(Roughly) Daily

source: BBG

Michael Jackson’s legacy has yet to settle.  There are the songs, of course– from the crystal-shattering Motown days of the Jackson Five to the Quincy Jones era– and there’s the Beatles Song Catalogue (rumored to have been willed to Sir Paul…  though Michael’s creditors may have some issue with that); and then, of course, there’s the lunacy…  But it may be that Michael will be best remembered as an inventor.  To wit, U..S. Patent 5255452, the abstract of which reads:

A system for allowing a shoe wearer to lean forwardly beyond his center of gravity by virtue of wearing a specially designed pair of shoes which will engage with a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface. The shoes have a specially designed heel slot which can be detachably engaged with the hitch member by simply sliding the shoe wearer’s foot forward, thereby engaging with the hitch member.

And lest the reader wonder at the utility of such a creation, consider “Smooth Criminal” and its signature dance routine:

As we cant at 45 degrees, we might celebrate the birthdays of an entertainment pioneer of an earlier era, Melvin “Mel” Kaminsky– better known by his stage name, Mel Brooks.  He was born on this date in 1926.  Brooks is a member of the select fraternity of entertainers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. And while of his own work he observed, “my movies rise below vulgarity,” three of his films (Blazing Saddles, The Producers, and Young Frankenstein) rank in the Top 20 on the American Film Institute’s list of the Top 100 Comedy Films of All Time.

“How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?”

– Max Bialystock, The Producers

Mel Brooks