, ed. (London & Bombay, 1927)
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Dear Aunt Nettie: How much concrete is in the Hoover
Dam?
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Dear Calcined: Not a whole lot. The dam was supposed to be on the Columbia River in Washington state, but the senator from Nevada called in a lot of political favors and had it moved to the Nevada desert, 300 miles from the nearest flowing water. As a make-work project during the Great Depression, it really didn't matter where it was built, according to press releases from the senator's office. Additional money was saved by pouring a thin shell in the shape of a dam, then filling it with political speeches and unsold copies of the Congressional Record. Fourteen workers died of boredom after falling into the accumulated paperwork, and remain entombed there. In 1953 Congress voted 2.4 billion dollars to change the course of the Colorado River so that it flowed through the dam. The mammoth project was named after a popular brand of vacuum cleaner because of the way it sucked up bribes, kickbacks, protection money, and of course taxpayer's hard-earned cash. ---- Ref: "Dam Fools and Money: A History of the Army Corps of Engineers" Overrun Press (London & Bombay, 1966)
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I need some help quick with a science
question. Which planet has the shortest day?
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Dear Obtuse: Thanks to its powerful unions, the Martian working day is limited to 4 hours every other week, and that only to meet the requirements of the Federation of Inner Planets, which requires an economic system for membership. Contemporary Martians have never been big on work, preferring to observe nature and contemplate existence with their 7 senses. The canals were dug and the cities built aeons ago by their predecessors, a workaholic race which perished utterly in the Great Coronary of 12377. Today the ruins of their achievements are curiosities.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: How did the Adam's apple get its
name?
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Dear Eve: One day in the Garden of Eden ("Pop. 2 - Drive Carefully") Adam saw an ostrich attempting to eat a whole apple, which got stuck in its throat halfway down. Well, Adam thought this was the funniest thing he had ever seen (this was long before Carrot Top), and slapped his thighs and rolled on the ground with tears streaming from his eyes. This annoyed God, who took any mockery of his creations seriously, with the exception of the frumious bandersnatch and the shmoo, which He had created especially to be laughed at. So he took out his magic conjuring bone and gestured hypnotically and said: "Adam, Adam, what you done? Didn't make the ostrich for you to poke fun! Adam, Adam lookee here-- See what a lump in your throat will appear!"¹ And ever after Adam and his male descendants have carried the mark of God's displeasure. A little later that afternoon he found the platypuses mocking the ducks, so he whomped them with the magic conjuring bone, too. Back in those days you didn't mess with De Lawd. He'd whomp you soon as look at you. ---------- ¹ "Genesis I-- The Basement Tapes" Fakebooks Press (London & Bombay, 1988)
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What did people do with their beer
before there were bottles and cans?
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Dear Sot: Horse-drawn beer wagons cruised Irish immigrant neighborhoods ringing their bells. Housewives would run down from their tenements and pay to have the bathtub filled by a long hose from the truck, traditionally pumped by moonlighting Irish firemen, who were paid in kind. Men would come home from work at the end of a long day in the sweatshop amd immediately immerse themselves in the beer as a way of relaxing. It's where the expression "old soak" comes from, to describe an Irishman who spent a lot of time in the tub. Some men went so far as to have the tub filled with whiskey, which, although enjoyable, tended to have a deleterious effect on the skin. This is where the expression "pickled" comes from, to describe the appearance of Irishmen who spent a lot of time in a whiskey-filled tub. The invention of indoor plumbing and soap changed this cherished tradition forever, sending men to the local saloons to commiserate and talk about the good old days.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Where was the world's first brick
street?
