Tag: Natural history

Is Michael Moore a resurrected Saracen monster?

European acceptance of Michael Moore’s new anti-Americanism has been greatly assisted by the loving detail with which he depicts the country he has invented, bursting with gun- and God-happy fatties and ruled over by a Semitic mafia. Here, from El Semanario Curioso, Histórico, Erudito, Comercial, Público y Económico, El Blasón de Cataluña (1842; cited in…

Cannibal translators

What has driven Margaret Marks to cook and, presumably, eat Indians? Since Ms Marks has quite clearly gone native, I suspect this of being some bizarre offshoot of Central Europe’s Orientalist anti-Tarzan industry: In Germany after World War I, Tarzan’s sales were so vast that a disgruntled local publisher printed a counter-Tarzan tract called Tarzan…

Throwing nutters

One Mangalorean is a betel-nut seller.
Two Mangaloreans can’t stand one another.
Three Mangaloreans is a Udupi restaurant.
Four Mangaloreans is a fanatical Konkani Sabha.

Lumumba

Here, for no good reason, is a dog monster some of you will know – Lumumba the sheep dog:

The perejil shibboleth

“Is it true about the parsley, Your Excellency? That to distinguish Dominicans from Haitians you made all the blacks say perejil? And the ones who couldn’t pronounce it properly had their heads cut off?”
“I’ve heard that story.” Trujillo shrugged. “It’s just idle gossip.”

Guiris and Phoenicians

“And as we find in a book of laws called Digesto that city used to be called Guiris because it was created by Garfeus, son of Canaan and grandson of Noah.”

Shadow play

This is a scan of a slide found on a Sarrià street. Who/what?