Games I Would Fain Play

In Which Various Games I Have Deemed Play-Able at Various Points in My Life are Presented For Your Idle Perusal, on This Lovely April Afternoon

It will be apparent to any of my long-term readers that in my many years of existence upon this mortal sphere I have acquired any number of divertissements, residing in the realms of semi-usual (crossword puzzle solving, diorama construction, amateur box kit enthusiasm) and esoteric (the practice of sexual magick, the collecting of taxidermy involving rare and extinct creatures, summoning lesser elohim). It will interest more than a few, I dare say, that amongst many of my idle fancies lay those that involve games of chance with one or more companions. Whilst some of the games I fain indulge in are to this day somewhat still commonplace enough to warrant no explanation, it has become clear to me that many of fancies have fallen by the wayside over my many years of existence, so to speak. Thus I have decided to turn to a selection of brief excerpts from Hoyle's beloved Rules of Games for services of piquing the interests of you, my dear readers, in but a few of the delights to be beheld from such a simple recipe of a deck of cards and but a handful of friends.

Napoleon: In one of the most ancient and universal families of card games, originally called the "Triumph" family, each player holds five cards and the primary object is to win 3 out of 5 tricks.

Seven-up: There is a large family of games in which the object is to win "high, low, jack and game." Almost surely this principle originated in England in the ancient game All Fours. Brought to America in Colonial times, this game developed into Seven Up, also called Old Sledge or High Low Jack.

Fan Tan: There is a Chinese gambling game called Fan Tan, based on guessing the number of beans in a pot.

Oh Hell (called Oh Pshaw or Blackout in family journals): made its appearance in New York card clubs in the late 1930s. It was said to have come from England, but nothing more is known of its origin. It is one of the best round games for sheer relaxation, yet it is comparable to Hearts in its opportunity for skillful play.

Panguingue: a game for six to nine players, is the survivor in the direct line of Conquian, the ancestor of all the Rummy Games. In the western United States, many commercial clubs flourish, devoted principally to furnishing their habitues with "Pan" games.

Klaberjass: means "jack of clubs"-originally the highest trump card in Central European card games. This popular two hand development, popular also in France as Belotte, was immortalized in American picaresque literature by Damon Runyon and is known by various names and spellings: Clob, Clobber, Clabber, Klab, Klabber, etc-sometimes even by the name Kalabrias, which actually is a different game, played in Hungary.

Skat: was developed prior to 1818 in Altenburg, Germany, out of two pre-existing games, Tarok, and Schafkopf. The rules of Skat were codified at a congress of more than a thousand players at Altenburg in 1886. German immigrants brought the game to the United States and an American Skat League was founded at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1898.

Thank you for perusing this list today. If by chance, your curiosity has been engaged, may-haps you would enjoy composing a letter to my amanuensis about your possible interests in learning some of these varied games of skill and chance. I have vain fancies of starting a local Skat league, and the More the Merrier, as is often said.

Considering the Jot

In Which Tittles are Revisited, Jots are Explored, Scripture is Quoted, and Hosannas Ring Across the Land

As an informal companion piece to a previous essay regarding the tittle, let us spend a brief moment upon the jot. The word jot, as in "jot or tittle," comes from an anglicization of the Greek letter iota, which corresponds to the Hebrew letter yodh, which is itself the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Thus we have both jot and iota having the connotations of insignificantly small items, or the smallest of some set of items. The phrase "jot or tittle" is from a translation of the new testament, "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Addendum: a tittle can also refer to the dots on a die, and before the word dot as a verb became commonplace, tittle meant roughly the same thing for some time. Thus, until recently, people were more likely to tittle their iotas instead of dotting their i's.

An Anecdote, a Joke, Two Quotes, and a Pan-o-Rama

In Which a Potpourri is Presented

Acclaimed director Werner Herzog once desired to film a scene in which the smallest man in the world rode the smallest pony in the world whilst being chased around the trunk of the largest tree in the world by the largest rooster in the world. He was stymied by the owner of the largest rooster in the world, who claimed the scene would make the giant rooster "look stupid."

"I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it."

