The Ace of Spades

No one is exactly sure when people began using playing cards—it was probably in China somewhere between 1000 and 1100 years ago.  There are references to a “leaf game” that used pieces of paper with block printing stamped on them, but whether it was a true card game or the pieces were used in a board game is unknown.   

About a century later, there are references to printed pieces of paper being used in a drinking game.  This is absolute proof that—against all logic—the college fraternity was invented almost a century before the first college was founded in Bologna, Italy in 1088. 

Those first playing cards were fashioned after Chinese paper money and the values and types of currency may be the origin of the suits and values of today’s playing cards.  By  the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a trick-taking game called Madiao was being played with a deck of 38 cards that had four suits (and the local authorities were already worried about the use of cards in gambling).

Playing cards made their way across Asia into Europe, probably through Muslim-occupied Spain.  By last decades of the 14th Century, there were two fairly common traits about the cards.  First, the cards had four suits, each with 10 numbered “pip” cards and 2 or 3 “court” cards, depicting royalty.  Second, small-minded religious leaders (who were terrified that somebody, somewhere was enjoying himself) probably urged civil authorities to ban their use.

The four suits had a lot of variations depending on the country, but the most common early suits were cups, coins, polo sticks, and swords.  Over time the cups and coins were replaced with hearts and diamonds while swords slowly changed into spades.  Since polo sticks were not common in early Europe, they changed into war clubs that over time became the symbol of clubs that we use today.  

By the end of the 19th Century, the 52-card deck (or French Deck) featured four suits of 13 cards each, with reversible court cards, four Aces, two Jokers (an American invention that originally featured a dog in a doghouse, see right) that came in a “tuck box” sealed with a stamp.  By 1937, the boxes were wrapped in cellophane to prevent tampering.

Which brings us finally to the subject of aces.  (Forgive me, it is hard for me to get directly to a subject, I feel compelled to give the backstory of everything before I start.)

The word ‘ace’ comes from the latin “as”, the name for the smallest Roman coin, one-tenth of a denari.  In France, this became the name for the lowest possible roll of a die.  As the word traveled into England, it was pronounced “ace” and since the lowest roll of a die was losing in most dice games, it was associated with bad luck.  Evidently, the Ace of Spades was destined to be associated with bad luck even before it existed.

When playing cards arrived, the cards with a single pip were called aces, and since in most of the early card games, the ace was the lowest possible card, it was still associated with losing or bad luck.  It was not until trump-taking card games became popular, early in the 19th century, that the rank of the ace climbed higher than the king.  

In 17th-century Britain, the government had a bright idea: tax playing cards!  And how would you prove you had paid?  Simple: the Ace of Spades would be stamped with an official tax mark.  No tax, no ace — and no ace, no legal deck.  Over time, the Ace of Spades grew fancier and fancier, loaded with coats of arms, crowns, and enough scrollwork to make a medieval scribe blush.  The card became so important that forging it could even get you the death penalty.  Yes:  forging the Ace of spades to avoid a very small tax could literally cost you your head.  Cue the spooky music.

Naturally, with stakes that high, people started looking at the Ace of Spades a little differently.  It wasn’t just another card — it was the grim-faced tax enforcer of the deck, the brooding sheriff among cheerful hearts and dashing diamonds.  Play a seven of clubs and everyone’s smiling, but slap down an Ace of Spades and you could practically hear a ghostly breeze.

Fast forward again, this time to the battlefields of the 20th century.  Soldiers — always traditionally fond of superstition — took one look at that dark, ornate Ace and said, "Yep, that’s our card."  It appeared on fighter planes, helmets, and, most famously, scattered over battlefields during the Vietnam War by the US soldiers. Some troops even requested crates filled only with Aces of Spades to use as psychological warfare, leaving them on enemy bodies like grim calling cards. (Never mind that the Vietnamese didn’t actually associate the card with death — it’s the thought that counts, right?)

Over the years, the Ace of Spades cemented its reputation: mysterious, dangerous, fatalistic, and a little bit theatrical. Musicians, motorcyclists, and magicians adopted it. It found its way onto leather jackets, album covers, and more tattoos than we can count. Somehow, what began as a coin for a loaf of bread became a universal symbol of bad omens and rock-and-roll rebellion.

Today, when you see that bold black spade staring up from the table, it’s hard not to feel a tiny shiver — and maybe a chuckle. After all, it’s just an overworked playing card that got wrapped up in taxes, war, and a dash of good old human drama.

So next time you draw the Ace of Spades, tip your hat to the centuries of gamblers, tax collectors, soldiers, and rock stars who made it the legendary “death card” — and then go ahead and win the hand anyway.

Who Pays Tariffs?

One of the first things you learn as a student majoring in Economics is that the average politician could not pass the midterm in any of your freshman classes.  The realization is that most of the members of Congress have almost no understanding of the basic facts about our economy is rather frightening.

Luckily, most of the members of Congress have very little to do with drafting legislation:  they are far too busy fundraising and searching for the next camera.  Most legislation is actually written by Iron Triangles, cooperative groups that—though they rarely make the news—are the real power in Washington.

These triangles have three parts:  Congressional Committees are the members of Congress (especially subcommittees) who write laws and control agency funding. They want expertise, support, and campaign donations.  Bureaucratic Agencies are the government departments (like the EPA, FDA, or Department of Defense) that implement laws.  They need budgets and legislative authority to do their jobs.  Special Interest Groups include corporations, lobbyists, unions, and professional associations.  They want favorable policies or regulations, and they offer expertise, lobbying, political support and (most important) the campaign funds needed to keep the members of Congress from running off in search of a press conference.

Here's how it works:  Interest groups draft or heavily influence legislation.  Bureaucrats shape the policy in regulations or provide technical language.  Congressional committees then adopt it (usually word-for-word, because that saves time and pleases donors).  These triangles become self-reinforcing loops, as Interest groups support Congress, which in turn funds the agencies, who enforce the rules favoring the special interest groups.

You’ll notice that nowhere in the above have I mentioned the constituents—the people like you and me—who pay taxes and naively think our votes and opinions matter.  Oh well, I’ll play along.  The hot topic on the news right now is tariffs and who pays them, and it won’t surprise you when I tell you the news channels aren’t telling you the whole story.  News reporters keep you interested by relying on the fallacy of a binary choice—difficult problems rarely only have two options.

However, before we can talk about tariffs, we have to talk about one more variable factor: price elasticity of demand.  I promise the lecture will be painless.  Mostly.

Elasticity of demand, as it refers to price, is a fancy way of asking: “How much do people freak out when prices change?”  Imagine you’re shopping for chocolate.  If the price doubles and you say, “No thanks!” and walk away, your demand is elastic — it stretches and changes a lot when price changes.  But if it’s coffee and you must have it, no matter the cost, then your demand is inelastic — it barely budges.

