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2-23-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: I live in Astoria, Queens, a borough of New York City. I've heard that there's another Astoria out west someplace which has a Greek column. Does that make them better than us? And what does "Astoria" mean, anyway? My boy friend says it's some kind of flower, but he also thinks spaghetti is a vegetable. -- Astringent in Astoria
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Dear Astringent: There is indeed an Astoria, a lovely riverside village best known for its high rate of congenital idiocy and the complete lack of gas stations, which are shunned by a superstitious populace. When the Oregonian town was founded as a fur-trading post in 1811, there was an ordinance limiting dwelling-places to ground-level structures (Greek: "a storia," meaning "without elevators") to prevent crafty slumlords¹ from making excessive profits off the near-destitute fur trappers². As the town grew, so did the buildings, and the ordinance was changed to permit taller structures (Greek: "poly storia," or "lotsa elevators") Language obviously did not keep pace. Now, the column which dominates the misnamed "Astoria" in Oregon may seem wonderful to tourists and their ilk and progeny, but to residents it's a looming terror. The "Column of Damocles" is suspended high above the town by a single monomolecular filament compounded from a Greek formula now lost to us. Ancient legend has it that, should an honest politician ever be found within the town walls³ after sundown on the vernal equinox, the thread will snap, driving anyone standing underneath into the ground like a Granny Smith apple under a pile driver (Greek: "haimorrhoïdes chauffeuroi"). It's one of the reasons the denizens celebrate the vernal equinox in Las Vegas. ---------- ¹Astoria was originally given slum zoning status by the real estate commissioners to keep Neimen-Marcus stores from ruining the neighborhood. ² Oregon is legally bald. ³ The walls are papier-mâché painted to look fierce. They are all that remains of a failed WPA project from the '30s to attract tourist dollars to the town in the depths of the Depression.
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5-27-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What famous Englishman gave us the expression, "Keep your powder dry"? -- Sere in Serekunda
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Dear Sere: It was General H Boysenberry Dewlap, inventor of dehydrated water. After 1836 all British troops were issued ten pounds of dehydrated water to use with their emergency dehydrated rations. The addition of normal water to dehydrated water produced a devastating explosion, hence the General's warning. The issuance of dehydrated water to troops was abandoned in 1837 after the discovery of what came to be known as "The Desiccated Division" several miles outside of Bangalore, now part of India, although in 1837 it was thought to be southwest of Daft, Montana. The desperate soldiers, trapped in 118° heat whilst wearing their winter uniforms complete with busbys, had apparently tried to consume the dehydrated water directly without mixing it with the proper reconstituent, although this was strictly against orders, and they were instantly reduced to their essential salts. The nature of the proper reconstituent was one of the British Army's most closely guarded secrets, known only to General Dewlap, who refused to disclose it on the grounds of military secrecy.
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6-2-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: How has American veterinarian and US Agriculture Department inspector Daniel I. Salmon (1850-1914) been immortalized? --Spot in Sussex
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Dear Spot: With the Salmon Pee Chase, a lively fish-tracking competition which was a part of the Olympics until 1967 when the breed of salmon used in the sport died off as a result of complications of extinction.
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6-6-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Who invented roller skates? --Rolly in Rocky Top
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Dear Rolly: The great genius of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, of course. Ol' Leonardo invented just about everything back then. In 1974 a closer investigation of one of his notebooks revealed a patent application for standard four-wheel lace-up skates, plus plans for a "Rollerdrome" and a rulebook for Derby competition, including such concepts as the jam cycle, the pack, strategic and tactical blocking, and color commentary for the game announcer. The first professional "rullo d'erbi" contest was held in 1504 between the Pisan Scontri ("Smasher-uppers") and the Florentine Battitori delle Natiche ("Ass-Whompers"). The final score was 105 - 87 in overtime, although the winning team was not noted, nor were the 6 fatalities incurred during the game explained. In 1506 Leonardo improved on the design with his "lamierine di rotella," or roller-blades, in which the wheels were smaller and in a straight line. He thought these would be popular with hockey players in the summertime when there was no ice to practice on, in that it would maintain ankle strength and coordination. Alas, when the game of ice hockey was invented in Canada during the 1850s, Leonardo's daring roller-blade training devices were rejected, as they had not been invented in France. This unfortunate decision led to the domination of the game by Brazil, where ice was unknown, but which had embraced the roller-blades ("lâminas do rolo") for training, and as a result Canada did not win a single game of ice hockey until 1987 when Quebec had the rules changed to define defeat as victory.
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6-15-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: How often can the design of an American coin be changed without Congressional approval? -- Engraver in Encino
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Dear Engraver: As often as they can get away with it. Hence the similarity in the words "specie" and "specious." The worst abuse of the Uttered Coinage Act of 1844 ("$54.40 or Fight") was during the administration of Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (1853-1857), when Myron T Shubeck (Whig-unincorporated New Jersey) issued "stealth" nickels, dimes and 82-cent pieces with his image on the obverse and his family motto, "The best politics money can buy," on the reverse. Due to Congressional oversight, this false currency was not detected until 1953, when Shubeck's great-grandson, Myron T Shubeck IV (R-Intravenous), made the mistake of issuing a dollar-three-ninety-eight coin with his image on it, causing America's cash registers to lock up in "TILT" mode, a situation not seen again until the issuance of the infamous Susan "B" Anthony dollar in 1979. Shubeck was punished by being appointed Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held until his son, Myron T Shubeck V (R-Vice) was old enough to succeed him.
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6-18-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Whose statue stands in front of the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.? -- Ethnic in Etheridge
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Dear Ethnic: It's a portrait of the Paraguayan hero Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias Fernando de Aragón Estragon Domingo Martínez de Irala Ortiz de Zárate Mendieta Hernando Arias o ernandarias Sebástian de León y Zárate Cristóbal de Garay y Saavedra Juan Antonio Blásquez de Valverde Alonso Sarmiento de Sotomayor y Figueroa II (1615-1617), who at the age of 18 months led the famous charge up the Diego de los Reyes Balmaceda Bruno Mauricio de Závala y Cortázar arroyo to overthrow the despotic Spanish governor Pedro de Mendoza Juan de Ayolas Domingo Martínez de Irala Alvar Núñez (Cabeza de Vaca) Domingo Martínez de Irala Gonzalo de Gorgonzola XIII. As leader of what became known as the "Infanta Intifada," he was briefly (June 14 - June 26, 1617) elected King of Paraguay & Related Provinces ("Rey de Paraguay y de Provincias Relacionadas") before being tragically assassinated by his illegitimate son Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias Fernando de Aragón Estragon Domingo Martínez de Irala Ortiz de Zárate Mendieta Hernando Arias o Hernandarias Sebástian de León y Zárate Cristóbal de Garay y Saavedra Juan Antonio Blásquez de Valverde Alonso Sarmiento de Sotomayor y Figueroa III ("el Bastardo III"). The statue, by noted sculptor Henry Moore, was commissioned in 1953. Moore's non-representational portrait caused controversy at the dedication in April of 1956, especially after the Dutch ambassador pointedly commented on the resemblance of the late King's statue to a baboon-propelled baby carriage. This caused the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and Paraguay between 1956 and 1981, but nobody noticed. --- Cf: "Breve Vela: la vida y los tiempos de Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias Fernando de Aragón Estragon Domingo Martínez de Irala Ortiz de Zárate Mendieta Hernando Arias o Hernandarias Sebástian de León y Zárate Cristóbal de Garay y Saavedra Juan Antonio Blásquez de Valverde Alonso Sarmiento de Sotomayor y Figueroa II" OAS Press, Washington DC, San Cristobal and Bombay, 1974. (Published in English as "Brief Candle: the Life and Times of Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias Fernando de Aragón Estragon Domingo Martínez de Irala Ortiz de Zárate Mendieta Hernando Arias o Hernandarias Sebástian de León y Zárate Cristóbal de Garay y Saavedra Juan Antonio Blásquez de Valverde Alonso Sarmiento de Sotomayor y Figueroa II." OAS Inglésische Press, Washington DC, London and Mumbai, 1995
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6-21-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: How high was the 1,340-foot-long wall that gave New York's Wall Street its name? -- Wallfan in Wallsburg
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Dear Wallfan: The Dutch were a very practical and economical people, so they built the wall as tall as it was long, intending that it be rotated annually to balance the wear. Each year in July the wall was rotated to expose a different side to the elements. This became a local, then a national holiday, called a rodeo, from the Dutch word, "to rotate." It was initially celebrated with a solemn procession, but later, when sponsorship was bought up by chewing tobacco companies, it degenerated into raucous animal/human endurance acts followed by interminable three-chord "country" music and the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol. In some locations cowboy poetry was read to punish the celebrants, and it became de rigueur for the citizenry to dress in chaps, leather vests and shirts with pearl buttons. Although the "rodeo" is no longer celebrated in the New York financial district, it remains popular in places like Texas, where the original wall was moved after it was purchased by a chewing tobacco billionaire in 1699. For a small additional fee visitors can see London Bridge in the middle of a desert, or go to Las Vegas, which has miniature versions of lots of popular places. Tell them Cowgirl Nettie sent you and you'll get a 10% discount.
