Sunday: Hili dialogue

April 21, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Sunday, April 21, 2019, and it’s Easter. (It’s also the third day of Passover.) That reminds me of a joke I’ve posted before:

This comes from the site Southern Jewish Humor, which gets the story from Eli N. Evans, who wrote The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South:

Evans said he searched for the best example he could find of Southern Jewish humor.  He told the story of a Jewish storekeeper in a small town who was approached by the Christian elders to show solidarity for their Easter holiday.

Mr. Goldberg was chagrined but when Easter came, after sunrise services on a nearby hilltop, the mayor, all the churchgoers, and the leading families in the city gathered in the town square in front of his store.  The store had a new sign but it was draped with a parachute.

After an introduction from the mayor, at the appointed hour, the owner pulled the rope and there it was revealed in all its wonder for all to see: “Christ Has Risen, but Goldberg’s prices remain the same.”

I’ll be here all year, folks!

It’s National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day (I’d eat them but I’ve never seen them), as well as Grounation Day, a Rastafarian holiday commemorating this (from Wikipedia):

Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on Thursday, April 21, 1966. Some 100,000 Rastafari from all over Jamaica descended on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston, having heard that the man whom they considered to be God was coming to visit them. They waited at the airport playing drums and smoking large quantities of marijuana. Today the Rastafari celebrate that Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on April 21.

Today’s news report: there have been widespread terror attacks in Sri Lanka, with 140 people killed and over 500 injured in at least six bombings. This appears to be an attack on the minority Christian community on their Easter Holiday.  No suspects or organizations have been identified as the perpetrators.

On April 21, 1506, the three-day Lisbon Massacre of Jews, occasioned by their being blamed for drought and plague, finally came to an end. Over 1900 Hebrews were killed.  Exactly three years later, Henry VIII became King of England after his father (Henry VII, of course) died.

On this day in 1934, the famous “Surgeon’s Photograph”, a hoax that was taken to represent a real image of the  Loch Ness Monster, was published in the Daily Mail.  You’ll have seen this:

Wikipedia reveals how this photo was shown to be bogus:

Details of how the photo was taken were published in the 1999 book, Nessie – the Surgeon’s Photograph Exposed, which contains a facsimile of the 1975 Sunday Telegraph article. The creature was reportedly a toy submarine built by Christian Spurling, the son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell. Wetherell had been publicly ridiculed by his employer, the Daily Mail, after he found “Nessie footprints” which turned out to be a hoax. To get revenge on the Mail, Wetherell perpetrated his hoax with co-conspirators Spurling (sculpture specialist), Ian Wetherell (his son, who bought the material for the fake), and Maurice Chambers (an insurance agent). The toy submarine was bought from F. W. Woolworths, and its head and neck were made from wood putty. After testing it in a local pond the group went to Loch Ness, where Ian Wetherell took the photos near the Altsaigh Tea House. When they heard a water bailiff approaching, Duke Wetherell sank the model with his foot and it is “presumably still somewhere in Loch Ness”. Chambers gave the photographic plates to Wilson, a friend of his who enjoyed “a good practical joke”. Wilson brought the plates to Ogston’s, an Inverness chemist, and gave them to George Morrison for development. He sold the first photo to the Daily Mail, who then announced that the monster had been photographed.

Sorry, Virginia, but there is no Loch Ness monster.

On April 21, 1960, Brasília officially took over from Rio de Janeiro as Brazil’s capital. That was a mistake: nobody wants to live in Brasília.  In 1977, Annie opened on this day on Broadway, and five years after that, Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers became the first pitcher in major league baseball to achieve 300 saves. Rollie went on to get 341 saves in his career, but that’s a pittance compared to the record holder, Mariano Rivers of the Yankees, who finished his career as a closer with 652.

Exactly 30 years ago on this day, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 took place as thousands of students gathered in Tiananmen Square. The democracy movement continued, and on June 5 the famous photo of “tank man” was taken. The identity and fate of this brave man have never been determined:

 

Finally, it was on April 21, 2014, that the Flint Michigan water crisis began when the city changed its water source from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River, causing 15 deaths and thousands of cases of lead poisoning.

