Hiya Skeleton Crew,

Y’know, I was just thinkin’ ... if any a’ youse guys wanna do some kind a’ guest post, lemme know! I’m not averse to sharin’ my li’l soapbox here every now ’n’ again.

My pal Milo has been buggin’ me ’bout lettin’ him write some math ’n’ physics type questions. An’ Roy always has ideas for crazy philological things no one’s ever heard of. But, y’know, both a’ those guys— Well, bless ’em, I love ’em both, so all I’ll say is sometimes I think their idea a’ “good trivia” is to ask stuff that basically no one would ever know. Y’know what I mean?

Look, I ain’t sayin’ I’m 100% on threadin’ the needle on this stuff here. But the ideal for trivia—at least, the ideal IN MY OPINION (an’ we all know what opinions are worth, but heck, it’s all I got!)—so anyways the ideal is to get a mix a’ (1) stuff ya definitely know, (2) stuff that’s right on the edge a’ what ya know, ’n’ (3) stuff that ya DON’T know but are kinda interested to learn about.

I dunno where I’m goin’ with any a’ this! I guess I’m just sayin’ email mandible@maxil.la if you’re interested in writin’ a guest trivia or two!

Answers to Last Time

Last Thursday’s themie was words that mean nonsense! Rot ’n’ tripe, namely.

• Noble rot’s the common name for the fungus Botrytis cinerea, which is what gives the wine known as Sauternes its highly sought-after flavor.
• The dishes menudo, ngau pak yip, gopchang-jeongol, lampredotto, ’n’ matumbo all feature the offal known as tripe, which is like an intestinal linin’.

I know all ’bout intestines, a’ course, since I have ’em! So many of ’em!! They’re just, like, everywhere! Didja know that most normal regular alive humans have— ... uh ... 20 ... inch—uh, I mean, miles? ... of intestine ...

Yep, I love my intestines!

Today’s Trivias

Trivia 1

Who doesn’t love a good intestine!? Not me!! I definitely don’t not love an intestine!!!!!

Maybe the thing I love MOST ’bout my intestines is how it (... they?) definitely exist(s?)—in both large ’n’ small format.

Didja know the small intestine has lotsa different segments to it? (I mean, a’ COURSE ya did, seein’ as we’re all intestines-havers here. But I’m just askin’ all rhetorical-like, y’see.)

One a’ the small intestinal segments—the second one—takes its name for the Latin word for “fasting”, an’ its name is cognate with what English adjective that my Apple dictionary defines as “naive, simplistic, and superficial”?

Trivia 2

Ya know what’s crazy? How the intestine goes straight from small to large! What ever happened to the medium intestine? Where did THAT go??

So I looked into it. The li’l bit that joins the small intestine to the large one is a sphincter called the ileocecal valve, or ICV. Its name comes from how it joins the ileum (the last part a’ the small intestine) to the cecum (the first part a’ the large intestine).1

Fun fact, the ICV is actually sometimes called “Tulp's valve”, named after a 17th century Dutch physician named Nicolaes Tulp. I was surprised to see that name when I was readin’ up ’bout the cecum, ’cause— well, ya might not believe this, but I actually KNEW Dr. Tulp! Just a li’l bit. But we were friendly.

The story goes I was spendin’ a few days every month in the Netherlands, workin’ on my tulip collection. The good doc apparently had a Semper Augustus bulb I was interested in, so I set us up to grab lunch on one a’ the days I was in town.

Well, he kinda ghosted me.

I don’t feel too bad, though. It turned out he was scheduled to do this big public dissection later that day, an’ I guess he just couldn’t fit in a li’l chat ’bout tulip bulbs with his ol’ pal Mr. S. I get it! He was an important guy, he had things to do!

The silver linin’, I s’pose, is that that anatomy lesson gave us this li’l masterwork a’ Dutch art:

Oh right, I was supposed to ask ya a trivia at some point, wasn’t I? OK, well: Who painted that artwork?

OK then

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

If ya give me your email address, I’ll send some trivias to ya! No joke!!!