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6-28-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: In what country does Domino's Pizza have a reindeer sausage pie on its menu? -- Lapp Dancer in Lappland
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Dear Lapp: Paraguay. It's a welcome alternative to alpaca sausage and Jimmy Dean's llama llinks, and a real treat in a desperately poor high-altitude country where the popping of reindeer sausage in the pizza oven is often the only entertainment for the indigenous population. The most popular place to listen to popping reindeer sausage is at the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig in Asunci. It's such an important event every Saturday night that the landlocked local populace will often pool all its money to order a single small reindeer sausage pizza, solely for the entertainment value. Very often these pizzas are never even claimed, which has led the clever owner of the Asunci Domino's to replace the actual sounds of cooking sausage with a recording. The local Indians, known as the Guarneri after their superb violin-making skills, frequently hold concerts on Saturday nights to accompany the sounds of roasting, popping reindeer sausage (or a recording thereof). The Guarneri Quartet, as the group is known, passes the hat afterwards for contributions, but the country is so poor that all they ever receive are the bones from the reindeer sausage pizza which has been consumed in their absence. This forces them to eat their instruments, which are thoughtfully made of an edible reed known as the "viola di gamba bush," after which they return to their village and build new instruments for the following Saturday's recreation.¹
Recordings of their work can be
found on the Llandlocked Llabel. It's best to start with a simple album
like "Infrequently Sung Quechua Oarsmen's Ballads" (LlLl catalog #
6SJ-7y) until the listener becomes accustomed to the traditional Andean
atonality and background screaming and weeping.
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6-30-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: I have a Popular Music Appreciation course that has a paper due. What do you remember about Arthur Tracy, known as "The Street Singer," from the 1930s? -- Tin Ear in Tindale
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Dear Tin: Tracy, born Abba Avrom Tracovutsky in 1899, is deservedly unknown these days, although his "street songs" were considered a public service in New York City in the era before Map Quest. His most popular works included "Crossing Delancey," "Lexington and 45th," "TriBeCa by Streetlamp," and "Detour from Broadway via Union Square." As his popularity in the Lower East Side grew he branched out into streetcar and subway tunes, most notably, "Take the 'A' Train and Get Off at 125th and Amsterdam." Alas, he overreached himself when, in the depths of the Depression, he staged his ebullient opera, "The Colossus of Roads." Although a succès d'estime¹, the opera never really reached the average apple-seller in the street. Perhaps it was due to the $15 ticket price, a fortune at the time, when for $4 you could rent a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria for a week and for $8 you could buy a brand-new Hispano-Suiza with a walnut dashboard and Tiffany crystal bud vases. Bankrupt and cast out from the nobler haunts of man, Tracy returned to his beloved native Moldava. His final work, from 1937, was the touching ballad "Termen de Valabilitate Nelimitat Orele Ramase Peste Saptamini, Luni si Chiar ani din Ziua Procurarii," roughly translated as "From the Bus Terminal I Wander Down Utilizati Boulevard, Past the Plague Hospital and the Lunatic Asylum, to Where My Procurer Awaits Me." It too was a dud, as the Lunatic Asylum had been moved to Strada Pluzarki in 1927. ____________ ¹ Reviewer Rog Tingley of the New York Department of Sanitation actually wept at the aria, "Haulin' Ashes Through Bedford-Stuyvesant," dedicated to the city's devoted garbagemen.  |
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7-15-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the only country in the Middle East that does not have a desert? -- Parched in Parchman
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Dear Parched: Wallachistan. Its residents, the Wallachistains, have been planting deserts for years, but only grass, flowers and trees will grow there. Every spring the Wallachistanian Congress is forced to pass legislation funding the importation of vast quantities of sand to keep up appearances, but every winter the abundant rains wash it away and by March the land is once again carpeted with creeping red fescue, azaleas and spruce trees. The Wallachistainian people would love to work as nomads, cruising the desert with long trains of camels, searching out the next oasis, but instead the bulk of the population can only find work as landscapers. The government has often tried to reverse or disguise Wallachistan's arenaceously-challenged ambiance, to little avail. The 1976 tourist campaign attempting to sell the nation's asphalt-paved beaches failed miserably, and the 1983 "Christo" plan to cover half the country with #40 sandpaper failed when the staples used to attach it proved no match for Wallachistan's summer winds, called the "ffoom," after the Arabic word for unstapled sandpaper. In 1990 they even hired the infidel Pat Robertson to steer a sandstorm through the region via prayer, based on Robertson's success in moving tornadoes and hurricanes away from his property and into local trailer parks. Alas, Robertson's prayers fell on deaf Iranian dunes. The 1997 series of television ads on the theme "Absolutely Sabulous," had to be pulled when tourists discovered that the only sand in the place was locked up in concrete and not free to get into their drinks and bathing suits. A class-action suit by disappointed sand-seekers cost the country millions. And no one talks about the dreadful commercial with the song, "Wallachistan Has a First Name, it's S-A-N-D-Y...." for fear of government reprisals. This year the country has pretty much given up. The 2006 plan to sell the nation as one big golf course collapsed when golfers discovered that, not only were there no sand traps, but golf balls looked identical to the eggs of the Lesser Wallachistanian Bustard. A frustrated Tiger Woods got tired of attempting to putt eggs and watching birds fiercely defending golf balls mistaken as future progeny. His parting comment to Ernie Els as he left the World Wide Wallachistan Tour- "Don't let the bustards grab your balls," was unfortunately badly translated, leading to strained diplomatic relations between America and Wallachistan, only resolved when the USA invaded Tajikistan in retaliation for the imagined insult. |
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7-17-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the last remaining British colony in the South Pacific? -- Limey in London
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Dear Limey: The last trace of the empire upon which the sun once never set is the Pleustonic Siphonophore colony commonly misidentified as the "Portuguese Man of War," although it is not a native of Portugal and would never be confused with a famous racehorse. The colony is also often confused with a jellyfish because of the appearance of the natives, but is actually a symbiotic collection of four tribes which the UK organized into a single unit to give it a better shot at UN membership.(In the typical British fashion of giving zany names to places and things— think Shepherd's Bush or Spotted Dick— they always called the colony "Stingy Thingy," and it's unclear how the association with Portugal and horse racing developed.) The four tribes united under the Treaty of Physalia included the Pneumatophores, the Dactylozooids, the Gonozooids, and the Gastrozooids, all established Polynesian groups who had settled in the South Pacific after seeing a play staged by the Entertainment National Service Association (ENSA), a wartime Pacific Theatre group similar to the American USO. The British Diplomatic Corps urged them to float a loan after the war, but the phrase was misunderstood, and the tribal members tried to float alone but were quickly eaten by sharks. The remaining members of the tribe were reduced to swindling sailors as the basis of their economy¹, along with exports of canned breadfruit. As sailing ships became rarer and sailors more intelligent this activity died out, and most of the Siphonophores today are drifters. ____________ ¹ See "The Sting"," starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford for a historically accurate and highly entertaining account of how these swindling operations were established and carried out. |
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7-20-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: How many children of England's oft-married King Henry VIII sat on the British throne? -- Regal in Regisport
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Dear Regal: Well, first it was Sally, who was pretending to be Queen for a Day, then Charlie distracted her with a dead rat and he climbed on it to play King of the Mountain, then Benny came in and claimed he had been there first and started hitting Charlie with the sceptre. Charlie then threw the orb at Benny, almost knocking out his eye, and Benny went running to nurse to tell on Charlie. Meanwhile, Sally and Gladys had tied Charlie's shoelaces together so he fell down and broke his crown and they climbed on the throne and played the conjoined royal twins Maria-Teresa until Marty chased them out of the throne room so he could play with the Royal Seal, who bit him and sent him in tears to nurse. Later on they all tried to set the Guinness record for the most children packed into a royal throne, but it fell over and the whipping boy got so many lashes as a result that the children almost felt sorry for him, but not quite. When they left the throne room for supper Willy "accidentally" left behind the Whoopee Cushion which later caused the incident with the Danish ambassador that led eventually to the War of the Triple Axle and the invasion of Lichtenstein by George the Abominable. _______________________ ~ "Big Book of Alternative British History" by Sir Whumpton Fumpurton, Tooting Bec Asylum Press (London & Bombay, 1903) |
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7-22-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Who was the only English king to be honored with the epithet "the great" after his name? -- Royal in Royce
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Dear Royal: King Waldo the Great, the 1,032-pound monarch best known for completely flattening the royal throne upon his ascension. Waldo's banquets were legendary. At the celebration of the canonization of St Huthbert the feast went on for 5 days, after which Waldo sent out for pizza. His brief career ended in 948 when he inadvertently sat on the business end of a catapult during the War of the Picts and was flung with great force against the wall of his own castle. The stain was still a tourist attraction as late as as 1671, when it was covered with flocked wallpaper by King Bruce the Effete. |