Examples of inelastic demand products include insulin, cigarettes, sugar, and gasoline.  No matter what the price is, people will come up with the money and pay for goods that they “have to have”.

Economists measure this using a number. If the price goes up 10% and your quantity demanded drops by more than 10%, that’s elastic.  If it drops by less than 10%, it’s inelastic.  A perfectly elastic demand would mean nobody buys it at all if the price rises even a little.  A perfectly inelastic demand?  People buy the same amount no matter what it costs.

Why does demand elasticity matter? It tells businesses how much they can raise prices without losing customers.  It tells governments who really pays when they add taxes—think tariffs.  And it tells you whether you can really justify that $12 latte.

Demand elasticity is how sensitive people are to a price change.  If a small price increase makes you stop buying something, your demand is elastic.  If you’ll keep buying no matter what (like gas or insulin), your demand is inelastic.  Think of it as the “ouch” factor — how much a price hike hurts your wallet and affects your willingness to pay.  Elasticity depends on things like availability of substitutes, on whether the item is a necessity, and on how much of your budget it takes.  So, demand elasticity is just how much price changes mess up your next trip to the grocery store.

A great example of an iron triangle and price elasticity of demand working together is the story of Epipens, the autoinjectors of epinephrine for people with serious allergies.  In 2007, Mylan bought the exclusive marketing rights for the Epipen from Merck, then launched an expensive lobbying campaign for legislation requiring schools to stock epinephrine auto-injectors, effectively increasing demand for their product.  Additionally, Mylan raised the price of a two-pack of EpiPens from about $100 in 2007 to over $600 by 2016, despite the actual cost of epinephrine being around $1 per dose.  That the president of Mylan was the daughter of a U.S. senator was not a coincidence. 

So what does elasticity have to do with tariffs?

Tariffs are taxes on imports, but who bears the burden?—The foreign producer or the domestic consumer?  The answer depends on relative price elasticities of demand.  If demand is inelastic, consumers are less sensitive to a price increase and they will pay most of the tariff.  If demand is inelastic and the foreign country can’t find a different place to sell the higher-priced goods, then producers will bear more of the tariff to keep the customers buying.

Let’s put this simply:  If our government puts tariffs on products we must have (and there are no other sources for them), then we, the consumers, will pay the tariffs.  On the other hand, if tariffs are placed on consumer goods that we don’t really need (or there are other goods we can buy instead), then the foreign country will have no choice but to drop the price, thus effectively paying the tariff, in order to keep us buying the product.

I could explain the two graphs, but I think you get the idea.  I’ll leave you with three takeaways:

• If a political party says that tariffs are paid only by the manufacturing company, it is wrong and should probably shut up and sit down.
• If a political party says that tariffs are paid only by the consumer, it is wrong and should probably shut up and sit down.
• Regardless of who ends up paying the tariffs, fewer goods will be sold.  (C’mon!  Look at the graphs!). There will be shortages.  It is possible that these shortages will spur domestic production.

Okay, now that you know more about tariffs, go ahead and write to your elected representatives.  If you put a check in the envelope, it might even get read...by someone.

The Hunt for Yellow

For centuries, artists sought a yellow pigment that could capture the richness of sunlight, the warmth of skin tones, and the golden glow of sacred imagery—without turning poisonous, slowly fading into a grayish brown, or muddying the canvas.  The problem was simple: yellow was everywhere in nature, but hard to trap in paint.  A beautiful yellow pigment could be made from the mineral orpiment, but came with a deadly side effect—it was laced with arsenic.  Others, like lead-tin yellow and Naples yellow, were more stable but equally toxic.  Earthy yellows, such as ochre, were safe, but far too dull to capture vibrant light or glistening fabrics.

What artists craved was a pigment that was both brilliant and reliable—something that would layer beautifully in glazes, maintain its color over time, and not kill the painter in the process.  This desire only intensified during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when oil painting flourished, and the play of light became central to artistic technique.  Painters needed a yellow that could hold its own against ultramarine skies, deep crimson robes, and luminous flesh tones.  

Until the 20th century, artists often worked barehanded, ate or smoked in studios, and used solvents in poorly ventilated rooms, thus, unknowingly exposing themselves to a wide variety of poisons.  Caravaggio, Francisco Goya, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edvard Munch, and countless other artists suffered ill health because of exposure to such toxic chemicals as lead, mercury, and arsenic.  Since the pigments were used in dyes for everything from clothing to food, consumers also suffered.  An arsenic-laced green wallpaper may well have even led to the death of Napoleon.  (No, I don’t mention Napoleon in every blog.  I counted and he is only mentioned in 81 of the 825 posts.  So far.)

By the end of the Renaissance, there were a few yellow pigments available but all were either highly toxic or the pigments slowly changed colors and turned dark over time.  

Into this golden gap entered India Yellow—a mysterious, glowing pigment that promised just enough brilliance, transparency, and permanence to feel like an answer to centuries of frustration.  The pigment could be easily mixed with linseed oil to produce a smooth oil paint, with gum arabic to make a transparent watercolor, or with an egg yolk to produce a fast-drying and durable tempera paint.  Best of all, the pigment was non-toxic.

During the nineteenth century, oil painting became increasingly popular as prepared oil paints were available in tubes.  Artists such as J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, and John Singer Sargent all used India Yellow in their paintings and Vincent van Gogh used India Yellow in The Starry Night.

India Yellow was a little more expensive than other yellow pigments, and slowly, there surfaced rumors that the method of production was not ethical.  There were occasional news stories that said the process of gathering the pigment was cruel to cows.  Finally, in 1883, T.N. Mukharji was commissioned by the British government to investigate the authenticity of the India Yellow production methods.

Mukharji reported that local producers fed cows exclusively on mango leaves, resulting in a distinctive yellow urine.  This urine was collected, concentrated, and dried into foul-smelling yellow balls known as "purree," which were then exported as pigment.  He noted the poor health of the cows subjected to this diet, since mango leaves are slightly toxic.

India Yellow was not the only ethically challenged pigment being sold at the time.  Artists could also buy tubes of Egyptian Brown, a pigment made from grinding up the mummies of both humans and animals removed from Egyptian tombs.  Several companies sold tubes labeled as “Genuine Mummy.”  Or you could purchase a tube of Tyrian Purple, a rich, beautiful pigment whose production process required a quarter of a million sea snails to produce an ounce of pigment.

Happily (at least for the cows), when this report was published in English newspapers, popular sentiment grew against the use of such pigments.  Within a few years, most companies no longer produced either Egyptian Brown or India Yellow.  (Supposedly, Winsor & Newton buried its last stock mummy in the courtyard of its London offices.). India Yellow was replaced by new pigments such as cadmium yellow.  Though some companies still produce paints labeled India Yellow, the modern synthesized pigments have nothing to do with either cows or mangos.  