Notables born on this day include Charlotte Brontë (1816), Garrett Hardin and Anthony Quinn (both 1915), Alistair MacLean (1922), Elizabeth II (1926), Elaine May (1932), Iggy Pop (1947), Patti LuPone (1949), and Andie MacDowell (1958).

Those who fell asleep on April 21 include Peter Abelard (1142), Henry VII (1509), Mark Twain (1910), John Maynard Keynes (1946), Gummo Marx (1977), Sandy Denny (1978), Nina Simone (2003), and Prince (2016).

Here’s Denny singing her most famous song, though the version that became the most popular was probably the gorgeous one recorded by Judy Collins, who will be 80 on May 1 (where did the time go?):

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Cyrus and Hili are engaging in intensive bouts of olfaction:

Cyrus: Come on, there are even more interesting smells further on.
Hili: It’s possible, but this one is stimulating my imagination.
In Polish:
Cyrus: Chodź, tam dalej są ciekawsze zapachy.
Hili: Możliwe, ale ten pobudza wyobraźnię.

Reader Bruce, clearly knowing of my love for Marshmallow Peeps, sent me this cartoon by Mark Parisi. You have to know who Woodstock is, of course.

And a cartoon from reader Barry:

A wonderful picture from the All Interesting Things Facebook page:

Two pictures from reader Merilee. The first covers both Passover (which is occurring today) and Easter:

And therapy, of course:

A cryptic green spider:

Tweets from Grania.  These cats are KINGS out dere, fadda!

The conjunction of two funny names (yes, Piggly Wiggly is a chain of grocery stores in the American South that’s still going).

And a jerk cat:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1118557413924327424

This cat has a little samurai suit!!!

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1115689595906215937

Tweets from Matthew. I didn’t know elephants could be jerks:

https://twitter.com/SlenderSherbet/status/1119306658969264129

Dinosaur eggs for Easter:

A dress for the evolutionary entomologist:

I love this video. And note that the closest approach of that star to the event horizon is 20 billion kilometers!

 

38 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. It seems easier to explain Nessie with a swimmer putting their arm out and tucking the fingers and thumb in. The angles from knuckle to wrist, wrist to forearm, with a sort of flat stretch in between – compares ok at first glance to my arm. Seems plausible.

  2. The mention of Jews in the South brought to mind an incident that happened when I was a kid of about 10 or so. My family was taking a summer car trip (as families were wont to do in those days). For some reason we were driving through the South, I think to visit Civil War sites so we kids could learn a little history.

    Anyway, we were driving on the interstate late in the afternoon, when we kids decided we were starving. My dad finally got tired of listening to us bitchin’n’moanin’ from the backseat, and pulled the old Ford off the freeway in downtown Memphis to find us something to eat. These were the days before fast food was ubiquitous, and we ended up cruising through the parking lot of a shopping center looking for a restaurant that was open at that hour. My dad finally espied a delicatessen, so we parked the car and went in. The place was empty and technically closed, but the owner was inside futzing around; he pointed to a table, said have a seat, he would feed us.

    All I remember is that he served me the biggest, fattest, juiciest corned beef sandwich I had ever seen, with a big, crunchy dill pickle on the side and a cream soda to drink — still the most satisfying sandwich I’ve ever eaten.

    A little while after we had dug in, the owner — a squat, bald-headed guy in his fifties — plopped down in a chair at the next table over from ours to ask how we liked the food. We kids had our mouths stuffed too full to answer, but my dad turned to the man, said it was great, and sincerely thanked him for going out his way to feed our pack of ravenous wolves. He and my old man, complete strangers, ended up sitting there, long after we were done eating, the two of ’em shooting the shit, about god only remembers what, for what seemed like forever, like a pair of long-lost pals.

      1. Hell, two of ’em might still be sittin’ there yakkin’ away, for all I know, if we kids hadn’t’ve gotten all fidgety, and my mom turned to my dad and said, hey, maybe we should let this nice gentleman get back to doing whatever he was doing when we barged in. 🙂

        1. Who knows. The two might have solved on of the BIG ISSUES, if they had not been dragged away.

      1. Sure, but cheap air travel has made them less common. Family car trips were in their heyday in the late Fifties through Sixties into the Seventies, when the when the new US Interstate Highway system made such travel much faster and more convenient.