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7-25-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: The French were so taken with a particularly beautiful double pink rose back in 1797 that they named it Blushing Thigh of the Aroused Nymph. What was it renamed by the prim and proper English? -- Blushing in Blatchford |
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Dear Blushing: "The Rosy Red Flanks of the Flogged Schoolboy," which seemed more appropriate to British proclivities of the time. Sir Wackford Squeers is credited with proposing the name to the Ministry of Floral Nomenclature. In view of changing standards, in 1971 it was changed to "The Pasty-White Palm of the Surly Dole Recipient." |
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7-28-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the state language of Luxembourg? -- Tongue-tied in Tonga |
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Dear Tongue-tied: There isn't one. As the city-state with the highest per-capita income in the European Union, Luxembourgahoovians have always relied on immigrant labor to do their talking for them. Many of the wealthiest families have not spoken in so long that their vocal cords have atrophied. This can be awkward, as during intimate moments lovers must hold up signs. |
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7-31-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Who was Egypt's only woman Pharaoh? -- Feminist in Femington |
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Dear Feminist: Margie Claypoole-Khufu, an American hoochie-koochie showgirl who married an infatuated Pharaoh Hyksos Khufu in 1924 after he promised to buy her Sweden as an engagement present. Margie did not fit the traditional Egyptian women's role, which usually consisted of hanging around the harem and producing sons to die in wars. She instead was known for her lavish cocktail parties, which invariably ended with her doing the Shimmy or the Black Bottom on top of the Sphinx with a reefer in one hand and a martini in the other. She was also the first woman to win the Camel Jockey Olympics in 1930, when she wisely substituted her 16-cylinder Bugatti Type 47 for "one of those ugly, lumpy, smelly beasts." Her winning speed of 174 mph has never been equalled. After Pharaoh Khufu died of terminal embarrassment in 1933 (see "The Mud Pie Incident" in Appendix II), Margie took over the Pharaohship franchise, decreeing that all future pyramids be replaced with shopping malls and ending the awkward and uncomfortable practice of walking like an Egyptian. She also made English the national language, saying, "Y'know, people will think we're cuckoo if we keep on talking in owls and snakes and watchsprings and body parts." This caused the mass resignation of all high priests, hierophants and haruspices, who moved en masse to Assyria, which still clung to the old traditions. She also changed the name of the Great and Terrible Temple of Awful Pharaonic Wrath to the "Ninth Dynasty Bar & Grill," which made it much more popular with the common folks. Happy hour was from 4pm to 7pm, no cover charge for ladies on Tuesdays. She died in 1941 from an overdose of asp. She chose to be cremated rather than embalmed once she found out about brain hooks and canopic jars, thus throwing a 9,000-year tradition onto the unemployment lines. Her tomb was constructed in Art Nouveau style out of prefabricated aluminum panels and the stylish molded plywood that was "in" that year. In the Grand Interment Chamber her carved image can still be seen in spite of frequent Islamic teenage vandalism. She sits on the Royal Barca-Lounger wearing the Royal Dior robes and a cunning Gabor fake beard intertwined with pink ribbons. She holds her favorite Royal Chihuahuas, Cha-cha and Ding-dong, who are wearing matching Gabor fake beards likewise entwined with pink ribbons. All the nobles of Egypt are shown prostrating themselves before the Royal Bunny Slippers. Margie was succeeded by her stepson, "Kato" Khufu, later to become national skateboard champion. He is best known for replacing the lengthy and formal Pharaonic Greeting Ritual with the High Five. |
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8-3-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What formal wearing apparel- never before worn in public- led to the arrest of James Hetherington in England in 1797? -- Sartorial in Saratoga Springs |
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Dear Sartorial: Electric spats. Hetherington was disturbed by the way his spats, designed to protect his shoes from street ordure, themselves quickly became bedaubed with the mire of muddy 18th-century roads. He hypothesized that a strong negative electric charge would repel the offending substances, so he wired his spats with a high-voltage storage coil as an experiment. It didn't work out quite the way he intended. Oh, his spats stayed perfectly spotless thanks to the negative electrical charge, but the *positive* terminal attracted all manner of crud, dirt, filth, grime, muck and horse exudate. After a ten-minute walk on the Strand he bore a strong resemblance to the later comic strip character Swamp Thing, only he smelled worse. He was promptly arrested by the London Sanitation Police and charged (not electrically this time) with malicious messery, transporting squalor without a permit, being a public nuisance and impersonating a dungheap. |
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8-5-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the word "laser" an acronym for? -- Light in Lansing |
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Dear Light: Actually, it's an anagram for "Earl's," Earl Leibstoast being the inventor of the Concentrated Lite® malt beverage product which was so popular among ethnic minorities in the 1970s. He had started out by trying to invent what he called a "light concentrator," which would allow light to be compressed a hundredfold for more convenient shipping and handling. But as he was setting up his equipment one day for another run of experiments while whistling "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," he inadvertently shot a batch of concentrated light through a bottle of Gablinger's on his workbench. The rest is history. His Concentrated Lite® line of beers and ales packed the oomph of 100 gallons or more of beer into a single bottle or can, allowing entire communities to get hammered with just a single-six-pack. His products were especially popular with fraternities. Instead of the traditional "kegger," barrel party which was easily spotted by inquiring police, the "eyedropper" party became wildly popular, as the eyedropper of Concentrated Lite® could be easily disposed of if law enforcement came knocking. It became a fad to squirt an eyedropper of Earl's products into a swimming pool, thus converting the contents to 100% pure suds, and making pool parties that much more interesting. Earl quickly became a millionaire, and would have by now approached billionaire status had it not been for the tragic events of August 15, 1978, when a tanker truck of Concentrated Lite® went off a bridge into Lake Erie. This led to the infamous "drunk fish" incident, when hundreds of thousands of bowfin, carp, lake sturgeon, trout, whitefish, pike, smelt and longnose suckers rose up to take vengeance on lakeside fishermen and boaters. Survivors reported a strong smell of beer surrounding their attackers, and it dawned on authorities that the sunken tanker truck had split open and converted 9,910 square miles of lake water into a titanic brewski. This event marked Earl's downfall. With trillions of gallons of beer available for the taking, who was going to buy his Concentrated Lite® malt product? Plus the fact that he was sued by hundred of communities which drew their drinking water from Lake Erie and were now faced with what one alderman referred to as "a hundred-year involuntary beer bust." Schools were particularly affected, and many school districts were forced to reinstall sugary soft drink machines to assure that their students would be clear-headed enough to learn. Many youngsters were found to be malnourished due to their singular consumption of beer nuts. Humane shelters and veterinarians were overwhelmed with dogs who had drunk out of the toilet and ended up almost terminally schnockered. Particularly tragic was the case of guide dogs for the blind, who merrily led their charges into heavy traffic and into jet aircraft engines and roadside mowers, all the while thinking they were doing their noble best. The situation was approaching a crisis when a clever Michigan scientist suggested that huge filters made of zeolites would allow the ethanol in the lake to be converted directly to gasoline. This made Michigan the 3rd largest supplier of gasoline and gasoline by-products in the world, and enabled the newly-wealthy state government to import all the water it needed for drinking and other purposes. Earl Leibstoast died in 1982, a broken and disillusioned man. The Brewery Museum Foundation of St Louis acquired his remains as the focal point of their Oddities collection. |
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8-9-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is a dentiloquist? -- Dentist in Denver |
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Dear Dentist: Since a "ventriloquist" is one who projects his voice with his stomach, a dentriloquist is obviously someone who projects his voice with his teeth, sometimes through the use of dentures wired for sound. Some famous singers have been dentriloquists, including Paracelsius the Younger, who performed "Fangs for the Memories," as he was being executed for biting a proconsul in 413. Saint Harmonium gave us "Tea for Tooth," as he was being burned for dentroheresy in 788 (he persisted in his belief that the soul was contained in the bicuspids, when official Church doctrine held that it obviously resided in the Teeth of Wisdom). Many contemporary singers and groups are dentriloquists, including Sting ("Every Tooth You Take"), Berlin ("Take My Teeth Away"), Rod Stewart ("Toothloose and Fancy Free") - not to be confused with "Toothloose" by Kenny Loggins- and gospel artist Mahalia Jackson's "All I Want for Christians is Thy Two Front Teeth." |
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8-12-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What word originated as the nickname for an English insane asylum? -- Bonkers in Bonampak |
