From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

"Gods liked to conceal themselves in curious places.  That was the first law of great secrets."
—Norman Mailer, Ancient Evenings  (It's no secret how much as love and respect this novel.)

When we last met the red petals of the flowers were falling like rain on the green moss. / After we had separated, the faded leaves lay scattered in the evening mist.
—Hsi Hsiang Chi, The Romance of the Western Chamber, translated by S.I. Hiung, 1936.

Two entries from our new edition of Magic Words are featured in this review/editorial about the importance of magic words for people recovering from trauma:

http://dianapagejordan.com/blog/2008/09/once-upon-time.php

Here are some hilarious translations of Nostradamus' prophecies. For example:


There is no need to explain the significance of this quatrain, which predicts the election of Boris Johnson as mayor of London. Indeed, the significance is so extraordinarily obvious that it is surprising, in hindsight, that this interpretation was not discovered until May 3, 2008.

Math babes have prime measurements.

After math dudes do it, they check their work.

Some scientists (especially physicists) [and] some artists (especially musicians) . . . noticed long ago that a musical sound, for example, provokes an association of a precise color. . . . Stated otherwise, you ‘hear’ the color and you ‘see’ the sound. . . .

YELLOW . . . possesses the special capacity to ‘ascend’ higher and higher and to attain heights unbearable to the eye and the spirit; the sound of trumpet played higher and higher becoming more and more ‘pointed,’ giving pain to the ear and to the spirit. BLUE, with the completely opposite power to ‘descend’ into infinite depths, develops the sounds of the flute (when it is light blue), of the cello (when it has descended farther), of the double bass with its magnificent deep sounds; and in the depths of the organ you ‘see’ the depths of blue. GREEN is well balanced and corresponds to the medium and the attenuated sounds of the violin. When skillfully applied, RED (vermillion) can give the impression of strong drum beats, etc.”
—Wassily Kandinsky, Concrete Art, 1938.

"A quarter of an acre was planted with six distinct strains of specially selected and bred swamp blueberry stock."
—Bulletin of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, 1916 (italics ours)

"There is something soothing about the fog, especially from a distance, some sense that the world might not make any sense but that it wasn't designed to hurt us, just to entice us into thinking." —Geof Huth

by b-art

The Most Forbidden Color

The fiery color red has long been controversial — so controversial, in fact, that it is commonly banned outright lest it inflame strong emotions, spark revolution, kindle anger, inspire boldness, instigate bloodshed, arouse lust, or provoke pain. Is it preposterous to think that a single color can be dangerous to society? Consider the following examples of forbidden reds from modern to ancient times. Then ask yourself: do you dare to use or wear the color red today? Is red worth the risk of arrest, imprisonment, or even a death sentence? Ultimately, is red (or any color) worth championing?

Director Michael Mann banned the color red from appearing in his film Miami Vice, as he has a personal dislike for red and other earth tones. (Source: New York Times.)

The American Civil Liberties Union reported the first known instance of an educational institution reacting to gang fears by banning a primary color. In reaction to school vandalism and the threat of violence, "officials at Round Rock High School in Texas banned the color red. ... Apparently the gang responsible for these incidents wore red—about forty students wearing red items were sequestered in the library, and the parents were called." (Source: Leland Gregory, Hey, Idiot!: Chronicles of Human Stupidity.)

In 1887, Chicago police banned the color red from labor union advertisements of the Knights of Labor. This was a colorful example of the anti-Communist "red scare." (Source: Economic History Encyclopedia.)

Daniels Farm Elementary School in Trumbull, Connecticut banned its teachers from using red ink to grade student homework. Apparently, parents objected to red as being "too stressful" and symbolic of negativity. "The disillusionment with red is part of a major shift in grading, and three top pen manufacturers have heard the complaints. As a result, Bic, Pilot Pen, and Sanford (the manufacturer of Papermate and Sharpie) are producing more purple pens in response to rising sales. According to Pilot Pen’s vice president of marketing, school leaders are 'trying to be positive and reinforcing rather than being harsh. Teachers are taking that to heart.'" (Source: Lisa Orlando, "The Ink That Teachers Use To Grade Papers Has Parents Seeing Red.")

The government of Saudi Arabia banned the color red around Valentine's Day, in a move to discourage Muslims from observing the Western holiday. Red flowers, plush hearts, wrapping paper, and other red items were illegal to sell. As a result of the ban on red roses, a black market has flowered. (Source: Saudi Gazette.)

