From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook: Death finds a lucky penny.  Dedicated to the mysterious Gordon Meyer, who turned us on to the wonder that is Tim Powers.

"The answer is simple: Never!"
—Thord Daniel Hedengren

"Everybody's doing this now":  an illustration from a 1916 issue of Everybody's magazine.

An illustration from a 1913 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The years seemed all at once to have passed into a gray eclipse."

photo by Cobalt 123

"It is worth noting, at least parenthetically, that what drives Oedipus to punish himself and to leave Thebes is not that he has broken the city's laws (Laios' murder took place outside Theban territory) but that he has infringed unwritten laws."
—A Companion to Sophocles (2012)

Reviews of our recent collaboration, Jinx Companion, continue to pop up.  We're especially tickled by this one:

"What makes us mad can never be doubt, but rather certainty, any certainty."
—Enrique Vila-Matas, Never Any End to Paris

Staring into the depths: an illustration from a 1900 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "There were two strange eyes glowing at us."

As Funny as a Traffic Light

(for Bernie DeKoven)

Sometimes glee lights up in the unlikeliest, most mundane of places. 

I was waiting to cross an intersection, behind a couple of pedestrians.  We waited and waited, yet the contrarian crosswalk signal kept playing a game of chicken with us.  Law-abiding citizens, we remained standing at the curb, even though the traffic on either side was similarly frozen with red lights.  The pedestrians in front of me pressed the crosswalk button repeatedly, to no avail.  As the seconds marched on, we all began to feel silly just standing there.  It was technically safe to cross, and we could feel deference to authority giving over to a craving for self-determination. 

As simple as their signals may be on the surface, traffic lights are so inscrutable.  How intelligent and authoritative are they really?  They might be hooked up to high-tech sensors and networks (some are, surely), but then again any one traffic light might be decades behind the times.  We know that some traffic lights are so smart and witty that they have their own Twitter accounts.  (A light on Michigan Avenue in Chicago tweets such wisecracks as, "I don't believe in false starts," "I hear your prayers, and I answer either 'yes' or 'wait,'" "They say we're all connected," "We have to stop meeting like this," and "From my vantage point, you've already involved the cops."  No kidding: https://twitter.com/#!/ChiTrafficLight).  We're left wondering if a non-responsive light is broken ("on the blink," as it were), or if we're being challenged by unknown forces to throw caution to the wind. 

As if of one mind, the pedestrians in front of me and I finally had enough of this Kafkaesque stalemate.  We stepped forward and boldly crossed that street in defiance of the laws of man and God.  And as our feet came down on that first step, the crosswalk signal glowed "WALK."  And the pedestrians in front of me burst out laughing.  They laughed, and they laughed, and they laughed as they completed their crossing.  And still they laughed.  "The light was red!" the man cackled.  "Then it turned green!" the woman cackled back.  When she'd finally caught her breath, the woman made a phone call to share what apparently had been the funniest experience of their lives.  "We were standing there," she explained, "and then we started walking ... and the light changed!"  But she couldn't explain further, as once again she was overcome with tearful hilarity. 

There's a Zen koan in there somewhere: "What's the humor of one light changing?"  The pedestrians howled on, and their laughter was contagious.  I walked on home, chuckling to myself, with a definite spring in my step.  I'd crossed paths with folks who don't want to have fun but who embrace life's subtlest perversities with gusto.

An illustration from a 1914 issue of McClure's magazine.  The caption reads: "No, he doesn't explain a thing; just says he's coming back to-night. ... Do you think he knows about—them?"

An illustration from an 1878 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The beginning of trouble."

Dedicated to Teresa Burritt.

Read six books today from our collection of the shortest novels ever written. (We've illustrated them in your honor.)


Snakes in Ireland
by Margaret Deland

There are no snakes in Ireland.





The Dinosaur
by Augusto Monterroso

When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.





Englewood Entropy
by Anonymous

Dr. Blanton Tufford, a Stanford University physics professor who studied the structure of the universe, was killed on Sunday when a car crashed into the Englewood, N.J., coffee shop where he was sitting.





Untitled
attributed to Ernest Hemingway

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.





Untitled
by Alfred Charles Richard

Coughfing [sic], coffin!





Knock
by Fredric Brown

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.




Also:

An unusual love story emerges from two entries in Kent County, Maryland Marriage License records. On April 22, 1797, both Jogn Lewin and Robert Curry took out licenses to marry Jane Bird. A note by the clerk on the page on which the records were made, just under Curry's name, says, "Curry was successful." Here is a whole two-volume romance condensed in two names and dates, and a sentence of three words. Probably the shortest novel ever written. (source: Pioneer Pathfinder, 1985)


See also: http://www.hillarydepiano.com/2006/11/01/the-shortest-novels-ever-written/

photo by Cobalt 123

"By the way of parenthesis, let me add: If you will try to realize that the inhabitants of the spheres above you are only human beings shorn of their earthly bodies, you can comprehend all I am going to tell you."
—Jabez Hunt Nixon, Beyond the Veil

An illustration from a 1902 issue of Everybody's magazine.  The caption reads: "She is not there, Danny."

An illustration of a profile cliff from an 1899 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Collier's magazine.