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Dear Bonkers: It comes from the name of a small English village, Lunybinn, which supplied village idiots to communities as far away as Scotland and Ireland. Down through the ages visitors knew something wasn't right with the inhabitants, perhaps from their habit of electing a horse as mayor or extracting teeth with gunpowder charges. Jonathan Swift, who passed through the village in 1724, is believed to have gotten the idea for several of the imaginary lands in "Gulliver's Travels" from the inhabitants of Lunybinn. The village had an ingenious form of management, based on the afflictions of the inhabitants. All the civil servants were depressives, whose demeanor perfectly suited the dreariness of paperwork and bureaucracy. Paranoids ran the police department. Obsessive-compulsives manned the toll booths at each end of the town, perfectly suited to doing the same task over and over again. Catatonics made perfect doorstops. Narcoleptics tested beds. Narcissists sold cosmetics and mirrors. Hypochondriacs became test subjects in medical centers. Masochists taught in high schools, which is also where nymphomaniacs taught sex education. Those suffering from folie à deux became marriage counselors. Lunybinn unfortunately burned down in 1823 when a pyromaniac was elected head of the fire department. Most of the surviving Lunybinnians went into politics. |
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8-14-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the meaning of katzenjammer, the German word used in the name of the early comic strip "The Katzenjammer Kids"? -- Hungover in Hanover |
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Dear Hungover: As a windjammer was a clipper ship powered by the wind, a katzenjammer was a clipper ship powered by German cats. The Egyptians were the first to employ¹ cats to propel their "mauships": great regal vessels which used to ply the Nile carrying the Pharaoh to various appointments and temple dedications. The Greeks copied them, and their kataboats were the principal means of carrying on trade in the Aegean. As you may recall from "The Odyssey," it was a disgruntled oar-cat who clawed open the bag of winds given to Odysseus by Aeolus, the god of winds, causing his craft to be stranded until the Coast Guard came along. Likewise the Romans copied the Greeks, and their bi-felisremes and tri-felisremes were formidable warships. And who could forget the dreaded Viking fleets? Although their craft were called "dragonboats" in Olde Englishe, they themselves referred to them as kotturkraft, since they were powered by cats. And where would Columbus have been without the gattobatelli Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria? The age of steam soon caused the disappearance of the katzenjammers, a loss sorely felt by modern sailors, who miss the smell of catnip in the mornings. ______________ ¹ Strictly speaking they were not employed. Like their human counterparts they were prisoners or slaves. |
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8-17-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the origin of the expression "knock on wood"? -- Unlucky in Unversaw |
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Dear Unlucky: Sir Nockon Wood was one of the most superstitious people in all of England during the late 18th century. At his estate in Wussex, ladders were forbidden and black cats were shot on sight. Servants would be flogged or discharged for spilling salt or putting a hat on a bed. All windows were screened to prevent a bird from entering the house, bringing death in its wake. All pathways were unpaved to avoid the possibility of his stepping on a crack and breaking his mother's back (even though she had been dead for 17 years before the estate was built). Every doorway, including all interior ones, closets and crawl spaces, had a dozen horseshoes nailed above it. All mirrors were placed on the floor and heavily padded to prevent breakage. Needless to say all references to the number 13 were prohibited. And Heaven help those who cut their nails on a Friday! Every morning the entire staff was turned out at dawn to search the rambling lawns for four-leaf clovers while being extra careful not to injure ladybugs or accidentally uproot a mandrake. All rabbits discovered were deprived of their feet. Each house servant was given a supply of pennies each day to throw into fountains and wells on the property, while other servants were required to pick up the pennies. All wishbones from poultry consumed in the servants' quarters were the property of the Master. During the Leonid and Perseid annual meteor showers, the staff was required to stay up all night wishing on the shooting stars. Sir Nockon lived a long and prosperous, tranquil and thoroughly safe life until the evening of Thursday, September 24, 1818, when he was innocently sharpening a knife, utterly unaware that sharpening a knife after dark was the direst sort of bad luck in Thailand. He was immediately eaten by ghouls, his mansion exploded and burned to the ground and all his servants and livestock went irreversibly insane. Hence the name of Sir Nockon Wood is invoked whenever someone believes in a superstition. |
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8-21-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What are the alevin, parr, smolt and grilse? -- Piscatorial in Piscataway |
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Dear Piscatorial: The famous Serbian legal team of Alevin, Parr, Smolt & Grilse defended Slobodan Milosevic against international charges of "being a really, really bad man." Their defense of the charge of ethnic cleansing pointed out that the ethnic had not been properly cleaned since the 14th century, and that the sparkly new pressure-washed ethnic had become a popular tourist site, bringing in much needed dinars to the Treasury. On the charge of crimes against humanity, they riposted, "What has humanity done for us lately?" On the charge that he caused the breakup of Yugoslavia, his crack legal team pointed out that the Yugoslavs had been bickering constantly since Mrs Yugoslav found a blonde hair in the back seat of their Yugo, and that a breakup was inevitable. On the charge of corruption they adroitly demonstrated that all his victims had been professionally embalmed by a licensed mortician and buried in airtight caskets, thus preserving them from decay. Finally, on the charge that he died before the trial was over, they cunningly suggested that the conclusion depended on one's definition of death, and that old Slobo was capable of playing possum for weeks to escape a tight situation, a remark that prompted the judges to order that Milosevic be buried with a stake of holly through his heart, his mouth filled with garlic, and silver para coins over his eyes. |
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8-23-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: The word peninsula is derived from the Latin words paene and insula. What do they mean? -- Etymological in Etna |
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Dear Etymological: Paene (alternatively paean) is an exuberant song of praise or thanksgiving. Insula refers to insulation. The entire word refers to the exultation that upper-class Romans felt when Fiberglas® insulation was first introduced into their chilly and drafty stone villas. The otherwise forgotten Emperor Florianus¹ (9:15am DST June 14 - 4:32pm DST September 3, 276), not having time to build a temple or coliseum to himself, decided on a very pragmatic way of making sure his name would go down in history by distributing insulation to all the patrician families in Rome and the suburbs. Although the clever Romans had invented the hypocaust² to provide whole-house heating, most of the heat generated was lost through the walls and roof of the villa. Florianus's gift enabled them to save so much on heating costs that a family was able to sponsor three or four more gladiators in the Summer Olympics, or purchase two and a half slaves. There was, of course, a downside. The slick silver surface of the insulation batts prevented artists from painting the decorative frescos which were once the highlight of every Roman home. This accounts for the sudden disappearance of wall painting, which would not re-emerge until the Dark Ages where it was used to decorate drafty, uninsulated churches. ---------------- ¹ Full title: Imperator Caesar Marcus Annius Florianus Pius Felix Invictus Augustus, a name longer than his reign. ² From the Greek words hypo and caust, meaning a caust underneath |
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8-25-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is "garbo" slang for in Australia? -- Downer in Down-under |
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Dear Downer: An actress who avoids the celebrity limelight. Named after Frieda Garbo, sister of Greta, who, after a series of successful B-movies in Hollywood ("Camellia," "The Return of Camellia," "Jason vs. Camellia: The Final Showdown" and the children's movie, "The Camellia Twins at Grandfather's Farm), retired to Australia to become "just another sheila," as she put it. The isolation of the Australian Outback will take its toll on even the most dedicated recluse, and by 1953 Frieda was discovered by her pool boy sitting on her verandah pouring grass seed on her head. When asked why she was doing it, she replied in those classic words, "I vant to be a lawn." |
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8-27-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the origin of "Mayday," as the international radiotelephonic distress signal for ships and aircraft? -- Helpless in Helsinki |
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Dear Helpless: During World War I every precaution was taken to avoid giving the Hun any indication of military weakness in radio and telegraph messages, so catastrophic events were coded with deceptive names. "May Day" was used for ship sinkings, to make the Boche think that conditions were so normal aboard ship that a maypole had been set up on the deck for the amusement of sailors; "Santa Claus" was used for aircraft crashes, to fool the Krauts into believing that a flight was as unharmed as Santa's sleigh; "Skip to M'Lou" indicated a train wreck; and "Gesundheit" was used to disguise the great influenza epidemic of 1918. The tradition continued until President Ronald Reagan insisted on using "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" to warn of a nuclear missile attack, at which point the program was quietly retired. |
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8-30-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the meaning of the Chinese phrase "gong hay fot choy"? -- Sinoese in Sinop |