In Israel, the color red was banned from kosher clothing stores. (Source: Sensationalcolor.com.)

Warren S. Jeffs, "the man revered as the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," banned the color red from clothing when he took power in 2002. (Source: Newsweek.)

The government of Zimbabwe denied banning the color red from television, though AIDS activists reported being told to remove their red ribbons before filming. (Source: BBC News.)

In traditional funerals in Japan, red was forbidden because it is "a celebratory color." (Source: Pikatto.) Similarly, in China red was forbidden during periods of mourning. (Source: Beverley Jackson, Splendid Slippers.) And in Estonia, the color red is traditionally forbidden from funerals and other important rites of passage. (Source: Science Direct.)

Medieval Spain banned the color red from garments due to its association with blood, the devil, and witchery. Spaniards reportedly began wearing red under their clothes, giving rise to the popularity of red underwear. (Source: Why Fashion?)

On the Cook Island of Mangaia, "anything red was forbidden ... as being offensive to the gods." (Source: James Frazer, Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Vol. 2.)

At the New Jersey College for Women in the 1920s, the red clothing was forbidden to freshmen. "Only sophomores and up could wear red." (Source: Rutgers.)

In 1990, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned carcinogenic Red Dye No. 3 in cosmetics and topical drugs. (Source: BNET.)

Though red is hard to beat in terms of controversy, other colors have found themselves on the chopping block. Following are a few brief examples.

Forbidden Yellow:

President William McKinley's wife banned the color yellow from the White House. (Source: Jane O'Connor, If the Walls Could Talk: Family Life at the White House.)

Forbidden Orange:

The Dutch Patriot Movement of the 1780s banned the color orange. (Source: Peter Boticelli.)

Forbidden Green:

Voyage, a New York City Caribbean bistro, banned the color green from its decor. (Source: The Village Voice.)

Early Christians banned the color green due to its pagan connotations. (Source: Rolling Rainbow: Color Matters.)

Forbidden Purple:

The founder of the Woman Suffrage Party, Carrie Chapman Catt, banned the color purple from parades to dissociate her movement from the militant National Woman's Party. (Source: Heritage.)

Forbidden Brown:

Students at Molloy Alternative High School in Lowell, Massachusetts were forbidden from wearing the color brown, due to the emergence of the "Brown Mafia," a teenage gang. (Source: WHDH.)

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

Thanks to the Serif of Nottingblog for today's delightful Tic Tac Toem:

From the inimitable Tom Weller, author of the classic Science Made Stupid, comes this "minim" (the perfect answer to the maxim):

Certainty #8:

"Death is the only reality, for it is the only certainty, inevitable to all things."
—Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother, 1996

Which word is funnier: mail or junk mail?

Clue:  This is according to the book Drawing on the Funny Side of the Brain

Answer:  Junk mail, as it is “low rent.”  (The answer is in black text on the black background.  Highlight it to view.)

Citation:  Christopher Hart, Drawing on the Funny Side of the Brain (1998), p. 107

by chema.foces

Shades of the Unexpected

What makes a color "unexpected" is a difference from the norm or a breaking of the rules. Consider, for example, a fiery red nimbus cloud amongst common white ones, an impatient yellow blossom amongst green buds, or an anomalous brown nut amongst its candy-covered companions. A mismatched color can jolt the viewer into a new way of looking. It can offer:

a rhythm to the palette a lively surprise a sense of depth or substance a punchy contrast a delightful idiosyncrasy an inspirational boost a festive mood unexpected warmth a "not too serious" tone a fun nuance a reason to smile

by jpmatth

An anomalous pile of blue sticks next to an orange-leafed tree in an autumnal glade served as the inspiration for the "Stick Figures" palette.

by ISphoto

A green and red cactus in a Kingman, Arizona parking lot served as the inspiration for the "Cactus Erroneous" palette.

by cobalt123

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

"You cannot impose upon a shower of meteors the luminous sequence of the wheeling constellations without its forthwith ceasing to be the thing it is." —John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination, 1927

Saint Eddie Jordan
Patron of Revolving Doors.

First China’s sons, with early art elate, / Form’d the gay tea- pot, and the pictured plate; / Saw with illumined brow and dazzled eyes / In the red stove vitrescent colours rise; / Speck’d her tall beakers with enamel’d stars, / Her monster- josses, and gigantic jars; / Smear’d her huge dragons with metallic hues, / With golden purples, and cobaltic blues; / Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare, / And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air.
—Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Botanic Garden.

