Thursday Things: Now With Rabbits Edition
16 April 2020. Vol 2 No 16. By Dan McGirt. #36
Welcome to Thursday Things! I believe we’ve all got more than enough virus coverage and commentary, so this week we’re going to move on to other interesting things. Like medieval rabbits putting a dog on trial:
Rabbits conduct a criminal trial of a dog, the Smithfield Decretals, France, S. and London; 1275-1315, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 63r (British Library)
Did this really happen? Who knows? The Middle Ages were a strange time. Maybe there really were rabbit lawyer and rabbit police who arrested dogs. See? History can be fascinating.
Meanwhile, in the present day, there is a fascinating sub-culture of “Cannonball Run” auto enthusiasts who compete to break the record for a cross-country drive from New York to LA (or maybe vice versa). To be clear — this is a completely illegal competition. The drivers use GPS, radar detectors and jammers, extra fuel tanks, and every other trick they can think of to evade the police and drive across America at a high rate of speed. There are few rules and no real sanctioning body. Recently a team took advantage of the significantly lighter traffic during our national lockdown to set a new record. You can debate whether it “counts” but nevertheless, they did it.
Only a few months have passed since we reported that the New York-to-Los Angeles Cannonball record was broken. It's allegedly been broken again. The 26 hour, 38 minute time—which beats the record set in November by more than 45 minutes—appears to be legitimate, according to Ed Bolian, a Cannonball insider and driver who set his own 28 hour, 50 minute record in 2013. Alex Roy, who set the first modern NYC-to-LA record in 2006, also said the new claim is credible based on his analysis of multiple sources.
All we know about this new set of scofflaws is that there were three, maybe four of them, and that they were driving a white 2019 Audi A8 sedan with a pair of red plastic marine fuel tanks ratchet-strapped into its trunk. They started at the Red Ball Garage in New York City at 11:15 pm on April 4, and ended less than 27 hours later at the Portofino Hotel & Marina in Redondo Beach, California, the traditional start and end points of a Cannonball attempt.
Things I would be spending money on if I were a billionaire: “Over 40,000 DC Comics are going under the hammer as Sotheby's has announced plans to auction off one of the few comprehensive collections of DC's entire canon in existence. The epic sale of the Ian Levine Collection, which will be sold privately as a single lot, kicked off today at Sothebys.com. The Collection contains every comic book DC ever published, dating from the company's humble start in1935 with New Fun #1, all the way to 2014.”
How Coffee Became a Modern Necessity Some interesting coffee history.
Coffee is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how unusual it is.
Its defining, namesake ingredient, caffeine, is not only the world’s most popular mind-altering drug—used regularly by perhaps 90% of the planet—but also, as Michael Pollan has noted, the only one we routinely serve to children. This nearly universal acceptance is all the more striking considering that, for much of its 500-year history, coffee drinking was viewed with confusion, suspicion and disgust.
What changed? Once used to fuel extraordinary acts of worship and creativity, coffee has become a necessity we rely on to meet the everyday demands of modern capitalism.
Curious about those Medieval rabbits? I assume that as a cultured and refined Happy Subscriber to Thursday Things you’re a regular reader of the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts blog. But if not, head over and see more beautiful and bizarre illuminated illustrations of medieval rabbits.
Also from the British Library — online digitized antique globes that you can zoom in on, spin, and study to your heart’s content. I love maps and globes!
The gyms are all closed — but it’s fun to stay at the YMCA!
Thank you for reading Thursday Things! See you next Thursday.