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Dear Sinoese: Like all Chinese ideogrammatic expressions, each unit must be considered separately before the full flavor of the phrase is released. In its basic sense, "gong" means a saucer-shaped metal device which produces a single sonorous note when struck with a mallet. 1. The character "gong" can also mean "performance," as in the Falun Gong Show, a popular Chinese TV entertainment. In the Deep Chinese South, it can mean the act of moving toward a goal, as in, "Ise gong t'der outhouse, ma." It is the root of the word "gongorism," the tendency to imitate the florid style of 8th-dynasty writer Huang the Gong. 2. "Hay," in its most basic sense is a sort of provender for horses and cattle. In South Central Beijing it is a greeting amongst minority residents, as in, "Hay, dawg!" It is the nickname of anyone named Hayakawa. It is part of a disparaging reference to rural denizens (see "hayseed"). 3. "Fot" is the Mandarin singular for "feet" It is the dialect word for "blubbery," as in: "Looka-dat fot chick, mon!" It is the passive of "fight," as in: "Hwe fot a good fight, dude"). Of, or referring to, bodily flatulence. 4. "Choi" is primarily Mandarin for "vegetable," as in "bok choi" (weird vegetable) It can mean a limited selection, as in: " You choi sis fish t'nite" In Cantonese, it means great happiness, as in: "Hu bring mei grete choi"). ------------------ So the phrase "gong hay fot choy" can mean a whole bunch of things, which is why most Chinese speak English, which is less confusing. |
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9-3-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the British term for the maid of honour at a wedding? -- Engaged in England |
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Dear Engaged: The second. In a typical British wedding, each party is represented by a second. The seconds' duty, above all, is to try to reconcile the parties to the wedding without violence. A marriageable party will send a challenge to the marriageablee through his or her second. If the recipient accepts, the matter is usually ended with a civil or church ceremony. If the marriageablee elected to fight, however, he or she chooses the weapons and the time (usually dawn) and place of the encounter. Up until the actual shooting or dueling begins, apologies can be given, the marriage accepted, and all parties adjourn to the nearest inn for the wedding breakfast. After combat begins, it can be stopped at any point once the maid of honour had been satisfied and properly tipped. ---------- Ref: "Great British Proposals and Personal Combats" by Alexander Burr. En Garde Books (London & Bombay, 1933) "A Palpable Hit: The Charles and Diana Challenge" by Her Second (pseudonym of Alfred Shawn). Parry & Thrust Publications (London & Bombay, 1983) |
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9-6-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: How did pound cake get its name? -- Hefty in Hefei |
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Dear Hefty: That's an interesting etymological question whose answer lies in the London street slang of the previous century. In America this urchin argot took the form of numbers, e.g., "23" was the word for policeman, from which we get the expression "23 skidoo!"¹ The London street urchin preferred using coded words: the first letters of "police constable," became the coded words "pound cake. The cry of "pound cake!" echoing over the low dives of bad neighborhoods meant that a bobby was in the vicinity. By extension, "pound cake" came to mean any device for outwitting the police or gaoler. An incarcerated felon would send a message to his moll requesting "one of your delicious pound cakes, my dear," to help him while away his idle time behind bars. This innocuous note would be passed by the prison censors without comment. In a few days the moll would show up at the prison with a rather dense, longish loaf of sweetened, baked, impenetrable yellow bread dough. She would pass this through to her doting desperado who, in the dark of night within his cell, would break open the cake to remove the enclosed hacksaw blade or blades, which he would promptly apply to the bars of his prison window to make his escape, taking along the remains of the "pound cake" to poison the police dogs who roamed the yard. Eventually the word was borrowed by the upper classes, who concocted a rather bland yellow cake² served to bored matrons at tea parties and inflicted upon children at charitable fund-raisers. An authentic, original pound cake recipe follows: INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup recycled lard 1 cup gone-off butter 2 1/2 cups whitish used sugar 5 bad eggs 2 teaspoons strychnine extract 1 cup elderly milk 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 3 cups cake flour 1 cup plaster of Paris* 2-3 #24 hacksaw blades *Essential to prevent prison staff from sampling wares and possibly confiscating it for their break room. Any gaoler silly enough to break off a piece and try to eat it will never make the mistake a second time. DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 12- inch pan. (Can be adjusted to fit length of hacksaw blades) 2. Cream shortening, butter and sugar until thick and dense. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in strychnine extract. 3. Combine baking powder, plaster of Paris, and flour. Stir into creamed mixture alternately with the milk, starting and ending with flour. Place hacksaw blades on bottom of pan and pour in batter. 4. Allow the plaster of Paris to set for 3 hours. Then bake for 2 to 3 hours to assure density, or until a knife blade jabbed into the center of the loaf snaps off clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. --------------------- ¹ In another context: "A True McGlook once handed this to me: When little Bright Eyes cuts the pound cake for you Count twenty ere you eat the honey-goo Which leads to love and matrimony - see? A small-change bunk what's bats on spending free Can't four-flush when he's paying rent for two. The pin to flash on Cupid is 'Skidoo!' The call for Sweet Sixteen is '23'." -Wallace Irwin, The Love Sonnets of a Streetcar Conductor, 1908 ² See Plame, Valerie entry in "Who's Who in the CIA," 2004 edition |
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9-8-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Why is Superman allergic to kryptonite? He comes from the planet Krypton. It's like if Icelanders were allergic to snow, or the Irish allergic to grass. -- Confounded in Connemara |
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Dear Confounded: It has to do with the death of Superman's late, great home planet. Before Krypton disintegrated during the stock market crash of Year 11.228, no one who lived on the planet was allergic to it, of course. Off-planet visitors, however, were sometimes horribly affected by certain features of Krypton and the Kryptonians. For example, when an inhabitant of a low-gravity planet like F'nub visited the extremely high-gravity planet Krypton, they were squashed so flat they only had one side. When the story of what happened to F'nub's first goodwill ambassador to Krypton got back to the F'nubbians they were horrified and angry, to say the least. To make matters worse, when a Welcome Wagon¹ hostess arrived on F'nub to apologize and make amends for the incident, her density and the density of her Welcome Wagon caused them to sink through the crust all the way to the center of the planet. When she attempted to escape by using her super strength, she braced her feet against the Welcome Wagon and made a mighty leap. Well, as I'm sure you've heard, when she went one way the Welcome Wagon went the other way, and F'nub ended up looking like a titanic advertisement for Dunkin' Donuts. The F'nubbians, a delicate and sensitive people, died en masse of collective mortification. The now-empty and hole-punctured planet was purchased by a Goodyear franchisee, who painted the outside to look like a tire tread and won that year's Goodyear Advertising Innovation award. Even inhabitants of worlds that matched Krypton's enormous gravity ran into problems, mostly from the Kryptonian's x-ray vision, which sterilized an entire Bivonian tourist spaceship's passengers and crew when they were greeted at the spaceport by welcoming Kryptonians. The handful who elected to stay on Krypton for the annual Scarlet Jungle Beer Festival had all their fur and teeth fall out a few days later and had to be shipped back to Bivon in lead-lined coffins, freight collect. But I'm digressing. The reason why Kryptonite is so dangerous to Superman and other survivors of the breakup of the home planet is because Krypton's core was pure uranium, kept from exploding by the sheer gravity of the world. Freed from this limitation when the planet disintegrated, the core went off like a billion billion hydrogen bombs, sending super-irradiated chunks of the fractured planet flying through space. So it's the radiation from kryptonite that affects our boy, not the rock itself. Most kryptonite is green, causing Superman to become weak as the proverbial kitten and lose all his powers. Red kryptonite has utterly unpredictable effects. During his lifetime, whenever Superman has been exposed to the stuff, he has turned into a dragon, a powerless giant, a dwarf, an ant-headed humanoid, a lunatic, an amnesiac, and an utterly evil vice-president of the United States. White kryptonite has no effect on Superman, but is an excellent weed killer. Pink or lavender kryptonite causes Superman to attend Gay Pride events, add lace cuffs to his costume, use florid gestures and speech, buy his underwear from Frederick's of Hollywood, and develop a languishing, unrequited crush on Perry White. There is also Bizarro kryptonite, which is blue and affects only Bizarros on their planet Htrae, causing them to become polite, use grammatically correct speech, exhibit perfect table manners and take ballroom dancing lessons. The stress it causes to their defective life systems quickly kills them. ---------------------- ¹ No, they didn't have actual Welcome Wagons® on Krypton, but the concept was the same. I could give you the Kryptonian name but it's impossible for an Earthling to pronounce. Remember that the Kryptonians had the equivalent of 12-ton tongues and lips like Angelina Jolie. |
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9-11-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box? -- Crunchy in Crutchfield |
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Dear Crunchy: It was Tige. He was the cause of the Branding Wars of 1931-1938, as the Buster Brown Bomber Squadron battled the Cracker Jack Naval Force for possession of the poor dog, whose popularity rivaled the later Shirley Temple's. He was inadvertently destroyed during the Buster Brown incendiary bombing of Halifax, NS, the Cracker Jack command post. Although a truce was declared at that point, open warfare again broke out when both sides claimed Asta, the fox terrier from the Thin Man series of movies (The Thin Man, Bride of the Thin Man, Revenge of the Thin Man, The Thin Man from the Black Lagoon, I Married a Teenage Thin Man, Beach Blanket Thin Man, and The Thin Man vs. Godzilla). When Asta was dismembered during a classic tug-of-war contest, attention turned to Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Benji. UN Resolution #17117 attempted a settlement between the warring parties by assigning Scooby Doo to the Buster Brown franchise and Cujo to the Cracker Jack side. The plan failed miserably after Buster Brown was fatally trampled by Scooby Doo attempting to escape from the studio's ghosts, and the Cracker Jack kid died of rabies. An attempt to merge the two companies and produce a line of sticky edible children's shoes also failed miserably after 200 kids were stuck to the hot Atlantic City boardwalk during an August heat wave, where they were eaten by cloned Dobermans. |