Et Ceterating the Rainbow

a guest blog by the incomparable Jeff (inspired by our ampersand piece below)

Aunt Blim was confused about many things, and shouldn't have been allowed near the children.  Her habit of mixing metaphors—especially in combination with her disregard for syntax—was bad enough, but when I told my classmates that Goldilocks had murdered the leprechauns because they threw cold porridge in her face, I was chased around the schoolyard until I fell down.

Worse, aunt Blim had been schooled during a particularly difficult period—circa 1880, according to her parrot—and so had learned to place an ampersand at the very end of the alphabet, after the letters ran out.  It was a peculiar way of suggesting that more letters might follow, if only one were willing to wait a while.  In effect, it was an et cetera at the end of the alphabet.  While her classmates had moved forward and simply ignored such eccentric teachings, aunt Blim internalized them, passing the madness on to succeeding generations.  Unfortunately, this included mine, which is how I came to believe her twisted version of the Goldilocks tale in the first place.

Passing on warped fables to classmates is one thing, and arguing for archaic principles with your grammar-school teacher is another, but combining the two is likely to get you a fat lip, followed by expulsion.  At least that's the way I remember it.  As I was being conducted to the principal's office by one ear, my teacher was bellowing in the other.

    "There is no ampersand at the end of the rainbow!"

    "There is no ampersand at the end of the rainbow!"

I think she was wrong.

Did you know: "Oxygen is an imaginary gas hypothesized in the nineteenth century to account for certain phenomena then not understood. We actually breathe ether."

Or: "Any straight line on the earth’s surface, if extended indefinitely, will eventually pass through Apalachicola."

Or: "The codex, or book with pages bound on one side, was invented as a tool for pressing flowers. An anonymous postclassical herbalist was the first to hit on the idea of writing on the pages."

These and other hilarious fun facts are part of "Dr. Boli's Encyclopedia of Misinformation."

An artist called Highwireart took this photo of an exhibit of Pacific Northewest native masks in Vancouver British Columbia.  Can you locate the 9 masks in the photo as well as the woman?  Click here for a large sized version of the photo.

 

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Certainty #7:

"The only certainty is that the phenomena are enormously complex."
—William James, "The Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher,'" The American Magazine, 1909

Isaac Newton started his theory of gravity several times, but he invariably dropped the ball.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

This piece was inspired by a poster by The Small Stakes for the band Mates of State.  The poster shows overlapping fingerprints in red ink.  We imagined a bumbling detective with a romantic streak.

Cyndi Lauper covers Prince's "When You Were Mine" on her album She's So Unusual.  Lauper receives mixed marks. We applaud her effort to preserve the integrity of several key lyrics, thereby inviting fresh new subtexts to arise.  Yet we resoundly spurn instances of carelessly mangled pronouns that virtually erase any possible new subtexts.

Lauper starts off on a worrying note: she leaves out the word girl in the line, "Oh girl, when you were mine."

However, she makes amends by honoring this original lyric: "I know that you're going with another guy."  Because Lauper deliberately declines to identify the subject of her song as a "girl" in the earlier lyric, it's easy to assume she's singing about a guy.  The words "another guy" are therefore newly intriguing, as her former boyfriend appears to be either gay or bisexual.  Additionally, "another guy" refers back to the speaker, meaning that Lauper associates herself with a masculine identity ("one of the guys").

Lauper's retention of a later lyric, "I used to let you wear all my clothes" preserves the gender-bending of the original Prince recording.  Lauper's subject would appear to be a cross-dresser or drag queen.

Lauper falters, however, when she changes he to you in the following lyric: "I never was the kind to make a fuss when he was there sleeping in-between the two of us."  Her phrase "when you was sleeping in-between the two of us" is nonsensical at best.  Apparently, cross-dressing is okay, but two men in her bed is unthinkable.

Lauper recovers somewhat, retaining the original lyric, "Now I spend my time following him whenever he's with you."  But the hemming, hawing, and hedging has left the listener with a blurred picture.  Mystery and intrigue are one thing; unfocused muddles are quite another.

P.S. Cyndi, we adore you anyway.  ;-)

P.P.S. Thanks to Chris for inspiration.

