Sunday, April 6, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
The Ronco Food Dehydrator
This system for drying fruits and meats was first conceived of by Baron Johann Van Der Ronco, a Dutch inventor in the late 17th Century. Though the Baron would never build the device himself, he passed the idea down to his sons, Gutten and Strauss. The Van Der Ronco brothers struggled for years in attempting to build their father's vision, laboring in the basement of their cottage at Wondenstubftenkreig Pond. Their breakthrough came in 1742, when Gutten realized that Strauss had been dead for at least 3 years. Though the addition of another dead body to his storage cellar was nothing new, Gutten noticed that Strauss's body was perfectly preserved. He quickly formed a hypothesis, and to test it, took a bite of Strauss's thigh. It was delicious.
Gutten's realization had been that the dryness of the basement air was what made the corpse of his brother keep so well. Within that year, Gutten built and marketed the Van Der Ronco Corpse Dehydrator. In 1750, Gutten traveled to France to display his invention to King Louis XIV at the newly completed Versailles.
Though he became quite rich from his first invention, Gutten continued to improve on his design, most notably capitalizing on the high infant mortality of the time by coming out with a smaller model. The success of the Van Der Ronco Baby Dehydrator Plus, especially in Ireland, inspired Johnathan Swift's famous cookbook.
By the time the device made it across the Atlantic around 1830, corpse-eating was no longer in vogue. Despite some celebrity sponsorship from President Andrew Jackson, sales stagnated. It was only in 1865, when the end of the Civil War left much of the nation with more corpses than it knew what to do with, did the Gutten's invention, now owned by his heirs, make a comeback. Dropping the distastefully ethnic "Van Der" moniker, two new models, the Ronco Rebel Tastifier and the Ronco Union Yum, were smash sensations in the North and South, respectively.
The end of the First World War, dubbed The Great War because those dubbers lacked foresight, created new appreciation for life. Ronco changed with the times, and appeared on the market in roughly its current form in 1923. The Ronco Food Dehydrator was a staple of the era's swinging parties until 1929, when it became a staple of the era's shantytowns.
Today, Ronco's infomercials reach an estimated 300,000 households between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. Though modern models are equipped with electronic enhancements, the spirit of Baron Johann Van Der Ronco's brainchild lives on.
Gutten's realization had been that the dryness of the basement air was what made the corpse of his brother keep so well. Within that year, Gutten built and marketed the Van Der Ronco Corpse Dehydrator. In 1750, Gutten traveled to France to display his invention to King Louis XIV at the newly completed Versailles.
Though he became quite rich from his first invention, Gutten continued to improve on his design, most notably capitalizing on the high infant mortality of the time by coming out with a smaller model. The success of the Van Der Ronco Baby Dehydrator Plus, especially in Ireland, inspired Johnathan Swift's famous cookbook.
By the time the device made it across the Atlantic around 1830, corpse-eating was no longer in vogue. Despite some celebrity sponsorship from President Andrew Jackson, sales stagnated. It was only in 1865, when the end of the Civil War left much of the nation with more corpses than it knew what to do with, did the Gutten's invention, now owned by his heirs, make a comeback. Dropping the distastefully ethnic "Van Der" moniker, two new models, the Ronco Rebel Tastifier and the Ronco Union Yum, were smash sensations in the North and South, respectively.
The end of the First World War, dubbed The Great War because those dubbers lacked foresight, created new appreciation for life. Ronco changed with the times, and appeared on the market in roughly its current form in 1923. The Ronco Food Dehydrator was a staple of the era's swinging parties until 1929, when it became a staple of the era's shantytowns.
Today, Ronco's infomercials reach an estimated 300,000 households between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. Though modern models are equipped with electronic enhancements, the spirit of Baron Johann Van Der Ronco's brainchild lives on.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Crimean War
Most people only know about the Crimean War through its allegorical representation in the popular movie series "Revenge of the Nerds", "Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise", and "Revenge of the Nerds III: Tears of a Nation". However, the Crimean War was much more than the lighthearted pranks and hilarious panty raids those movies made it appear to be, although there were both. None other than Brian Garland, bass player for international super group Nickelback, has called the war "a tragedy".
The war was fought between the powerful country of Russia(AKA The Jocks) and the small yet relentless country of Serbia(AKA The Nerds) for control of the country of Crimea(AKA Campus Supremacy). The war began on March 13th, 1846, after Russia assassinated the Serbian national icon Sergai Milovichovich, the 18th greatest plate spinner in the world. Serbia responded to this egregiousness by invading Crimea, which Russia controlled as part of its ever-expanding empire. In a show of support for Sergai and the Serbian war effort, thousands of Serbian citizens took to the streets shouting "Do it for Sergai!" while trying to spin plates in a tribute to their hero. Unfortunately, most of these people did not have nearly the talent that Sergai had. This lead to thousands of plates being broken and the Great Plate Shortage of 1846, one of the many tragedies of this war, if not the greatest. The Russian citizenry responded the same way the Russian citizenry responds to anything, they drank, a lot.
