Now You Know It All

on October 23, 2008

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For the hockey expert or even just mere hockey fans like myself:

Photograph by cpt.spock

Q: Who are the Broad Street Bullies?

A: During the 1970s, the Philadelphia Flyers became notorious for their brawling, rock ‘em, sock ‘em style of playing. Since their arena at the time, the Spectrum, was on South Broad Street in the City of Brotherly Love, the Flyers were dubbed the Broad Street Bullies. In the 1970s timid players frightened by the Phillies were said to be overcome with the Philly Flu during the time they spent in Philadelphia. They were no doubt intimidated by the likes of Flyers hard guys such as Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, Andre Dupont, Barry Ashbee, Ed Van Impe, and Joe Watson. However even a great player like Philadelphia centre and captain Bobby Clarke was someone to be feared. After all, he infamously put Soviet superstar Valeri Kharlamov out of commission with a vicious slash to the ankle during the Canada-Soviet Union Summit Series in 1972. The Flyers’ ultra-aggressive playing certainly contributed to the two Stanley Cup championships they won in 1974 and 1975. However, they haven’t won a Cup since the 1970s.

From the archive: Who is the Thinker?

Published

on August 25, 2008

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Photograph by Osbornb

Ever wonder who it really is…?

Q: Who is the Thinker in Auguste Rodin’s famous statue?

A: The French sculptor Auguste Rodin’s statue commonly called “The Thinker” (Le penseur) is one of the best-known pieces of art in the world. Yet when Rodin (1840-1917) first cast a small plaster version in 1880, he meant it as a depiction of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (circa 1265-1321) pondering his great allegorical epic “The Divine Comedy” in front of the Gates of Hell. In fact, Rodin named the sculpture “The Poet”. It was an obscure critic, unfamiliar with Dante, who misnamed the masterpiece with the title we use today — The Thinker.

Rodin’s statue is naked because the sculptor wanted a heroic classical figure to represent thought as poetry.

From the archive: Ketchup and Fries

Published

on June 30, 2008

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Let us dive into the wonderful world of food and what better way to sit back and enjoy a lunch with fries and ketchup than to ponder about the origins of this popular side dish and condiment. But before you ponder away, let us give you some facts:

Q: If it wasn’t the French, then who invented french fries?

A: The Belgians are crazy about french fries; as a matter of fact, fries are their national dish, and they’ve been eating them with buckets of mussels since the mid-1800s. The French also claim inventing fries, because to “french” any food means to cut it very thin. The problem is that the Belgian claim predates the French technique by about fifty years. Usually this discussion ignores the fact that 40 percent of Belgians speak French, so they can take the credit.

The largest producer of french fries in the world is McCain Foods Limited, a Canadian company in Florenceville, New Brunswick. McCain has thirty potato processing plants on six continents around the
world.

Photography by rick

and on to one of our favourite condiments…

Q: What’s the origin of ketchup?

A: In the 1690s the Chinese mixed together a tasty concoction of pickled fish and spices and called it ke-tsiap. By the early 1700s, the table sauce had made it to Malaysia, where it was discovered by British explorers, and by 1740, it had become an English staple. Fifty years later, North Americans added tomatoes to the Chinese recipe, and ketchup as we now know it had arrived. Tomatoes were considered poisonous for most of the eighteenth century because they’re a close relative to the toxic belladonna and nightshade plants.

Why is a commercial record player called a “jukebox”?

Published

on June 9, 2008

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Photo by modomatic

Jukeboxes first appeared in restaurants and bars in the late 1930s. Juke is an African word meaning “to make wicked mischief” and came directly from American slaves, who described the illegal brothels or bootlegger shacks where they could occasionally escape their cruel lives with a jar of moonshine as “juke-joints.” Juke had an exotic and forbidden appeal, which inspired the name jukebox.

Why do Conservatives call Liberals “bleeding hearts”?

Published

on June 9, 2008

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The ultra-conservative view of those who propose extending the welfare state is that they are “bleeding hearts.” That expression entered politics in the 1930s and by the 1990s “my heart bleeds for you” had become a general put-down. It comes from the Middle Ages, when a social conscious group known as the Order of the Bleeding Heart was formed to honour the Virgin Mary, whose “heart was pierced with many sorrows.”

Images from Mike Licht, NotionCapital.com

From the Archive: Spilling the Beans

Published

on June 4, 2008

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Ever wonder about the political issues that seem to be on the front page of the news almost everyday? Let’s dive into the realm of politics and take a look at some history.

Q: Why when someone tells a secret do we say they’ve “spilled the beans”?

A: As a system of voting, the ancient Greeks placed beans in a jar. These small beans or balls were called “ballota”, which gives us the word ballot. A white bean was a “yes” and a brown bean was a “no.” The beans were then counted in secret so the candidates wouldn’t know who voted for or against them. If the container was knocked over, and the beans were spilled, the secret was out of the jar.

Not yet spilled beans? Photograph by al-hayat

Why do Humans Kiss?

Published

on May 30, 2008

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The average person spends two weeks kissing during his or her lifetime. The romantic or erotic kiss is a sensual genetic memory search for compatibility, whether on the lips or elsewhere, and is revealed to the brain through smell and taste. Kissing originated from prehistoric mothers breast-feeding, then chewing and pushing food into their infants’ mouths with their tongues. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) described the kiss as “an unconscious repetition of infantile delight in feeding.”

Photograph by David Chief

Smell is the primary ingredient of the kissing ritual for some cultures, such as the Inuit, who believe that exhaled breath reveals a person’s soul. Exchanging breath in this sense is a spiritual union. This concept has parallel in Christian dogma (Genesis 2:7), which reveals that God infused the spirit of life into his creatures by breathing into them.

[Excerpt taken from Now You Know - The Big Book of Answers by Doug Lennox]

From the Archive: Eeney, meeney, miney, moe

Published

on May 28, 2008