It is said that tortellini was created by an innkeeper who peeked into the goddess Venus’ room and, awestruck by a glimpse of her navel, he was inspired to bolt to the kitchen where he messed around with meat and pasta.
The same could be said of elbow pasta and the ropy joints of Olive Oyl from cartoons. Although in her case, it’s the least-unattractive part of her by far.
Whatever did Popeye and Bluto ever see in that anorexic freakjob, anyway?
They must have been out to sea a very long time to think she was worth fighting over.
Tag: history
Tesla
When Fiorello Laguardia said “But Tesla is not dead, not really dead… only his body lays still.” In his eulogy to the great inventor, he wasn’t lying.
Hours earlier, LaGuardia stared at a massive underground array of dynamos, cables, and engines bathed in lightning.
“GREETINGS, FRIEND,” boomed the voice of Tesla, whom LaGuardia had just seen in the funeral home that morning.
“Shouldn’t I tell the people of this miracle?” asked LaGuardia.
A large box with a shiny tube turned to point at him.
“Never mind,” said the mayor, recognizing the Death Ray. “We’ll just hold a funeral procession, okay?”
Welterweight
Ever wonder what Welterweight means?
Lucius Welter was a boxing ring owner, and before every match, he liked to play teeter-totter with the boxers.
Any boxer who was too heavy to teeter-totter with Lucius was considered a Heavyweight.
And any boxer too light to teeter-totter with him was called A Lightweight.
The boxers who could teeter-totter with him without difficulty was dubbed “Welter’s Weight.”
Sadly, Lucius died from influenza when he was fifty, but they tied his corpse up into a sack and continued to use him as a counterweight until accurate scales became cheaper and the gym closed down.
Poe
For decades, a stranger in a long coat, scarf and hat would leave three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe on the writer’s birthday.
But recently, the stranger has failed to show up, and people are starting to worry.
Has the stranger gone forever?
What happened to them?
I’m sad about the loss of another of life’s romantic mysteries.
There’s no more Bermuda Triangle.
Or Bigfoot.
Or Loch Ness Monster.
No miracles, no monsters.
All of the things we knew not to be true but still believed in are fading away.
Gone.
Mummy’s Curse
Despite what they tell you at the tavern, there is no Mummy’s Curse.
Maybe there’s the risk of exposure to deadly mold, but you just wore a breathing mask to avoid that particular hazard.
Simple.
The bodies are long dead, and their spirits have moved on.
Your only concern should be the authorities. They look unkindly upon grave robbers and have been known to torture then to death.
Thank goodness I found you.
I’ll just steal it from you, but contrary to popular wisdom, I do have honor.
You can cut through your bonds in an hour with your knife.
The Roaring Twenties
Why were The Roaring Twenties called The Roaring Twenties?
No, it wasn’t because of the booming economy and everybody celebrating their wealth madly.
It was because the streets were filled with packs of lions.
At first, people hardly noticed them. They were too busy noticing all the automobiles in the streets.
Plus, the lions ate stray dogs and the few not-wealthy people.
It was when the stock market crashed that people noticed the lions.
They threw stockbrokers out of the windows, trying to appease them.
Finally, they put big lion statues outside of public libraries, and that scared them off.
Emily
A friend gave me an old handmade book as a gift.
She said the book had been in Emily Dickinson’s house, and she had always kept it within reach.
I looked at the cover… it was too stained and battered to read what was on it.
So, I opened it carefully…
It was a volume of poems I’d never seen published before.
And they were terrible. Really awful.
Completely unlike anything Emily Dickinson had ever written.
“Oh, she didn’t write this book,” she said. “She used it to swat bugs and spiders. She was horribly afraid of the damned things.”
The Spell
There’s always a few parts left over when you fix it, right?
Well, the famous Maillardet Automaton is no exception.
Charles Roberts reconstructed the device without plans or diagrams back in 1928, and repairs were made in the Seventies and 2007.
The cams and disks inside cause the mechanism to make four drawings and three poems.
It used to write a fourth poem, but those disks were removed after a fire nearly destroyed the Franklin Institute.
Not really a poem, but a spell.
A doomsday spell, barely stopped.
Turn the crank again.
Watch the clockwork boy wink, grin, and laugh.
Kettles
In Winter, the snow gets as deep as your waist, and it stays deep for months.
We fix kettles of soup and stew, then store them in the deep snow.
Every week, we dig up another kettle to eat from.
Long red poles with flags mark the places we’ve buried kettles, but sometimes the poles and flags get blown away, or taken by naughty and stupid children.
So, we try to remember where the kettles are buried, sometimes finding them, sometimes not.
When the Spring Thaw comes, the remaining kettles are revealed, and we hold a huge feast celebrating renewal.
Chance
Saturday night at the Last Chance Saloon.
Two brothers sat at the bar.
“It’s Friday, Slim,” one said. “You planning on leaving town again?”
“Yup,” said the other, and he finished his beer. “Wanna come with?”
“Can’t. Sheriff says the cliche doesn’t work if Slim and None leave town.”
The bartender put down three beers, setting one down for himself.
“Papa Fat and Momma Not A Fucking Chance sure picked some strange names for y’all,” he said.
“I still don’t understand why they call me Junior,” said Slim.
All three nodded, drank their beers, and waited for the noon stage.