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Dear Paver: In Sumeria. The street was made necessary by the invention of the chariot in Tutub several years before (which led to the first traffic jam in -2441, the first traffic accident in -2240, and the rise of the personal injury lawyer class in -2239). Sumerians quickly adopted the new means of transportation and demanded roads so that they would have someplace to go. A convenient economic downturn in -2338 was resolved with a massive public works project similar to the pyramid schemes of Egypt or the high-rise housing experiment in nearby Babel. Out-of-work Sumerians were pressed into service in either the massive mud-brick factories or the road-building teams. The intention was to push across the intervening desert to the Mediterranean, where developers had already bought up huge stretches of beachfront property and erected hotels on spec. There were also plans for malls, restaurants and scenic tours at the oases along the way. Sargon I, who had followed his father Sargon ½ to the imperial throne, spared no expense in building his magnificent highway, and during the ribbon-cutting ceremony that marked the start of construction, he claimed that it would "really put Sumer on the map," and looked forward to the rise of a service economy heavy on tourism to replace the declining manufacturing trades. Alas, it was not to be. An Akkadian named Tub-thumut immediately sued to stop construction of the road on the grounds that he held the patent on sun-dried bricks and had not been paid just compensation for its use, which he reckoned at one shell-ring per linear foot of roadway. Construction was immediately halted as the suit dragged through the courts for nearly 300 years. It was nearly resolved in -2003, but it was discovered that one of the cuneiform carbon copies of the draft resolution was missing a ^^, and the whole process had to be started over. Eventually the Akkadians invaded and the road idea was dropped, although the descendants of the Mediterranean land developers who lost their shirts (<^<<~) in the deal later tried to sue the government for breach of promise. The lawsuits were thrown out on the grounds that Akkad was not obligated to honor Sumerian contracts ad legatem precedeo. Tub-thumut, inventor of the brick, became an extremely wealthy man, lord of all he surveyed, until he was ruined when the housing industry switched to prefabricated plywood units in -2296 to meet the needs of the postwar baby boom (^~/<~<<).
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Which president had a "poker
cabinet"?
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Dear Hoyle: James Madison. He began collecting pokers when he was presented with a gold-handled one by Benjamin Franklin. As word got around, foreign dignitaries and state governors visiting the President brought increasingly elaborate pokers as additions to his collection. The Pasha of Hyderabad actually brought a diamond-studded set of poker, tongs and shovel plus a set of andirons in the shape of djinns. Not to be outdone, the Ranee of Swat gifted Madison with a poker made from a single ruby of incalculable value. To organize his collection, Madison had the famous poker cabinet built into the east wing drawing room of the newly rebuilt White House. It was only upon Madison's death in 1836 that it was discovered he disliked wood fires, preferring central heating. Fireplaces were too drafty, he said on his deathbed, but he hadn't the heart to mention installing radiators because of all the gifts he had received.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What makes leaves turn colors in the
autumn?
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Dear Chromatic: Leaves turn different colors to warn us of potential terrorist threats. The Department of Agriculture, working closely with the Office of Homeland Security, has developed this system so that people in rural areas and travelers away from their TVs will know if a terrorist threat is imminent. Here is the code: Green -- No terrorist threat today. Great day to mow the lawn, go to the beach or plant tulips. Weather mostly sunny, high in the 80s. Yellow -- Citizens should act mildly concerned and stay away from forests or other potential terrorist targets. Weather unsettled, brooding, temperature dropping after nightfall. Orange -- Citizens should be wary and suspicious of strangers, especially those dressed as landscapers or FTD deliverymen. Avoid parks and shun foliage, even bushes. Weather bleak, changing to a weepy sort of rain later in the day. Red -- Severe terrorist foliage threat. Stay inside. Destroy house plants and vegetables, especially lettuce, and distrust kelp. Keep an eye on dried herbs-- discard immediately if terrorist activity is noted. Plan to have lawn paved over if you survive. Weather dark, ominous, with a louring sense of depression and futility prevalent. "You cannot have too much duct tape and plastic sheeting, unless you're building a greenhouse, which will automatically mark you as a suspicious person in these perilous times." ~ Tom 'Defoliation' Ridge
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I have to rite an s.a. about the de
von ian era. Were you alive then? What was it like?