Several engineers were testing the design of a new style of hot air balloon that they had been working on, but certain flawed aspects of their steering apparatus only became apparant once they had risen quite high in the air. As a result, the engineers found themselves floating aimlessly, lost in the skies. Eventually the wind slowly blew the balloon close to a tall hill, at the surmount of which lay what appeared to be a small university. As the passed by one of the tallest buildings, the engineers happened to notice a figure on the roof. "Hello down there, can you tell us where we are?" one of the engineers shouted. The figure merely looked up in silence at the slow moving balloon. Roughly a half hour had passed, and the building was nearly out of sight when the engineers heard a faint voice coming from the hill top: "You are in a balloon!" "That must have been a mathematicican," sighed one of the engineers. "What makes you say that?" asked another. "He clearly took a long time working on his answer, it was rigorously and provably true, and completely useless in any real world application."

"Five bats depicted quincunially symbolize the Five Happiness (wu fu) - wealth, long life, peace, cultivation of virtue (or good health) and a good death."

A Quaintly Titled Demon, and Other Lexicographical Curiosities

In Which we Once Again Set Sail Upon the Seas of Strange Sayings and Quizzical Terms, for Purposes of Perhaps Enriching the Common Vocabulary of Today Amongst all Who Lay Eyes Upon the Screed

Today we shall go off upon yet another excursion into one of my favorite subjects, that of the long-winded explanation of supposedly commonplace words and phrases of which neither I nor anyone I have ever met have even the slightest hint of familiarity with. I must apologize for the brevity of my introduction today, but I fear that there is more than a modest whiff of ennui emanating from my soul today, and I would fain avoid infecting you, my dear readers, with said taint, as would surely occur, were I to prolong this introduction beyond the scope of performing its mere duty as providing the sparsest of context for what shall follow. Thus with no further ado, let us rejoice in this mild exaltation in obscurity!

Pudding and Tame, familiar to most of us because of a children's chant beginning with those words, has religious associations. It is, according to the Opies' The Lore and Language of School Children, "the name of the fiend or devil 'Pudding of Tame' listed in Harnet's Popish Impostures," published way back in Shakespeare's time. The devilish implications of the name have long since been forgotten by the children who cheerfully chant: "What's my name, Puddin' and Tame. Ask me again and I'll tell you the same." Curiously enough, although the original name is English, the children's rhyme is said to have originated in Maryland. Wentworth's American Dialect Dictionary reports it as turning up all over the country-Arkansas, Mississippi, New York State, and Heaven (or the devil) only knows where else.

Spizzerinctum. This oddity from rural dialect [was previously discussed] and we mentioned that dictionaries define it as cold cash or hard money. The question that led to our discussing this word involved a minister who exhorted his followers to deliver more spizzerinctum. We implied that he was looking for a better-filled collection plate, but a West Virginian reader thought otherwise. "In this area," she writes, "the old people use the word to mean energy and enthusiasm. They say things like 'I wish I had his spizzerinctum,' when speaking about a young person. Undoubtedly this is how the minister meant the word. If you had attended an old time revival meeting in my neck of the woods, you would know that joy, energy, and enthusiasm= are much more in abundance (and much more desired) than cold cash!'"

Welsh Rabbit/Rarebit (which the more observant amongst us will recognize from a previous column). A widely held misconception is that Welsh Rabbit is a vulgar form of Welsh rarebit. Actually the opposite is true, for Welsh rarebit is merely a mannered and affected corruption of a phrase that dates back nearly to Shakespeare's time. In those days only the wealthy in Wales could afford game from royal preserves. So since rabbit itself was such a rarity, melted cheese on toast became known semi-humorously as Welsh rabbit. In a similar fashion, scrambled eggs on toast spread with anchovy butter came to be called Scotch Woodcock. Up in New England today, you may occasionally hear codfish called Cape Cod turkey. It's unfortunate that the editors of some cookbooks have helped to spread the nice-nellyism rarebit. Perhaps it's because the term has long been a favorite of restaurant menu writers-a curious breed who seem never to be able to say anything simply. H. W. Fowler, as usual, has a brusque and trenchant commentary on the manner. "Welsh rabbit," he writes, "is amusing and right, and Welsh rarebit stupid and wrong."