The war was fought between the powerful country of Russia(AKA The Jocks) and the small yet relentless country of Serbia(AKA The Nerds) for control of the country of Crimea(AKA Campus Supremacy). The war began on March 13th, 1846, after Russia assassinated the Serbian national icon Sergai Milovichovich, the 18th greatest plate spinner in the world. Serbia responded to this egregiousness by invading Crimea, which Russia controlled as part of its ever-expanding empire. In a show of support for Sergai and the Serbian war effort, thousands of Serbian citizens took to the streets shouting "Do it for Sergai!" while trying to spin plates in a tribute to their hero. Unfortunately, most of these people did not have nearly the talent that Sergai had. This lead to thousands of plates being broken and the Great Plate Shortage of 1846, one of the many tragedies of this war, if not the greatest. The Russian citizenry responded the same way the Russian citizenry responds to anything, they drank, a lot.
The war finally came to a conclusion when Serbian emerged victorious in the Battle of Yablacka on June 18th, 1846. Yablacka is a Russian holiday where it is customary to face west at all times, a kind of "Hands Across America" to show the cohesiveness of the Russian people and the power of group action. The Russians must have thought that Serbia would respect this holy day, but, tragically for the Russians, they did not. As the Russians unsuspectingly went about their business, The Serbians approached from the East. By the time the onslaught began, it was too late to turn around. The damage done to the Russian forces was too great to overcome. They withdrew and conceded victory to the Serbs. Later Serbia would become the subject of international criticism for orchestrating an attack on a Russian holiday. Serbia responded that the holiday was "stupid"; nobody could disagree.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Pasty
In short, the pasty is a small, round, sticky object used to obscure the nipple. It has been employed, often but not always as part of a pair, for both practical and ornamental purposes.
The first known use of the pasties occurred during the Spanish Inquisition, where they were known as Los Pinques Pincas de Diablo, which roughly translates as The Pinching Fingers of Satan. Inquisitors would apply tar to the bare nipples of Jews and yank at them as a form of torture. As a result, Jews in Spain became know as Nipplos Negro, or Black Nipples. The stereotype spread, as evidenced by Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses, which not only sports horns but dark nipples as well. Over the years, many Jews and non-Jews made use of nipple-lightening cream, often made from whale blubber, to seem less Semitic. Soon, expensive white pasties became popular among non-Jews as an outward and gaudy rejection of dark nipples, or rather, Jews.
In the early 20th century, and influx of Jewish immigration fanned a rise in antisemitism in America. Caricatures of Jews become popular vaudeville attractions. Much as minstrel shows had their performers donning black-face, those mocking Jews donned black-nipples. At first, the pasties developed for these performers were uniformly black and unadorned. Over time, however, other performers began adopting them for increasingly ornamental purposes. With the stigma of their antisemitic origins quickly forgotten, pasties began standard fare in "girlie shows" of the day. Females performers wore them for legal reasons as well. In New York State, for example, open display of the female nipple was prohibited by law and punishable by a $3 fine per nipple, a week's wages in those days.
By the 1970's pasties became almost exclusively worn by nude performers. By this point, they came in all colors and sported tassels, springs, LEDs, and other attention-getting implements. Instead of simply covering the nipples, pasties became part of the act.
The latest incarnation of pasties has entered the mainstream as a runner's device to prevent nipple-chaffing. Companies such as Nike, Reebok, and Adidas have developed friction-resistant, lightweight, aerodynamic pasties, marketing them to the running enthusiasts who don't want their nipples to bleed. As of this posting, the International Olympic Committee has not approved the use of pasties for athletes in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
The first known use of the pasties occurred during the Spanish Inquisition, where they were known as Los Pinques Pincas de Diablo, which roughly translates as The Pinching Fingers of Satan. Inquisitors would apply tar to the bare nipples of Jews and yank at them as a form of torture. As a result, Jews in Spain became know as Nipplos Negro, or Black Nipples. The stereotype spread, as evidenced by Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses, which not only sports horns but dark nipples as well. Over the years, many Jews and non-Jews made use of nipple-lightening cream, often made from whale blubber, to seem less Semitic. Soon, expensive white pasties became popular among non-Jews as an outward and gaudy rejection of dark nipples, or rather, Jews.