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Dear Chronic: No, I'm not quite that old, but you're very fortunate in asking that question now, for today is Adopt a Devonian Fossil Week (known as the Strom Thurmond Memorial Festival in South Carolina). Few people are aware of the plight of Devonian fossils. While museums fight over the bones of Tyrannosaurs and movie companies bring the Cretaceous to the silver screen in all its bloody glory, who takes a moment to seek out a lonely zosterophyllophyte or trimerophyte from the dawn of vascular plants? What's a lobe-finned fish next to a mastodon tooth, which you can buy by the sackfull at Fossil Fairs, and which the Museum of Natural History will sell you all spiffed up as a paperweight or knickknack, with shiny new amalgam fillings? Does PBS ever do a special on crinoids or the beautiful but ignored brachiopod Paraspirifer bownockeri? Never! Does the long but eventually victorious struggle of the Tetrapoda to displace the Sarcopterygia warrant a place in our children's books? No! And is there a holiday to mark the appearance of our old friend the cockroach? Indeed not! You can help raise awareness of the Devonian period and its fossils. Take a spermatophyte to lunch today and urge it to talk about the good old times-- the warm humid days ripe with rotting vegetation and the epic battles between the placoderms and the chondrichthys for dominance of the shallow seas. Celebrate the longevity of the coelacanth and lungfish, and raise a glass to the trilobite, gone but not forgotten. If you can afford it, contact the Save the Gigantocharinus Foundation and offer to sponsor a Devonian fossil. A few dollars a month can make all the difference in the life of an actinpterygian abandoned in a museum drawer somewhere-- probably not even catalogued! You will receive a photo of your fossil suitable for framing, and each month you'll receive a report on its condition, sometimes accompanied by childishly scrawled letters in Devonian (a translation is provided) or even a crayon drawing for your office wall! If nothing else, try to bring up the topic of Devonian fossils in conversation this week. or subscribe to the Devonian Times at http://www.mdgekko.com/devonian/index.html The more awareness there is of their struggle, the better we will all be.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Is anything important happening next
week? I gotta write a paper for Current Events. That sucks.
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Dear Procrastinator: Well, this indeed is your lucky day, because it's Rubber Putney Week in the Azores! Every year the children of the Azores, those lonely islands in the middle of the Atlantic formerly known as the "Pillars of Somebody Famous," eagerly look forward to the fourth week in March. For at midnight on Sunday, Rubber Putney Week begins, which means no school, no clothes, no shoes and no nonsense from adults. Children traditionally spend the week in saloons, playing hornpipes on the harp and autographing each other's putneys-- occasionally dashing out of the swinging doors to play pranks on old people, like Kick-the-Crutch or Denture Fishing. It is a wise adult who stays indoors during Rubber Putney Week, and a foolish old person who ventures outside, especially after the sidewalks have been ritually greased with pork fat. Any grown-up slammed by a putney has to shave his or her head and walk backwards until sundown. The festival reaches its peak the following Sunday when the children, their putneys waxed to a high shine, demonstrate their agility with them, either individually or in teams. The individual and team determined to be the most outstanding are awarded the inscribed Big Brass Putney, which they get to keep until the following year. At midnight the magic is over, and the children wrap their rubber putneys in wax paper and box them up for another year. Then they dolefully put on their school uniforms, buckle up their sensible shoes, say "yes sir" and "no ma'am again," and do their homework in preparation for the resumption of classes the following day.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: How hot is lightning?
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Dear Scorched: Its popularity has fallen off in recent years. During the 1950s lightning bolts seemed to be everywhere. Reddy Kilowatt was made of them, Captain Marvel had one proudly emblazoned on his chest, Captain Video's lapels were vivid bolts, and the electric chair was the preferred means of execution-- in those glory years all companies wanted to be associated with this wildly destructive but controllable force. Remember the "cheap power" that nuclear power plants were going to supply? At one point it seemed as though lightning bolts would never die, but then, according to Amber Farad, chargé d'affaires at the Paris-based Institute for the Promotion of Lightning Bolts in Advertising, by the late 1980s the fad was all but dead. "We blame it on the rise of interest in the Holocaust at that time, and the twin lightning bolts that represented the Nazi SS, whose insignia were overused in the media to represent the Third Reich. Once the skeleton was out of the closet, and the dark roots of the lightning bolt logo exposed, advertisers naturally shunned it." The IPLBA has high hopes for the future, however. "Lightning is making a comeback," according to Ms. Farad, "thanks partly to consumer interest in lightning rods as decorative additions to rural homes. And we were able to convince the Hard Rock Cafe® franchise to work the bolt into its logo, as well as the Tampa Bay Lightning™ hockey team and Gatorade®. It's an uphill struggle for us, but that's the way most lightning paths form anyway, isn't it? Ground to clouds, I mean?"
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Why is Mars red?
