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Merriam-Webster suggests that the first known use of slumgullion (a meat stew reminiscent of the slime [ slum] from a cesspool [ gullion]) was 1890. We can do better than that, with this one from 1872, in Mark Twain's Roughing It.
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Here's a precursor to Ayn Rand, from The Quiver, 1875. The caption reads, "I really cannot take upon myself the burden of your support."
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"The original blighted being": an illustration from an 1855 issue of Punch magazine.
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Here's a precursor to episode 29 of Twin Peaks, in which Agent Cooper's cup of the coffee in the Otherworld turns out to be viscid. In a scene cut from Olsen & Johnson's Crazy House, "They find [Hans Conried] reclining on a divan, sniffing a rose, and painting blindfolded. Roco explains that he is endeavoring to paint the scent of the rose—its very essence. Another scene has Roco offering the boys a cup of coffee, then pulling it out of a painting on the wall depicting the same. To their disgust, the liquid turns out to be paint. An unfazed Roco says, 'I'm an artist, not a magician!'" (Hans Conried: A Biography by Suzanne Gargiulo). [Thanks, Jonathan!]
Agent Cooper in the Black Lodge with a solid cup of coffee. From Twin Peaks, episode 29.
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Before the cursed videotape that caused viewers to die seven days after watching it (in Hideo Nakata's Ring), it was a mere photograph that proved deadly ( In the Forbidden Land by Arnold Henry Savage Landor, 1898). Please view the image at your discretion.
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Here's a precursor to Disneyland's submarine lagoon. The Disney version appears to have been inspired by the Grande Cascade Waterfall at Bois de Bologne, Paris, created by Baron Haussmann in 1852. Our illustration appears in Fra Det Moderne Frankrig by Richard Kaufmann, 1882.
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"I would that this dear path might type my way" (1870): a precursor to Charles Dizenzo: "Imagine if I had an electric at my command: I could type my way around the world at jet speed!" ( A Great Career: A One-Act Play, 1966).
An illustration from The Quiver, 1870.
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