He’s got a false arm, he’s a spoons virtuoso, he’s got a good hat, his monkey plays the violin. In short, a genius: Comments: He’s got a pole support and the organ strapped round his neck, like all the guys in Mexico DF. That’s fine, although I imagine it must cause back trouble, but I…
From an 1854 report of the New York Children’s Aid Society on an Italian school: There is going on a certain change for the better among this low class of strangers. On visiting them, I have remarked a considerable reduction of organs and monkeys in their apartments, usually filled with such instruments and beasts. The…
From The Parish Clerk (1907) by Peter Hampson Ditchfield: Robert Dicker, quondam cabinet-maker in the town of Crediton, Devon, reigned for many years as parish clerk to the, at one time, collegiate church of the same town. He appears to have fulfilled his office satisfactorily up to about 1870, when his mind became somewhat feeble.…
The beautiful and the damned Is is in the twenties that the actual momentum of life begins to slacken, and it is a simple soul indeed to whom as many things are significant and meaningful at thirty as at ten years before. At thirty an organ-grinder is a more or less moth-eaten man who grinds…
I thoroughly approve of Reactor‘s carriage propulsion concept: But will I be able to find such people to draw me across Europe? On balance, bicycle may still be best.
France’s finest trip over their own testicles once again, here alienating the trombone vote. Possibly. (Mercy buckets, Dr Pete.) (Normal service to be resumed soon, so watch yer dirty mouth Manuel. Yes, you. They don’t call me Purple Boner for nothing.)
Transhumance is in the air, so here’s a smutty song from a commie from Zaragoza: Los pastores se van, se van, Los pastores lloran, lloran: ¡ay de mí, pobre pastora! ¿con quién follarás tú ahora? Rejigged: The shepherds are going, they’re going again, The shepherds are weeping, they’re wailing this strain: “Alas, alack, oh Phyllis…
A snip at $250K, via Dave. The photo of Jake Burkle reminds one that, for all their Portuguese ukelele folk hero trappings, Sousa and his people were essentially industrial pioneers. Amusing detail, from William L Bird, “Better Living”: Advertising, Media, and the New Vocabulary of Business Leadership, 1935-1955: Arthur Pryor’s son, Arthur, was hired by…