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9-14-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What elaborate confection was inspired by St. Bride's Church in London? -- Churchy in Churchill |
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Dear Churchy: St Bride's church is where the infamous Gunpowder Plot was confected in 1605. Guido (aka Guy, aka "Mad Bomber") Fawkes and his co-conspirators met in the church's recreation basement over the course of several months working out ways to inconspicuously smuggle three tons of gunpowder into the Parliament building in London as a fraternity prank. (The previous year they had placed a coach and four on the top of Buckingham Palace.) The best idea they could come up with was to fill their voluminous breeches with gunpowder, then join a walking tour of the Parliament building, slipping away at an appropriate moment to run down to the basement and dump the powder into a pre-arranged hogshead. The plot would have succeeded if the conspirators hadn't forgotten about the gunpowder residue clinging to their breeches and undergarments. The next time Fawkes sent his breeches and undies to the tailor for pressing the garments were ignited by an overheated iron, blowing a hole in the shop and killing the tailor. Thus the plot was discovered. Fortunately Parliament had a sense of humor and recognized the conspiracy as a good-natured prank, so Guido and his fellows were put to the rack only for a week before their intestines were publicly removed and burned and they were drawn and quartered. King James so enjoyed the prank that he made November 5th ("Detonation Day," according to Fawkes's notes) a legal holiday. The custom grew down through the centuries, so that even today in London on November 5th one can see small boys begging for gunpowder to blow up Tony Blair. |
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9-17-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Who invented evaporated milk? -- Sere in Secaucus |
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Dear Sere: The Tuareg, tough and resilient Sahara desert¹ dwellers who are primarily herders of camels and the occasional cow. They drive their herds through the desert looking for grass and water, which they rarely find. After six weeks in the desert the she-camels will produce evaporated milk, which is used by the Tuareg to fend off starvation, and is often traded with Islamic merchants for AK-47s and blocks of RDX. The Tuareg are an angry people who yearn for the glory days of the end of the last Ice Age, when the Sahara was covered with a lush carpet of grass. The occasional cow, less well adapted to the desert, is used as a kind of beef jerky on the hoof, the herders peeling off strips of the dried meat whenever they feel the need for a snack. Once the cow has been reduced to a skeleton it is released into the wild to survive on its own, which it never does, although many of these cattle have frightened the daylights out of other desert dwellers, who believe them to be n'n'ktchkrum'ninagho'poptelakh, or "crazed skeletal cattle ghosts who eat surplus children." Which they often do. ---------------------- ¹ Not to be confused with Caakiri, a Saharan dessert. To prepare Caakiri. Ingredients: 1. Two cups of couscous 2. Pat of camel butter 3. Dash of salt 4. One cup evaporated camel milk 5. One cup soured camel cream or buttermilk 6. Two cups plain or vanilla camel yogurt 6. One-half cup sugar 7. One-half teaspoon vanilla extract 8. Dash of nutmeg 9. Raisins or mint garnish Instructions: 1. Prepare the couscous as usual. (Bring four and one half cups of water to boil in a large saucepan. Add couscous, butter, and salt. Stir and cover. Remove from heat. Leave covered for ten minutes. Allow couscous to cool.) 2. Combine all other ingredients but the yogurt. Stir well. Stir yogurt into couscous. Add more sugar to taste. Garnish with raisins, mint, or both. Serve warm or chilled. |
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9-19-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What name is shared by a citrus fruit and the citizens of an African capital? -- Citric in Cîteaux |
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Dear Citric: Grapefruit. The Grapefrutians (grape-FROOSH-ins) of Lesser Mambo (formerly Occupied Citrusia) invented grapefruit when they were attempting to grow grapes to make wine, which would allow them to practice the ancient African ceremony of Gettingplastered, essential for assuring that the seasonal monsoon was on schedule. They were expecting vines to grow, but since they had only a single bottle of McReady's Grapefruit Madness Wine Cooler to use as a starter, they were quite surprised to see large trees appearing at the experimental plantation, trees which later bore great yellow fruit so sour that the first tasters died of Terminal Pucker. All attempts to ferment the juice of this grape-fruit ended in failure until one wise old villager suggested adding a pound of sugar to the juice of every grapefruit to balance the acidity. This recipe worked wonderfully well, and the Grapefruitians were soon able to get staggering drunk by drinking a glass of this grape-fruit juice and washing it down with a quart of laboratory alcohol stolen from the mission clinic in their village. Each of the men of the village over the age of seven partook of this vintage and, sure enough, the monsoon came and drowned all the unconscious bodies lying in the mud of the village square. The women of the newly named Grapefruit, unhampered by men, went on to invent fusion power, teleportation and discovered the answer to Pudnut's Quandary, which had bedeviled mathematicians for centuries (the correct answer was 6). By revising the atmosphere so that the climate was perfect all the year round they made Grapefruit the vacation spot of choice for wealthy urbanites across the globe.¹ Men are welcome, of course, but after a snootful of the National Beverage most of them wander off into the jungles with overpowered hunting rifles in pursuit of the fabled Snarlsplatter. None of them has ever returned. ------------------------------ ¹ The Grapefrutian Nation Anthem celebrates this idyllic weather:
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9-22-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: How many quarts of whole milk does it take to make one pound of butter? -- Churning in Chernobyl |
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Dear Churning: It depends on what kind of butter is to be made. Using three quarts will make a bitter butter; using four quarts will make a better butter, unless you plan to bake with it, then you will need 5¼ quarts to make a batter butter. Nolan Ryan uses butter to strike out batters, but how many quarts are involved is a trade secret. Here's a clever mnemonic to help you remember: Betty Boop bought some butter, "But," she said "this butter's bitter. If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter! Bummer and blather! But a bit of better butter will make my batter better!" So she bartered for some better butter, better than the bitter butter, and she put it in her batter and her batter was not bitter! So 'twas better Betty bartered for a bit of better butter. As for Nolan Ryan, by buttering his bat he batted a better bunt for a bigger bagger. |
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9-26-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What is the most widely eaten fish in the world? -- Piscatorial in Pisa |
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Dear Piscatorial: The blue whale, which can be as wide as 40 feet. In 1971 a group of Inuit in Alaska attempted to attract attention to their miserable village by making the world's biggest submarine sandwich, putting a blue whale inside the most widely eaten stretch roll in the world. Although the feat did not attract the hoped-for flood of tourists, they did make the Guinness Book of Records in the category Biggest Sandwich Involving an Endangered Species. For years afterward kids in the village could be heard shouting, "Not whale sub AGAIN?!" and husbands would tell their wives that they had it for lunch, which is the LAST thing an Inuit housewife wants to hear after slaving over a cold stove all day. Once the enormous concoction was devoured down to the last crumb, the Inuit tribe swore off fish¹ altogether, even to the extent of passing up anchovies on pizza. Their Next Big Thing is to dig up a frozen mammoth and try to put it between the two halves of the most widely eaten giant hamburger bun. They figure it's a natural for the Guinness category of Biggest Sandwich Involving an Extinct Species. __________________ ¹ Yes, we know. But in Inuitese, if it swims it's a fish. This caused great consternation when Mrs Paul's® Fish Sticks became available to the tribes, as it was marked fish but clearly did not swim, being trapped in a box and obviously dead. The Council of Elders settled the question by ruling that Mrs Paul's products could only be called Fried Oblongs of Wood, obviously confused by the word "sticks," as they had rarely seen a tree. They had an even worse time with Mrs Paul's Deviled Crab Cakes, which ended up in Inuitese as "Satanic Arthropod Pastry." As you can imagine, sales of this product dropped to near zero, especially among Evangelicals. |
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9-30-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: You haven't talked much lately about your home town of Redbone, Arkansas. Does it still exist? -- Geographer in Geoduck |
