2,000 Years of Gnus
Gnus Almanac
The 12 volume Gnus Almanac is an almanacish day by day compendium of items of interest in Science, History, Mathematics, Music, Theater, Cinema and Sports with comment and elucidation, both factual and fictual that have occurred over the last 2000 years or so.......................................
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something ……….Thomas Hardy
A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century…………..David Hume
Learn everything: Later you will learn that nothing is superfluous ………Hugh of St. Victor
Also: The Man With Three Arms and Other Stories
January 7, 1355 –Tuesday- By the time we got to Woodstock,
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation…….Joni Mitchell……… Happy Birthday, Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, yet another son (the youngest) of Edward III of England. Thomas bit the dust in 1397 on orders of his nephew, Richard II (who in turn would be slewn in 1399).
January 7, 1598-Wednesday- Take me for a ride in your Tsar Tsar
Take me for a ride in your Tsar Tsar
Take me for a ride. Take me for a ride.
Take me for a ride in your Tsar Tsar…….Apologies to Woody Guthrie……..Boris Godunov became Czar of Russia. Boris was the brother-in-law of Fyodor, the son of Ivan “The Terrible” (Ivan was terrible but Boris was good enough). Fyodor had become Tsar when Ivan went kaputsky in 1584. Unfortunately, Fyodor was, to be kind, not the sharpest knife in the monarchial drawer. Ivan, knew this and appointed a council to assist (smirk smirk) Fyodor in his rule. Within a few years Boris Gudunov was the sole………..
March 2 -Read Across America Day. It’s always observed the week of Dr. Seuss’s birthday.
986 -Thursday- Dare to be stupid
Come on and dare to be stupid
It’s so easy to do
Dare to be stupid……Weird Al Yankovic……Ah, the shrinking gene pool. The Carolingian dynasty that began with Charles Martel and his son Pepin III (the Short) and then his son Charlemagne (the Great), (aka Carolus Magnus—the source of the dynasty’s name), sputtered to an end with Louis V, also called Louis the Indolent or Louis the Sluggard. Louis was crowned the King of France on this date. This exemplar of royal denseness ruled less than a year as he went kaput in May 987. There were nasty rumors that his mother Emma poisoned him. His heir by blood was Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, son of Louis IV, but Lorraine (see Darling Lorraine a record by the Knockouts 1959) could not secure the support of the bishops and was undermined by Adalberon (Ascelinus), bishop of Laon. So all this manuvering assured the successful accession of Hugh Capet. The Sluggard, also designated by the words “qui nihil fecit”, i.e. “le Fainéant” or “do-nothing by medieval chroniclers was the last Carolingian monarch. The next dynasty was the Capetians who ruled from 987 to 1328, named after the dynasty’s founder, Hugh Capet.
March 2, 1867 -Saturday-Jesse James was a lad that killed many a man,
He robbed the Danville train.
But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave……….Bascom Lamar Lunsford………Nineteen year old Jesse James and four others of the James gang – but no Youngers- attempted to rob the Judge John McClain Banking House of Savannah, Missouri. They got no money but did manage to escape with a free toaster for opening an account. In case you’ve been counting, forty-five Jesse James movies have been made. Among our favorites have been Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (television’s John Lupton – Broken Arrow– as Jesse), 1966 and Bulgarian Jesse James movie, Jesse James Meets Lokum Shekarov, also 1966. Actors who have played Jesse James include: Jesse James Jr., Tyrone Power, Roy Rogers, Rod Cameron, George Reeves (television’s Superman), Clayton Moore, yes, the Lone Ranger himself, Dale Robertson, Audie Murphy, John Ireland, MacDonald Carey, Robert Wagner, Wendell Corey, Robert Duval, Christopher Lloyd, yes, that Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future and Taxi, Rob Lowe, Colin Farrell and Brad Pitt.
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About the Gnu
The Encyclopedia Britannica informs us that Gnu, (genus Connochaetes), also called wildebeest, either of two species of large African antelopes of the family Bovidae in the tribe Alcelaphini. They are among the most specialized and successful of African herbivores and are dominant in plains ecosystems. So while the Gnus Almanac is about news (rhymes with gnus), of the last 2,000 years or so, it is not an expository work about antelope.
Praise for the Gnus Almanac
Note that our reviewers favor the gnus volume for the month in which they were born
Albert Einstein: ‘ Answers the question…..Did I really read The March Gnus or did the book read me?’
Alexander Graham Bell: ‘ I read The March Gnus while sitting next to the phone.’
Andre Ampere: ‘ The January Gnus helps me to keep up with current events.’
Archimedes: ‘I had an inclination to read the Gnus in 247 B.C’
Aristotle: ‘It is the nature of man to read these books in 320 B.C’
Christian Doppler: ‘I read The November Gnus for its effect on passersby.’
