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Author Archives: Jeremy Rosen
Ask Montezuma Justinuary 2006
Besides being Aztec Emperor, Montezuma also appeared as the star of the classic radio program Lucky Strike’s Amazing Adventure Quarter Hour Program. In his spare time he inspects Nok sculptures and rides the world’s only two-wheeled unicycle.
Dear Montezuma,
Since Axes & Alleys has now opened one of those nifty Café Press stores to sell t-shirts, mugs, thongs and F-22 Raptors, perhaps this should go on a tshirt:
“Ask Montezuma what this shirt means.”
Tim Wright
Elizabethville, PA
Tim, I believe that to be an excellent idea, but it’s missing something. Perhaps the wonderful picture of me should be included between “Ask Montezuma” and “what this shirt means.” One of those handy ellipsis punctuation marks would serve well after the “Ask Montezuma” portion. I will recommend this to my editors at the next meeting.
Montezuma,
During my tour in Southeast Asia last year, I met a Hmong sniper in Laos. His rep said he was a crack shot with a lot of kills under his belt, but he said something curious to me when I met him. He said “I shoot. They run.” Now, if he’s so good, why wouldn’t his targets just be dead?
Moses Abercrombie
Katharinetowne, WD
Hmong snipers are a special breed, Moses. You see, their religious leaders place certain blessings upon ammunition below 50 calibre. When the target is acquired and shot, the blessings cause them to run to the nearest body of water and drown themselves, even when they are dead. It makes no sense to me either why they don’t use magical fairy ping pong paddles to destroy their enemies like the rest of the Good Guy special forces do.
Dear Montezuma,
A friend of mine just asked me to prove to him that I’m not a robot. I’m a bit puzzled as to how to do this. Do you know how?
Eva Green
London, UK
One of the easiest ways to prove one is not a robot is by doing simple arithmetic. Try adding seven and four and see what your friend does.
Hi Montezuma,
I just bought a new computer, but I am having some trouble listening to my music. My grandson purchased the thing for me and it is cute as a button. Specifically, I wanted a disc drive so that I could play my LPs, but they don’t seem to fit.
Mildred Burch
Aiken, SC
Mrs. Burch, did you specify to your grandson that you wanted to play 33s or 45s? You most likely have a disc drive compatible with 45s and not 33s. Your grandson should have purchased a computer for you with a drive of the right size. As he has no doubt seen your record collection, I assume he was simply being lazy. Withholding the next batch of cookies should punish him enough in the meantime. If you take a picture of your computer with your digital Polaroid camera, one of my office assistants should be able to help you decide what type of external disc drives are compatible.
Dear Montezuma,
How many times can I ride the Mindbender at Six Flags Over Georgia before my circadian rhythms are disrupted and I find it difficult to sleep more than four hours at a time?
Lucy Scoggins
Marietta, GA
Seven, Lucy. Seven.
Dear Montezuma,
I’m a train pilot in the mid-West and I had a question about ground-traffic control. Well, you see, they’re supposed to be there to make sure two trains don’t enter the same groundspace and set up beacons at the train stations to make sure we don’t lose our way. But, these guys are really snotty about everything. What’s the best way to get rid of my protruding nose hairs?
Wayne Garmish
Mid-West, USA
WG, I believe you’ll find it as interesting as I do to note that you were the pilot on my train thirteen years ago when I took a scenic tour of Accadia. You are an excellent pilot. There was very little turbulence and you arrived at the station with nary a bump. I also appreciated your humorous tour leader persona as you pointed out various trees and bushes by name as we sped by. As if we were travelling slow enough to see them! Keep up the good work.
Montezuma,
Can I use no-stick spray on stickers?
Jeremy London
Cantilever, VT
Jeremy, this is an interesting question I get from time to time, but never quite have the time to answer. It’s a difficult explanation due to the mechanics involved. You see, no-stick spray generally works by phasing the gluon (a subatomic particle) into and out of existence through a forced conversion from matter to energy and back again. Stickers, on the other hand, rely upon hydrogen bonds in order to adhere to surfaces. As you can see, one will clearly not affect the other and thus you cannot negate the tacky nature of your stickers with no-stick spray. Some form of plasma might work, though.
Dear Montezuma,
I don’t get the point of iambic pentameter. People like Shakespeare, Keats and Donne seemed to use it a lot, and I’ve heard their work spoken aloud. This pentameter thing just sounds silly. Is there some other type of meter and syllabic structure used in poetry?
Marty Gill
Plainview, OT
Unfortunately Marty, poetry can only be written in iambic pentameter.
It’ll last longer.
T-Shirts! Mugs! Buttons!
All those emails we’ve gotten have been answered. As you may have noticed earlier in the week, we’ve added a Merch tab to the site. Now you can get Axes & Alleys stuff manufactured in Chinese and Indonesian sweat shops. Not to worry though, by purchasing Axes & Alleys products you’ll be instructing those third-world denizens in the lessons of capitalism. They’re cheap, they’re sexy, and one of our readers already got laid reading one.
Ask Montezuma What This Shirt Means
Space Penguin!
A&A Logo Tee
On Numbers
Seventeen is perhaps an easy number to ignore. Stuck forever between eighteen and sixteen, seventeen is often overlooked, even by numerologists. Seventeen may not be as popular as one, eight, a million or three, but the number we call seventeen has a rich history and a deep impact upon our society, perhaps greater even than that of fifty-two.
The seventeenth number ever discovered, seventeen is known in France as dix-sept. Like many other prime numbers, seventeen is divisible only by itself and one, though in base-six math seventeen is represented by “25,” which, in base-ten, is not a prime number.
The originators of mathematics, the Sumerians, were the first to develop seventeen, which they called sebešer and represented in cuneiform as a symbol. It would take over three millennia before it would transform into the Roman “XVII.” After the development of Islamic culture, XVII was replaced by the standard Arabic numeral 17.
Throughout history, kings, popes, emperors and the heads of major corporations have used the number seventeen. Even celebrities such as Madonna, Howard Hughes and Bruce Vilanche have, in the course of counting, utilized the number seventeen. Important works such as The Bible feature many chapters known by the numerical designation “Seventeen.” The foundation of American government, a document called The Constitution, even features a section called “The Seventeenth Amendment.” It is the seventeenth of the many amendments to this important and historic document.
Of course, seventeen is not just a stuffy number consigned to old, musty documents. Indeed seventeen is still a vital and important number that continues to permeate the popular culture of modern society. There is a glossy, quiz and makeup tip filled magazine which carries the name Seventeen on its masthead. Ohio powerpop band Manda and the Marbles released, in 2005, a song titled “Seventeen.” First-ranked NASCAR™ driver Matt Kenseth’s DeWalt logo-covered car bears the number seventeen and basketball star John Havlicek proudly wore a Boston basket ball team shirt on which was embroidered the number seventeen.
Of all the 1,207 numbers that exist today, seventeen is perhaps one of the most underrated and yet one of the most intriguing and important. Like twelve or seventy-eight, seventeen is one of the numbers that people enjoy. Seventeen is cool.
