An anonymous benefactor in Canton, Ohio placed a newspaper ad near Christmas in 1933 and asked for people in need to contact him. At the height of the Great Depression, many were in dire straits and responded by mail. The mysterious "B. Virdot" sent $5 (a generous sum at the time) to 150 families. Virdot never revealed his identity. Then in 2008, Ted Gup unearthed those letters and found out that his grandfather was the man who handed out the money.
His real name was Sam Stone. "B. Virdot" was a combination of his daughters' names—Barbara, Virginia (my mother) and Dorothy. My grandmother had mentioned something about his largesse to my mother when she was a young adult, but it had remained a family secret. Now, 30 years after her father's death, she was comfortable letting the secret out.
Collectively, the letters offer a wrenching vision of the Great Depression and of the struggle within the souls of individuals, many too proud to speak of their anguish even to their loved ones. Some sought B. Virdot's generosity not for themselves, but for their neighbors, friends or relatives. Stirred by their words, I set out to find what became of them, tracking down their descendants, wondering if the $5 gifts had made any difference. From each family, I received permission to use the letter.
Read some of the stories of those families at Smithsonian magazine. Link
The man your man could smell like meets the most interesting man in the world. Isaiah Mustafa (the Old Spice Guy) posted a picture of his meeting with Jonathan Goldsmith, the Dos Equis beer guy. And somehow the space/time continuum remained intact. Link -via reddit
Haikyo is a Japanese word for abandoned ruins. Michael Gakuran explored an abandoned home in Japan some call the Royal House, possibly because among the contents are pre-war portraits of the Japanese Emperor and the Royal family.
In pre-WWII Japan, the Emperor was still revered as a living deity and to look upon him was thought of as an immense privilege. Distribution of the Imperial Family Portraits was not compulsory and schools had to petition to the Ministry in order to receive one, which was usually granted on grounds of academic excellence. Because the official portraits were on loan from the Imperial Household Ministry, protecting the picture from harm was deemed of utmost importance. Having the picture lost or damaged, even from natural disasters like fires or earthquakes, was seen as such a serious failure of duty that there were incidents of school officials committing suicide in an act of repentance.
There are plenty of pictures of the house and contents, but Gakuran has many more photographs he did not publish because of the fine line between documenting history and invading the former occupant's privacy. Link -via Metafilter
Cookie Monster wants to branch out beyond his "cookie-eating career" and host Saturday Night Live. Here he recreates some familiar elements of the show and still manages to eat some cookies along the way. Do you think he has what it takes? You can show your support at his Facebook page. Link -via Breakfast Links
The history of pitching unusual gadgets on television begins with S.J. Popeil. Born into a family of roadside salesmen, S.J. had the vision to break into a much larger audience via TV. The first gizmo he hawked on the small screen was the Pocket Fisherman -a fishing rod small enough to fit in your glove compartment or briefcase. While veteran anglers debated the utility of the flimsy rod, Popeil maintained, "It's not for using. It's for giving." He had a point. Forty years after the first commercial aired, The Pocket Fisherman continues to sell millions of units worldwide every year.
But Wait! There's More!
The Genius that Bred the Chia Pet
In the early 1970s, entrepreneur Joseph Pedott heard about a failing Chicago company that was selling seeds from the chia plant, a member of the mint family. He bought the company and sold the seeds along with a terra cotta figurine that could sprout vegetation. The result was the Chia Pet -one of the most successful infomercial products in history. But Pedott is hardly a one-trick pony, He's also the genius behind another TV favorite, The Clapper. He took an existing sound-activated device called The Great American Turn-On, tweaked it, and renamed it. The rest is "clap on, clap off" history.
The Lesson Behind "I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up"
LifeCall, a medical alert system, launched one of the most popular catchphrases of the 1980s, when it aired the "I've fallen, and I can't get up" commercial. Radio DJs and stand-up comics endlessly made fun of Mrs. Fletcher, the elderly woman sprawled on the floor. The character was played by Edith Fore, a 70-something widow who'd actually been saved by LifeCall after a tumble down her stairs in 1989. Fore was paid a one-time fee for her performance and never received any royalties. Although her phrase was printed on T-shirts and parodied in songs for years, LifeCall never saw an increase in sales and eventually filed for bankruptcy. The problem was that the public remembered the slogan but couldn't recall the name of the product.
The Knives That Served Up Catchphrases
Despite the Japanese name, Ginsu knives were originally manufactured in Fremont, Ohio. The company, formerly known as Quikut, hired an advertising copywriter named Arthur Schiff to spice up its sales pitch. Schiff not only came up with the name Ginsu, he also coined several phrases that are still infomercial staples today, such as, "Now, how much would you pay?" and "Act now, and you'll receive..." But his pièce de résistance was "But wait! There's more!"