Dr Jekyll : I read The November Gnus even though I hadn’t been feeling myself lately, or so I told Robert Louis Stevenson
Galileo: ‘Ptolomy shmatolomy……these books, especially February, convinced me that the Earth revolves around the sun while I’m reading the Gnus. That’s why I say that “wine is sunlight held together by water “‘.
Georg Ohm: ‘There was more resistance to my reading The March Gnus aloud.’
Gustav Hertz: ‘I’ve been reading The July Gnus with greater frequency.’
Ivan Pavlov: ‘I was drooling at the thought of reading The September Gnus ’.
James Watt: ‘ I thought reading The January Gnus would be a good way to let off steam.’
Jean Foucault: ‘The rotation of the earth made me appear to read The September Gnus.’
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: “This is the best of all possible worlds, especially when reading the July Gnus.”
Marie Curie: ‘ The November Gnus had me radiating enthusiasm’
Isaac Newton: ‘I was enjoying The January Gnus until an apple fell on my head.’
Erwin Schrödinger: ‘I enjoy reading the August Gnus with my cat sitting in my lap. Or maybe he wasn’t.
Robert Boyle: The January Gnus helps me avoid too much pressure at home.’
Thomas Edison: ‘I found The February Gnus to be an illuminating experience.’
Alessandro Volta: ‘I read The February Gnus because it had more potential.’
Werner Heisenberg: ‘I was uncertain if it could read The December Gnus , but wanted to try on general principles.’
Ernest Hemingway: “It’s better than dying alone…in the rain”
Each volume of the Gnus contains a question for Professor Sy Yentz such as:
Dear Professor Sy Yentz,
How many volts are in lightning?
Sincerely,
Manuel Labor
Dear Mr. Labor,
Well there were lots of volts in presidential balloting. Some are even legal. Ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has his electoral sense of humor. As for lightening, a stroke of lightning discharges from 10-100 million volts of electricity. An average lightning stroke has 30,000 amperes.
Sincerely,
Professor Sy Yentz
And……….Professor Sy Yentz,How is the distance of a lightning flash calculated?
Dear Manny, You’re pushing it here with your extra credit question, but Professor Sy Yentz is not shocked. Count the number of seconds between seeing a flash of lightning and hearing the sound of the thunder. Divide the number by 5 to determine the number of miles away that the lightning flashed.
And Also…………
Praise for The Man With Three Arms…..
Homer – Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this Man With Three Arms.
Virgil – Fortune sides with him who dares to read this book.
Dante Alighieri – All hope abandon, ye who enter here! ………..But then the Man With Three Arms, along with Virgil, will lead you from the Inferno.
Jane Austen – Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort……especially with this book to enjoy
Geoffrey Chaucer – Time and tide wait for no man……But the Man With Three Arms will.
Miguel de Cervantes – Can we ever have too much of a good thing?
Gabriel García Márquez – What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.
Emily Dickenson – Forever is composed of nows. ………….So you should read this book now.
Charles Dickens – There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
Scott Fitzgerald – There are no second acts in American lives…………….. But there is a second essay in this book.
James Joyce – I fear those big words which make us so unhappy. ……………….And you won’t find any in this book.
Herman Melville – To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee. ………………But I was determined to finish this book.
Leo Tolstoy – One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken…………… Unless you live in the Poconos and read this book.
Lewis Carroll – ‘T was brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
William Blake – You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough………. And that’s how I felt after his essay about the toilet.
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) – Common sense is not so common…….especially in The Man With Three Arms
Alexander Pope – A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Robert Burns – Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle!………….but read this book before you go.
William Shakespeare – There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…………..and some are in his story about the bear.
Franz Kafka – As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
Excerpt from I Used to Be an Adult but Now I’m a senior…………………..
………………On this visit we wanted to see some sites. First up was the Carillon Park Museum. Admission was $ 7 for Adults and $5 for Seniors. I said to the cashier, “I used to be an adult but now I’m a senior”. I was immediately struck by the profundity of my statement. Senior is a floating concept. Sometimes you need to be 55, sometimes 60, sometimes 62, sometimes 65. Last spring I claimed Senior for a discount to visit Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. I asked the young cashier if he wanted to see proof of age. He replied, in a thick Scottish brogue, “why wid ye want tae prove yer auld?” It’s interesting. When I was 18-30 and looked young, I wanted to prove I was old so I could…..well , you remember…. Some Senior things you’re aware of, sore muscles and hurts take longer heal. You are barraged with AARP, Medicare mailings, Senior moments, and — I’m cranky a lot too. I watch TV programs sponsored by medicine with unpronounceable names – was there a shortage of vowels? Usually, young looking seniors are happily bouncing around in slow motion while the voice over tells you the medicine may “cause death in some instances” ……………..