LA Railway: Al G. Barnes Circus, 1935 by danagraves on Flickr.
The dens of the amphitheater disgorged at once a hundred lions—a hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging round the arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros could defend them from his stroke. Ethiopia and India yielded their most extraordinary productions, and several animals were slain in the amphitheater, which had been seen only in the representations of art, or perhaps of fancy.
Commodus killed a Camelopardalis, or giraffe, the tallest, the most gentle, and the most useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe since the revival of letters.
—Edward Gibbon, from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Commodus may have been an animal-killing machine, but Andy Zaltzman, comedian and co-host of the fantastic Bugle podcast, kills it in our latest LQ podcast reading selections about some of antiquity’s looniest despots.
Delacroix, “Royal Tiger” at the Morgan Museum & Library. “In the Company of Animals” exhibit review here.
Just found this sketch from 2009. Anyone have any idea where this was going?
DR. JASPER: Which one?
HAZEL: The right one!
DR. JASPER: Well, by the look of it, there is nothing RIGHT about it!
Doctor Jasper goes for left arm.
HAZEL: No, my right! It’s your left.
Doctor Jasper inspects his own left arm.
DR. JASPER: Looks fine to me…
HAZEL: What? Are you joking? I’m really, really hurt right now.
DR. JASPER: Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.
HAZEL: I’m not offended! I’m bleeding out!
DR. JASPER: You’re not out. You’re in… the emergency room. Now, what is the problem?
HAZEL: The problem is that I’m bleeding!
DR. JASPER: Ah. I see. Now we’re getting somewhere. You’re worried about your menstrual cycle.
The tiger enters.
Happy birthday to former Anchor Books cover designer (and artist of the macabre) Edward Gorey (1925). From 1953 to 1960, Gorey lived in New York City and worked for the Art Department of Doubleday & Company and Anchor Books, illustrating book covers and in some cases adding illustrations to the text. He illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.