---

Mike responds:

All I know / Of a certain star / Is, it can throw / (Like the angled spar) / Now a dart of red, / Now a dart of blue; / Till my friends have said / They would fain see, too, / My star that dartles the red and the blue! / Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: / They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. / What matter to me if their star is a world? / Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
—Robert Browning (1812-89).

Beguiled by a Mystery

(Our guest blog for Gordon Meyer's Rebuilding a Mystery)

The question isn't whether the box is foreground or background; the question is one's own place within in the mystery (in which case, thinking inside the puzzle box may possibly be preferable!)  Optical illusions, phantasmic artwork, and even family snapshots ask us to consider our own beguilement, as it was, as it is, and as it will be.

While virtually flipping through a scanned book in Google's online library, we came across the scanner's hand. Her hand, covering a blank page, is now immortalized. Note that the pink "finger condoms" match her nail polish. And note that she slipped her diamond rings over the finger condoms. Though not the first scanner's hand we've come across in Google's library, it's the most colorful to date.  In fact, we felt inspired to create a color palette in the hand's honor.

TheOfficeLawyer writes:

Strato-ellipsus clouds form in the typosphere.

Party goer to mathematician: What's your line?
Mathematician: Two planes.
Party goer: Humph!  Well, I have a Cessna, but I don't brag about it.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Illusions and Delusions

—or—

Exiled from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (a true story, and our guest blog at Omegaword)

I'll never forget the day I found myself locked out of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  Since then, the whole world has looked a little more decrepit.

Improbably, my exile occurred mere hours after my grand arrival.  I'd hardly had time to take in the idyllic wonders of the Neighborhood before I was cruelly banished. Who was it who posited that paradise is timeless?  (Full disclosure: I was the one positing.)  Accordingly, a brief moment of bliss is indistinguishable from an eternity, so the shortness of my experience in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in no way mitigates the pain of my expulsion.

The instrument of my expulsion?  The cold shards of a shattered illusion.  Here's how it went down: I was on a scenic boat tour in the "Venice of America," Winter Park, Florida.  They have pontoon boats that travel twelve miles through the peaceful lakes of the city (the lakes being connected by canals, originally dug by logging companies to float timber to a nearby train station).  It's a gorgeous tour, not only for the natural beauty of the vegetation and wildlife along the way but also for the stillness of the lake water.  It sounds silly to say that "you feel like you're floating" while in a boat on a lake, but I actually felt like I was floating inches above the water.  It was transcendent, and I was somehow primed for a revelation!  Many people go on this tour to gawk at the mansion homes along the lake shores, as several dozen movie stars, pop singers, and sports figures own winter homes there.  (That includes Carrot Top, though I'm not exactly sure how to categorize him.)  The location is indeed a slice of heaven, and it's no wonder that celebrities can't resist buying their own little morsel (of that carrot cake, as it were).

Naturally, the boat captain recites a spiel along the way, sharing bits of local history and pointing out famous owners of the various mansions.  As an aside (but one which is a piece of the puzzle), I was sitting in the front row, right next to the guide, and he seemed to bond with me in a surprising way.  He made eye contact with me whenever he talked, and if I was ever looking the other way at the scenery, he would confirm I had heard what he'd said as soon as I looked his way again.  It was as if he were giving the spiel just for my benefit, and this feeling was reinforced by the fact that he made personal asides to me throughout.  In other words, he would let go of the speaker button and mutter an additional sentence or two just to me, out of hearing of the other passengers.  The fact that this man both looked and sounded like my grandfather was somewhat eerie, and I readily admit to wondering whether the spirit of my grandfather wasn't somehow connecting with me through this boat captain. One of the houses the guide pointed out was the boyhood home of Mister Rogers.  "When Mister Rogers talked about his 'neighborhood,'" the guide said, "this was it."

At those words, fireworks went off in my head.  This gorgeous lake district that I had fallen in love with was nothing less than Mister Rogers' Neighborhood!  That idyllic neighborhood he sang about wasn't just the stuff of dreams: it was a real place, and I had discovered it!  And it was even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined! It was like an epiphany--suddenly the world didn't seem like such a scary place.  I was practically giddy with joy, and I decided to take the tour again a few hours later, to continue basking in my revelation.  Though there are four different boat captains, I got the same man again, and of course he remembered me.  Little did I know that I was in for a second bombshell, but one I wouldn't like!

This time, when we floated past Mister Rogers' house, somebody piped up with a follow-up question (something trivial and pointless, like "what street is the house on").  In answering that question, the guide explained that it wasn't really Mister Rogers' neighborhood.  "He just rented a room in that house while he was a student at Rollins College, but we like to tell tourists that this is Mister Rogers' neighborhood."