All These Hits on One Giant LP
Long before there was Now That's What I Call Music, there was K-Tel, the affordable pipeline to the hits of the 1970s and 1980s. Salesman Philip Kives had the idea to cram 20 to 25 songs onto one LP and pitch them on rapid-fire TV commercials. The ads were ahead of their time, because serious musical artists of that era didn't advertise on television, and young music buyers were mesmerized when they heard a succession of 5-second snippets of their favorite tunes on TV. Kives was able to sell his LPs for less than half the normal cost by using cheap, ultra-thin vinyl. He also mastered the records at a lower volume, which produced thin grooves, allowing for more songs on each side.
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Great Moments in Infomercial History was written by Kara Kovalchik. It is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May/June 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
It sounds like something the dog says when he's trying to recall where he buried it! No, it's today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. How much do you remember about the bones of the human body? In this quiz, you'll be given the names of nine bones, and you match them to the part of the body they are from. I scored 100%! Link
German designer Christoph Thetard designed a versatile kitchen appliance that uses no electricity, because it's powered by the chef's foot! The R2B2 has three attachments: a chopper, blender, and grinder that all connect to a rotary gear powered by a flywheel contained in the cabinet. Bonus -running the machine with your foot also burns calories! Link -via Mother Nature Network
The editors of Slate asked their readers how Thanksgiving cooking traditions get passed from one generation to the next. They collected stories and posted them. It seems that in many families, the one who cooks every year has a hard time giving that position up to anyone else. Some even refuse help from those who should be learning how to do it.
My mom doesn't accept much help in the kitchen, holidays or Mondays—not because she doesn't trust others to get it right, but because she just doesn't know how to slow down. Never did. And accept help? She's as likely to do that as she is to ask for it; i.e., not at all. She reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who systematically gets his appendages hacked off in battle but still won't call it a day. Make no mistake, having grown up as one of five girls in an inner-city, working-class home, I'm no stranger to hard work. But there was never a time when we did more work than she did. Ever. Even at 83, I'm not sure it's even possible to outwork my mom. As she's aged, all we can manage is guerrilla warfare.
My mother and grandmother helped me learn the family recipes as soon as I was old enough to be interested, and I've been hosting the family feast for quite a few years now. Now if I could only get my children interested... How about your family? Link
You can enter a picture in National Geographic's annual photo contest until November 30th, but the competition is stiff. See 47 of the most awesome entries so far presented in large size on one page at The Big Picture blog. Link -via Fark
Many people compared this reaction to a television laugh track. My children, who obviously haven't watched enough BBC TV, asked why anyone would eat Brussells sprouts and Christmas crackers for a holiday meal. -via Boing Boing
I live in a bright yellow house in a mostly brown or brick neighborhood, so I am drawn to these colorful neighborhoods around the world. This picture is from Bo-Kaap, Cape Town, South Africa. See all 20 colorful cities at Buzzfeed. Link
Tungo the penguin was found on a beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil unable to eat because his beak had been shattered, probably by a boat propeller. Veterinarians at the local zoo made him a new acrylic beak, fashioned in the shape of the broken pieces of his old beak. Tungo is recovering nicely and is able to eat. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Penguin-Tungo-In-Brazil-Given-Prosthetic-Beak-To-Allow-Him-To-Feed-Properly/Article/201011315820534 (with video) -via Arbroath
Of all the trolls, the worst is the Choles-troll. He is the central character of this illustrated "bedtime story for adults" at The Museum Of Modern Fiction. Link-Thanks, josef lee!
New York City artist Camomile Hixon added some interest to the many missing pet posters she saw by hanging one requesting help with a missing unicorn. Actually, friends helped her post 2,000 of the missing unicorn posters.
“I was travelling back and forth in the subways, and I just noticed the dejection. I’m a pop artist, and I thought –- if I could just make one person smile. I was thinking about ways to do that," she said.
“A unicorn is beyond race, beyond religion. I wanted something that could reach anyone at any age. I thought, if I could just make a handful of businessmen on Wall Street think about unicorns, I will be successful.”
Hixon received 350 phone calls in the first day. She went on to install a hotline and a website for people to report their unicorn sightings. Link to story. Link to website. -via Fortean Times
English Russia has pictures of the offices at the Russian LEGO headquarters. Look who greets you upon entering! They have whimsical LEGO creations in almost every room. I think my favorite may be the monkey. Link -Thanks, fraulein m!