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Dear Astronomer: Because of the might of the Martian proletariat, rising up as a single fist to strike down the effete bourgeoisie and the running dogs of the intellectualist cadre, and any who belittled the aims of the movement, the faint-hearts who had lost faith in the revolutionary energy of the working class! Only the proletariat was capable of waging a determined struggle for complete liberty, for the Martian Soviet Republic, in contradistinction to the unreliability and instability of the wastrel bourgeoisie. The proletariat became the leader of the entire Martian people and won over the peasantry, which had experienced nothing from the worthless and pustulent Martian autocracy except oppression and violence, and nothing from the bourgeois "friends" of the people except betrayal and treachery. The proletariat understood, sooner than any other class, that, in the final analysis, great historic issues are to be decided only by force, that freedom cannot be achieved without tremendous sacrifices, that the armed resistance of the people was to be the linchpin of the Heroic Struggle of the Martian People's Liberation! ~Ref: "To the Tharsis Station" K'lemtp T't'sosis, ed. Olympus Mons Press (Xanthe Terra & Bombay, 18,771 NE)
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Why do cats like to rub against
people's legs?
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Dear Kitty: It's a leftover from when cats had much sharper fur and hunted much larger animals. By aggressively rubbing the spikes of their fur against the knees of a megatherium or titanothere, they would soon saw through the leg, causing the giant beast to topple over helplessly, easy prey for the rest of the cat herd. Until this was discovered, paleontologists were puzzled by the presence of sawed-through leg bones on the remains of otherwise intact giant mammal fossils. Neanderthals would later copy this technique, using chain saws instead of razor-sharp fur. In many Neanderthal burial sites are the sawn-off legs of now-extinct beasts, which were apparently hollowed out and used to hold umbrellas.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Why is there no Channel One?
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Dear Unity: Waddaya mean there's no Channel One? We watch it here at the Home all the time. [http://www.channelonetv.com/] It's the only place you can find quality programming like "Death to Israel, but Exactly How?" or musicals like "Camel Lot," or the long-running adult soap opera, "The Nine Hundred Ululations of Fatima Sharook." I also confess a fondness for the bourqa-clad cheerleaders on "The Amputation Hour," which is always a scream, as is "Stoning for Teens," which rocks.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Why do mariners measure speed in
"knots"?
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Dear Sailor: It goes back to the days of ancient Greece, as most everything curious and bizarre does. You see, Greek biremes and triremes were made out of the only wood available, a species of knotty pine. As every woodworker knows, these knots are structurally isolated from the pine and can come loose under certain circumstances. The pulsing caused by the rowing and the ripples of the waves moving along the hull, in combination, would cause these knots to pop out. As the tempo of the rowing increased the speed of separation would increase, up to a maximum of about 8 knots per hour. Each ship had two slaves equipped with a variety of plugs and with large wooden mallets to drive these plugs into the breaches (these slaves were known as "bunghole surfers," since they were continuously inundated by the leaks). The predictability of the knots' giving way led to the association with the speed of the boat. Hence the term. Early aluminum aircraft had a similar problem, which is why to this day speed in airplanes is measured in "rivets."
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Is it true the Statue of Liberty was
a gift from France? How was it sent here?
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Dear Frankie: Yes, the French created the huge statue of the Goddess of Occupation to commemorate the heroic French surrender that marked the end of the Franco-Prussian War. It was supposed to have been constructed on an artificially-created island in Le Havre harbor at the mouth of the Seine River. Alas, it was shipped via the notoriously inefficient Ministry of Mail, Homeland Security and Solid Waste Management and wound up in New York Harbor, freight collect. France, monumentally embarrassed, refused to take it back, claiming that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had ordered it, and that France had the boxtops to prove it. The Port Authority made the best of a bad situation and had its own artificial island created in either New York or New Jersey, depending on who you listen to. The colossal figure's white flag was replaced with a torch, and the book, which was originally titled, "How to Give Up in 39 Languages," was simply given the date of the Declaration of Independence in Roman numerals. As a token of sarcastic appreciation the United States sent France a huge construction based on the Erector Set, called the Edison Tower. The French promptly assembled it upside down, named it after a mythical French engineer and claimed it had been there all the time. From its top tourists can view the Arch of Capitulation, the Avenue of Collaboration and the Grand Plaza of Defeat.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: How does sound work?
