The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Narrative Study of Three Lost Men is an American book-length psychiatric case study by Milton Rokeach, concerning his experiment on a group of three males with paranoid schizophrenia at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States. The book details the interactions of the three patients — Clyde Benson, Joseph Cassel, and Leon Gabor — each of whom believed himself to be Jesus Christ. Rokeach got the idea from an article in Harper’s Magazine describing two women who both believed they were the Virgin Mary. After being assigned as psychiatric hospital roommates, one of the women recovered from her delusion and was discharged. Rokeach brought together three men who each claimed to be Jesus Christ and confronted them with one another’s conflicting claims, but he did not, as he had hoped, provoke any lessening of the patients’ delusions. (via Wikipedia)
An Italian chef in Australia was fired because he refused to put pineapple on a pizza
An Italian chef sacked from a Brisbane restaurant had refused to put pineapple on a pizza because it was an “insult to his culture”. Davide Tamburella was fired from La Costa restaurant in May, a fortnight after a meeting with management who had a string of complaints about the chef’s behaviour. Among them were Tamburella’s refusal to provide ham and pineapple pizza for guests at a function. At the time, the chef had stated that any direction from management “need not be followed when it is offensive to his culture”. The details came to light after the chef went to Australia’s Fair Work Commission claiming he had been unfairly dismissed. The commission noted that Tamburella’s refusal to put pineapple on the pizzas was because “he considers, as an Italian, that putting pineapple on a pizza is an insult to his culture”. It also noted that it was the third time Tamburella had refused to use the fruit on pizzas in the past four years. (via the BBC)
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Was a great Enlightenment novel written by a man who thought he was a werewolf?
A young Walloon officer called Alphonse van Worden travels through the Sierra Morena on his way to Madrid to join the Spanish army. Along the way he has an erotic encounter with two demonic Moorish sisters, falls foul of shape-shifting apparitions and is tested by a Jewish Kabbalist attempting to use mystical formulas to control spirits and decipher the universe. All these things happen in what might be one of the least-known great novels of the European canon, an encyclopedic roman-monde written more than 200 years ago called The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Structured like a Chinese box, the book spans a period from the birth of Jesus Christ up to the beginning of the 19th century. Its author, Jan Potocki (1761-1815), was born in Pików, in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, but educated in Orbe, Switzerland. Potocki’s extraordinary life ended in 1815, when he shot himself at the age of 54. (via The Guardian)
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.
Tiny Chihuahuas hold a big surprise in their DNA: A sliver of coyote genetic material
A casual observer might assume Chihuahuas are descended from angry electric toothbrushes. The breed’s characteristic quivering has historically been chalked up to garden-variety neurosis or a low tolerance for chilly drafts.But a new study published in the journal Nature Communications suggests a more poetic explanation: Tucked inside that 4-pound frame is a microscopic shard of a coyote, trying to break free.Researchers at Stanford University were testing a new software algorithm designed to analyze the genomic ancestry of any species at high resolution. By happy accident, the team discovered that, unlike almost every other dog breed, Chihuahuas carry distinct hints of coyote DNA, most likely embedded long before Europeans set foot in the Americas. (via the NYT)
Macau issued a set of stamps that each contain a mathematical “magic square” puzzle
Macau, the former Portuguese colony now a part of China, has just issued a set of magic square stamps that, it claims, not only promotes Chinese culture but also creates a “unique product in the history of philately.” Each stamp in the collection features a magic square. More curiously, the stamps have a monetary value of between 1 to 9 patacas (the Macau currency), and you will be able to buy them in a sheet where the first row has the 4, 9 and 2 pataca stamps, the second has the 3, 5 , 7 pataca stamps and the third has the 8, 1 and 6. In other words, the stamps are themselves arranged in a magic square! Magic squares can be bigger than three rows and columns. The best known was immortalized by German artist Albrecht Dürer in his wood carving Melencolia 1. Each row, column and diagonal adds up to 34. But the geekiest aspect of the Dürer square is that it includes the date of when he thought it up – 1514. (via The Guardian)
The look on this Russian grand master’s face when she is beaten by an 11-year-old
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