If you are interested, you can still buy Tyrian Purple that is made by the traditional method.  A German company, Kremer Pigments, will sell you an ounce of the pigment for about $125,000, roughly 55 times more expensive than gold.

Self-Delusion

A couple of decades ago, I convinced the History Department at Enema U to send a survey to all of our students asking what the department was doing right, what it was doing wrong, what courses they wished we would offer, and in general what we could do to improve.  Students were generally enthusiastic, and we got almost a thousand responses with many students writing fairly long essays on their experiences.  

Some of the comments by students were predictable.  Students generally hate every book they are assigned to read, regardless of the content.  If Harry Potter was assigned reading, J. K. Rowling would still be unemployed and would never have bothered to write a sequel.  Most of the student responses were informative, a few even offered valuable insight into our program.  A few responses were not quite so kind.

While the students’ reactions were informative, the reactions of my colleagues reading those responses were fascinating.  Without fail, every member of the faculty believed the student responses concerning them was positive.  Indeed, most of the faculty had received generally good responses, but for a few professors…. Well, one professor received a less that helpful suggestion: “Die Bitch, Die!”  Another professor was absolutely positive that the survey had been personally positive, somehow ignoring that not a single response had mentioned the professor by name nor any of the courses taught by the professor.

Still, every single member of the department believed the survey supported their teaching.  This type of self-delusion has a name: Confirmation Bias.  People selectively pay attention to information that supports their existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret information that contradicts them.  The professors were unconsciously looking for evidence confirming that they were effective or valued.  They did this to preserve self-esteem or avoid cognitive dissonance (the psychological discomfort from conflicting information).  We all do this to some extent to maintain a positive, coherent self-image.

There are countless real world (nothing in academia is real) examples.  Confirmation bias is why newspapers, the three or four real newspapers still publishing, still print horoscopes in the 21st Century.  Readers interpret generalized predictions about personality traits as uniquely tailored to themselves believing vague descriptions precisely describe their personal traits.

Confirmation bias is why employee performance evaluations are generally a waste of time.  Employees usually interpret all but the most strongly written negative feedback as highly positive, believing they are indispensable, even if the review is average or slightly negative.

This is also why professional sports announcer on television can comment on a game and make fans of both teams happy.  The announcers have learned that the fans interpret neutral statements as supportive of their team, believing the announcers favor them or their favorite players.

Ever notice that television commercials trying to sell you medications never specifically describe the diseases they treat?  Consumers interpret general product claims as uniquely relevant to their needs, believing products are specifically beneficial or targeted to them personally.

I’ll give you another personal example.  A few years ago, I read The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko.  The book was first published in 1996 and is based on extensive research into the habits and behaviors of wealthy Americans.  The book challenges popular assumptions about wealth, showing that many millionaires live modestly, save diligently, and avoid flashy spending.  The neighbors of most millionaires literally have no idea of the prosperity of the people living next door.

I really enjoyed the book and recommended it to several friends.  Without exception, everyone I knew who read the book commented on how much their own lifestyle matched the lives of these closet millionaires.  The book gave dozens of examples, so everyone who read it could find at least one example that matched their lifestyle.  One friend, whose extravagant spending habits all but guarantee he will still be working long after he starts receiving Social Security, knew the book was about him because, just like the average millionaire, he drove a Ford pickup.  

This is a perfect example of the type of confirmation bias called the Barnum Effect.  The term comes from P. T. Barnum, the showman who supposedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”  Psychologist Bertram Forer demonstrated it in a 1949 study where he gave students identical personality descriptions and told them they were based on a personal test—the students rated the descriptions as highly accurate.

The Millionaire Next Door hits this sweet spot because it describes frugal, hard-working people who quietly accumulate wealth—an identity many people want to claim, whether or not it’s entirely true.  So, they unconsciously see themselves in it.

The Barnum Effect is why motivation seminars and self-help books are so popular.  “You’re the type of person who’s destined for greatness but just hasn’t found your path yet.”

I’ve learned a lot about confirmation bias this week.  Last week, I wrote what I thought was satire, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I suggested that the reader could find inner peace and joy if he would just adopt an extreme political position and eagerly hate anyone opposed to his opinions.  Free from the onerous tasks of using reason or conducting research, anyone could find instant comfort if they just let MSNBC or FoxNews do all their thinking.  This was supposed to be satire.

The blog post went viral almost immediately.  In less than a week it was read thousands and thousands of times.  It has been shared repeatedly on Facebook, and garnered hundreds of “likes” on dozens of sites.

So what am I bitching about?  Almost all of those Facebook sites where that attempt at satire has been posted are extreme partisan sites, both Republican and Democrat.  It seems that each of the people posting that blog believe that I was referring to “the other guy.”

Now, for the worst self-delusion of all.  When I wrote last week’s blog post, I thought I was, in an admittedly microscopic way, helping to lessen the extreme partisan hatred.  Instead, it appears that I was just fueling the fires of hatred by writing a how to manual of bigotry.

The Benefits of Extremism

In these modern times, there is a grave misunderstanding circulating among reasonable people: the quaint belief that moderation, compromise, and balanced thought hold intrinsic value.  We are far past the time when we should have dispensed with such outdated notions.  Extremism in political beliefs, I propose, is not merely advantageous—it is the pinnacle of human intellectual and social evolution.

Never let logic, reason, common sense, or even reasonable doubt come between you and your cherished core beliefs—particularly those positions that you were born into such as religion or political party.   Take pride in the fact that you have always voted for the same political party, secure in the knowledge that despite the constant shifting of political party platforms or that politicians from both parties have been sentenced to jail, never once was the opposing candidate the correct choice.  Your tribe/clan/gang’s party has always been better than the other political party, chiefly because it has you as a member.  Ignore the troublesome fact that when a political party no longer has to earn your vote, you no longer have a vote. 

First, let's discuss simplicity.  Life is inherently complex and stressful.  Holding moderate, balanced beliefs necessitates tedious contemplation, constant reading, exhausting discussions, and—worst of all—the willingness to admit you might be wrong.  Conversely, adopting an extreme political belief system instantly removes these cumbersome burdens. Why grapple with nuance and complexity when you can, instead, rely on unshakable certainty?  Indeed, life is much simpler when your worldview consists entirely of absolutes.

Imagine the hours saved at social gatherings.  Without the needless clutter of nuance, you can effortlessly categorize all of your friends and closest family members as either staunch allies or irredeemable enemies.  Conversations become quicker, gatherings become shorter, and your social circle becomes refreshingly predictable.  Who wants relationships complicated by empathy and understanding when you can be safely ensconced in a political echo chamber? Certainly not the busy extremist!

