An illustration from an 1869 issue of Punch magazine.

Author Jeremy Edwards answers the age-old question, "to flirt or not to flirt?"  He backs it up with science and suggests wearing it as a button: "Game theory says I should flirt with you."

"I could have sworn I heard a violin playing 'The Last Rose of Summer.' In waltz time, no less."
—Eugenia Riley, Waltz in Time (1997)

Before the walrus was Paul, the walrus was Lewis Carroll.  (Thanks, JohnnyDiego!)

An illustration from an 1869 issue of Punch magazine.

Though there are famously two Darrins in the classic sitcom Bewitched, history ignores a third actor who played the character before Dick Sargent took over.  The context is that Endora secretly grants Darrin three wishes, which he mindlessly squanders.  His third wish is to be his boss, Larry Tate, for a day.  And so David White plays Darrin for half an episode.  York—White—Sargent: the three Darrins are in reverse alphabetical order, just as magic reverses what's considered normal.


But, improbability aside, could there have been yet a fourth Darrin?  Yes!  When Dick York's Darrin has to cancel a vacation in Miami due to work commitments, Endora splits him into two Darrins: happy-go-lucky Darrin and workaholic Darrin.  The fun Darrin goes on holiday with his wife while the serious one keeps his nose to the grindstone.  So Dick York actually plays the fourth Darrin as well as the first.

A Yorkshire girl named Diot Coke was born in the year 1379.  Futility Closet spills the details.

An illustration from an 1869 issue of Punch magazine.

"So, yes, the paragraph is arbitrary, but so is the sentence, and the word, and the phonemes within the word, and the connections we intimate between those phonemes and those arbitrary shapes we call letters." —Geof Huth

An illustration from an 1869 issue of Punch magazine.

This "scarf for upright piano" appears in Arthur's Home Magazine, 1887.  It's described as "One of the most unique scarfs for an upright piano I have seen in a long time."  We can say without hesitation that it's the first scarf for an upright piano we've ever seen!

"Always remember that no one can waste your time without your consent."
—Barry B. Gallagher, The Secrets of Life Power (2008)

The illustration is from Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome (1891).

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

I believe the e-mails I send will always be answered immediately.

An illustration from a 1903 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "Hello, ol' Never Sleep, that you?"

An illustration from a 1915 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Why does humankind still grapple with the greatest questions?  Why can we ultimately know nothing?  And what, then, shall we occupy ourselves with?  All is revealed here:

"I have always been interested in the oddities of mankind.  At one time I read a good deal of philosophy and a good deal of science, and I learned in that way that nothing was certain.  Some people, by the pursuit of science, are impressed with the dignity of man, but I was only made conscious of his insignificance.  The greatest questions of all have been threshed out since he acquired the beginnings of civilization and he is as far from a solution as ever.  Man can know nothing, for his senses are his only means of knowledge, and they can give no certainty.  There is only one subject upon which the individual can speak with authority, and that is his own mind, but even here is surrounded with darkness.  I believe that we shall always be ignorant of the matters which it most behoves us to know, and therefore I cannot occupy myself with them.  I prefer to set them all aside, and, since knowledge is unattainable, to occupy myself only with folly." —William Somerset Maugham, The Magician

An illustration from Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome (1891).

An illustration from Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath by Ben Hecht.

William Keckler suggests that someone should "write a novel about a 'haunted house' in which the one haunted is actually the house, which dimly perceives the family which inhabits it--which feels them as a sort of infestation by ghosts."

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "High above the sea, the road leads you to this fairyland."

I-eye:  an illustration from Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome (1891).