In the early 20th century, and influx of Jewish immigration fanned a rise in antisemitism in America. Caricatures of Jews become popular vaudeville attractions. Much as minstrel shows had their performers donning black-face, those mocking Jews donned black-nipples. At first, the pasties developed for these performers were uniformly black and unadorned. Over time, however, other performers began adopting them for increasingly ornamental purposes. With the stigma of their antisemitic origins quickly forgotten, pasties began standard fare in "girlie shows" of the day. Females performers wore them for legal reasons as well. In New York State, for example, open display of the female nipple was prohibited by law and punishable by a $3 fine per nipple, a week's wages in those days.
By the 1970's pasties became almost exclusively worn by nude performers. By this point, they came in all colors and sported tassels, springs, LEDs, and other attention-getting implements. Instead of simply covering the nipples, pasties became part of the act.
The latest incarnation of pasties has entered the mainstream as a runner's device to prevent nipple-chaffing. Companies such as Nike, Reebok, and Adidas have developed friction-resistant, lightweight, aerodynamic pasties, marketing them to the running enthusiasts who don't want their nipples to bleed. As of this posting, the International Olympic Committee has not approved the use of pasties for athletes in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
The Harpsichord
The harpsichord is to orchestra what eye brows are to humans. We don't need eye brows to live, and they don't really have any important function or purpose, but without them we would look funny, only with the harpsichord it's sound! With its sleek, curvaceous figure, the harpsichord is not lacking in sex appeal, but what draws people to harpsichord over and over again is it's music. Oh that music! How to describe it? How can you describe the sonic wonders of the harpsichord in mere, inadequate words? None other than Brian Garland, the bass player for international super group Nickelback, described the harpsichord's sound as "pleasant". So let's go with pleasant. The 15 million people who bought Nickelback's last album can't be wrong can they?
In our current enlightened times, we take the Harpsichord for granted. This is truly a shame, because it was the product of a brutal life long struggle of one incredibly special man. His name was Manuel Lopez. Born in the small Spanish town of Ricenbeans in 1624, Manuel was blind, deaf, retarded, diabetic, and quadriplegic. His life would not be an easy one, but he had an incredible will to live and to create an instrument unlike any seen before, except for the harp. Manuel had to spend long days working in the field to help support his poor family, but any free time he had he spent working in his corner on what he called a "braaahbrraagh!" It would take his entire life, but finally in 1679 he finished what would later be called by non-retarded people the harpsichord. As time passed, word of this "pleasant" instrument spread, and its popularity grew.
Today, while we wouldn't call the harpsichord ubiquitous, there are several harpsichords out there. A favorite of middle school orchestra teachers, they have found a prominent place in Mrs. Craig's Orchestra class at Tillman Middle School in Flint, Michigan, as well as at Mr. Leonards's Orchestra at Hudson's School for the Criminally Insane, also in Flint, Michigan. The harpsichord also has been a fixture in film scores, often used to convey the complex emotion of the specific embarrassment that results from loud, explosive defecation. Very recently the Harpsichord has made the jump into the gaming world, getting swept up in the Guitar Hero craze, with the spin off You're a Harpsichord Star. It looks like the future of the Harpsichord is indeed bright.
In our current enlightened times, we take the Harpsichord for granted. This is truly a shame, because it was the product of a brutal life long struggle of one incredibly special man. His name was Manuel Lopez. Born in the small Spanish town of Ricenbeans in 1624, Manuel was blind, deaf, retarded, diabetic, and quadriplegic. His life would not be an easy one, but he had an incredible will to live and to create an instrument unlike any seen before, except for the harp. Manuel had to spend long days working in the field to help support his poor family, but any free time he had he spent working in his corner on what he called a "braaahbrraagh!" It would take his entire life, but finally in 1679 he finished what would later be called by non-retarded people the harpsichord. As time passed, word of this "pleasant" instrument spread, and its popularity grew.
Today, while we wouldn't call the harpsichord ubiquitous, there are several harpsichords out there. A favorite of middle school orchestra teachers, they have found a prominent place in Mrs. Craig's Orchestra class at Tillman Middle School in Flint, Michigan, as well as at Mr. Leonards's Orchestra at Hudson's School for the Criminally Insane, also in Flint, Michigan. The harpsichord also has been a fixture in film scores, often used to convey the complex emotion of the specific embarrassment that results from loud, explosive defecation. Very recently the Harpsichord has made the jump into the gaming world, getting swept up in the Guitar Hero craze, with the spin off You're a Harpsichord Star. It looks like the future of the Harpsichord is indeed bright.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