Next, there's the benefit of clarity. Holding extreme beliefs provides unparalleled clarity of purpose.  There's never a moment of indecision, as your path forward is always crystal clear:  whatever your chosen ideological doctrine mandates.  When confronted with an unfamiliar or uncomfortable situation, there's no need for analysis or deliberation.  Simply consult your ideological handbook (real or imagined) and move confidently forward, armed with moral superiority and absolute assurance.

Economically, extremism offers surprising financial benefits.  Consider the cost savings associated with adopting one-dimensional (Or, these days, monochromatic: Red or Blue…or, maybe…Green?) ideologies.  No longer do you need to subscribe to multiple news outlets or waste money on diverse educational resources.  Your consumption of information can comfortably shrink to just one consistently reliable source that endlessly echoes your existing beliefs perfectly.  Think of the reduced expenses on books, magazines, and subscribing to multiple television channels.  One pamphlet or perhaps a single, trusted Facebook group, is all you need to stay blissfully informed.

Let's not forget the physical and psychological health advantages of extremist thinking.  Moderation and open-mindedness lead to incessant stress and anxiety—and trust me, stress leads to a heart attack.   The moderates endlessly worry about fairness, moral consistency, and the feelings of others—such exhausting burdens. By embracing extreme views, you can free yourself from the anxiety of moral ambiguity, releasing a torrent of delightful endorphins as you confidently judge the entirety of humanity from your lofty ideological perch.  Nothing is as intensely satisfying as virtue signaling for the one true cause.

Extremism also enhances community cohesion.  Shared hatred or disdain for those who hold opposing views provides a powerful bonding experience.  Social interactions become effortlessly streamlined as you quickly identify those who share your inflexible viewpoints, fostering friendships bound by mutual intolerance.  The stronger your shared opposition to "the other," the closer your bonds become.  After all, nothing builds camaraderie quite like collective disdain.  Depending on your choice of the one real truth, you automatically have a favorite television news show, a preselected set of enemies, and already decided-upon candidates to vote for in all future elections.  You even have a pre-approved set of epithets to call those with different opinions.  Fascist, looney lefty, Nazi, Socialist—these are just a few of the ample stock of ready-to-use insults for every occasion.  Remember, every policy of your opponent is wrong and must be resisted, even if it seems to be working.

Moreover, adopting extreme political beliefs vastly simplifies your digital life.  Algorithms across all social media platforms are explicitly designed to reward extreme positions with increased visibility.  Moderates languish unseen, while you, the extremist, will find your digital profile skyrocketing, earning you likes, shares, and retweets from an ever-growing circle of similarly morally gifted individuals.  Why toil in online obscurity when you could be a viral sensation, heroically leading the charge against nuance and reason?

Consider, too, the wonderful world of fashion that extremism unlocks.  No longer will you be subjected to the agony of deciding between shades of gray.  Your attire can now boldly proclaim your ideological allegiance with unambiguous clarity.  T-shirts, hats, badges, and banners emblazoned with catchy slogans replace bland, politically neutral attire.  Such decisive fashion statements allow you to effortlessly signal your moral and intellectual superiority in public spaces.  (After all, anyone with a belief system too long to fit on a bumper sticker is obviously a degenerate.)

Finally, let us acknowledge the existential reassurance extremism provides.  Doubt is a draining and often painful experience.  Why grapple with existential dread when an extreme ideology promises clear, unequivocal answers to all of life's deepest questions?  Certainty is bliss, and extremism offers ample supplies.  Indeed, there's profound comfort in knowing exactly whom to blame for all societal ills.  Whether your chosen scapegoat is an opposing political party, a social group, or perhaps even an abstract concept like globalization, extremism provides the simple solace of having an easily identifiable villain.

In conclusion, the benefits of extreme political beliefs are manifold.  They liberate you from burdensome thought, simplify your social and digital interactions, provide economic efficiencies, enhance your personal sense of identity, and create unbreakable bonds based on mutual disdain.  Truly, moderation is an overrated, exhausting, and ultimately futile pursuit.  Embrace extremism and enjoy the blissful simplicity it provides—you'll never have to think critically again.

Most importantly, you already know that everything above is true since I was obviously talking about the nuts in the other political party.  So, embrace the farthest reaches of the political spectrum.  Remember, the only thing found in the middle of the road is roadkill. 

A Wogdon Affair

Britbox is rerunning the old Lovejoy series, and I’m hooked.  If you have never watched the show—and I recommend that you do—the series is about an antiques dealer in England who possesses a special gift, he is a “divvy” a person who somehow just knows when he is standing next to a fake work of art.  I admit to being addicted to the series, despite its being more than thirty years old.

After eight seasons, the show went off the air—primarily because the public wanted grittier mystery shows, tougher protagonists, and stories with more violence and edgier dialogue.  There was no place left on the air for a show where an intelligent light-hearted hero broke the fourth wall to discuss art history.

Good movies and good television shows frequently get their start from good books and Lovejoy is no exception.  The Lovejoy series, penned by Jonathan Gash (the pseudonym of John Grant), is comprised of 24 novels, published between 1977 and 2008.  In real life Grant was a British Army doctor, who opened a private practice after he retired from the military.  Perhaps the real mystery is not a story told in one of the author’s books, but where he learned so much about antiques.

I recently tracked down a hardback copy of the first book in the series, the Judas Pair, which is about a matched pair of dueling pistols made by Durs Egg.  (No, that’s not a typo:  his name really was Durs Egg and he was arguably the finest gunsmith of his time.)  For a brief period, dueling pistols were the highest form of art in the realm of gunsmithing.  Finely crafted pairs of pistols were carefully fitted into wooden cases, along with screwdrivers, powder horns, bullet molds, and ramrods.

You didn’t have to use only dueling pistols to fight duels—there are lots of records of duels using an astonishing variety of bizarre weapons.  In 1808, two Frenchmen armed with blunderbusses fought in the sky over Paris until one combatant successfully shot down his opponent’s hot air balloon.  Otto von Bismarck suggested that duelists fight with sausages, one of which was to be laden with poison.  There are recorded duels with every imaginable edged weapon and one rather gruesome one conducted with sledgehammers.  

A friend and I once conducted a duel with roman candles at 20 feet. Although neither of us can remember quite why we fought, we did learn two valuable lessons:  The first is always to drink mescal in moderation and the second is that you really shouldn’t wear a nylon shirt while engaging in such a duel.

Another unconventional duel, equally fueled with alcohol, was Jim Bowie’s bizarre knife fight in the dark in what became known as the “Sandbar Fight.”  Bowie and his opponent were observing a duel with pistols, and when both participants fired and missed their opponents, the spectators joined in with whatever weapons were at hand.  Bowie was shot and repeatedly stabbed in the chest but still managed to kill Major Norris Wright with his knife. (Remember, Bowie survived to die at the Alamo.)

