Posts Tagged ‘Groucho Marx’
“Museums are custodians of epiphanies”*…
Located on the campus of Georgia Southern University, the U.S. National Tick Collection is the world’s largest curated tick collection
Just one of the extraordinarily-specific museums– from umbrella covers to pencil sharpeners– one will find at “The Ultimate List of Wonderfully Specific Museums.”
* George Lois
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As we defer to the docent, we might recall that it was on this date in 1964, on the eve of a get-together, that T.S. Eliot wrote his pen pal Groucho Marx: “the picture of you in the newspapers saying that… you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit in the neighbourhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street. Obviously I am now someone of importance.”
More on their unlikely friendship here and here.
“If God dropped acid, would He see people?”*…
We had long periods of silence and of listening to music. I was accustomed to playing rock ‘n’ roll while tripping, but the record collection here was all classical and Broadway show albums. After we heard the Bach “Cantata No. 7” Groucho said, “I may be Jewish, but I was seeing the most beautiful visions of Gothic cathedrals. Do you think Bach knew he was doing that?”
Later, we were listening to the score of a musical comedy Fanny. There was one song called “Welcome Home,” where the lyrics go something like, “Welcome home, says the clock,” and the chair says, “Welcome home,” and so do various other pieces of furniture. Groucho started acting out each line as if he were actually being greeted by the duck, the chair and so forth. He was like a child, charmed by his own ability to respond to the music that way…
Paul Krassner, publisher of The Realist and all-round avatar of counter-culture, guided T. S. Eliot’s buddy Groucho Marx through his first acid trip (using the a dose from the same batch that fueled Richard Alpert’s last trip before he became Ram Dass). He wrote about it both in High Times and in The Realist. More of the backstory at Dangerous Minds.
[TotH to buddy Chistopher Enzi]
* Steven Wright
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As we hum “Eight Miles High,” we might send well-reasoned birthday greetings to Enlightenment giant John Locke; the physician and philosopher died on this date in 1704. An intellectual descendant of Francis Bacon, Locke was among the first empiricists. He spent over 20 years developing the ideas he published in his most significant work, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), an analysis of the nature of human reason which promoted experimentation as the basis of knowledge. Locke established “primary qualities” (e.g., solidity, extension, number) as distinct from “secondary qualities” (sensuous attributes like color or sound). He recognized that science is made possible when the primary qualities, as apprehended, create ideas that faithfully represent reality.
Locke is, of course, also well-remembered as a key developer (with Hobbes, and later Rousseau) of the concept of the Social Contract. Locke’s theory of “natural rights” influenced Voltaire and Rosseau– and formed the intellectual basis of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
“The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters”*…
From our old friend Shaun Usher, the force behind Letters of Note (c.f. here, here, and here), Letterheady…
…a blog which celebrates and showcases the personalised letterheads of some of the best-known and loved figures in pop culture. Using both found examples and pieces from the collections of others, Usher collects those from the likes of Anaïs Nin, Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, Michael Jackson and the Grateful Dead. There are fictional examples, too – members of the official Twin Peaks Fan Club were sent notes written on stationery from Dwayne Milford, the Mayor of Twin Peaks, while the author of Psycho, of which the film was later directed by Alfred Hitchcock, wrote for years under a letterhead bearing the name ‘Bates Motel: For that wistful country feeling,’ in a witty but sinister nod to the murderous venue in his famous horror story…
More of the backstory on AnOther; visit Letterheady here.
* Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson)
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As we search for a stamp, we might recall that it was on this date in 1964, on the eve of a get-together, that T.S. Eliot wrote his pen pal Groucho Marx: “the picture of you in the newspapers saying that … you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit in the neighbourhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street. Obviously I am now someone of importance.”
More on their unlikely friendship here and here. And for the remarkable (and heart-warming) story of the revival of a “lost” Marx Brothers musical, click here.
“The New Age? It’s just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds”*…
There is, to be sure, a great deal of change swirling around us. It is tempting to conclude that we are, in fact, entering a New Age. But what does that mean?
Readers can devote themselves to study… or they can utilize tools readily available on the web to craft their own comforting wisdom: your correspondent might recommend “Wisdom of Chopra” (a site the randomly assembles words from the guru’s tweets) and “New Age Bullshit” (just click “randomize electrons” at the top of the page).
[TotH to @martykrasney]
* James “The Amazing” Randi
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As we align our chakras, we might recall that it was on this date in 1897 that Grant’s Tomb was dedicated. The final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), the 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant (1826–1902), it is located in Riverside Park in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, across the street from the monumental Riverside Church.
It is probably best known via Groucho Marx, who asked contestants on his radio and television show You Bet Your Life, “Who was buried in Grant’s Tomb?” The riddle turns on the word “buried”: the correct answer is “no one,” since Grant and his wife are entombed in sarcophagi above ground in an atrium.
Ex post facto salvation…
Candy Barr (July 6, 1935 – December 30, 2005) was an American stripper, burlesque exotic dancer, actress in one pornographic movie, and model in men’s magazines of the mid-20th century.
Born Juanita Dale Slusher in Edna, Texas, the youngest of five children, at age 16, she appeared in one of the first [full length] pornographic movies, Smart Alec (1951). Later, Barr established herself in burlesque and striptease with her trademark costume—cowboy hat, pasties, scant panties, a pair of pearl handled cap six-shooters in a holster strapped low on her shapely hips, and cowboy boots. Married three times, and widowed once when she shot her second husband, she was also involved with Jack Ruby and Mickey Cohen. Later in her life, she was honored by Texas Monthly as one history’s “perfect Texans,” and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Exotic World Burlesque Museum.
Ms. Barr shares another distinction with the likes of Groucho Marx, Truman Capote, Frank Zappa, and rapper Eazy-E: they were all posthumously baptized into the Mormon Church.
Some time in 1842, the prophet Joseph Smith introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a temple ceremony called Baptism for the Dead, followed shortly by a full complement of salvific ordinances-by-proxy for dead ancestors, which he justified again in 1844:
A man may act as proxy for his own relatives; the ordinances of the Gospel which were laid out before the foundations of the world have thus been fulfilled by them, and we may be baptized for those whom we have much friendship for.
Joseph Smith on May 12, 1844
History of the Church, 6:365–66
But the original spirit of the ordinances seems to have given way to a general enthusiasm for conversion, and members of the Church began trying to ‘redeem’ everyone they could identify. Some members took a shortcut and performed proxy baptisms and other ordinances for any name they could find– which meant that a lot of famous people got baptized. Indeed, it appears that some time in the early 1990’s there was a fad, or at least a hobby, of finding famous people to baptize.
Famous Dead Mormons is both a tribute to the practice and a catalogue of celebrity souls– like Candy’s– saved after the fact.
As we wonder if this amounts to an E Ticket to the Rapture, we might wish a patriotic birthday to George M. Cohan; he was born on this date in 1878. A playwright, songwriter, dancer, actor, theater owner, and producer, Cohan is best remembered as the composer and lyricist of songs including “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” (which may explain why some sources strain to locate his birthday tomorrow– on July 4). Cohan is not believed to be a baptized Mormon.
source: Library of Congress
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