One more stitch in the wildcat's tail. This odd expression comes to our attention in a note from a reader who said that his grandmother, after finishing a difficult job, would say: "Well that's one more stitch in the wildcat's tail." We asked our column readers if any could tell us more about the expression, and Frank Flanagan obliged. He wrote: "My late father, God rest his merry soul, would now and then come home smelling of strong drink and with a yen to sing. He had a very good voice, and he could really belt out his favorite songs. One of them went like this, to my Jewish mother's disgust:
'Way down south in St. Augustine,
a wildcat jumped on a sewing machine.
The sewing machine was going so fast
It took 44 stitches in the wildcat's...'
Maybe the lady made a slight change in her version."

"Inverted Worlds", or "Theories, Unplausible pt II"

In Which a Multitude of Peoples, Objects, and Ideologies Which Have Been Suspected or Accused, at One Time or Another, of Dwelling Inside of a Theoretical Hollow Earth are Listed, with the Assistance of Fists, Annotated to a Pathological Degree

☞Atoma¹ the Inner Sun
☞Nazis²
☞Crystal Skulls³
☞Mammals Previously Believed Extinct⁴
☞Flying Saucers⁵
☞Extremely Extroverted Telepaths⁶
☞Agarttha<sup>7



1</sup>A more poetic sort hypothesized two inner suns, and named them Pluto and Proserpine appropriately enough.

²Admiral Donitz at the Nuremburg Trials:"The German submarine fleet is proud of having built an invisible fortification for the Führer, anywhere in the world," and "an invisible fortification, in midst of the eternal ice," which could really refer to any number of places; Antarctica, the North Sea, Finland, Minneapolis, etc

³For more information, one can see "Mysteries of the Crystal Skulls Revealed," a book that has at least 2,000 copies on hand in Portuguese in Brazil as of 1992 (that was an exhausting string of prepositions), features an in-depth interview with a (supposedly) noted Psychic Archeologist and Egyptologist(for more information on the connection between "Psychic Archeology" and "Egyptology," See "Ægypt" by John Crowley (if one prefers one's education presented in fictional form), or any decently researched history of the Gypsy ethnicity (if non-fiction is more aligned with one's favor), and discusses "more than 10 crystal skulls"(is there a crystal skull enthusiast out there who would not waste his time upon any dubious tome that concerns itself with only 9 crystal skulls? It isn't as if we are discussing Kabalists here)
⁴Marshall Gardener cited the discovery of a woolly mammoth carcass frozen in Siberia as evidence that these creatures yet existed in his theorized inner world, occasionally migrating to the surface. While I'm on the subject of extinct mammals, Behold the Glyptodon:

⁵From the diary of Admiral Byrd, allegedly:

"0600 Hours- All preparations are complete for our flight north ward and we are airborne with full fuel tanks at 0610 Hours....
0910 Hours- Both Magnetic and Gyro compasses beginning to gyrate and wobble, we are unable to hold our heading by instrumentation. Take bearing with Sun compass, yet all seems well. The controls are seemingly slow to respond and have sluggish quality, but there is no indication of Icing!

0915 Hours- In the distance is what appears to be mountains.

0949 Hours- 29 minutes elapsed flight time from the first sight ing of the mountains, it is no illusion. They are mountains and consisting of a small range that I have never seen before...

1130 Hours- Countryside below is more level and normal (if I may use that word). Ahead we spot what seems to be a city!!!! This is impossible! Aircraft seems light and oddly buoyant. The controls refuse to respond!! My GOD!!! Off our port and star board wings are a strange type of aircraft. They are closing rapidly alongside! They are disc-shaped and have a radiant quality to them. They are close enough now to see the markings on them. It is a type of Swastika!!! This is fantastic. Where are we! What has happened. I tug at the controls again. They will not respond!!!! We are caught in an invisible vice grip of some type...

1145 Hours- I am making a hasty last entry in the flight log. Several men are approaching on foot toward our aircraft. They are tall with blond hair. In the distance is a large shimmering city pulsating with rainbow hues of color. I do not know what is going to happen now, but I see no signs of weapons on those approaching. I hear now a voice ordering me by name to open the cargo door. I comply...

