Prehistoric citrus art

An archaeological expedition in Southern Greece was surprised to find evidence of a prehistoric tribe who used citrus fruit to record images. It is believed that this was intended as a means of leaving secret messages to shy gods, as, much as children often use lemon juice to write 'disappearing ink' messages, these cave paintings only became visible when exposed to a heat source. This tribe was believed to worship a deity known as Schmoonktis, which was easily startled, and would answer any prayers that were left in a suitably peaceful way. According to depictions on the cave walls, Schmoonktis appeared as some kind of animal, similar to a squirrel, or perhaps a stoat.

Images of the paintings, which only became visible when one of their discoverers set up his portable stove to make some grilled Tuna sandwiches in the cave. The ambient heat was sufficient to cause a chemical reaction, which made the paintings visible again. Photograph provided by  Klearchos Kapoutsis.

 ©2010 James Mathurin

The inventions of Dimitri Dutruv Pt. 2

Continuing the collection of inventions developed by Dimitri Dutruv, we now move onto the APG (Automatic Platitude Generator). In 2003, Dutruv was charged with developing a machine for automatically writing messages in greeting cards. Creating a series of stamps on rotating gears, with words like "best", "mum", "sweetest", "forever", "teacher", "pearly-lipped", "mechanic", "sorry", "niece", "this year", "tender", which could be printed into any card. It also featured a pulping chamber where cards, paper and leaflets could be fed in and mashed up to make new colours.

Although Dutruv believed that it could have been developed into a perfectly effective working model, his prototype cards were not to the satisfaction of the investor, due to what Dutruv described as "a currently unmanageable platitude randomisation factorisation."

One of the prototype cards produced by the APG. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be a 'commiseration card for the death of a grandparent', but appeared with this design, and the message, "Sweet tender Yom Kippurs, Auntie!" Image supplied by Boby Dimitrov.

©2010 James Mathurin