"It is characteristic of the imagination to always consider itself to be at the end of an era.  ... But the apocalyptic has always been there, in every era.  ... It exists in every civilization. ... [I]n our time the apocalyptic can only be dealt with parodically.  ... The apocalypse demands a lack of seriousness.  ... Any crisis, after all, is just a projection of our existential anxiety.  Perhaps our only privilege is to be alive and know we're all going to die together or separately. ... In the end ... the apocalyptic has a splendid fictional veneer, but it shouldn't be taken too seriously, because actually ... what it offers ... is the joyful, emphatic, and happy paradox of ... something to do in the future." —Enrique Vila-Matas, Dublinesque

An illustration from a 1905 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "'Why hasn't Haunting told upon you?' I asked."

"Step by step, nearer, nearer, until he touched airy hands that clung, that drew him to the heart of mystery."  From Amélie Rives's The Ghost Garden, 1918.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook, secretly in honor of a certain K.

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Hermann Rorschach was here ... in an index to The Rotarian magazine, 1920.  Granted, we may be reading too much into this.

"But why did you say Boulogne when you means Bologna?"  A still from Dear Ladies, series one.

"The Crystal Evening": an illustration from a 1909 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.

"Last night she dreamed she was wandering through a labyrinth of teeth."
—Cai Emmons, His Mother's Son (2002)

"Nothing tells us where we are and each moment is a place we have ever been." —Enrique Vila-Matas, Dublinesque

What a weird experience: my "fundial" doodad (which I discovered via Bernie DeKoven) was kaput, but then I realized that the only moving part was my own index finger.

An illustration from an 1851 issue of Punch magazine.

"The answer is simple—learn to touch.”

—Gary Chapman, Happily Ever After (2011)

An illustration from Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome (1891).

No two are alike:  an illustration from Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath by Ben Hecht.

An illustration from Rhyme and Reason by Lewis Carroll (1884).

An illustration from a 1903 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "The Crack in the Wainscot"

a hole in something
what a card trick does to fingers

—Gary Barwin, "Because Birds"

To our knowledge, only one person has thoroughly described what a card trick does to a magician's fingers.  With each magical performance, the digitations are aroused to "borrow" or "liberate" according to new yearnings.  Some fingers steal people's secrets, under the delusion that possessing elements of a personal life makes them one's own.  Some steal other people's names, leaving in their wake individuals without any knowledge of who they were, forced to trust in the testimony of friends and relatives.  Some steal time, with the logical intention of prolonging their days; they steal past time when in the mood to dwell upon memories; they steal present time when feeling constricted by immediate limitations; they steal future time out of the very lives of children when hard hit by the panic of impending dissolution.  Some steal dreams, leaving others' sleep blank and uncharacterized.  Some steal sleep itself so as to hibernate like a bear, leaving victims staring, on the verge of despair and madness, night after night in the indifferent dark.  Some steal others' hope, though always leave just enough to keep them from suicide.  We find these insights in Wendy Walker's masterpiece The Secret Service (1992), which we have here paraphrased.

Here's a quotation from our Spotted in the Wild blog that we wished to share here, too:

"What else is the world than a figure? Life itself is but a symbol. You must be a wise man if you can tell us what is reality." —William Somerset Maugham, The Magician

An illustration from an 1876 issue of Arthur's Home magazine.  (It also appeared in Beadles Monthly, 1866.)  The caption reads: "Faces in the Fire."

"Golden sunshine, golden wine, golden hair, golden coin.  There is a magic charm in yellow, m'sieur.  Ah, but there is.  I know.  Red is bewitching; it is daring, inspiring.  But yellow—it enthuses, tantalizes, lulls."
—Izola L. Forrester, "The Yellow Domino," The Idler (1904)

An illustration from Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome (1891).  The text reads: "Now is the Very Witching Time of Night."

"Is it a tear in space that hangs in the air, shifting and shimmering?"
—Michelle Belanger, Psychic Dreamwalking (2006)

Now here's a concept, courtesy of the wag (Jonathan Caws-Elwitt):

The New York State Thruway service-area map lists which concessions inhabit each service area. Well, I'm calling them "concessions"... but apparently, in turnpike corporatese, a Starbucks or a McDonalds in a service area is called a "concept." Thus, the map's legend informs us that "24-hour concepts" appear in bold lettering.