It was because of just such drunken brawls that a group of Irish aristocrats created the Code Duello in 1777.  Duels were to be serious affairs that settled matters of honor, not wild brawls in which spectators joined in the fighting.  First, there were “seconds,” (representatives of each duelist) to mediate disputes before dueling took place and whose job it was to arrange the place and time of the duel (usually in a secluded location to eliminate unwanted participants).  The challenged duelist was given the choice of weapons, and the seconds were charged with insuring that both weapons were strictly equal in all respects.

The favorite weapons were usually pistols, but this was not always the case.  In 1842, James Shields felt humiliated by a humorous letter Abraham Lincoln had written for the local newspaper.  Following the Code Duello, Shield’s second demanded satisfaction from Lincoln.  As the challenged, Lincoln chose broadswords.  The two combatants met on an island in the Mississippi River where Lincoln, nine inches taller than Shields, warmed up by cutting twigs from tree branches that no other man present could reach.   Not surprisingly, both seconds were able to settle the matter with apologies, thus eliminating the need for the duel.

This gave rise to the dueling pistols set: finely crafted weapons that were utterly reliable, and as nearly identical as possible.  These pistols were usually a smaller caliber than were normally used in warfare, since the object was to prove honor—not necessarily to kill.  Nor were the barrels to be rifled, because that would make the guns more accurate and, thus, more likely to kill.  (Some dueling pistols were smooth bore for the last two inches but rifled further down the barrel where it was difficult for the seconds to inspect.  This illegal rifling was referred to as “French rifling” in England.)

Duelists were to face each other after walking apart ten paces each, and at a given signal raise their pistols, aim, and fire at will.  If a pistol misfired or failed to fire because the hammer was not properly cocked, that was considered that opponents shot and he was not allowed to reload.  If either opponent deloped, deliberately firing his weapon into the ground or air, the other duelist was free to either delope or fire at his opponent.  This was assumed to have settled the affair, but if both parties still felt aggrieved, they were free to reload and fire.

The finest dueling pistols were made in England by such notable gunsmiths as Joseph Manton, Durs Egg, and Robert Wogdon.  The latter made so many sets that in England a duel was referred to as a “Wogdon Affair.”   The pistols at right were made by Egg for the Prince of Wales, later King George IV.  Today, they are on exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dueling in England was against the law, but rarely resulted in criminal trials.  When it was, juries rarely brought back a guilty verdict.  The last duel in England—at least the last one that was public—was fought between Lieutenant James Seton and Captain Hawkey in 1845 after Hawkey objected to Seton’s unwanted attention to Mrs. Hawkey.  In the first round of shots, Seton missed while Hawkey’s gun was only half-cocked and failed to fire.  The duel could have ended there, but Hawkey insisted on a second round of fire.  Seton missed again but Hawkey shot Seton in the abdomen—a fatal wound.  Hawkey was charged and tried, but the jury never left the jury box, taking only nine seconds to acquit the Captain.

Dueling lingered longer on the continent, and though the practice eventually died out, the idea of dueling never completely left.  At the Athens Olympics in 1908, two different dueling contests were exhibited.  In the first contest, athletes shot (unarmed) mannequins, while the second featured combatants actually shooting at each other but with wax bullets.  While modified dueling never became an Olympic event, the sport did become briefly popular.  The last public contest in the United States was held in Carnegie Hall.  

Reading the news, I sometimes wonder if we got rid of dueling too soon.  Perhaps we should bring it back, but limit participation to lawyers, gang members, and politicians.

Space Age Easter Eggs

Unfortunately, Hogwarts is not real.  But, if you look carefully, there are a few places where real magic has occurred regularly.  Menlo Park, Bell Labs, Cern, Cavendish Labs, The Skunkworks, and one of my favorites, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, regularly produce very real magic.

As the author Arthur C. Clarke famously said, Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. 

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has an interesting past, dating back to a handful of nerdy students and a friendly professor at Caltech back in the 1930’s, who were known as “the Suicide Squad” for their habit of small explosions (and the occasional fire in their dorm rooms).  These eccentric geniuses were obsessed with rocketry, which was then considered junk science.

Despite the disdain of the rest of the scientists, the Suicide Squad kept trying to perfect a liquid propellant for their rockets, (many of those fuels spontaneously combusted when mixed).  Though no one was seriously hurt, Caltech banished such experiments on campus but provided three remote acres in a place call Arroyo Seco.  Since there was nothing in that dry gully, the Suicide Squad was free to conduct its& research.  Finally free to do whatever they wanted, they thrived.  Eventually, they stopped blowing up the gully—mostly—and the rockets flew—mostly.

When World War II started, the Suicide Boys worked for the US Army, developing Jet-Assisted Takeoff (JATO) and they became a government installation run by Caltech.  When the war ended, they were the scientists who worked with Von Braun to launch V-2 rockets here in New Mexico.  (If you ever get a chance, there is a great museum at the  White Sands Missile Range post, where you can see one of the remaining V-2 rockets.)

After the Russians launched Sputnik, JPL became part of NASA and has been incredibly active ever since.  These are the people who design the rovers that have successfully landed on the moon (and lately, Mars), who built the Voyager spacecraft, and who also built the helicopter that flew on Mars.

Less well-known, JPL’s population is also the people with a sense of humor that put Easter Eggs on their spacecraft.  Let me give you an example:

When the Perseverance rover was landing on Mars, it landed with a multicolor parachute.  A camera on the top of the rover sent back a magnificent photo, but few realized that the pattern in the parachute was actually binary code that spelled out, "DarJPL's motto from a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt, a long with the GPS coordinates of JPL's headquarters in Pasadena, California.  Also aboard the rover was a tiny sliver of a piece of Martian meteorite that had landed on Earth.  The JPL decided that it should be the first object to make a roundtrip journey back to Mars.

Then there was the calibration target on the 2018 Insider rover.  A calibration target helps the rover’s camera adjust for color and adjust for distortion.  JPL followed NASA’s instructions, and carefully hid in the border the Braille code for “JPL.”  A few years later on a different rover, they glued a 1909 Lincoln Penny onto the calibration target.  This was JPL’s way of referencing the habit of geologists placing a coin next to rocks before taking photographs of their samples.

My favorite JPL Easter Egg has to be the wheels of the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars.  On previous rovers, JPL had noticed that it was difficult to determine just how far a rover had moved as it traveled because the rover’s wheels sometimes slipped on the loose dusty surface of Mars.  The instruments could accurately measure how many revolutions the wheels had turned, but not how far the rover had actually traveled.

JPL quickly came up with a solution.  The metal wheels of Curiosity would have the letters ”JPL” stamped on them so on each revolution of the wheels, the letters would be stamped into the Martian dust.  Then the camera could take a photo of the tracks, in a sense creating a visual odometer.  Scientists on earth could compare the travel distance recorded on the instruments to the travel distance shown in the tracks.