These last few years elapsed since 1947 have not been kind...I now make my final entry in this singular diary. In closing, I must state that I have faithfully kept this matter secret as directed all these years. It has been completely against my values of moral right. Now, I seem to sense the long night coming on and this secret will not die with me, but as all truth shall, it will triumph and so it shall.

This can be the only hope for mankind. I have seen the truth and it has quickened my spirit and has set me free! I have done my duty toward the monstrous military industrial complex. Now, the long night begins to approach, but there shall be no end. Just as the long night of the Arctic ends, the brilliant sunshine of Truth shall come again....and those who are of darkness shall fall in it's Light..FOR I HAVE SEEN THAT LAND BEYOND THE POLE, THAT CENTER OF THE GREAT UNKNOWN."

⁶Richard Shaver, accused by some as being the "true father of UFO-logy," composed a lengthy, rambling, and allegedly quite sexually explicit in it's unexpurgated form essay published in Amazing Stories magazine circa 1943 concerning the peoples of the inner world; Deros, or Detrimental Robots, who made contact with Shaver through aggressive telepathy. Shaver claimed that the Deros used machines to project unpleasant thoughts into the minds of Surface Men, being responsible for many, if not all, of Surface Man-kind's moral failings. Many people who themselves heard voices in their heads concluded that Shaver was on to something.

⁷According to Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, the inner city of Agarttha/Aghartha/Agarta is a fantastic realm of divine beauty lying underneath the planet's crust that humanity shall only be admitted to once a level of divine grace has been attained by all, or in his words, "When the Anarchy which exists in our world is replaced by the Synarchy." In regards to this, and many of the various outlandish concepts that have been hungrily devoured whole by those yearning for some rare element of extra-ordinary meaning in their lives through the ages (see: The Book of the Rosy Cross, The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus, the Theosophists, etc); I propose that there does not exist an allegory of such fanciful nature that some hopeful acolyte will not take said allegory for literal truth.

An Index of Obscure Punctuation

In Which a Series of Esoteric Marks are Presented, for Purposes of Enlivening Curiosities of a Typographical Nature

◊
is a Lozenge

⁂
is an Asterism

‽
is an Interrobang

« »
are Guillemets

☞
is a Fist

Theories, Unplausible.

In Which Extra-Terrestrials are blamed for "Me and Bobby McGee"

David Icke:
1. Has only worn turquoise from the early 1990s on as he believes it to be a conduit of positive energy;
2. Retired from a promising soccer career at a young age due to acute arthritis;
3. Believes that accomplished helicopter pilot, country & western song writer, and Rhodes Scholar Kris Kristofferson is a humanoid reptile from a planet orbiting one of the stars that make up the Draco constellation;
4. Does not believe that noted Tsarist hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is objectively true but that whomever constructed said pamphlet was holding knowledge of "the game plan [for the 20th century]";
5. Refers to Queen Elizabeth as "seriously reptilian";
6. Worked as a host for televised snooker games for the BBC (amongst other things) until his contract was terminated due to his non-payment of certain taxes;
7. Is a propronent of the Hollow Earth hypothesis and peoples his theoretical Inner World with the aforementioned space reptiles from Draco;
8. Is able to quite clearly distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism but loses some level of credibility when he then takes the long since tired approach of crediting the house of Rothschild with being nefarious crypto-zionistic conspirators;
9. Has an charmingly Matroyshka doll-esque view of a world in which: governments and corporations are controlled by the aforementioned Zionist Rothschilds, the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, the Chatham House, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the UN, who are in turn controlled by an ancient conspiracy known as the Brotherhood who essentially created humanity by breeding proto-humans like man-kind bred wolves into dogs (and of course behind the brotherhood are the reptilians from Draco, who hide in human form and masquerade in human society as the royal houses of old Europe and various corporate dyanasties);
10. Is sadly just another example of humanity using its greatest inherent talent, that of discovering (or projecting, as the case may be) patterns in information, to concoct an ultimately depressingly and mundanely racist screed detailing a vast, in both years and size, and malevolent conspiracy controlling the world; unwilling to believe that this cacophonous global society we dwell in today could exist due to mere happenstance.