The door at the front of Oxnard, CA Meeting House for Societies is not an entry. Nor is it an exit. Thus locks are unnecessary and the hinges are like new even though they are old.
The second biggest Social Meeting Hall of Blawnox, PA, is located just outside the city limits, right next to Mama Purley’s House of French Fries: it’s the United Universal Royal Order of the Pround and Sovereign Emu. Members only.
Not in play, but Prof. Pepperwinkle’s contribution made me immediately think of this:
“The significant owl hoots in the night.”
“Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men.”
“Hooray, hooray for the spinster’s sister’s daughter.”
“To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height.”
“Yet verily, the rose is within the thorn.”
“The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy.”
“What?”
“The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy.”
“Are you sure the ill-built tower doesn’t tremble mightily at a butterfly’s passage?”
“Nope. Bean soup it is. I’m sorry.”
“What about the caged whale?”
“What about it?”
“It should know nothing of the mighty deeps, if you must know.”
“Oh, the caged whale . You want the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night. Three doors down.”
You can’t go wrong with Terry Pratchett.
-“BB”-
Limu Emu, the spokes-bird in Liberty Mutual Insurance’s television ads, is portrayed by Orson Bean. Mr. Bean, who is well-known for his dedication to method acting, had extensive plastic surgery done on his neck and legs in order to fit into the Limu costume.
Due to Mr. Bean’s untimely demise, the originally-planned speaking parts for Limu were cancelled. Orson’s Beanery, a restaurant in downtown Blawnox, was recently shuttered. But the United Universal Royal Order of the Proud and Sovereign Emu still holds an annual baked-bean dinner on the anniversary of his birth. Residents of Blawnox are advised to stay at home that day because of the clouds of flatulence emerging from the meeting hall.
Emu flatulence is said to smell like fresh-baked ginger snaps.
Ginger Snaps were once used as bait on bear traps in Canada.
Only a few people have ever seen the Gilligan’s Island episode where Ginger snaps and murders the remaining castaways (except for Mary Ann). Even though it turned out to be a dream sequence, Sherwood Schwartz felt it was too intense for inclusion in the syndication package.
Actually, Agatha Christie based her best-selling novel And Then There Were None on that disquiting episode of Gilligan’s Island. However it is the episode Not Guilty that is generally considered the inspiration for much of the modern detective mystery genre.
[Well played, Biotop, truly!]
After she learned of her husband’s infidelity, Agatha Christie snapped and began murdering people, one a month, and then leaving clues that she had done it in her forthcoming books. Most of her victims were Belgians who happened to be close at hand and who reminded her of Poirot.
Agatha Christie’s books have been translated into more languages than there are languages.
The translation of The Mousetrap into the Fanini dialect of Baldavian is particularly distressing. Since there is no word for either “death” or “detective”, the insertion of the word “Pnagne” for both is inadequate, in as much as it usually means “ketchup”.
Confusingly for Fanini speakers, Ketchup on the Orient Express was Christies only foray into food criticism.
Ketchup on the Orient Express is also the name of a gastronomical history book, written by Carson Baked-Bean (uncle of actor Orson Bean), about how the Asian sauce ketjap was first introduced in Europe, after being transported there by rail.
Ketchup on the Orient Express is also the title of a third book. It’s a lightweight book of poetry by Henry Kissinger, mostly expressing the wish for more naked women to come and dance in his house.
Murder on the Orient Express is one of several Christie books to be translated for dolphins by cetologists working with the Christie estate. Mysteries have proven to be quite popular with sea creatures, though with their advanced intelligence (the dolphin’s) researchers believe the fish usually have figured out the guilty party before the denouement.
The denouement was invented by the French author Jean-Pierre Alphonse de Nouement in the early 1640s.
His descendent Alfred E. Nouement lived in Bleunochs in Alsace, but with the outbreak of WW I he moved to America and changed his last name to Newman. The rest is of course history.
Alfred E. (MAD Magazine) Newman is the bastard son of Alfred Newman – film composer and head of the Newman Hollywood Composers Dynasty. Having no musical talent, Alfred E. was banished from Hollywood and ended up in the humor mag biz, occasionally creeping back into the film industry (“Up The Academy”) before being tossed out again. His distant cousin Paul escaped a similar fate by virtue of his beautiful, blue eyes. The mail carrier is never mentioned in family circles.