NASA loved the low-tech solution for coming up with accurate travel measurements, but was a little wary of all the photos from Mars advertising JPL.  Those photos were going to be seen by the whole world.  Reading the correspondence between the two agencies concerning this, you get the idea that if the wheels had spelled out “NASA”, there wouldn’t have been a problem. 

In the end, JPL agreed to just put a distinctive pattern of squares and rectangles on the tires, something that would show up well on the photos.  NASA agreed.

Shortly before launch, NASA finally realized that the “square and rectangle holes” were actually dots and dashes that in Morse code spelled out “JPL.”  By then it was too late to change the tires.  As I write this, the Curiosity rover is still working, years after its projected lifespan, and is still leaving its secret message on the surface of Mars.

The Siege of Sidney Street

Let’s start with Houndsditch, the where everything started:  Houndsditch, as the name literally indicates, started as a combination drainage and defensive ditch dug just outside the walls of Londinium.  The ditch was first built by the Romans, filled in, and then dug a second time by the Danes.  There are two competing theories of the origin of the name.  The first says that the ditch was used as a garbage dump and depository for dead dogs.

The competing theory is more interesting:  King Cnut (more commonly known as King Canute), had the English traitor Eadric Streona executed as part of the Christmas festivities of 1017.  The exact details are a little sketchy, but Streona apparently was strangled on Christmas morning, his body was dragged through the streets of London by his heels, then it was burnt, beheaded, and tossed into Houndsditch.  The story says that not even the hungry wild dogs living outside the city wall would eat the remains.  Apparently, the wild dogs weren’t fond of traitor tartare.

As Londinium grew, the area outside of the walls was incorporated and the area of the filled-in ditch became a street in the East End of London.  By the start of the 20th century, though, there were a few prominent buildings on Houndsditch.  The area was relatively poor and was a center for Eastern European immigrants, particularly Russian emigres forced to leave their homes due to Tsarist pogroms.  

Part of the population was an organized group of exiled Latvian anarchists.  If your brain did not immediately start screaming “OXYMORON,” you need to read that sentence again.  Not only is the whole idea of anarchists setting up a hierarchical organization ludicrous, but once they are chased out of their home country, they immigrate to a country kind enough to accept them as refugees, only to repay that kindness by fomenting a violent revolution.  These are the type of jackasses that will slip a snake into your pocket and then ask to borrow a match.

Touching off a revolution is expensive, so the Latvian anarchists—not believing in capitalism—financed their activities with theft.  At 119 Houndsditch there was a jewelry shop that, rumor said, kept between £30,000 and £20,000 worth of jewelry in its safe.  The anarchists rented a pair of shops behind the jewelry store and used pneumatic power tools to batter down the common wall between the shops to gain entry into the jewelry store.  

On the night of December 16, 1910, a neighbor thought the loud noises were unusual and alerted a policeman.  When three officers armed only with truncheons knocked on the door of the shop where the noise was coming from, the would-be thieves shot and killed the officers and fled.  George Gardstein—the reputed leader—was wounded during the struggle and later died of his wounds.  While Gardstein was wrestling with a police officer, one of the gang members had attempted to shoot the policeman but had hit Gardstein.  

The brutal killing of three unarmed policemen became known as the Houndsditch Murders and outraged the public and galvanized the police.  A morgue photo of Goldstein (right) was published in the local papers along with a plea to the public to help locate the remainder of the gang.  Within weeks, most of the Latvian gang had been arrested by the investigating officers, who had now been temporarily issued revolvers.

In early January 1911, an informant tipped off the police that the last two gang members, including Gardstein, were hiding at 100 Sidney Street, about a mile and a half distant from the jewelry store.  The police carefully removed the neighbors from the building.  The standing orders for the police were that they could not open fire until they were fired upon, so the police threw stones through the window of the apartment to wake up the two mean, Svaars and Sokoloff.  The two men appeared at the broken window and immediately began firing at the police assembled below.

It was immediately apparent that the two men were much better armed than the police.  The anarchists had the latest automatic Mausers, while the police were armed with revolvers that were only effective at short range.  Scotland Yard phoned the Home Secretary and formally asked for military assistance, an act that required the approval of the Home Secretary.

Within an hour, twenty-one volunteers from the Scots Guard departed from the Tower of London and took position at each end of the street and in the buildings across the street.  Firing continued with neither side actually hitting anybody.  (According to the historian and author Andrew Wareham, the Scots Guard were not noted for accurate firepower at the time, but were famed for their magnificent uniforms.  They were truly impressive at the funeral of Edward VII, just five months later.)

Two hours later, just shortly before noon, the Home Secretary arrived, Winston Churchill.  There is still a great debate about whether he took direct command or just observed.  It should be noted that about an hour later, both a Maxim machine gun and horse artillery arrived, something that would also have required the approval of Churchill.  Before the more powerful weapons could be used, however, the standoff ended.

An hour after Churchill arrived, smoke was seen coming from the building.  For over an hour, the building burned but the two men inside never came out.  When it was apparent that the two anarchists were dead, the fire brigade was finally allowed to extinguish the flames and extract the two bodies.  In the aftermath, all of the captured anarchists were acquitted for lack of evidence and Winston Churchill was widely criticized for seeking publicity and posing for cameras during the standoff.

Do your remember Peter the Painter?  His real name was never discovered, nor was he ever captured.  A century later, two towers of apartment buildings were built on the site of the siege.  One of the towers is named “Peter House” and the other is called “Painter House”, despite the strenuous objections of the Metropolitan Police Federation.

Zimmerit

Shortly before the launch of the USS New Mexico, a modern fast attack, nuclear submarine, the Captain and First Officer made a goodwill tour of New Mexico.  As part of the tour, they came to my class on the History of Naval Warfare at Enema U.  It was a great talk and, in hindsight, I realize that I probably did not thank the US Navy enough.

At the end of his talk, the boat’s Captain asked if there were any questions.  My class was a little shy, so I primed the pump by asking what the top speed of the sub was expected to be.  The Captain smiled and said, “A little under 35 knots.”

I expected that answer since, according to the US Navy, every large ship currently commissioned goes “A little under 35 knots.”  Supposedly, even modern American destroyers are slower than their counterparts in World War II.  The true top speeds of American warships are absolutely classified and only the US Navy and every one of our enemies know the truth.   

I smiled back and asked the question that I was really curious about.  “Will the USS New Mexico be covered with anything special?”

Once again, the boat’s Captain smiled and replied, “Just anti-fouling paint.”

We both knew he couldn’t say more.  I have no idea exactly what subs are really covered with, but it is a hell of a lot more than anti-fouling paint.  There are some kind of noise deadening rubber tiles that make the sub harder to detect by both radar and sonar, but exactly what they are made of is classified.  

