The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

We almost wrote to say there would be no quiz today, given that we spent all of last night getting a mammoth email together explaining how a whole wedge of Brooklyn are going to get their organic chard fix this year.

But our dedication to you and your quiz-hungry mind trumps all. Hastily, then:

By 1861, a Maine native who had become the first printerto set up a color-lithography business in Massachusetts, was losing sales on his previous big-seller -- a portrait of Lincoln -- because the great man had grown his beard since the portrait was created. But with a moralistic adaptation of a popular pastime, he sold 45,000 copies in the first year alone. A special feature was the use of a device meant to ensure that similarities to gambling implements didn't endanger sales. Further changed, his invention went on to become popular well into the 20th century.

What was the product, and who is the man?

First correct answer posted to comments gets something I don't have time to think of. Don't Google. Put your answer in the comments. Gotta go!

Posted by BT at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

Ladies and gentlemen, the good people of Manhattan's mighty Other Music have now made it possible for you to buy many of their fine musical wares as digital downloads. $1.11 per track ($9.99 for albums) for DRM-less MP3s of bands from Animal Collective to Zodiacs.*

I submit that this is a FINE THING. (Full disclosure: one of my colleagues at Ye Olde Interweb Retaile Establishment has a deep and abiding -- indeed, one might say, "familial" -- connection to OM. But I'd be excited by this just the same, even if I didn't know her.)

Go ye and shop!

* No, I didn't know who the Zodiacs are, either. But they're on the same label (Holy Mountain) as Six Organs of Admittance, a psychedelic outfit favored by some of the expat social psychologist types known to lurk in these spaces. Which means that we must, in some nth-degree-of-separation sense, think of ourselves as connected to them.

Posted by BT at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So much to do. No silly preambles this week. This week's long and rambly clue is brought to you by the letter Zzzzzzzzzz. (No, really, it's worth it. Read on!)

After California inventor Harry Chamberlin had developed and marketed his own line of electro-mechanical devices for a number of decades, one of his employees apparently took his designs to Great Britain in 1962, and struck a deal with a company to create a similar product (It's uncertain how much this was a sanctioned attempt to find a manufacturer who could execute an improved design, and how much it was a somewhat shady attempt to set up a competing product; in any event, later the two companies would reach an agreement by which restitution for the British versions's sales was made to Mr. Chamberlin).

The resulting device manufactured in Birmingham, England, was sold under a brand name that became moderately well-known within certain circles. The tempermental machines cost thousands of dollars, but nevertheless proved popular, and the most influential version -- the M400 -- sold over 1800 units after its release in 1970. It's novel characteristics were instantly appealing to many, and a number of celebrities, including Princess Margaret, Peter Sellers, King Hussein of Jordan and L. Ron Hubbard, were among the purchasers.

However, in reality these were usually purchased by commercial outfits and used only by professionals and for limited duration. Although they were not originally intended to be portable, there was increasing demand for the devices to be capable of moving from location to location, and the M400 and subsequent models were frequent used in this fashion.

Interestingly, one of the people who had worked at the Birmingham factory where it was developed, Michael Pinder, later got ahold of one of the devices and put it famously to use in 1967.

By what commercial name was this invention known when it came into use?

First correct answer posted to comments gets a virtually unused set of children's rainboots, size 7, in periwinkle. No Googling or using the abbreviation, "T.M.I." By that I mean: please don't use that abbreviation anymore. Let's just put it to rest. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.

Posted by BT at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.

Ladies' Home Journal December 1900 predictions for 2000 A.D.
(via BoingBoing)

Posted by BT at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A kind of Noachian condition has descended upon the city. Yesterday it never got lighter than twilight, and looking out the window again this morning brings nothing to mind so much as life at the bottom of a fishbowl, if the fish in residence were somehow chain-smokers. A metaphor of questionable value, I know, but I haven't had a lot of sleep.

Imogen invites more mixed metaphors -- in her footed pajamas she puts herself through a series of contortions that remind one of a gymnast inventing the idea of floor exercises for the very first time ("What if I just sort of, you know, rolled around on the mat and posed a bit? Could that be an event? I guess I could throw in some handsprings if it'd make everybody happy.") but punctuates her routines with explosive grunts that remind one more of Monica Seles returning serve. Every now and again she sits up and claps for herself. This doesn't so much remind me of any sport in particular, but demonstrates that she's definitely an American.

This is what comes of being up too late working on new projects on a Sunday night.

Posted by BT at 06:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Events in the burrow got away from us last night, and so there is no Quiz this morning. Rest your weary noodles and prepare for the noggin-drainers to come.

In the meanwhile, here's something I've been thiniking about . My sense of my favorite songs -- those that prompt a feeling of real excitement or satisfaction when I hear them -- means an ever-changing list. But there are some songs about which I'd say I have an unchanged response since the first time I heard them. I'm thinking of music I first heard at least a decade or more ago, but still feel about in the same way I first did.

I've been trying to make a list with a goal of 100 songs about which I could say this, with no artist repeats. Here's a few...

The Pretenders, "Message of Love"
Elvis Costello, "Beyond Belief"
Men at Work, "Overkill"
Adam and the Ants, "Beat My Guest"
Roxy Music, "2HB"
R.E.M. "Gardening at Night"
Belle and Sebastian, "Seeing Other People"
Game Theory, "Like a Girl Jesus"
Nina Simone, "Nobody's Fault But Mine"
James Brown, "Mother Popcorn"
Dream Syndicate, "Tell Me When it's Over"
Charlie Parker, "Segment"
The Balancing Act, "Searchin' for this Thing"
The Velvet Underground, "Beginning to See the Light"
David Bowie, "Queen Bitch"
Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Sixteen Tons"
Milton Nascimento , "San Vicente"
Patti Smith, "Piss Factory"

There are more, obviously. The point is, do you have songs which remain, in a sense, evergreen for you? Ones which are old in your personal history but forever young in your ears?

Posted by BT at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

And/or an apology. Or so saith Gavin MacQueen.

Mr. MacQueen, we believe you. Without even trying to verify the information you offer, we believe you. The overwhelming sense of ineptitude that characterizes the Quiz's storied history is so well-established that only the Justice Department and the Army Corps of Engineers have a stronger record for getting it wrong (though, sadly, we've never been able to link our bumbling to any kind of worthwhile political corruption). The probability of our having miscredited the insidious Alexander Samuelsson (even the number of s's in his name should have alerted us to his serpentine character) -- as well as having mischaracterized nearly everything about the patenting of the Coca-Cola bottle design -- is roughly equal to the likelihood that we're all going to be really sick of reading bad "farewell to the Sopranos" headline puns in the near future.

We regret the error.

Posted by BT at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In haste we post today's throwaway head-acher.

Born in 1709, Jacques de Vaucanson invented a number of interesting devices, credited by some with being the very first of their kind. Educated by Jesuits, he later studied anatomy under a surgeon. For one of his inventions, he created over 400 moving parts, including what may have been the world's first flexible rubber tube.

What did de Vaucanson create?

First correct post to comments wins some of Keith Richards' uncle Algy's old fingernail clippings, mixed carefully in a small bag of crystal meth. No Googling or going back to school for that graduate degree in material culture you've been considering. One guess per comment, but I promise there are plently of comments to go around.

Posted by BT at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)