Well, I was devastated!  My newfound illusion had been shattered by an asinine tourist's question.  I figuratively could have strangled that tourist.  (I actually wasn't mad at the guide--in fact, I was charmed by the little fib he had told and would have been quite delighted to go on believing it!  It was the question-asker that enraged me!) For the rest of that tour, I kept thinking about a motto in the 60's television series "The Prisoner": "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself."  I was indeed feeling imprisoned by that answer about Mister Rogers' house, for it was locking me out of the idyllic Neighborhood!  I was suddenly an outsider again--shunned, expelled from this paradise.  I wanted my illusion back, as ridiculous as those words sounded in my own head.

While delusions are always negative, illusions aren't necessarily so.  In one of his songs, the flamboyant entertainer Boy George actually defends holding onto one's illusions, defiantly singing: "You can try but you can't shatter my illusions."  That's food for thought (and not a dig at Boy George's weight gain, as everyone knows that your metabolism goes to pot once you reach age 40).  Could consciously sustaining one's illusions be a positive thing?  A false impression seems negative by the very fact of its falsity, yet couldn't it also be pleasing, harmless, and even useful?

But those are questions best left to philosophers, not Swedes.  Er, in the sense that someone once compared exile to the nation of Sweden.  (Full disclosure: I'm not the one who made that comparison; it was in a book about European perspectives on social work with minority groups.)  Let the philosophers speculate while we minorities spend the remainder of our sleepless nights dreaming of a gated community . . . a Neighborhood that's imaginary and untrue.

Why is the ampersand located above the "7" on a keyboard?  We couldn't find an answer, so we sleuthed out our own!  See our findings at our guest blog for DJMisc!

I dreamed I had tea under the ampersand tree.*

*Inspired by William Heyen's Pig Notes & Dumb Music: Prose on Poetry, which features the following line: "(& I dreamed a tree whose leaves were ampersands. . . .)" [ellipses and parentheses his]

Saint Eddie
Patron of Convicted Politicians.

London-based designer / design lecturer Ben Stopher ranks our Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound as his favorite.  (Our unicorns beat out caterpillars, the nerd underground, critical thinkers, bosses, gestures, and the militia!)

Our whimsical research on the ampersand has begun appearing around the Web.  For example:

Here's an ampersand crack in a table's surface.

Here's our proof of how an ampersand can curtail a list.

Here's the difference between an ampersand and quicksand.

Here's how an ampersand is exactly like a wheelchair.

Here's an illumination of the notorious "dangling ampersand."

I dreamed that I never got to meet Cormac McCarthy.

Do amoebas believe in an afterlife? 

They're divided on the issue.

The sunset was magnificent with the intensity and brilliance that can be found only in the tropics. . . . It was a sensual isle, a Biblical land of ruby wines and golden sands and indigo trees. The men stared and stared. The island hovered before them like an Oriental monarch’s conception of heaven, and they responded to it with an acute and terrible longing. It was a vision of all the beauty for which they had ever yearned, all the ecstasy they had ever sought. . . . It could not last. Slowly, inevitably, the beach began to dissolve in the encompassing night. The golden sands grew faint, became gray- green, and darkened. The island sank into the water, and the tide of night washed over the rose and lavender hills. After a little while, there was only the gray- black ocean, the darkened sky, and the evil churning of the gray- white wake. Bits of phosphorescence swirled in the foam. The black dead ocean looked like a mirror of the the night; it was cold, implicit with dread and death. The men felt it absorb them in a silent pervasive terror. They turned back to their cots, settled down for the night, and shuddered for a long while in their blankets.
—Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead, 1948.

Today we honor Corey Haim, a voice of sanity in an insane world of song-lyric-pronoun abuse.  In the film The Lost Boys, Haim sings "Ain't Got No Home" by Clarence "Frogman" Henry.  Does Haim butcher the original lyrics?  Absolutely not!  Haim isn't afraid to "sing like a girl" or even "like a frog"!  (Go ahead and gasp!) 