Classified coatings for military use are not exactly new.  In 1917, during World War I, the British Royal Navy introduced “dazzle” camouflage, using complex, high-contrast patterns to confuse enemy targeting.  Since there was no real evidence that it worked, it was tried briefly by both Great Britain and the United States in World War II.  To this day, there is no clear consensus on whether the strange paint job really worked, though there is some anecdotal testimony that torpedoes missed the dazzle ships because submarine captains couldn’t stop laughing.  (I wonder if it has been tried on cars to confuse traffic cops?)

In the 1970’s the US started covering military vehicles with something called CARC (Chemical Agent Resistant Coating) that supposedly made vehicles exposed to chemical agents easier to clean.  And we all have heard about the modern coatings that make aircraft harder to see on radar.  There is, however, an earlier special coating for tanks that you have probably never heard of: Zimmerit.

During World War II, Germany was concerned that the Allies might target their armored vehicles with magnetic bombs.  Remember the scene in Saving Private Ryan when Tom Hanks destroys a Tiger tank with a “sticky bomb”?  (Well, technically the tank was a Russian T-34 with wood and paper mâché added to make it look like a Tiger tank, but let’s not be picky!)

According to the movie, a sticky bomb was a plain GI sock crammed full of explosives with a simple fuse, with the sock then covered in axle grease.  An incredibly brave soldier would light the fuse, run up to the enemy tank, slap the improvised mine against the steel side of the vehicle, then run away before the bomb blew up.  There was, of course, no such bomb used in World War II.  The British had developed a No. 74 Sticky Bomb, but it was nitroglycerine in a glass container that could adhere to the side of an enemy vehicle with adhesives.  The weapon was ineffective and far better results could be achieved with other anti-tank weapons like the American bazooka or the British PIAT.

There was a magnetic mine used during World War II, the Hafthohlladung (or as it was more commonly called, the Panzerknacker or “Tank Breaker”).  Developed in 1942, this was a shaped charge that was attached to three strong horseshoe magnets.  A soldier could place one against the side of an enemy tank, pull the firing pin, then run like hell before the 4.5 second fuse detonated the bomb.  Needless to say, this was a difficult getaway to accomplish.

Pondering this led to the Germans worrying about magnetic explosives being placed against the sides of their tanks.  Their response was the development of zimmerit—a thick plastic-like foam mixed with sawdust that was applied in inch-thick ridges to the sides of their tanks, hardened with a blowtorch and left to dry.  The foam material was mixed with a yellowish-brown ochre, making the tanks look like they had been covered with thick cooked waffles.

The idea was that the thick zimmerit coating would prevent the magnetic bombs to be close enough to the tank for the magnets to work, so they would simply fall off the side of the vehicle.  The process of applying the zimmerit at the factory took several days, and despite the desperate need of more tanks at the front line, Germany continued to apply the protective foam on its armored vehicles from December 1943 to September 1944.

You would think that the reason that the Germans stopped using zimmerit was because they finally noticed that Germany was the only country using magnetic mines against tanks.  Or maybe it was that Germany realized that, since the Allies had developed projectile anti-tank weapons, the likelihood of someone attempting to physically place a mine onto a tank (outside of Hollywood) was highly unlikely.  Those are both good possible explanations, but neither is the reason the Germans stopped using zimmerit.

Germany was afraid that the new Allied projectile weapons (like the American bazooka) might set fire to the zimmerit…So, they stopped using it.

British tests after the war discovered that it was all but impossible to ignite zimmerit!  

Tsondoku

Tsondoku is the Japanese term for the quirk of buying books and letting them literally pile up unread.  If this were a deadly disease, I would have passed away about a decade before I was born.

It’s a blend of two words: tsumu (積む, "to pile up") and doku (読, "to read"), cleverly combining the act of stacking books with the intent to read them.  The term doesn’t carry a strict judgment—it’s more a playful acknowledgment of a common behavior among bibliophiles.

I have no idea how many books are in our house, but there must be thousands and thousands of them—far too many to count, and while the vast majority have been read, there is a healthy stack of books that I want to read, and that I intend to read, and that I just have not yet gotten around to actually reading…And that stack is growing.

I don’t consider that growing pile of unread books as anything bad—in fact, I view it as a sort of savings account.  I’m currently reading a book about WWI naval skirmishes in the Mediterranean and then, when I finish it tonight, I’ll be able to select a new book from a wide selection of available tomes.  I have no idea what I will read next, but I’m sure it will be a good choice.   (I’m leaning towards that book on the works of Edward Hopper.)

The proper way of thinking about Tsondoku is that having your treasure trove of unread books is the same as living in a five-star restaurant that has an extensive menu.  The selection is part of the enjoyment.

This is all a very long introduction to what I really want to talk about—the books I will never have a chance to read.  The books that have been lost.

There is no chance, for example, that I will ever get to read Hemingway’s first novel that was based on his experiences as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I.  Hemingway was working as a journalist in Switzerland and asked his wife to bring him his collection of unpublished short stories, his notes, and the manuscript of his unpublished novel.  While traveling by train, she stepped off the train momentarily to buy a bottle of water.  When she returned, the suitcase containing Hemingway’s writings had been stolen.  

His wife wept the entire eight-hour journey to Switzerland, dreading having to tell her husband of the loss.  At first, Hemingway laughed at the story, assuring her it didn’t matter, because he always made carbon copies of his work.  He stopped laughing when she informed him that the carbons were also packed into the suitcase.

Perhaps this is a good place to briefly mention that I’m still upset at the loss of the library at Alexandria.  Among the countless treasures lost was Aristotle’s Second volume of Poetics—the book on comedy that is the center point of Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose.  

There are a lot of books that have been lost for centuries that might still surprise you.  Did you know that there was a second volume of Beowulf?  The story you know comes from a single, singed volume that survived the 1731 fire at the Cotton Library in Westminster.  While the first volume was damaged, the other volumes were destroyed.  There were other copies in English libraries, but they were destroyed in Viking raids.  If there is a remaining copy, it has yet to surface.

Did you know that at least one of Shakespeare’s plays is missing?  Cardenio is a lost play attributed to William Shakespeare and his collaborator John Fletcher.  It was performed in 1613 by the King’s Men, Shakespeare’s theater company, but no known copy of the original text survives.

The play was reportedly based on an episode from Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, specifically the story of Cardenio, a nobleman driven to madness by betrayal and heartbreak.  In Cervantes' tale, Cardenio loves Luscinda, but his friend Don Fernando deceives him and marries her.  Cardenio flees to the mountains, where Don Quixote later encounters him.

There have been several attempts over the years to recreate the play, but there is so little documentation about the original script that the task is considered hopeless.  It is likely that the last surviving copy of the play was lost when the Globe Theater burned in 1613.  (The photo at left is AI generated, since none of the thoughtless residents of London remembered to pull out their cellphones to document this historic loss.)