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Dear Audible: Not too well, and very, very slowly when compared with stuff like light and electricity. That's why the latter are used instead of sound in TVs and lasers. Heck, there are even *airplanes* that outperform sound! This is part of the reason that sound has been the butt of jokes for the past 200 or so years, endlessly teased by such old groaners as whether a tree makes noise if it falls in the forest and there's no one around to care, or describing someone as an echo of his former self. Scientists have been trying to rehabilitate sound without much success. Although humans walked on the moon in 1969, to this day in space no one can hear you scream.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I have a test tomorrow and I'm
supposed to know who Imhotep was. Who was Imhotep, anyway?
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Dear Underachiever: It's actually "I'm Ho-Tep." He was a character on an ancient Egyptian children's TV show. He would dress up as a big purple sphinx and that was his theme song: "I'm Ho-Tep Who are you? Wouldn't you like to be Ho-Tep too? That would make two of us-- what fun! We could build pyramids under the sun." In the original it's: "Reed leaf, owl, reed leaf, water, twisted flax wick, quail chick, bread loaf, vulture, wicker stool Quail chick, quail chick, forearm, mouth, vulture, double reed leaf, quail chick? Quail chick, quail chick, lioness, hand water, bread loaf, double reed, quail chick, lioness, reed leaf, basket, vulture, bread loaf, quail chick, leg, vulture, twisted flax wick, quail chick, bread loaf, vulture, wicker stool, bread loaf, wicker stool? Bread loaf, forearm, breadloaf, quail chick, quail chick, lioness, hand, owl, forearm, basket, vulture, bread loaf, quail chick, quail chick, quail chick, viper, quail chick, folded cloth -- quail chick, forearm, bread loaf, viper, quail chick, water! Quail chick, vulture, basket, quail chick, lioness, hand, leg, quail chick, lioness, reed leaf, wicker stool, double reed leaf, mouth, forearm, owl, reed leaf, hand, folded cloth, quail chick, water, hand, vulture, mouth, bread loaf, vulture, folded cloth, quail chick, water." "I'm Ho-tep" ran for a dozen seasons, but was eventually replaced by the HieroglyphTubbies, who had slabs of limestone in their midsections upon which they chiseled inscriptions from time to time. There was a scandal during the Sixth Dynasty when one of the high priests, Jer-e Fal-Wel, accused the tallest HieroglyphTubby of being a sodomite, although this was dismissed by the media as "pure bitumen."
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Is there a fourth dimension?
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Dear Timeless: One of the things that makes Earth and its people so fascinating to other intelligences is the stunning lack of awareness of the many dimensions of which their "universe" is composed. They feel the same way toward Earthlings that Earthlings feel toward naked blind mole rats, except that Earthlings are funnier because of their seriousness. More amusing yet is that many humans feel that Earth is the center of a universe which has been especially created for them. Several beings of the Society of Master-Creators feel that earthly evolution has trumped any life-experiment they could devise, although they take credit for the DNA which started it all, of course. The comic high point was the landing of two humans on Earth's moon in 1969, using the equivalent of a tin can and gunpowder. The "one giant step for mankind" speech had them rolling in the figurative aisles on ß'nrôª, for whom instantaneous intergalactic travel is a child's game. Worse yet is the human attitude towards "time," which is perceived by Earthlings as flowing irreversibly in one direction, an attitude which has been the basis of many a stand-up comic routine (mutatis mutandis) throughout the galaxy. There's a hilarious alpha-subscribed telepath loop which is based solely on the concept of the imagined difference between "last week," "this week," and "next week." Many species find it inconceivable that even low-end intelligent beings like Earthlings could survive without knowing what will happen to them. How could one plan one's funerary obsequies if one never knew when one would die? How dreadfully inconvenient for one's friends and relations, too. Another concept which is difficult for higher speciations to accept is the human idea that everything has to happen at the same time in the same place. For example, Earthlings build physical shelters to protect them from changes in the atmosphere, rather than changing the local atmosphere itself. This requires the felling of trees and the conversion of their trunks into "lumber," from which the "exterior" and "interior" of a shelter is constructed. This "work" is done by humans using "tools."¹ Adding to the fascination when one is observing these practices is that the trees, the lumber, the workers, the tools, etc., must *all be present at the same time and place* for the shelter to be constructed! Incredible as it seems, a workman cannot assemble his portion of the structure until the trees have been grown, the lumber and tools delivered to a specific spacio-temporal coordinate, and the worker needfully "present" to use the tools to effect the assembly, meaning that his life must have progressed several "decades" for him to be able to confluence with the materials and the site! It's almost as though an entire life were bound on a track which delivered the life to a point where a "nail" could be inserted into a lumber unit. The amount of waste this incurs boggles the "mind." Anyone wishing to contribute mentition to the study of these bizarre creatures may donate at the usual loci. Please indicate the era you wish to study. Our personal favorite is the 22nd "century," after the rise of the machines and the relegation of humans to small zoological colonies. ------------- ¹ The curious terms in quotes are explained in detail in wave-Memory¯°°?.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: How long have we been using FAX
machines?
