Fire and Knowledge

I love this idea:

1) Get yourself some extremely authentic period clothing. Between 1920′s and 1950′s should work. Match haircut to outfit.

2) Familiarize yourself with appropriate, out of date slang, accents, voice cadence. Authenticity will be key, so don’t force it. A few weeks of practice should do.

3) Finding the right spot (crucial!) This will not work in a strip mall. You should find an out of the way place (e.g. a field, surrounded by woods,) but close enough to civilization so as not to back yourself into a corner. There should be some very light foot traffic, such as is found in a neighborhood park or local fishing hole.

4) This next part will take some elbow grease. Your goal is to burn a perfect circle into the earth. This will be achieved not with fire, but with corrosive chemicals. I’m guessing that industrial weed-killer, a layer of charcoal dust, and dry ice spread out sparingly will do the trick. Note: Bottom of pantlegs should be pre-burned at home, but left almost entirely intact.

5) Now you’re ready for your moment in the sun. You should be standing at least 30 feet from the circle. It is important that the passerby ‘discover’ the slightly smoking circle on their own. As the person/people approach, you say nothing, but implore for help through your eyes. Too much desperation will scare them off, while a ‘cool as a cucumber’ act will destroy all you hope to achieve. Your goal here should be ‘contained panic.’

6) Now is the time to speak, “Please…excu..please! What day is today?” Regardless of their answer, back away just a hair and let your eyes go a bit wider. “Um,…” now swallow, “Um,..the year (quietly)… what year is it?” The person/people will in all probability smile at such a question and perhaps exhibit signs of being prepared to walk away. This must not happen. Do not break eye-contact. If anything, choose this moment to lean back in slightly. Nailing your expression at this moment is what this entire thing has been about. Get this right and you’re golden. “…please…”

7) At this point, they should tell you the current year. Upon hearing their response, pause a full three beats. Whether you go with a look of light-headedness and shock or something a little more Mona Lisa smile, is up to you. Personally, I think it depends on the number of passers-by. Only one, and you might want to go the overwhelmed, ‘accepting of your situation’ route, but with a larger audience, you should probably continue with the fish out of water act.Either way, you must get out of there immediately after that third beat. Do a quick, clumsy 180-degree gaze around you and begin walking in a random direction. Important: Do give some sort of reflexive half-wave of goodbye/thanks- you’re a time-traveler, not an asshole.

tl;dr – Dress up like an old timey-person, burn a circle in the ground and pretend you’re a time traveler.

Can you imagine this? I wish it would have happened just for the entertainment factor:

According to Peter Jackson, who knows a little something about making Lord of the Rings movies, John Lennon was the Beatle most keen on LOTR back in the ’60s — and he wanted to play Gollum, while Paul McCartney would play Frodo, Ringo Starr would take on Sam and George Harrison would beard it up for Gandalf. And he approached a pre-2001 Stanley Kubrick to direct.

(via)

The Berners Street Hoax:

On 27 November [of 1810], at five o’clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of 54 Berners Street, the home of Mrs Tottenham. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required, and the disappointed tradesman went on his way. A few moments later another sweep presented himself at the door, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with “six stout men bearing an organ”. Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with disgruntled tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.

Hook had made a gentleman’s wager with his friend Samuel Beazley that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about address in a week. To achieve his goal he had sent out 4,000 letters purporting to be Mrs Tottenham, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance. Hook had stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners Street, and he and his friend had spent an amusing day watching the chaos unfold.

A haunting quote:

Our new government is founded upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.

—Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America

Communism was a great system for making people equally poor.

—Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat (2005), p. 49.

Perhaps the most famous inflation of the twentieth century occurred in Germany during the 1920s, when 40 marks were worth one dollar in July 1920 but it took more than 4 trillion marks to be worth one dollar by November 1923. People discovered that their life’s savings were not enough to buy a pack of cigarettes.

The German government had, in effect, stolen virtually everything they owned by the simple process of keeping more than 1,700 printing presses running day and night, printing money. Some have blamed the economic chaos and bitter disillusionment of this era for setting the stage of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

—Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (3rd Edition, Basic Books, 2007), p. 350.

I learned recently that in 1951 – 1963, the top tax bracket was 91% (and 92% for two years)! That means every $1.00 over $400,000 was reduced to $.09!

So an additional $200,000 of income over $400,000 would be reduced to a measly $18,000.

It seems like that would be a very big incentive not to make money.

Update: As Les points out in the comments, this was a marginal tax bracket, so only the income over a certain level was taxed at that rate. I’ve changed the post to reflect this.

Here’s an animated map of imperial history in the Middle East: