Archive for January 2016
“The greatest escape I ever made was when I left Appleton, Wisconsin”*…
Hopefully you’ll never experience being held somewhere against your will, but if you find yourself in a tricky situation, you’ll be glad to know a few effective escape strategies. Standard-issue police handcuffs, and more recently, zip ties, can both be rendered useless in a matter of seconds if you know what you’re doing…
Learn to slip both cuffs and zip ties at “How to Escape from Handcuffs.”
* Harry Houdini
###
As we amaze our friends, we might spare a thought for Otis Harlan, he died on this date in 1940. A vaudevillian (Hell in the first show at New York City’s Folies Bergère; Irving Berlin’s “ragtime” productions, et al.), Harlan moved to Hollywood and became a film staple. He played the role of Cap’n Andy in the first, part-talkie film version of Show Boat (1929), and was the Master of Ceremonies in the sound prologue that accompanied the film. In 1935, he played Starveling in Max Reinhardt’s 1935 magical film version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And in 1937, he voiced “Happy” the dwarf in the Disney animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and appeared in the Our Gang short Roamin’ Holiday. Five years later, he voiced Mr. Mole in Bambi.
“Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”*…
Comic Republic, a Nigerian comics startup based in Lagos, is creating a universe of superheroes for Africans and black readers around the world. The cast of characters—”Africa’s Avengers” according to some fans—ranges from Guardian Prime, a 25-year old Nigerian fashion designer by day who uses his extraordinary strength to fight for a better Nigeria, to Hilda Avonomemi Moses, a woman from a remote village in Edo state who can see spirits, and Marcus Chigozie, a privileged but angry teenager who can move at supersonic speeds…
More about what’s up– and why– at “A Nigerian comics startup is creating African superheroes.”
* Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
###
As we look! up in the sky!, we might recall that it was on this date in 1947 that DC Comics published Sensation Comics #63, featuring the classic Wonder Woman story “The Wall of Doom,” in which Professor Vibrate uses sound to render victims unconscious as he robs banks.
“The problem with winter sports is that — follow me closely here — they generally take place in winter”*…
Be that as it may, winter sports have long had the devotees… and with them, helpful instructors. Consider Bror Myer, a Swedish figure skating champion, who produced an illustrated guide for hopefuls.
To facilitate an easy interpretation of the text, as well as to show more clearly the various movements, I decided, after great consideration, to illustrate the work by means of photographs taken with a Cinematograph.
Check them out at the Internet Archive. And for a look at why his choice of photos was inspired, contrast his work tothis French ice-skating manual from 1813, one of the very first devoted entirely to the sport.
[Via Public Domain Review]
* Dave Barry
###
As we sharpen our blades, we might recall that it was on this date in 1994 that figure skater Tonya Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, surrendered to authorities in Portland, Ore., after being charged with masterminding an attack on Harding’s rival, Nancy Kerrigan.
On January 6, 1994 [on the eve of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships], a man named Shane Stant delivered the blow itself—a single strike on the right knee with a police baton—and then fled the scene in such a panic that he ran right through a plexiglass door. Cameras captured the aftermath of the attack, with Kerrigan bellowing on the ground: “Why? Why? Why?”
The surreal quickly became the sensational. Implicated in the attack were Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding; her ex-husband, Gillooly, and Gillooly’s band of hired goons—Stant, bodyguard Shawn Eckardt, and getaway driver Derrick Smith. Harding initially denied everything, while Gillooly, charged with conspiracy to commit assault, later pleaded down to one count of racketeering. Awkwardly, both Harding and Kerrigan competed in the ’94 Lillehammer Olympics. Harding finished eighth, and Kerrigan won the silver. A few months later, Gillooly and his associates went to prison while Harding got probation for conspiring to hinder their prosecution. (She maintains to this day that she knew nothing of the attack in advance.)
[source]
Gillooly and Harding in happier days
“It ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none”*…
Flyting is a stylized battle of insults and wits that was practiced most actively between the fifth and 16th centuries in England and Scotland. Participants employed the timeless tools of provocation and perversion as well as satire, rhetoric, and early bathroom humor to publicly trounce opponents. The term “flyting” comes from Old English and Old Norse words for “quarrel” and “provocation.” [Indeed, the image above is of Norse god Loki trading insults with his divine brother, Bragi.] ‘Tis a form of highly poetic abuse, or highly abusive poetry—a very early precursor to MTV’s Yo Mama and Eminem’s 8 Mile…
More of the history of insult as a form of battle– and a discussion of the actual ancestry of rap-as-we-know-it– at “Flyting was medieval England’s version of an insult-trading rap battle.”
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
― Jay-Z
* Snoop Dog
###
As we yoyo “yo mamas,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1956 that Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & the Comets became the first rock and roll album to enter the chart. The single had become the first rock single to top the pop charts six months earlier.
“You are where your brain is but not where a front-page headline is”*…
Headlines in newspapers, teasers for TV new stories “at 11”– from it’s birth, the press has promoted its wares with précis that pique a peruser’s interest. The advent of online journalism has only amplified that phenomenon… and to amusing effect.
Jeva Lange illustrates in “A field guide to identifying what website that headline came from.”
###
As we click on the bait, we might recall that it was on this date in 1920 that the 18th Amendment took effect, and the U.S. became dry. Under 100 years earlier, American’s had been drinking an average of (the equivalent of) 1.7 bottles of hard liquor per week– three times the average these days. A sin tax, levied at the end of the Civil War, moderated consumption a bit– but not enough to satisfy the coalition of women and evangelicals behind the passage and ratification of “The Noble Experiment”– the national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol that was better known as “Prohibition”– was ratified. Prohibitionists had been after a ban for decades before the 18th Amendment went through. But until the institution of an income tax (in 1913), the federal government depended for the majority of its income on alcohol taxes… so was indisposed to let Prohibition happen.
By the time it was repealed in 1933, organized crime had become a major feature of American city life, and the American public had adopted the invented-for-the-occasion word “scofflaw.”
The Defender Of The 18th Amendment. From Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty published by the Pillar of Fire Church
You must be logged in to post a comment.