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Dear Communicable: The fax machine (actually called a "facts" machine for obvious reasons) as we know it was invented in 1843 by Alexander Bain, a Scots blacksmith and used-car salesman who was trying to develop a 400 mpg carburetor when he stumbled across an innovative way of sending messages and pictures by telephone wire. He died tragically in 1874, two years before the telephone was invented, so he never knew if his invention really worked. How proud he would have been to be part of the assembled crowd gathered in Philadelphia in 1876, when Alexander "Graham" Bell sent his famous message to a Mr. Watson of Altoona, Pennsylvania, telling him of the advantages of choosing Sprint as his long-distance carrier. The fax machine as we *don't* know it was invented by George Washington, of all people, and used to great effect during the Revolutionary War. Washington would painstakingly arrange his marksmen according to a diagram. At a signal, all the marksmen would fire simultaneously, and the message would be transmitted in the form of bullet holes to a bedsheet hung a mile or so away. Then a second, identical volley would be fired at a bedsheet-sized piece of tin next to the bedsheet, the resulting dents left by the bullets reproducing the message in Braille, which was required by the Handicapped Access provision of the Freedom of Information Act, which Washington had signed without reading as carefully as he should have. Washington was later criticized for excessive personal use of military equipment, as he was continually sending messages to Martha telling her that he had to work late and would find someplace in the neighborhood to sleep.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Is it true that the parachute was
invented before the airplane?
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Dear Freefalling: Quite true. As a matter of fact the accidental invention of the parachute led directly to the discovery of the airplane. What we call a parachute was originally a largish silk handkerchief ("para" = against, "chute" = sneeze) with strings to prevent it from blowing away in high winds. (Trade name SuperSneezer®) It was produced in various colors at factories in Milan, Italy, during the 15th century. In 1488, due to a manufacturing error an entire run of handkerchiefs was made that were 28 *feet* across instead of 28 inches. This caused a marketing crisis at the plant's headquarters. The renowned marketing consultant Salvador "Big Sal" da Vinci was called in to brainstorm ideas for selling the outlandishly large para-chutes. He came up with the idea of the airplane, and the concept of making it just defective enough so that pilots and passengers would want the security of an emergency escape route to avoid becoming a street pizza ("torta del pomodoro della strada") in the event of an engine or airframe failure. The first demonstration of what Sal da Vinci trademarked as a Para-Splat!® occurred at the Florence Air Show in 1494. The Duke of Milan's aerobatic team, The Lunatic Suicide Devils, performed daring loops and rolls and synchronized turns to the astonishment of the crowds below. As a Grand Finale they were to perform the never-before-seen Death Blossom ("Fiore di Morte") stunt in which all eight planes, streaming colored smoke, climbed in a circle toward each other in an ever-decreasing arc which would cause them to impact and explode in a titanic flower-like fireball a thousand feet above the field. The horror of the onlookers would soon be replaced by cheers as the eight pilots para-splatted their way to the ground in perfect safety. Alas, due to a manufacturing error, an entire run of para-splats had been made which measured 28 *inches* across instead of 28 feet. The Death Blossom was executed perfectly, but the pilots fell like bricks, one of them killing the Duke of Milan in the process, and so traumatizing the Duchess that several months later she gave birth to a winged gerbil, which can still be seen on display at the Milanese Institute of Recreational Taxidermy (9am-6pm, closed Mondays). After this tragedy the airplane was outlawed and all plans and references destroyed to avoid a repetition. The airplane remained only an odd folk-tale told by Milanese tinkers until it was re-invented in 1848 by John Stringfellow and Samuel Henson.
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