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Dear Geographer: Oh my, yes! Without Redbone, where would I be? But I must confess that the town of Redbone has been keeping a low profile these days. You see, late last year the mayor, Swanson Poltooey, got an ominous letter from the US Department of Feckless Grasping. It appears that back in the early days of the American Revolution, the new government, which consisted of six people meeting in an appliance carton beside the Potomac, issued a land grant of 6,000 acres to establish the village of Redbone in Arkansas Territory. Well, from the letter we discovered that the government had changed the terms of the grant making it a rental agreement retroactive to 1778, and we are behind on 228 years' worth of payments.¹ When properly cross-compounded, taxed and fined, with the land depletion allowance figgered in, we appear to owe the federal government a sum with more zeroes than George Bush's report card. Since the total value of the town of Redbone is only $48,351.18 (manure, old tires and deposit bottles included), we were faced with foreclosure unless we could think up something as a diversion. After much thought it was decided to evade detection by keeping constantly on the move and changing the name of the town frequently. So for a month we were Tulip, Texas, an innocuous Native American town on the Texas Panhandle selling fresh vegetables² and fake Kiowa Apache souvenirs by the side of the road and renting out teepees to tourists ignorant of the fact that the real Kiowa Apaches always stayed in motels when they were on the road. Then for a month we were Parsonage, Kentucky, operating a televangelical program, tent revival and Jesus Camp for the kiddies. Unfortunately we attracted the attention of Jerry Falwell, whose "enforcers" escorted us to the state border for encroaching on his turf. After that we were Currency, Kansas for a month. Our Big Bank of Currency attracted much interest with its offer of 75% interest on deposits over $100,000. Late one night we deflated the bank, rolled it up along with the deposits, and were in Nebraska before the first interest payment was due the following morning. We were a bit puzzled about what to do in Nebraska, which consists entirely of corn and Warren Buffett ("Wastin' Away Again in Margincallville"). Following the advice of the Sage of Omaha, the Parsley of Lincoln, and the Rosemary and Thyme of North Platte, we incorporated as the cornstead of Maizey d'Oats, applied for an agribusiness subsidy by pretending we were a megacorporation that didn't need it, and the federal government came through with a $100 million corn subsidy and $82 million Crop Depletion Allowance payoff. We stayed there until the week before our putative harvest, then split for South Dakota (population 114), where we formed the town of Reactionary and made a bundle selling extremely ultraconservative right-wing books with titles like "Nuke Canada Before Canada Nukes Us!" and "Is the Constitution an Act of Treason?" We left quickly after the first shipment, before anyone found out that the contents were just a jumble of Ann Coulter mixed in with a monologue from a sufferer of Tourette's Syndrome. As it turned out, nobody noticed. By that time the fuss about the back rent had blown over when the collection agency could not find Redbone, Arkansas, and simply added the bill to the National Debt so no one would notice. We snuck back in under the cover of darkness, and here we are! ------------------------ ¹ The letter explained that the money was to be used to finance a new and improved war against a country to be named later. ² Moving the crops and gardens was the hardest part of our frequent relocations, as you might expect. |
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10-3-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: I'm in a real bind here, since I have to turn in a summary of one of Richard Wagner's operas by tomorrow morning. Can you summarize one for me? -- Backstreet Boy in Backold |
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Dear Backstreet: You're in luck, as I happen to have one sitting in front of me. Now, all operas have silly plots, but Wagner's "Low and Grim" is sillier than most. In the first act a boat towed by a single swan magically arrives at dockside during wartime, piloted by a knight of the Holy Groin with a cattle prod, as swans are notoriously reluctant to pull boats around, lacking the necessary horsepower. He offers to fight for the heroine, Elsie, provided she never asks his name or where he came from (he's abnormally sensitive about being named Myron Manglegruber and having grown up in Hoboken). She agrees by singing the aria, "What Kind of Nut Travels by Swan?" Act 2 simply overcomplicates the plot, and is generally disregarded by sensible operameisters and operameistresses. Act 3 takes place in the bridle chamber, or horse barn, where Elsie comes in accompanied by the bridle chorus singing the "William Tell Overture" from the opera, "Return of the Lone Ranger." Tubby the Obese rushes in and is slain by Low and Grim with a currycomb which he had inadvertently pocketed after having had lunch at an Indian fast-food franchise. A confusing battle takes place, during which Low and Grim spontaneously shouts out his name and the name of his home town when he sits on a pike. The pike, it turns out, was being chased by the swan of maritime transport fame, who was really hungry after having hauled the knight and his barge around. Lo and behold, the swan is revealed to be Elmer, Elsie's missing husband. Elmer slays Low and Grim with the cattle prod while singing the aria, "Bess, You Is Mah Woman Now," thinking that he's appearing in a different opera. Elsie slays Elmer with the aria, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," from the opera "Earthquake!" by Wilfrid Temblor von Seismic. She is in turn slain when she tries to hit E over high C, everting her lungs, which float backstage to be eaten by bats. Then a white dove comes down from Heaven, shakes its head at the carnage, loads Low and Grim into a garbage scow which it pulls back to Hoboken, swearing up a storm and wishing the opera's author had been familiar with outboard motors. The curtain descends, killing the dove, whose spirit returns to the Castle of the Holy Groin where it is ticketed for parking in a handicapped zone. The audience awakens when the screaming stops and goes out to get drunk. |
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10-7-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: For over fifty years, Ann Turner Cook's portrait has been the symbol for what well-known food product? -- Tasty in Tastabyana |
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Dear Tasty: Cookies, which she invented in 1950 when she accidentally used sugar instead of baking powder in a recipe. Her husband, Roncesvalles "Billiard" Cook suggested using their family name and her portrait as a brand identifier, making her thankful that she hadn't married that nice Chaloupkazahradnik boy she had met in the refugee camps. Her novel brand identifier was soon copied, with portraits of Betty Cracker, Aunt Jemima Pancake, and Philomela Quakeroats appearing quickly on product packaging. The portraits of notable sports figures soon came into vogue, with New York Grunts' second baseman Estes Gatorade making his appearance in 1952, Wisconsin Marmots' quarterback Frampton Wheaties in 1953, and Olympic champion Winston Trailmix in 1955. The trend was interrupted by a scandal during the 1956 basketball season when Boston Beans' star center Wilt deStilt Cheerios confessed that he had never even tasted the stuff named after him, preferring ham hocks and turnip greens for breakfast. |
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10-9-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What do Eskimos use to prevent their food from freezing? -- Numb in Nome |
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Dear Numb: Insulated bags from McDonald's, or thermal boxes from Pizza Hut. Freezing is a particular problem at Arctic fast-food restaurants, when simply returning change to a customer in a vehicle can cause the cashier's arm to freeze solid and snap off at the shoulder. Some foods, like fish and chips, are accompanied by a complementary ice axe, and Mexican take-out is usually served with a flamethrower. This is why there are so few fast-food franchises above the Arctic Circle, where the Inuit, or Eskimaux, have to depend on blubber, which never freezes, no matter how hard the natives try to make it. The only franchise north of the 75th degree of latitude is Ketchikan Fried Chinook, whose founder, Colonel Handsare Frostbitten, never could tell the difference between latitude and longitude, thinking he was setting himself up for an idyllic life in Tahiti. |
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10-11-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What can you tell me about the island of what I think is Thnbat, except that I spilled peanut butter on the assignment sheet and it kind of smeared. -- Skippy on Skiros |
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Dear Skippy: Thnbat is a small island in the South Pacific where life is almost unendurable due to the absence of beer and decent Internet connections. The native Thnbatahoovians constantly mourn their fate - even their national anthem is a dirge. Most of them wish they had been born in a temperate Paradise like Detroit or the South Bronx. Thnbat is the only South Pacific isle which doesn't benefit from the zephyr-like trade winds which make life so pleasant in other areas of the South Pacific. Instead it's in a permanent thermal inversion which keeps the temperature and the humidity at 100 degrees and percent all the time. Worse yet, the inversion causes the islet to be covered with a thick grayish-yellow blanket of pollution caused by crab flatulence. Even worse than that, the crabs are as inedible as they are prolific, forcing the islanders to subsist on a meager diet of kelp and rainwater, as the crabs also have a voracious appetite for taro and coconuts and fricasseed swine and other traditional island fare. They even eat leis, which adds to the natives' misery, as inadvertent visitors to the Thnbat have to be greeted with a string of rusted sardine cans strung together by kudzu vines. Even the traditional welcoming hula has been corrupted by the crabs' appetite for grass skirts, which has given the island an awful reputation with organizations like Focus on the Family and Proud to Be Prude. Every native is a potential emigrant; however the fact that none of them has ever learned to swim or build boats leads to an extremely high failure rate in their attempts to reach neighboring islands on the far side of the shark breeding grounds. Since the high point of Thnbat is only 8 inches above sea level, they're expecting to take a beating as the warming seas rise. The Council of Senile Elders is considering inviting all other nations to dump their refuse on the island to build it up to a safe elevation, but so far they've only gotten to the point of discussing the lettering style on the "Clean Fill Wanted" sign they plan to put up on the beach. There's always a possibility that they can claim National Refuge status as well, since the island is the only known refuge of the Rumpled Stewgull, a bird so ugly that even John James Audubon threw rocks at it when he visited in 1831. Despite its name the Stewgull¹ is every bit as inedible as the island's crabs, and has only one known purpose: its decibel-shattering raucous cry eliminates the need for foghorns on the island... not that outsiders need a warning device to keep them from visiting. Potential tourists [pause for laughter] or castaways are invited to send for the colorful brochure put out in 1953 by the Council of Senile Tourism Guides, although the only places on the island worth visiting are the eroded gully where Robinson Crusoe committed suicide and the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra, or something very much like it. ----------------------- ¹ The name comes from the bird's habit of dining on partially-fermented herring heaved up by the sea, which causes it to become staggeringly drunk and spend the night honking sea shanties, like the dirty version of "Blow the Man Down." Even if the sea shanties are padlocked, the gulls will break a window and pile in to keep the party going as long as the pickled herring holds out.² The birds' violent temperament has been attributed to a perpetual hangover. See "Those Funkin' Drunken Birds!" by Carrie Nation Audubon III. Prudence & Patience Temperance Press (London & Occupied Bombay, 1944). ² This explains the name of the capital city, G'hukahuka, or "Heaving Seagull" in English. |
