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We took our letter cubes to the Cabazon Dinosaurs to see if Mr. Rex had any message. Imagine our surprise to find antiquated spellings -- yet a dinosaur would properly speak in old fashioned terms, surely. In the message we decoded, prehistoric dreams of attainment are instead met with hardships and extinction, but not before a final, eerily accurate vision of a procession of luminaries who would follow in future ages.
Lordly elders dayly dreamt [of] olden headless demon idols shewe[ing] polished golde spheres, sayde [we] sholde [and] wolde someday neede [and] holde [an] ideal soul realm. Mazes ahead, ocean oddly nowhere, ceaseless leaden soil, longe ordeals, seedy plots, deadly ether, molded murders, eroded chasm[s], lost pleas, zeros. There's Chaldeans, Aesop, Hamlet, Hegel, Edison, Theresa. Someday solved.
[We thank Mr. Rex not only for his forthright communication but also for hosting us in his mouth.]
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We've never before seen statistics likened to anti-bacterial soap:
"We repeatedly wash our hands in statistics, these being a cerebral equivalent of the germicidal hand-pumped gel." —Andrew West, Being With and Saying Goodbye
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Here's how to see the sunrise at the earliest moment, by actually turning your back on the east. The text reads: “To see the sunrise at the earliest moment. If, instead of looking towards the east, you turn your back to the point where the sun rises, you will perceive the first gleams of light on the top of any tall object, as a spire, a chimney, or a tree, long before the rays will be apparent on the eastern horizon.” From The Magician's Own Book, 1871.
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Blade Runner |
Big Trouble |
| James Hong obsessed with eyeballs |
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| The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure |
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| Antagonist who would be immortal |
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| Protagonist narrates his own story |
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| Asian crowds with umbrellas |
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| Noodle shops |
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| Series of tests |
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| Ominous statuary comes to life |
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| Disguised investigations of disreputable establishments |
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| Historic architecture |
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| Combatting aliens |
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| California setting |
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The true origin of Bibendum, the Michelin Man, is shrouded in mystery. Even Wikipedia (always the second to acknowledge when it's wrong) admits that it's unclear when the word "Bibendum" came to be the name of the character himself. But now we can finally reveal all. Contrary to popular rumors, the name obviously has nothing to do with Horace's phrase "Nunc est bibendum" ("now is the time for drinking"), as that would encourage drunk driving. In fact, Bibendum's genesis is a footnote in history, quite literally. In footnotes, an asterisk (*) is followed by a dagger (†), then a double dagger (‡), and then a section sign (§). It was a section sign followed by the textual reference abbreviation "ibid" that engendered the Michelin Man. Note how the section sign looks like a circle (tire) with two arms, as seen from above. André Michelin, confronted by that footnote, equated the symbol with the mysterious abbreviation "ibid." Upon looking up the meaning of "ibid," the horror of that sign and its occult label only increased, for André was told that it meant "ibidem." (Spoiler: "ibidem" means "in the same place," "in the previously referenced source"). He had fallen into recursiveness, a tunnel of appendaged tires that eternally rolled back into itself. This is the horror William Gibson described as a stomach-churningly creepy, "weird, jaded, cigar-smoking elder creature suggesting a mummy with elephantiasis ... the rolls of his pallid, rubbery flesh like the folds of a partially deflated blimp, greasy and vile" (Pattern Recognition). When André regained consciousness and realized, practically retching, that he knew what his company's mascot was ordained to be, he remembered "ibidem" as "Bibendum," the addition of that initial B serving as a pictogram of the Michelin Man as seen from the front (a round head over a larger round body). As anyone can see, combining the overhead-view section sign with the front-view capital B brings the figure into three dimensions. Indeed, it was André's seemingly accidental addition of that B that brought the Michelin Man to life as one of the world's most recognized corporate symbols.
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Page 12 of 52
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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