The PInKSLiP Campaign hereby dares contemporary singers to follow Haim's example.  And what a controversial dare it is, apparently!  Consider, for example, these lyrics from the song:

• "I ain't got a man."  According to the ridiculous standards that PInKSLiP actively fights, only a woman (of any orientation) could sing such a line.
• "I ain't got a son."  This line could presumably be sung only by a singer with no male heir.
• "I ain't got a daughter."  This line is presumably exclusive to daughterless singers.
• "I ain't got no one."  Who but the impotent, the deliberately childless, the unmarried, the asexual, or the socially inept would dare to sing such a line?
• "I'm a lonely girl."  Grown-up girls would likely need to change the word to "woman," and male singers would need to switch the gender, according to today's ridiculous standards.
• "I ain't got a mother."  Only orphans need bother retaining this lyric, apparently.
• "I ain't got a father."  This would be exclusive to genetically engineered ("test tube") people.
• "I ain't got a sister."  This line is for singletons, apparently.
• "Not even a brother."  Ditto.
• "I'm a lonely frog."  Human singers need not bother.
• "I ain't got a home."  A line for homeless singers, obviously.

Need we say more?  As the lyrics of "Ain't Got No Home" beautifully demonstrate, it's ridiculous for a singer to alter song lyrics to correspond to his or her lifestyle.  Anyone can sing like a girl, or a frog, or a sisterless singleton without a place to call home.  That's because (drumroll, please!) it's just a song!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Having come up with 100 Ways to Fail to Boil Water, we don't often stumble upon new ones.  So imagine our delight to discover this terrific excuse: a recipe with a missing final paragraph!

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

 

"If it is true that men only want one thing . . . is it perhaps just to be left to themselves with their soap animals or some other harmless little trifle?" —Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence

A guest blog by the inimitable Jeff of Omegaword:

*

Simile faces.
Happiness is an allusion.

---

Jonathan adds:

We're appalled over Annie Lennox's gender switching in her cover of the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You" (on her album Medusa).  The original lyric is, "'Cause girl you're the key to my happiness."  Lennox changes the word girl to man.  Lennox was one of the seminal gender benders of the 1980's, so we're sincerely puzzled over her newfound need to assert stereotypical relationships.

As we explain in our PInKSLiP Campaign, it would be unheard of for a person doing a spoken-word reading of a literary classic to change the text's gender references according to whim.  It should be equally unheard of for a singer to alter the lyrics of a song.  This all-too-common practice violates the integrity of the original song and, in fact, often prevents fresh new subtexts from arising.

Counterpoint: Our poetic friend Chris Piuma stands up for singers' rights to have as much fun with lyrics as they want.  Certainly, artists can and do have quite a bit of fun altering lyrics, and our PInKSLiP Campaign can and will continue to issue the pinkslips!

This priceless gem is from Dr. Boli's Encyclopedia of Misinformation:

"It is a little-known fact of psychological history that Rorschach consistently failed his own test."

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Saint Meri
Patron of Tires.

Saint Meri's motto is "Tread in the name of progress."  She has been incorrectly linked with the Holy Rollers.

Among colours, such as are soft and cheerful (except, perhaps, a strong red which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense mountain, covered with a shining green turf, is nothing, in this respect, to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue, and night more sublime and solemn than day. Therefore in historical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect: and in buildings, when the highest degree of the sublime is intended, the materials and ornaments ought neither to be white, nor green, nor yellow, nor blue, nor of a pale red, nor violet, nor spotted, but of sad and fuscous colours, as black, or brown, or deep purple, and the like.
—Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1806; as quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

Did you know that the difference between men and women is 3.14159?  The hilariously insightful Robert Urbanek explains:


Read Urbanek's complete explanation here.

"My Mummy says I'm her little eyes and ears."
—Terry Bazes, Goldsmith's Return

Our friend Jeff at Omegaword had some fun with circle-defying Venn diagrams, such as a coffee maker/toilet/hair dryer.  Jeff didn't label his diagram, but we noticed that the toilet and coffee maker overlap in terms of having an upper chamber of water (plus, bad coffee might taste like wastewater); the dryer and coffee maker are both electric (plus, hot air makes for a frothy cappuccino); and the dryer and toilet come together in newfangled Japanese bidets (plus, they both make a whooshing sound).

Hospitals are getting tough on uninsured crash test dummies.

You might call these sheep.

The leader of this flock is the bellwether.

They can charge for long distances.

We've upgraded our ancient Egyptian "Eternal Life Coupon" generator.  Now you can personalize and print your own coupon, in your choice of high-res color or black-and-white.  It's the only coupon that never, ever expires, and it's free!

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Today's diagram is inspired by a clever piece from the delightful Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine.