May 10

Better Than News

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  Charlie and the Jedi Factory is a 2005 science fiction musical fantasy film about an orphan moisture farmer who dreams of finding one of five golden light sabers hidden inside chocolate bar wrappers which will admit him to the eccentric and reclusive Willy Wonka's magical Jedi factory.

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  Teilhard Cider is a philosophical beverage fermented from planetary "sphere of reason" apples.

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  Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about ... Miami.
  Miami?
  Let me tell you about Miami. (Replicant Vice)

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  Five Easel Pieces is a 1970 drama art film about a surly watercolor painter (Jack Nicholson) whose rootless existence belies his privileged youth as the heir to oil wealth.

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  Wicker Equalizer is a spy thriller horror television series as a retired intelligence agent with a mysterious past, who uses the skills from his former career to exact justice on behalf of innocent people on the isolated and mysterious Scottish island of Summerisle.

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  Deep Wicker Man is a horror adventure film about a treasure-hunting couple who discover an ancient evil while scuba diving off the isolated Scottish island of Summerisle.

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  Plan Hydrox from Outer Space is a 2021 children's educational allegory film describing alien cookie monsters and their plan to turn the Earth into a steaming cup of hot milk.

Beyond Plausible

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  The Good, the Bad, and the Blondie is a comedy Spaghetti Western film written and directed by Sergio Leone and Chic Young.

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  Iron Mannix is an American superhero detective television series starring Mike Connors and Robert Downey Jr.

In Other Words

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  The Nicolas Cage Octopus stamp is a well-known misprint featuring actor Nicolas Cage with an octopus. The misprint apparently resulted from Cage getting into character "above and beyond the call of Euclidean space-time" during an unexplained off-camera encounter with an octopus.

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  The Beginner's Guide to DVD Rewinding is a self-help book for people suffering from DVD Delusional Disorder.

Are You Sure

• ... that Jesuit priest, mathematician, and astronomer Matteo Ricci became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when he was invited to become an adviser to the imperial court of the Wanli Emperor; and that this honor was in recognition of Ricci's scientific abilities, chiefly his predictions of solar eclipses, which were significant events in the Chinese world; and that Ricci was given free access to the Forbidden City but never met the reclusive Wanli Emperor, who, however, granted him patronage, with a generous stipend and supported Ricci's completion of the Zhifang Waiji, China's first global atlas?

• ... that both Teilhard Cider and Piltdown Man Porter pay homage to Teilhard de Chardin?

Selected Anniversaries

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  28 BC: A sunspot is observed by Han dynasty astronomers during the reign of Emperor Cheng of Han, one of the earliest dated sunspot observations in China.

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  1482: Mathematician and astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli dies. Thanks to his long life, his intelligence and his wide interests, Toscanelli was one of the central figures in the intellectual and cultural history of Renaissance Florence in its early years.

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  1829: Polymath and physician Thomas Young dies. Young made notable scientific contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology.

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  1900: Astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin born. Her doctoral thesis will establish that hydrogen is the overwhelming constituent of stars, and accordingly the most abundant element in the universe.

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  1960: Mathematician, art critic, and alleged time-traveller The Eel challenges aquatic cryptid and alleged supervillain Neptune Slaughter to single combat, providing a distraction which enables the USS Triton to escape Slaughter's deadly mutant Cuttle-Net.

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  1960: The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

Topic of the Day

Bakery

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  Fruitcake parkour is an Olympic sporting event in which contestants must traverse giant slices of fruitcake.

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  The Lord of the Sprinkles is an epic high-fantasy film about a baker (Sauron) who creates the One Sprinkled Donut to rule the appetites of Men, Dwarves, and Elves.

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  She Loaves You is a song by the British rock group The Breadles.

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  The Shape of Water Bagels is a 2017 American romantic fantasy cooking film about a mute chef at a high-security government bakery who falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibian creature.