      2. In the 1960s our family did a cross country from Michigan to California and back. Nothing like being cooped up in a car without air conditioning in August driving across the American Southwest.

  3. Since you brought up Nessie, this immediately brings to mind the late Roy Mackal, University of Chicago biochemist who became obsessed with the Loch Ness monster. I am fascinated by how someone so well educated, in science, especially, could still be so thoroughly hoodwinked by pseudoscience that he would write multiple books and launch multiple expeditions to search for Nessie and the Mokele Mbembe in the Republic of Congo. Very interesting stuff indeed.

      1. He’s six years dead now. His speciality, I believe was in virology, but taught zoology too. You can find him haunting YouTube in various crypto-programs like the kind the discovery channel loves to produce. He is a bit like Grover Krantz in that he was an honest to goodness scientist but a bit crackers as well. Krantz was an anthropologist who chased Bigfoot. I don’t believe either of them were religious, as many cryptozoology people are, and they see their field as proof against Darwin for some reason. They were quite useful though as the “scientific experts” who could be used as “proof” that supported the wild claims of monster hunters.

  4. All of the talk about measles reminded me to check. If you had measles as a kid, you do not need to worry about getting the disease. You do not need the shots.

  6. Maybe you’ve heard this one.

    Three guys die and its Easter. They are all atheists and good people, humanist types.
    Much to their surprise they find themselves standing at the Pearly Gates with St. Peter, who says to them,
    “I would really like to get you guys in here. You’ve lived good lives, been kind to people…
    but to get you in you need to know something about Jesus, and since its Easter, tell me about that.”
    He turns to the first guy who says, “I got nuttin’.” Peter turns and presses a button, “Eehhnntt”, down he goes!
    Pete turns to the second guy and says, “Come on, I’d really like to get you in! Easter!”
    The guy looks puzzled and says, “Uhhhhh, chocolate rabbits, colored eggs, uhhhh…
    “Eehhnntt,” down he goes!
    The third guy says, “Wait a minute, I think I got this. Jesus was this guy who lived back with the Romans and he went around trying to do good things, miracles and stuff, and he attracted a following but got in trouble with the authorities who put him to death around Easter time.”
    St. Pete, excitedly, “Yes, yes, tell me more!
    “Well, his followers,” the guy says proudly, “took Jesus’ body and placed it in a cave, a big hole and rolled a rock in front of it, and in a couple of days Jesus wakes up and comes out of his hole,. And then …. how does it go? If he sees his shadow, its….”
    “Eeehhhnnnttt !”

  7. Rollie went on to get 341 saves in his career, but that’s a pittance compared to the record holder, Mariano Rivers of the Yankees, who finished his career as a closer with 652.

    That’s Mariano Rivera who pitched for the Yankees. And it probably bears mention that Major League Baseball didn’t start keeping track of “saves” as an official stat until 1969 (although it’s unlikely any of the old-timers ever came close to the numbers put up by Rivera, or even by Rollie Fingers for that matter, since in those days starting pitchers were generally expected to hurl complete nine-inning ballgames).

    1. Pitching counts rule all these days. I’ve heard my local Kc Royals announcer Denny Matthews discuss this frequently, how pitchers have so much better physical training and healthcare, can throw harder but can’t pitch much past 90 pitches anymore without destroying their arms and then undergoing the Tommy John surgery. I’m not sure this is an improvement, but then I grew up in the Dennis Eckersley era, so relievers have always been a part of my baseball experience and thus I have nothing for comparison.

      1. I’m old enough to remember when Dennis Eckersley was a starter, Christopher, for the Cleveland Indians (who traded him to the Red Sox, one of the bonehead moves that has kept the Tribe from winning a World Series for 70 goddamn years now, not that we Indians’ fans are counting or anything).

        1. And I will continue to root AGAINST your club for all my remaining days above ground! I have long seen Cleveland (and the White Sux) as mortal enemies! I was, curiously, a huge fan of the A’s as a kid, something which brought much shame upon my Kc family. My first ball glove was a George Brett model, my first memories of baseball was the ‘85 series, but I adored Canseco, McGwire, and the acrobatic shortstop Walt Weiss. Today I’m solidly Royal, and a Cubbie, my favorite NL club thanks to long summers watching WGN and listening to a certain announcer during the Sandberg/Grace/Dawson era.

  9. The “Heliconius” Batesian mimicry dress does not have any Heliconius butterflies. There are two species of “clearwing” Ithomia (Ithomiini – the distasteful model) and two Dismorphia (Pieridae — palatable mimics). The four butterfly species represent two model-mimic pairs that occur in separate regions of he Amazon Basin. Can you pick them out?

    1. I have not much hope for Nessie, but we did get some greats the last decades, we got the Coelacanth (admittedly in 1936, but still living memory) with no fossil record for about 100 million years if not more, and the Megamouth equally thought to be extinct long ago. Both not closely related to living known animals.
      We got this antlered muntjac in Vietnam,
      and then there is Marc van Roosmalen who discovered a plethora of new species of ‘big’ animals (as PCC would agree, anything bigger than a cat is big) in the Amazon, giant peccaries, dwarf manatees and a whole bunch of monkeys. Admittedly not as stunning as the lobefins or megamouth, but still mind-blowing.
      Back to Nessie, as said I have little hope for a plesiosaur, not even for basking or Greenland sharks, but I’m convinced that our oceans still hide some great unknown ‘monsters’ (No, I’m not thinking of Megalodon)

  11. I’m pretty sure it’s a law that if you want to be a dollar store you must carry chocolate covered cashews, and not carry pie pans for some reason. Carry every other pan in existence except for pie pans.

  13. I am stunned by the black hole video showing a long zoom in. One star, S2, passes very close to the event horizon, but is shown as being 20 billion kilometers away. The universe is so, so, big.

    1. 20 billion kilometres is … 133 AU, with nothing named anywhere near that semi-major axis, though a number of provisional designation objects. Definitely nowhere near the edge of the Solar system. It’s also about 1/450th of a light year.
      Space is big. Black holes are small.

  14. After testing it in a local pond the group went to Loch Ness, where Ian Wetherell took the photos near the Altsaigh Tea House. When they heard a water bailiff approaching, Duke Wetherell sank the model with his foot and it is “presumably still somewhere in Loch Ness”.

    The closest property I can match to that location is the Lochside hostel, now an “independent” one, but formerly an SYHA hostel. Nice place, but I don’t recall any mention there of suspected involvement in the Nessie fraud.
    A relative who used to life on the Lochside, assures me of having seen “the Beastie” once. That in itself counts to me as strong evidence of its non-existence.

  15. Another wonderful version of Sandy Denny singing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” is the one she made with Fairport Convention. The guitar accompaniment is spectacular. Google the song title to go to it.

  16. Dumb question

    How do astronomers treat the problem of objects getting in the view of other objects?

  17. I’m pretty sure the Nessie photograph was discredited earlier than that. I seem to recall in Issac Asimov’s Mysterious World, that they found the larger print of that photo, that showed the nearby shore, making it clear that whatever it was was small. He suggested it was just a diving otter.

  18. Never knew that HEB and Piggly Wiggly ever had any connection.

    There was the old joke: the two outfits were going to merge and the new company would be called Wiggly-Butt.

  19. I always thought they were a southern thing. They’re even sparse down here. They are very good grocery stores… my wife’s favorite.

  20. The above (Comment 19) was supposed to be a reply to Paul Topping’s Comment 8. It’s difficult to post and follow comments when there are so many unrelated topics under on a single post. Is it too hard to separate them Jerry?

  21. One more from me… I noted your Sandy Denny post with a smile. I’ll always know her as the lady who sang the duet with Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin’s Battle of Evermore. They melded together so perfectly that many Zeppelin fans don’t even know that there’s a second person singing! She was perfect for that and, I understand, very popular in England when she died young.

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