Written in June 1942 and rejected by the New Yorker, “The Man of To-morrow’s Lament” was penned two years after Nabokov emigrated from Russia to the U.S., with the Lolita author focusing on the American cultural icon and jumping into one of the biggest debates in comic book-dom: Whether or not Clark Kent and Lois Lane could have a sexual relationship. In the poem, Clark Kent ruminates that while he loves Lois Lane, “marriage would be murder on my part,” as his wedding night coitus with Lois would likely result in her death, as well as the destruction of both the big hotel they’re staying in and “the smaller one next door.” “But even if that blast of love should spare/her fragile frame – what children would she bear?” Nabokov asks in the poem, published for the first time by the Times Literary Supplement. “What monstrous babe, knocking the surgeon down/would waddle out into the awestruck town?” (via Rolling Stone)
The Red Hook Society For the Apprehension of Horse Thieves is still going after over 200 years
The Red Hook Society for the Apprehension and Detention of Horse Thieves is the oldest operating horse thief apprehension society in the United States, formed on October 10, 1796 in the town of Red Hook, New York. It has caught very few, if any, horse thieves throughout its history. The society remains active, with about 100 members (called “riders”) who pay $5 dues each year. An annual meeting is held on the first Tuesday in October, featuring dinner and a horse-related presentation, and prospective riders may be inducted into the society giving a successful speech about horses. The Red Hook Society originally “served as an insurance against loss of horses as well as a vigilante organization” Local horse owners paid a membership fee, and in return they were protected from losses if their horse was ever stolen. (via Wikipedia)
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George Clooney gave 14 of his friends $1 million each but how did he get that much cash?
Back in 2017, one of the actor’s longtime pals, Rande Gerber, told MSNBC that Clooney had invited his closest friends over for dinner one night only to surprise them each with a suitcase full of cash: $1 million in $20 bills (he also paid the taxes on the gift). “I’ve slept on their couches when I was broke. They loaned me money when I was broke,” Clooney said. He came up with the suitcase-of-cash idea, but then he needed to figure out how to get $14 million in cash all at once. His research led him to “an undisclosed location” in Los Angeles where pallets of cash are held for sale. So according to an interview with GQ, Clooney got an old beat-up van that said ‘Florist’ on it, like he was in a heist movie, and he drove downtown, and he got in an elevator with the florist’s van, and he took the van down to the vault and loaded it up with cash. (via Business Insider)
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
He lives in a ghost town in the California mountains and his mailbox is an hour away
If you ever plan on riding out a pandemic in an abandoned mining town at 8,200 feet, there are a few things I’d recommend bringing: a four-wheel-drive truck, more than a few days of food, and at least some decent boots. I brought none of these. Instead, I arrived at Cerro Gordo, California, in the middle of a blizzard in March 2020, driving a base model Tacoma. A quarter mile from town, my bald tires slid off the road, the truck got stuck, and I walked the rest of the way in. Six years later, I’m still here. And most of the things that once felt absurd — like getting buried in snow in March — barely register. My mailbox is an hour away and 4,500 feet in elevation below me. My driveway is an eight-mile dirt road. My bathroom is an outhouse. In the winter, sometimes I wake up to the thermometer reading 17 degrees. Indoors. (via Outside)
The prototype for the modern cash register was invented at a bar in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is famous for many innovations – at one point being home to the most number of registered patents than any other city in the country. The Wright Brother’s airplane, the self-starting car ignition, the UPC barcode and scanner, the pop-top soda can, the electric wheelchair and the mood ring can all trace their roots back to Dayton innovators. It was on November 4, 1879 when brothers James and John Ritty invented one of the earliest mechanical cash registers. Bartenders at Pony House Tavern were skimming money off the bar’s sales. Ritty was returning from a trip to Europe when he noticed a dial on the bridge that counted the revolutions of the ship’s propellers. After developing a few prototypes that failed, the brothers developed a machine that replaced the numbers on the dial with dollars and cents. Pressing a key on the machine would add that dollar amount to the total day’s sales. (via American Table)
Ed People travels the world asking people to show him their favourite dance moves
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com