An illustration from a 1907 issue of Harper's magazine.

"It bears repeating that it is much easier to avoid the establishment of bad habits than it is to correct them once set."
—Richard G. Beauchamp, Bichon Frise

How does the demonstration of a mystery serve to put someone’s mind at rest? We explore the answer in an article over at Secret Art Journal:

http://www.secretartjournal.com/archives/467

"The only certainty I have is that perseverance in the habit of writing is usually in direct relation to its absurdity, while we usually do brilliant things quite spontaneously."
—Enrique Vila-Matas, Never Any End to Paris

When the treasured Enrique Vila-Matas says that "Occasionally my sense of irony reaches Paris itself" (within the delightful Never Any End to Paris), we might add that it's a longer journey than one might think, when one factors in the meanderings of the Seine.

Speaking of irony, we love this Vila-Matas original: "Irony is the highest form of sincerity."

An illustration from an 1878 issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly magazine.  The caption reads: "In love with an automaton. — Through the stifling cloud of bituminous smoke, he scarcely perceived what manner of being it was.  He caught it up in his arms, and bore it through the passage, and down the stairs."

I dreamed I had faith in an exclamation point.

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Pall Mall magazine.  The caption reads: "Don't spring so—I am not a ghost yet."

Fortune telling into the afterlife?  Gary Barwin (a.k.a. the Serif of Nottingblog) shares:

To which we answer:

"This may surprise you, but there is no sentiment in presentiment. The s has the sound of z, as in present, presently, and presentable." —Charles Harrington Elster, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations (1999)

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Everybody's magazine.

An illustration from a 1911 issue of Everybody's magazine.  The caption reads: "He was not walking on the wall.  He was walking on air, three or feet above the wall."

An illustration from a 1907 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "There she waited while the dawn stole upon the night."

In a letter to historian and mocker of superstition William Harnett Blanch, the illumined Oscar Wilde wrote, "I love superstitions.  They are the colour element of thought and imagination  They are the opponents of common sense.  Common sense is the enemy of romance.  The aim of your society [a club serving 13 courses, with ladders to walk under, mirrors to break, black cats, and so forth] seems to be dreadful.  Leave us some unreality" (qtd. in Phil Baker's biography of Austin Osman Spare).

"It may surprise you, but being helpful is often motivated by the hope for a reward."
—Wendy Lynn, Truth and Dare (2012)

An illustration from an 1883 issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly magazine.  The caption reads: "A lovelamp. — She remained motionless as the Sphinx itself, her soul in her eyes, as the little lamp began to throb like a living blossom away from the bane toward the current."

photo by Cobalt 123

"And may I add that I believe this is going to make a most interesting
experiment."
—Malcolm MacDonald, Dancing on Snowflakes (1995)

An illustration from a 1901 issue of McClure's magazine.  The caption reads: "Here's this."

Dedicated to Jonathan.

"It bears repeating: you are not trying to identify every possible risk, just some of the more likely ones."
—James P. Lewis, Fundamentals of Project Management

"No offense, but you don't come across as no criminal mastermind to me."
—Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness

Here's a precursor to "Thing" from The Addams Family, from a 1921 issue of Collier's magazine.

An illustration from an 1883 issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly magazine.  The caption reads: "The Devil's Looking-Glass. — Beelzebub sees himself in a mirror."

An illustration from a 1907 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The two of them looked at each other with much interest."

"I've said this many times, and it bears repeating now: there's no one in the spirit world who's even a fraction as evil as the human beings we run across here on earth."
—Sylvia Browne's Book of Dreams

Inspired by and for Gary Barwin.

An illustration from a 1908 issue of Pall Mall magazine.  The caption reads: "Seizing Kum Sin's ankles, he hauled his legs from the bunk, and held his naked soles over the lamp-flame."

"It's not rocket science.  It only felt like it.  Clearly, more champagne was called for."
—Sarah Mayberry, More Than One Night (2012)

"Firelight Fancies": an illustration from an 1893 issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly magazine.

Here's a fun dream anecdote over at Futility Closet.

"Every now and then some people in your audience will try to answer your rhetorical question. If someone offers you an answer, you need to be able to handle the response."
—R. Mark Giuliano, Speak Easy (2005)

A surrealist illustration from a 1906 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I made a headlong dash down the end of the keyboard."

"The only certainty is that you will have unfinished business, and it will weigh on your mind, and you won't even know why."
—Jim T. Lindsey, A Traveler's Guide for Lost Souls: The Flaw in the Fabric (2011)

An illustration from a 1908 issue of McClure's magazine.  The caption reads: "The fat man's eyes ... were fixed upon this thing with a kind of stupid intensity."

An illustration from a 1907 issue of Life magazine.  The caption reads: "And so on, forever."

[For Gordon Meyer.]

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "'Perhaps you would like to come to some of the meetings of our Cult of the Occult,' she suggested."

An illustration from a 1921 issue of Collier's magazine.  The caption reads: "Inwardly in turmoil but outwardly composed, Brinn waited for the next development.  It came: a dim light glowed into flame before him, but no sound broke the night's silence.  At last a voice spoke from the surrounding shadows."

The April Fool: an illustration from an 1883 issue of Life magazine.