Archive for November 2010
Poor, poor pitiful me…
Long-time readers will recall Jessica Hagy, and her wonderful site Indexed, from pre-blog days. Your correspondent, who’s checked in regularly in the meantime, is happy to report that her index card diagrams are as sharp as ever:
As we count our blessings, we might recall that it was on this date in 1934 that the MC at Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater drew the name of an aspiring 15-year-old dancer from his hat. Shocked to be called on stage, Ella Fitzgerald chose to sing– and won… The rest is blissfully harmonious history.
Deliciate in the ludibrious…
From MatadorAbroad, a heart-felt plea: “20 Obsolete English Words that Should Make a Comeback.”
Read it and kench!
As we scribble in the margins of our dictionaries, we might recall that it was on this date in 1866 that the first U.S. patent for a yoyo was issued to James L. Haven and Charles Hittrick. Though the device is called a “Whirligig” or a “Bandalore” in the patent form, it had the unmistakable “two disks coupled together at their centers by means of a clutch” design. (It was also the first time rim-weighting to maintain momentum was mentioned in a patent: “it will be observed that the marginal swell … exercises the function of a flywheel.”)
Messrs. Haven and Hettrick mass-produced yoyos over a half century… during which time, in a 1916 Scientific American Supplement article, the name “yoyo” was first used in the U.S. in print. the name “yoyo” was popularized in America starting in 1928 by Pedro Flores, who borrowed it from the Philippines (where it had been borrows from China, where the toy has ancient roots) for the products of his Yo-yo Manufacturing Company.
How are you supposed to make a fish act that way? Some kind of local weed in the water or something?*…
On screen, Dick Van Dyke has been rescued from untimely death by flying cars and magical nannies. Off screen, the veteran star of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins had to rely on the help of a pod of porpoises after apparently dozing off aboard his surfboard. “I’m not kidding,” he said afterwards.
Van Dyke’s ordeal began during an ill-fated trip to his local beach. “I woke up out of sight of land,” the 84-year-old actor told Craig Ferguson on his TV chat show. “I started paddling with the swells and I started seeing fins swimming around me and I thought ‘I’m dead!'”
Van Dyke was wrong. “They turned out to be porpoises,” he said. “And they pushed me all the way to shore.” The porpoises were unavailable for comment.
Van Dyke made his screen debut on the Phil Silvers Show before bagging his own TV sitcom in 1961. His film credits include Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dick Tracy, while his TV drama Diagnosis: Murder ran from 1993 to 2001. In recent years he has appeared on screen in Night at the Museum and its 2009 sequel.
Via The Guardian.
* How are you supposed to make a fish act that way? Some kind of local weed in the water or something? – Flipper’s New Adventure (1964)
As we celebrate cooperation across the animal kingdom, we might recall that this date in 2002 a U.S. patent for “Registered pedigree stuffed animals” was issued to David L. Pickens of Honolulu, Hawaii (No. 6,482,067). The toy animals are designed “to simulate the biological laws of inheritance both for educational, recreational and aesthetic purposes.” Pairs of opposite sex “parent” toy animals were to be sold with serial numbers encoding the parents’ genotype and phenotype. So, owners of the “parent” toy animals, having registered with the manufacturer, could later request “breeding”– and receive at least one “offspring” toy animal randomly selected from a litter having traits determined according to the registered genotypes of the parents, as dictated by the Mendelian laws of inheritance.
The interspecies possibilities were alluring; but sadly, the concept never found commercial acceptance.
A rose by any other name…
Business Insider reports:
We’re now exporting Jersey Shore to Japan.
Because the average Japanese viewer has no clue about U.S. geography, MTV re-titled it Macaroni Rascals.
If that isn’t offensive enough, the translation Macaroni Rascals is actually the polite translation. The real translation is closer to Macaroni Assholes.
Jersey Shore is only the latest popular American show or movie that’s title is hilariously lost in translation.
For example, the film released in China as Six Naked Pigs…
… is better known in Anglo-Saxon climes by it’s original title, The Full Monty:
More “Exported American TV Shows And Movies With Titles Hilariously Lost In Translation” here.
As we marvel that any cross-cultural communications occurs at all, we might recall that it was on this dat ein 1929 that Vladimir Zworykin, inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology, demonstrated the “kinescope,” the first practical television receiver. Two days later Zworykin, who was at Westinghouse at the time, presented his work in a paper at a convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers, which brought him to the attention of David Sarnoff, who eventually hired him and put him in charge of television development for RCA at their newly established laboratories in Camden, New Jersey. Zworykin went on to be a leader in the practical development of television; and helped create charge storage tubes, infrared image tubes and the electron microscope.
Zworykin demonstrating the kinecope in 1929 (source)
Carry that load…
From Photographer Alain Delorme, an extraordinary slideshow featuring things on the move in China.
(Thanks, Dan Sturges)
As we rebalance our loads, we might recall that it was on this date in 1998, five days after the company was formed by $37 billion merger, that DaimlerChrysler first traded in the New York Stock Exchange; at that moment, DaimlerChrysler was the fifth-largest auto manufacturer in the world (after General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen). The plan was for further growth, via the creation of a single powerhouse car company that could compete in all markets, all over the world… But in the event, Chrysler lost so much money– $1.5 billion in 2006 alone– that in 2007, Daimler paid a private equity firm to take the company off its hands. Two years later, in 2009, Chrysler filed for bankruptcy (again); in order to stay afloat, it merged with Italian automaker Fiat.
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