30
John Wilkes Booth
Photographer Alfred Stieglitz self-portrait, c. 1894, age 30. Holy shitsnakes, I was born in the wrong era. I’d travel time for Stieglitz in a heartbeat.
-Bee
AMAZING! Mark Twain in Nikola Tesla’s laboratory in 1894.
I love this photo so much. I wonder what they talked about.
I hope they got drunk and used sparks to set things on fire.
Oh, it’s WAY better than that. An experience with one of Tesla’s inventions made Twain NEARLY SHIT HIS PANTS. From a Tesla biography:
This contraption, he explained, “consists of a platform supported on elastic cushions that are ade to oscillate by means of compressed air. One day, I stepped on the platform and the vibrations imparted were transmitted to my body….Evidently, these isochronous rapid oscillations stimulated powerfully the peristaltic movements which propel the food-stuffs through the alimentary channels.”“You mean, it’ll make me regular?” Twain inquired.
“Precisely, and without the use of elixirs, specific remedies or internal applications whatever.”
Without further ado, Twain stepped aboard as Tesla tried to stop his assistants from chuckling. As Twain had been so enthusiastic, Tesla neglected to inform him that peristaltic action is induced almost immediately.
“Suddenly, Twain felt an unspeakable and pressing necessity which had to be promptly satisfied,” Tesla told the Johnsons the next day to their tearful glee, for he had to jump off the platform and find his way swiftly to the lavatory.
“I think I’ll start with the electrotheraphy machines,” Twain said upon his return. ”Wouldn’t want those widows to get too healthy all at one shot.”
What an incredible collaboration of mustaches minds.
nypl:
Here’s nineteenth-century humorist Josh Billings (nee Henry Wheeler Shaw), a very popular writer and lecturer, born in Massachusetts in 1818. His works shows that purposeful misspellings and poor grammar were funny to Americans 150 years ago, too. To wit, “‘Give me liberty, or giv me deth’—but ov the 2 I prefer the liberty.” (lolz!)
According to David B. Kesterson, Billings gave popular lectures that were “usually on one of three topics—’Buty and the Beasts,’ ’What i Kno About Hotels,’ and the frequently given ’Milk.’”
Luving this fella, evun be4 we saw hiz grate mustach. Happy Mustache Monday!
Happy Monday, once again! This week, we bring you the handsome handle-bar mustache of Charles Curry Chase while he was a student at Cornell University from 1879-1883. This cabinet card can be found in the collection of the Oshkosh Public Museum.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, of the all-black 54th Infantry Regiment for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
