Thirteen bottles of whisky started the after-dinner drinking, but soon proved an inelegant insufficiency.
January 12, 2012 10:29 AM   Subscribe

 
Spoiler: All of these men are now dead.
posted by R. Schlock at 10:36 AM on January 12, 2012 [4 favorites]


Anti-Superstition Society?

*blinks*

So this was an ASS party?
posted by gurple at 10:43 AM on January 12, 2012 [2 favorites]


It's interesting how the stuffed gorilla element of the indoor-umbrella myth has faded since 1940.
posted by theodolite at 10:45 AM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


If anti-superstition was a religion we could have a day off tomorrow. Are any budding prophets reading this?
posted by sngbk at 10:46 AM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


Crossed cutlery, shaking hands across the table, three on a match... I've never heard of most of these superstitions before.

On the other hand, there's probably good reason not to put a black cat on your shoulder and set off a huge flash bulb in his face. Panther does not look pleased.
posted by Kevin Street at 10:49 AM on January 12, 2012


I wonder how many in the pictures went to church two days later.
posted by Keith Talent at 10:53 AM on January 12, 2012 [6 favorites]


I know people just like to smile for photos, but the constancy of the wide-tooth grins here gives me this fantastic image of 160-odd guys in suits wandering around a ballroom with giant lunatic smiles frozen on their faces for like six hours.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:05 AM on January 12, 2012


They were drinking a lot of whisky. Perhaps that was the real purpose of the society all along...
posted by Kevin Street at 11:09 AM on January 12, 2012


gurple: So this was an ASS party?

ASS is the butt of the joke.
posted by gman at 11:10 AM on January 12, 2012


My friend Pete should go. He has a hockey mask and bloody machete tattooed on his arm.
posted by jonmc at 11:10 AM on January 12, 2012


Superstition causes bad luck.
posted by Floydd at 11:15 AM on January 12, 2012


...fantastic image of 160-odd guys in suits wandering around a ballroom with giant lunatic smiles frozen on their faces for like six hours.

Someone's never been to a Goldman Sachs coke party.
posted by griphus at 11:15 AM on January 12, 2012 [2 favorites]


JUST KEEP RUBBING IT IN WHY DON'T YOU
posted by shakespeherian at 11:19 AM on January 12, 2012


Until now, there were 13 comments to this post. Glad to help.
posted by pointystick at 11:19 AM on January 12, 2012


Noooo, shakespherian stole mah thunder!
posted by pointystick at 11:20 AM on January 12, 2012


-Opening an umbrella indoor is unlucky because you have a good chance of knocking shit over most of the time.
-3 on a match is unlucky because after the time it takes to light the first two, you have a good chance of burning your fingers before three has finished lighting.
-Shaking hands across the table is unlucky because you have a good chance of knocking shit over again, plus your tie goes in the soup and your sleeve in the gravy.
-Going underneath ladders is unlucky because you will probably knock shit over yet again, this time someone might die or get seriously injured.
-A broken mirror is bad luck because it's BROKEN GLASS.

Fuck going to party with these guys. Next they'll be running circles around the couch with a beer in one hand and scissors in the other, screaming "Look how brave I am!"
posted by BurnChao at 11:27 AM on January 12, 2012 [3 favorites]


I once read somewhere that the 13th of the month falls most often on a Friday, but there was no citation. So I checked it out myself. Surprisingly enough, that is correct.

According to my calculations, in each 400 year cycle of the Gregorian calendar, the 13th falls on a Friday 688 times, besting Sunday and Wednesday (687), Monday and Tuesday(685), and Thursday and Saturday(684).
posted by MtDewd at 11:28 AM on January 12, 2012 [2 favorites]


Did you know that Pope Gregory XIII, in order to spite people who believe in this, set up the Gregorian calendar so that the 13th of the month would occur more frequently on a Friday than any other day of the week? He could have skipped nine days, or eleven, in which case the 13th of the month would occur less frequently on a Friday than any other day. But no, he went for ten.

And he was planning all this before he became pope! That's why he picked the name Gregory, so he could be the thirteenth pope with that name.
posted by madcaptenor at 11:29 AM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oh, man, I should know better than to look at the life magazine links, because I end up frittering several hours away looking at photo galleries. I mean, this one is fantastic. And it lead me to Provincetown's fabulous Grooviest. Cult. Ever! And after that, well, the galleries just stared getting weird.
posted by .kobayashi. at 11:30 AM on January 12, 2012


Metafilter: All members and initiates must walk under this ladder.
posted by Malice at 11:30 AM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


I am a scientist. I have triskaidekaphobia. When I am writing test questions or completing tasks, I permit myself to pause on the twelfth or fourteenth items, but never on the thirteenth. When I told another scientist about this, he said, "That's just common sense."
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:34 AM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


All of these men are now dead.
Not James O'Keefe. He just got caught trying to vote in new Hampshire this week.
posted by MtDewd at 11:39 AM on January 12, 2012


I love how a party the Old Boys' Club threw in 1940 would now be perfect hipster bait.
posted by roger ackroyd at 12:06 PM on January 12, 2012 [2 favorites]


Thirteen is totally my favourite number! I think it's funny that people can be afraid of something as random as a number - that they will skip thd number when labelling the floors of a building, eyc. My parents' cottage is on a really neat piece of land - there is a rocky outcropping that rises out of the water which was perfect for building a cottage on - the view is amazing, and they didn't have to dig down to make the cottage's foundations, or cut down many trees. Their neighbours, who had bought land on the lake before my parents, had actually really wanted the plot my parents ended up buying, but didn't take it because it was lot # 13. suckers!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:29 PM on January 12, 2012


Previously.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 1:42 PM on January 12, 2012


ASS is the butt of the joke.

You'll be here all week?
posted by clarknova at 4:30 PM on January 12, 2012


..."That's just common sense."

When asked if he believed in the power of the lucky horseshoe over his door, Niels Bohr replied "Of course not ... but I am told it works even if you don't believe in it."
posted by clarknova at 4:33 PM on January 12, 2012


Speaking of superstition, I found this noise on the Life photo gallery site. I'm anti-superstition, but I have to admit, putting a hex on a mannequin Hitler sounds like a hell of a Friday night.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 6:41 PM on January 12, 2012


Thirteen is totally my favourite number!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666


Eponumerical?
posted by BurnChao at 10:23 PM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


Sure, the say they're anti-superstition, but I woner how many of these businessmen put their full faith in the free market's "invisible hand"...
posted by hell toupee at 6:39 AM on January 13, 2012


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