Cool – Charles Dickens

The phrase "cool" is widely spread among young people everywhere in the world today.  However, not many people know that among the first who used such phrase, in terms of leaving an impression on those who are present, was Charles Dickens, in 1837.

In his novel “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” (also known as The Pickwick Papers), Dickens described a scene in which a coachman is holding the reins of a horse with one hand, a remarkable feat, and then, with ease, with his other hand takes out a handkerchief from his pocket, showing others how "cool" he is.

However, this phrase didn’t spread among the young until the middle of the last century. From then and on it spread mostly thanks to jazz, Charlie Parker and the movie "West Side Story" in which members of the gang the “Jets" were so "cool”...

read more...

The name – Bob Dylan

In 1962, young American singer-songwriter Robert Allen Zimmerman officially changed his name to Bob Dylan. Allegedly, he did it in the memory of one of his literary idols, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953).

Robert was 21 when he done that, and he was just 12 when Dylan Thomas died.

Later, at the peak of his fame, he recalled that event and acknowledged that he had been influenced by Dylan Thomas’ poetry, but:

“I didn't change my name in honor of Dylan Thomas. That's just a story. I've done more for Dylan Thomas than he's ever done for me. Look how many kids are probably reading his poetry now because they heard that story”

Regarding his change of name, Bob Dylan also said:

"You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."

read more...

Literary compliment – Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe

Works of American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) were not very well received at the time when Poe was alive. Poe's stories and poems were especially despised by writer and journalist Mark Twain (1835-1910) who once in a letter to his friend wrote:

“To me his prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin’s. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane’s. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

Another thing: you grant that God and circumstances sinned against Poe, but you also grant that he sinned against himself—a thing which he couldn’t do and didn’t do.”

 

read more...

Bad Luck – Mark Twain

During his fruitful life, the famous American writer Mark Twain (1835-1910) held numerous lectures in many cities of the United States. On one occasion, he was supposed to hold a lecture in certain small town that he hadn’t visited before.

Before the lecture, he went to the barbershop.  He told the owner that he wanted to be shaved and after that, he mentioned that it was his first visit to this town.

"In due time you visited our town", the barber politely said to him.

"Why is that?" Mark Twain asked.

"The famous writer Mark Twain will give a lecture this evening. You will not miss that, right?", the barber replied.

"Well, I hope that I will not ..."

"Have you bought a ticket? It will be a big crowd."

"No, I haven’t yet ..."

"Unfortunately, they are all sold out. You will have to stand."

"I have bad luck,” sighed Mark Twain. "Whenever he is holding a lecture, I have to stand.”

read more...

I Am Emma Bovary! – Gustave Flaubert

In 1857, when a novel “Madame Bovary” was published, cultural community raised a voice because of too free form of description of love adultery case of Emma Bovary, lonely and unhappy wife of a doctor.

Many believed that the novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) had in mind a certain lady when he was writing the novel, so they wanted to know who was the real Madam Bovary.

Not being able to resist the insistence of onlookers, Flaubert, finally, during one literary evening, said:

- Gentlemen, now I’m going to tell you the whole truth. Madame Bovary is - myself.

read more...

I became the spendthrift of my own genius – Oscar Wilde

In 1882, when he traveled to the United States due to a lecture that he was supposed to hold, U.S. customs officials stopped writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).

- Sir, you have something to report? – he was asked.

- I have nothing – Wilde said - except my genius!

Years later, poor and abandoned, finding himself in prison, Oscar Wilde was thinking about his dissolute life and behavior.

“I became the spendthrift of my own genius”, he wrote. “I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character...”

read more...

Happy Midwife – Rudyard Kipling

Writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was delighted when his first child was born.

At first, he didn’t know how to thank the midwife who helped his wife, and afterward took care of the baby. Then, it occurred to him:

- Please, take this handwriting of mine as an expression of gratitude and devotion - Kipling told midwife giving her the manuscript of his unpublished work. - If some day you get into trouble and you need money, maybe you’ll be able to sell it.

A few years later the midwife did as Kipling advised her. She sold his manuscript, and lived happily and in abundance until she died.

The manuscript Kipling gave her was of his novel "The Jungle Book."

read more...

Prodigy – Julian Hawthorne

Unlike his father, American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934) loved to appear in public. Every time when somebody heard his famous family name, he would think that Julian was the older Hawthorne, the well-known writer.

That was the case and during one dinner party when a fan of his father approached Julian Hawthorne and enthusiastically said to him:

- Oh, dear Mr. Hawthorne, I read your "Scarlet Letter" and there is just one thing I could say: that is a masterpiece!

- You think? - Julian wittily replied. - Dear Madam, that book was published when I was only four years old.

read more...

Diet for Attracting Attention - George Gordon Byron

On one occasion, the famous English poet George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was invited to dinner by acquaintances who he never visited before. A large and distinguished group of writers was gathered at this dinner. When asked by the host if he would like to start dinner with a good soup, Byron said loudly for all to hear:

- I never eat soup!
- Do you like fish?
- No, I never eat fish!
- Perhaps you will enjoy roast pork?
- No, I never eat roast pork!
- A glass of wine, at least?
- Never in my life have I tasted wine! - The poet thundered.

Not knowing what to do, the host asked the poet what he usually eats for dinner.
- Only biscuit and water! - Replied the poet.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have a biscuit, so he drank water in which he poured a little vinegar. He then angrily left.

Concerned hosts met Byron's close friend a few days later and asked him: 
- Why didn’t you warned me of Lord Byron’s eating habits? And since when he is on a such strict diet?

- Since you have started to notice! His behavior was aimed primarily to attract the attention of those present. You should know this:  after dinner, he went straight to a nearby tavern where he ate roast pork and got drank from wine.

read more...

