This isolated card is from an early “Authors” deck.  Most later versions were less generous with the engraving; and Cooper didn’t always survive revisions to the canon.
(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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December 25 is the birthday of Robert Ripley, the creator of “Believe It or Not,” and an inspirational figure to us here.  To mark the occasion, here’s a photo of him at the dinner table.  He was rather flamboyant.

It’s also the birthday of Isaac Newton.  American readers, it occurs to me, may be unaware that […]

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We’ll have a few examples of “Authors,” that curious game about collecting writers.  This one has no indication of date or publisher.  The canon is conventional: Scott, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Whittier, Poe, Tennyson, Dickens, Stevenson, Irving, and Emerson.  Shakespeare is rather plump and peevish in this version, and his hair is curlier than I remember.  […]

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Théophile Gautier’s 1865 novel, La Belle-Jenny, is a boisterous, Romantic tale of conspiracy and intrigue, all of which fails.  Couples are parted; lives are ruined.  Near the end, Arthur Sidney, the character most to blame for all of this, sums up what he’s learned:
Aimez quelqu’un ou quelque chose, un homme, un enfant, un chien, une […]

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We have another specimen of “Old Maid”; this undated and anonymous deck has a holiday theme.  In addition to the elf, there are a wreath, a gingerbread man, a smiling tree, and various animals with Santa hats.  All are in this plain, rather clumsy style.
And here’s the Old Maid.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Don’t sing from the heart; use your lungs.
splilt
Maybe your snap judgment
Was just a crap judgment.
Asemic acrostics: Many enthusiasts have found acrostics in Shakespeare and other writers; we can also find acrostics that do not spell out words, giving us a hidden message without linguistic significance.
a pen that forms a line by eating away the paper
Be […]

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This sushi themed deck was, apparently, published by Accoutrements.  The number cards show sushi in multiple, the face cards show a larger roll.  The Joker is represented by wasabi and soy sauce.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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The glum protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov’s first novel, Mary, sinks so low that he works as a movie extra:
“Nothing was beneath his dignity; more than once he had even sold his shadow, as many of us have.  In other words he went out to the suburbs to work as a movie extra on a set, […]

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