August 22, 2012

World Book Wednesday


Volume P


Pantomime- "Pantomime is the art of acting with gestures, using no words."

In the late 70s, one may have recognized this mime as the famous and talented Marcel Marceau.
These days, mimes are just annoying people that it has become socially acceptable to beat up.

Paramedic- "Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and several other cities and their metropolitan areas have paramedic programs." Boy am I glad other big cities have caught on to this idea. San Diego, Phoenix, and even New York have paramedics now.
These are some really clean cut guys. I was served by some paramedics recently, and none of
them were wearing caps.  They must know some good tricks for getting blood out of ties.

Phonograph- "An enlargement of the groove shows how the waves make the needle vibrate."

I used to like seeing highly magnified images of the needle and groove.  I liked knowing
how a phonograph worked. Kids today probably just want to know what a phonograph is.

Physics- "Physics students learn basic physical principles in their laboratory work. This group is studying the concept of gyroscopic recession by observing a spinning bicycle wheel."

This appears to be the same guy that taught me physics in college in the late 90s.  It
also appears to be the same physics teacher pictured in my mother's 1966 high school
yearbook. I suspect if I peeked in on a physics class today, he would be there. Are all
physics teachers the same guy? And since he knows how to stop the aging process,
why didn't he stop it before he got old?

Prehistoric Animal- This is the opening picture for an extensive article on prehistoric animals. Since its such a big article, they splurged and printed this picture in color. Too bad the 70s concept of dinosaurs was so drab; this picture would have been pretty much the same in black and white.

The caption for this picture even calls the big dino a Brontosaurus. Those don't exist. 

The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book-Childcraft International, 1979. Includes all photos and quotations

2 comments:

  1. You have such a tongue in cheek humor! It never fails to amuse me. Keep up the good work. And what are brontasaurasi called these days?

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  2. The correct term for a Brontosaurus is Apatosaurus. I had to look that up because when I learned about dinos in kindergarten during the dark ages they were still bronosauri. And Pluto was still a planet.

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