T. E. Lawrence, more popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, lost the 250,000 word original manuscript of his Seven Pillars of Wisdom when he left his bag in the refreshment room of the Reading Station.  When he returned, his bag had been stolen.  Although he rewrote the book, the lost draft was rawer, longer, and possibly more candid about his wartime exploits and his psyche—potentially a truer epic than the polished rewrite.  (There is a moral to this—Never travel by train if you have a manuscript.)

Jacques Futrelle, an American author known for his clever, puzzle-like mysteries, perished along with 1500 other people in the sinking of the Titanic.  In his stories, the main character, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—nicknamed "The Thinking Machine,"—used pure logic to solve seemingly impossible crimes.  Futrelle had gained significant popularity with stories like The Problem of Cell 13, and he was carrying new, unpublished manuscripts on his ill-fated journey aboard the Titanic in April, 1912.

To finish, let me tell you about the lost book I think about most often.  As a teenager, I loved the books by Donald Hamilton.  I read a half dozen Matt Helm novels in a week, then discovered his westerns, The Big Country and Texas Fever.  I was hooked.  Great literature they were not, but I really liked the way he told a story.

Donald Hamilton left behind an unpublished manuscript for one final Matt Helm novel, tentatively titled The Dominators, when he passed away in 2006. Hamilton had completed the manuscript years earlier but was unable to secure a publishing deal, partly due to declining interest in the series after the Cold War era and to shifting trends in the spy genre.

After his death, the rights to his work—including those to the unpublished novel—became entangled in estate issues. There have been occasional discussions about publishing The Dominators, but no agreement has been reached between Hamilton's estate and publishers.  There have been some suggestions that the manuscript needs some editing.

If his family reads this, I’ll finish editing that manuscript for free*.

*Editors’ note:  You, edit? Really?

Kim’s Ancestor?

Throughout history, there have been people, usually women, who have been famous for being famous.  Singularly lacking in personal accomplishments or achievements, their sole talent seems to be their ability to use looks to garner publicity to their own benefit, the public constantly wanting to know more about them.  An example would be just about anyone named Kardashian.

A few of the celebrities either married well or picked the right grandparents in order to inherit riches, but never actually seem to have used these advantages to build anything on their own (Think of Paris Hilton, Princess Diana, Nicole Richey, or Zsa Zsa Gabor).   In a generation or two, they are usually forgotten by everyone save for a few weird blogging historians.

I’ve written about a few of them.  There was Prinzessin zu Salm-Salm, who was a beautiful woman and a circus bareback rider, who then married a prince, traveled the world, met the crowned heads of Europe, and received an honorary rank of Captain in the Union Army from President Lincoln.  After her husband passed away….she was promptly forgotten. 

Then there was Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, the beautiful socialite who captivated the highest circles of Paris society…At least until John Singer Sargent painted her portrait—the one in which one shoulder strap of her gown was down, possibly indicating that she was either just taking her gown off or had just put it back on.  No one remembers her name anymore, but her likeness, the Portrait of Madame X, is on prominent display in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.  

A month ago, while writing about the curious history of lead white paint, I ran across another example of someone whom society simply could not hear enough about for a brief period, who then simply vanished.  She was famous for her beauty, then died because of it.

Maria Gunning was born in England, in 1732, and was one of six children of Irish aristocrats who lacked enough money to maintain an aristocratic lifestyle.  After the family returned to Ireland, Maria and her younger sister, Elizabeth, were encouraged by their mother to seek work as actresses in the Dublin theaters.  Being an actress was far from a respectable occupation at the time, since actresses were paid so little that they frequently supplemented their wages by being courtesans for the theater patrons.  At the time, this would have been a scandal equivalent to releasing a sex tape today.

When a prominent ball was held at Dublin Castle, the two sisters borrowed the costumes of Lady Macbeth and Juliet from the theatre, so they could attend the affair suitably dressed.  Effectively, this was their coming out party and they so impressed the members of high society that they were suddenly famous.  Lavished with gifts from the rich, the sisters returned to England and lived in high style, with both being presented at court to King George II.

Maria, who was notoriously tactless (which is a very polite way of saying that, while the young woman was beautiful, she was brainless) was asked by the King if there was anything she would like to see while in London.  She replied that she would like to see the pomp and grandeur of a royal funeral.  Luckily, the only person in the kingdom whose death would have provided the desired spectacle thought the answer hilarious.  

Within a year, both of the sisters had married well: Elizabeth snagged a duke and Maria married the 6th Earl of Coventry, to become the Countess of Coventry.  The new Countess remained socially very active: she was seen at all the most fashionable events and was rumored to have had an affair with the Duke of Grafton.  During her carefully orchestrated public walks through Hyde Park, the Countess was mobbed by the public, requiring a bodyguard to accompany her.  

Maria was a pale beauty who enhanced her looks by the liberal application of Venetian Ceruse makeup.   This makeup both whitened the skin and caused a pink glow that suggested both health and youth.  When a modern laboratory recently recreated the cosmetic using traditional materials, the women working in the laboratory all agreed that the cosmetic improved the appearance of the test subject.  Since Venetian Ceruse is made from lead carbonate, it’s a deadly poison, but, luckily—for humans, anyway—the test subject was a pig.  (You’re right now undoubtedly thinking of a joke about lipstick on a pig.)

The fashions at the time required women to wear low-cut gowns that revealed a lot of cleavage.  Since Maria did not want to show an obvious line where the makeup ended, she applied the cosmetic liberally.  Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the inevitable lead poisoning was skin blemishes and lesions, but these were easily covered with even more Venetian Ceruse.

Maria’s husband, the Earl of Coventry, did not like the makeup and frequently requested his wife to stop using it, but she refused.  In one infamous episode, the Earl chased her through a dinner party, attempting to wipe the makeup off her face with his handkerchief.  Shortly after this, the Earl began an infamous affair with the courtesan, Kitty Fisher, who was another young beauty who was famous for being famous.

Maria, now the Countess, had a public feud with Kitty Fisher.  When the two bumped into each other at a park, the Countess asked Kitty for the name of her dressmaker.  Kitty replied that the Countess would have to ask the Earl, since he had given her the dress.

Unfortunately, The Countess was becoming increasingly sick; her once alabaster skin was now deeply blemished, requiring ever more cosmetics to hide the condition.  Maria Coventry, the Countess of Coventry, died from lead poisoning at the age of 27.  She might have had some satisfaction that her rival, Kitty Fisher—who had also begun using liberal amounts of Venetian Ceruse—also died from lead poisoning just a few years later, at the age of 26.

Today, some historians question whether either woman actually died from lead poisoning, suggesting that a more likely cause of death might have been tuberculosis.  Since one of the side effects of lead poisoning is a diminished immune system, it probably doesn’t matter who is correct.