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10-14-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Who was the first person ever awarded a gold record? -- Singer in Sing-Sing |
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Dear Singer: King Louie the XIV.* When King Louie was first told about the invention of the phàunaugraphé by the Frenchman Tomás Edifils, he asked his sons Huey and Dewey to bring the inventor to Versailles Palace for a demonstration. Edifis, not the world's neatest Frenchman, did not want to invest in a full Court costume for his presentation to the monarch because he HATED wearing a sword (he kept backing into electrical sockets whenever he wore one), and the plumes on the Court hats made him sneeze. But his wife, Marie Antoinette Edelfis, urged him to go, saying it was de rigeur¹ and that it might be a chance for Tomás to get his picture in the paper standing next to the King, which would be a great addition to the billboards she had planned to promote the phàunaugraphé. Well, Edifis thought, "in for a penny, in for a pound,"² and he decided to go the whole hog³ and have a special pressing made of his hit record, "Mary a eu un petit agneau,"ª in solid gold. Well, the King was pleased as all get out¹² to be given the first gold record, and in return he awarded Edifis The Most Noble Order of the Garter¹³ which was a British award, but Louie was fresh out of Cordons Bleues and Foreign Legion pins, and he figured that England's Edward III wouldn't mind, him being dead for three hundred some-odd years. Tomás Edifils was so impressed with the beautiful and ornate solid gold medal that he ran home to show his wife, who almost dropped her stockings in astonishment. After long deliberation as to how to best display the award, they decided to have it bronzed and hung it over the mantelpiece, where it remains to this day. --------- * Not HIV, he came later ¹ French for "rigeur mortis," which is how people wound up if they refused a summons to Versailles. ² Being French he actually said, << Dedans pour un sou, dedans pour une livre>>, but we are trying not to be pretentious here. ³ << font le porc entier>> ª "Marie, she a small sheep was having" ¹² <<tous sortent>> ¹³ <<le Ordre Incroyable du Jàcquestràpé>> |
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10-17-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What famous singer-songwriter met his future wife when he was working as a nightclub bouncer - and threw her out for fighting? -- Duke in Durham |
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Dear Duke: That was former champion sumo wrestler Hideo Nakamura, who had turned his vocal talents into a profitable sideline when he was picked to play the Singing Sumo Wrestler in the movie, "Rugrats in Paris." Riding the wave of success he then put out a CD on the Sony label called "Laments of a 400 lb Ballerina" for which he also wrote the songs, including the Japanese smash hit "Eight Meals a Day and Still Empty for You." The other songs on the album, particularly "A Mawashi Doesn't Hide a Broken Heart," and "When I Fell for You It Brought the Building Down," were covered by big-name Japanese rock bands like "Red Zepperin," "Pink Froyd," and "The Glateful Deceased Ancestors." The incident in question occurred when Nakamura was moonlighting as a bouncer at "Eraine's," a Tokyo dining spot popular with celebrities. A dispute had arisen over whether a dish of fugu had been properly prepared, as the woman's companion could no longer feel his toes and had turned a shade of blue a raku master would die for. The waitress protested that her father had personally cut up the fugu, and that the woman diner's accusation was a mortal insult, requiring them to go out in the parking lot and duke it out (rama kyshiu). Nakamura at that point intervened and proceeded to escort the incensed patron toward the door when he was astonished to feel himself seized in a classic abisetaoshi hold, being forced down backward as the woman threw her weight into the bouncer from a grappling position, followed up with a harite slap which almost took his topknot off. he responded with a perfectly-executed hikiwaza which sent the woman through the front door, which was not open at the time. Following proper rikiki practice he waited until his opponent had risen to her feet before he applied his trademark shitatenage to immobilize her. Well, after that it was love at first sight, of course. He invited her out for a bucket of after-dinner chankonabe, and in the subsequent conversation- after the stentorian belches of appreciation- she told him that she was his long-lost second cousin once removed Juanita Fernandez, who had been kidnapped to Mexico as an infant, but learned Japanese by reading menus in Tijuana restaurant windows and surreptitiously following Nakamura's career by watching Channel 581 late at night. She had stuck religiously to the diet which makes Mexican women look like captive dirigibles, and assiduously worked on sumo moves. After smuggling herself back to Japan in a container of depleted nuclear fuel, she set out to find Nakamura. The ancestors had brought them together that night. Well, the rest of the story is well known, how Nakamura and Juanita were married in a formal ceremony in the Shinto shrine on Ise Island, and they lived happily ever after until the sad day they tried to enter the same elevator in a Takashimaya department store and plunged 11 floors to their untimely end. |
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10-21-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What rock star was christened William Broad? -- Baptista in Bapst |
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Dear Baptista: Gibraltar. The centuries-old dispute over whether this star rock belongs to the Spanish or the British was almost resolved in 1704 when the daring navigator Elspeth Throttlemonkey made a midnight approach by sea with muffled oarlocks, broke a bottle of champagne over a promontory and christened it "William Broad," an undeniably British name. When the Spaniards found out about this subterfuge in 1816 they were utterly miffed ("molestado completamente") and decided to do the same underhanded trick, sneaking up with muffled oarlocks (by land this time to be extra sneaky) and breaking a bottle of Jaume Serra Cristalino Brut Cava over a helpless promontory and re-christening it "Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias," an unmistakably Spanish name. This treachery led to the War of the Spanish Succession, which went on and on until both parties agreed to go back to the old name, "Jabal Tariq," an Arabic word meaning "humungous big rock." In the intervening years both sides have attempted surreptitiously to rename the place, until the United Nations was finally forced to ban the possession of muffled oarlocks within 200 kilometers in any direction, including up. |
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10-23-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: Who sang advertising jingles for McDonald's, Pepsi, Chevrolet, Kentucky Fried Chicken and others before making it big on the music scene? -- Noteworthy in Nome |
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Dear Noteworthy: That would be New Zealand-born soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, the only unemployed Maori warrior to aspire to a career in opera. He first discovered his vocal range while being tattooed on the cheeks as part of a macho manhood ritual practiced by unemployed Maori. He won the Melbourne Sun contest for best male soprano under the age of 18 with tattooed cheeks, and was sent to London where he studied with Vera Lynn Guini at the Quite Near London Opera Center & Tattoo Parlor, which is actually located in Wickwoostershireford (pronounced "Warfurshurd"). It was there that he first appeared on stage as the second tattooed butler in "Die Zauberflab" ("The Magically Obese") of Mozart. In 1969, he sang the role of Bootsie in Rossini's "La Donna del Largo Piedi" ("Yo Feets Too Big") at the Camden Anchovy Cannery Festival. In 1970, he made his debut at the Music Hall Quite Near the Royal Opera as Xenia, Ohio in Boris Goodenough's "The Buttocks of Yakut Zorchovich," and the following year he captured the public attention as the naked pool boy in "Le Nozze di Figaro," ("Figaro's Nozzle") a role for which he might have become world famous had the stage not collapsed during the scene where Putresca loses her girdle. His American debut came that summer at the Santa Fe Grand Ole Burger King, as the Griddle Wiper in Ronzoni's ("Tenga i Sottaceti, Tenga la Lattuga") ("Seize the Pickles, Seize the Lettuce"), which naturally led to the role of Assistant Counter Boy in McDonaldstern's lighthearted operetta "Sie Verdienen einen Bruch Heute," ("You Deserve to be Broken Today"). He was soon singing at all of the major franchises in Europe, adding new roles to his repertoire, such as Ludivico Pepsi's shamelessly self-promoting "Coda della Pepsi Colpisce il Punto" (Pepsi's Coda Hits the Spot") General Horatio Motor's fanciful Dutch "Zie de VS in uw Chevrolet" ("Envision the USA Through Your Chevrolet") Sander's demanding "Nouveau Poulet Petites, Vous Goûtez Tellement Très Gentil. J'aime Votre Saveur de Poulet, et Votre Prix de 39 Sous!" ("New Chicken Littles, You Taste So Very Nice, Your Taste of the Chicken and Your 39¢ Price!"), the strain of which caused him to blow out a lung. Once recovered, he tried to recapture his glory days with such minor works as Whipple's "Bitte Drücken Sie Nicht das Bezaubern Zusammen" ("You Are Requested to Refrain From Compressing the Charmin") and Pompadour's "Usi l'Olio Selvaggio della Crema della Radice, Giovanni" ("Use the Creamed Oil of the Untamed Root, Charlie") but the magic was gone. After his collapse during the aria "Ma Viande de Déjeuner a un Prénom" (My Luncheon Meat Has a First Name") from Meyer's "Oskar," his career was over and poor Kiri returned to New Zealand to become an unemployed Maori warrior again. ------------------------- Kanawa's autobiography, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" is available at Wal-mart remainer bins everywhere. |
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10-25-2006 Dear Aunt Nettie: What famous composer always poured ice water over his head before he sat down to work? -- Chilly in C |