So if you ever wake up in the middle of the night and you can't find the insightful paradigm, penetrating theory, or brilliant idea you came up with earlier in the day... maybe what you have there is a concept that's limited to bankers' hours or standard retail hours. (And if the concept comes and goes at peculiar times of day... well, maybe it's operating on a British pub-licensing schedule!)

An illustration from a 1902 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "'It's arrival" [sic].

"This may surprise you, but I do have a life beyond this office!"
—Jessica Hart, Temporary Engagement (2011)

We've long collected summations of the meaning of life, and we couldn't resist sharing this marvelous one by the immortal John Cowper Powys in his novel Porius.  Note that he distills the meaning of life down to one key word:

What an absurd nonsense it all was!  Why couldn't people see that the whole business was a lively, amusing, horrible, comical, pitiful, cruel Incomprehensibility?  For that was what it was.  Not a tragedy, for it was too pitiful.  Not a farce, for it was too cruel.  Not a mystery, for the physical was too tick, and our capacity for response to everything else too quickly at its limit.

It clearly couldn't be very serious or matter very much.  We were all comparatively soon dead; and meanwhile life could be deliciously pleasant and appallingly unpleasant.  It could be endurable.  It could unendurable.  It could be first the one and then the other.  Good and evil in it were hopelessly mixed up, as also were justice and injustice.

An Incomprehensibility—that's the only word for it!  And what applies to men applies to the gods also.  "If I could magic myself into an eagle of Zeus and carry all the people up through those black clouds into the moonlight on my wings, would I do it?" he thought.  "No, I would not do it!  Why should I do it?"

It would only be from one incomprehensible dream into another!

A portrait of a British novelist at home:  an illustration from an 1899 issue of The Idler magazine.

I woke up with various TV specials swimming in my head, on the theme of Being John Malkovich.  These are the ones I can remember:

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Malkovich!
Wicked mentalist Derren Brown hypnotizes three bedraggled homeless people into believing they're legendary actor John Malkovich.  First one to be asked for a celebrity autograph wins three days and two nights in The Address hotel at Dubai Marina, a haven for the discerning traveller.

To Be John Malkovich
Legendary actor John Malkovich and three "nobodies" who genuinely share his name vie to accept a lifetime achievement award in Hollywood, Florida.  Trouble is, the thespian is the only one without identification.

Stars in Their Id's
Prescription for disaster: an unwitting psychiatrist accepts five patients who all "believe they're John Malkovich," including the legendary actor.  By the end of group therapy, will the real John Malkovich get carried away?

Finding John
Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood, Akiva Goldsman, Catherine Hardwicke and Joseph Campbell (archival footage) are just a few of the people who offer their insight into how we are all John Malkovich.  "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. Follow your Malkovich!"

"There's more to childhood memories than liverwurst sandwiches." —Jeff Hawkins

The exception that proves the rule: the Earl of Sandwich's earliest memories were all covered in seasoned meat paste.

An illustration from a 1922 issue of Life magazine.

An illustration from a 1900 issue of Harmsworth's magazine.  The caption reads: "The statue lives!  On its mighty limbs the great muscles twitch and quiver."

An illustration from an 1893 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "A hot sickness touched him with its finger."

"Up to six crows are called a 'murder,' but seven or more are called a 'strategic interdiction.'"
—Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine

An illustration from an 1892 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "You shall see me call the dead."

"The answer is simple: because we are inherently social creatures.”

—Miklos Sarvary, Gurus and Oracles (2011)

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Wide World magazine.  The caption reads: "Padre Sanchez cautiously opened the upper part of door of the confessional."

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

An illustration from a 1905 issue of Wide World magazine.  The caption reads: "She slammed the dish of hot potatoes full in his face."

An illustration from an 1896 issue of The Idler magazine.  The caption reads: "Shadow of a Soul by Alan Wright"