Life is Too Short! - George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), Irish playwright, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925,  twenty years before that decided that he and his wife settle in a small village Ayot St. Lawrence in Hertfordshire. He later explained why he decided to do that:

-We visited the local cemetery and saw a nice tombstone on which was written: "Mary Ann South. Born 1805. Died 1895. Her time in this world was unfortunately too short." I figured, if this is a place where people believe that ninety years is too short, then it is the right place for the two of us!

And he was right. George Bernard Shaw lived for 94 years.

read more...

"In Search of Lost Time"

French writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was desperate when he got a letter in which well-known publisher Mark Humboldt refuses to publish his life's work, a novel "In Search of Lost Time."

"My dear friend," the publisher’s letter began, "maybe I am completely without a brain, but I do not see why anyone would be interested to read thirty pages just to find out how the narrator rolls in bed because he can not sleep!"

“Gallimard” later published the novel and this is one of the most celebrated works of French literature.

read more...

Silly Nobel Leads to Real Nobel!

Every year in the U.S. anti-Nobel prizes are awarded for meaningless scientific discoveries that make us laugh. However, it appears that the discovery of false Nobel winner can finally lead to the "original" Nobel Prize.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize, announced that this year's winners in physics are Russians Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for "revolutionary experiments with two-dimensional material, graphene." Awareness of the importance of their achievement lives in a small number of people who do have the idea what it is graphene, but this news has  intrigued connoisseurs of science, mainly because the scientist Andre Geim was until now known as laureate of another Nobel...  The one for the funniest inventions, which is awarded since 1991 in the United States, few days before the announcement of the winners in Stockholm, and which carries a variety of nicknames, from  anti - to silly Nobel. The Russian scientist, in 2000, received a parody of the most significant prize for science because he performed an experiment in which, with the help of magnetic fields, was able to raise a frog into a state of levitation.

The award is officially known as Ig Nobel, and it is given by satiric-scientific magazine “Annals of Improbable Research”. The prize is awarded each year in Sanders Theatre at Harvard. When the "team" from the magazine, in 1991, awarded the first series of prizes, winners have been scientists whose findings were meaningless, but soon this choice grew into award for discoveries that first make people laugh, and then make them think. 

- Our goal is to make people laugh, but then to make them to think. We encourage curiosity in people, but we also raise a question, how do we decide what is it that is important for humanity, both in science and in other areas - say the organizers of the false Nobel .

That is why anti-Nobel is awarded, just as the real one, in all social areas. In physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, but also, for peace. As the organizers say, the rewards are sometimes a social critic, sometimes pure satire, and sometimes are intended only to make people laugh. This year’s prize for medicine was for the discovery that toboggans ride reduces symptoms of asthma, for peace that swearing increases resistance to pain, for physics that wearing socks over shoes reduces skating on ice, and for the economy, prize was given to all banks for their role in economic crisis. Prize for biology, in 1992, won a certain doctor Cecil Jacobson, relentlessly generous sperm donor, and prolific patriarch of sperm banking, for devising a simple, single-handed method of quality control. A year later, among others, for mathematics was awarded Robert Faid because he exactly calculated the possibility that Mikhail Gorbachev was, in fact, the Antichrist. According to his calculations, the chances of this are 1:710.609.175.188.282.000. Anti-Nobel for peace has received and The Taiwan National Parliament, for demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations. George Goble, in 1996, received the prize for chemistry, since he found a way to ignite a barbeque grill for just three seconds, and former French President Jacques Chirac won the prize for peace for commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima with atomic bomb tests in the Pacific.

Later, awards received and Dr. Bosland for biology, for breeding a spiceless jalapeno chili pepper, and The British Standards Institution for literature,  for its six-page specification (BS-6008) of the proper way to make a cup of tea. Chris Niswander invented software that detects a cat walking on the keyboard, which earned him an Ig Nobel Prize for computer science in 2000. Anti-Nobel for public health received a report of Scottish scientists on "the collapse of toilets in Glasgow." Without reward did not remain and Yoshiro  Nakamats for his research in which he photographed and retrospectively analyzed every meal he had consumed during a period of 34 years, as well as mathematicians Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.  And doctor Dan Meyer has become a laureate for medicine because he explored the side effects of swallowing swords.

Robert May, Baron of Oxford, who was science adviser to the British government, has asked the organizers not to award Ig Nobel awards to British scientists, since this kind of award includes a risk that some real achievements may become public ridicule. However, many British scientists did not support this request. On several occasions, it was shown that scientific discoveries that were candidates for the Ig Nobel, after a while, turned out to be a significant contribution to humankind.  That was the case in 2006, when the award was given to the discovery that mosquitoes are equally attracted to the smell of “Limburger” cheese and human foot odor.  It is this discovery that has contributed to the creation of special traps for mosquitoes, which are used in the fight against malaria in Africa. 

Certainly, the most interesting Ig Nobels went to the Australian John Keogh and the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation of, believe it or not – wheel, in 2001. Then, the biology prize for the discovery that herrings apparently communicate by farting, and medicine prize for the scientific report on "the effect of country music on suicide." Also, according to organizers of false Nobel, a significant contribution to world peace gave Daisuke Inoue from Japan, the man who invented karaoke, because he “found an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."

read more...

Inspiration!

Stanley Crouch

 When the American writer Toni Morrison was awarded with the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, many American literary critics have been dissatisfied with this choice of members of the Nobel Committee.

Unable to refrain from malicious remarks, a prominent theorist of literature, Stanley Crouch, in a newspaper wrote an article with the following content:

"I hope that a Nobel Prize will inspire Toni Morrison, and that she will begin to write better books than those she has written so far."

read more...