The Greatest Headline in the History of the Universe!

 

July 7, 2021 Every Tuesday, the New York Times publishes "Science Times," a section devoted to issues that range from crashingly crucial to mindbogglingly minor. One of the regular features of Science Times is "Observatory," which features photos that might be of interest to the general public. Could be a galaxy, could be a platypus that glows flourescent aqua in the dark. The June 29 issue blessed humanity with ......drumroll please... The Greatest Headline in the History of the Universe! PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com

Yes, folks, it cannot be denied: When an eel climbs a ramp to eat squid from a clamp, that's a moray. (Eel, that is) It goes without saying that this headline will strike anyone younger than... well, anyone young at all as simply bizarre rather than truly great. To appreciate the sublime silliness of the headline, one must be old enough to remember Dean Martin's immortal hit song, "That's amore" (the "e" pronounced as a long "a" as in "moray") -- the first line of which ran ..... When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore! (Love, that is.) That is a Snowflake MORAY Eel you see in the photos, and a special moment is being captured on video for the first time:

"When a moray hunts, it seizes its prey with the teeth of its outer jaw, and then its pharyngeal jaws leap forward out of the throat and into the mouth to grasp the prey and drag it deeper into the eel's body."

This noteworthy moment was the first time the action of the second pair of jaws was filmed for posterity. We are looking at four stills from said film. I think the lower left photo shows that second jaw in operation.   Thus does the science of Moray eels deepen, at the same time as the artistic achievements of headline-writing leap to undreamed-of heights. Why, that anonymous New York Times copy editor has grabbed immortality and swallowed it down as if she had two jaws herself!   I do not know the sex of the copy editor, but I always assume people are female unless proven otherwise, to make up for several thousand years of the opposite assumption. I DO know this individual must be of a certain age to have heard "When the moon hits your eye..." etc. yammering on the radio and incessantly inside her head in 1953. Hell, I was only seven years old, and I NEVER forgot the pizza pie in the eye -- which, when you think about it, is much messier image than the ramp with the clamp.

OTHER HEADLINES I HAVE LOVED When I was living in New York City in the early 1970s, all the hippies, radicals and scruffy artists waited eagerly every Thursday for the Village Voice to arrive on the newsstands. We could not plan our weekend without it. The Voice had a wonderful headline writer. My all-time Village Voice favorite was the headline of a theater review. The play was the famous 18th century Restoration comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer. (Well, it's famous if you were a theater major.) Apparently this particular production of this delicious farce (with a great resourceful heroine) was not so tasty. In fact, the reviewer found it tedious in the extreme. And that allowed the copy editor to crown the review of She Stoops to Conquer with the headline: SHE CONKS TO STUPOR. Now, that's a headline to savor -- She Conks to Stupor -- especially if you're a theater major. That was my all-time favorite headline until I encountered "When an Eel Climbs a Ramp..." And then this same copy editor (I believe) hit another homer when WBAI Pacifica radio host Steve Post was fired from his teaching job. Steve Post was the most brash and subversive of the WBAI hosts. I remember one marathon funding drive, when all the other hosts were begging listeners to contribute, Post just berated us: "You sit there doing nothing while I work my ass off, and now I'm supposed to beg you to pay me! Forget it!" He went on and on insulting us while the phones were going crazy with donations pouring in. Anyhow, Steve Post taught part-time at a college on Long Island named in honor of C.W. Post. Old C.W. made his fortune inventing breakfast cereals. He is the father of Post Toasties. Perhaps Steve had stepped on a few too many Post Toasty toes and, as a result, was told to pack his bags. Now, this is a copy editor who saw the potential for headline glory in a review of a boring production of a Restoration comedy. How could she possibly fail to notice the obvious opportunity offered by the firing of subversive Steve? Thus... POST LOSES POST POST. .... blossomed in the Village Voice one day in the early 70s. You don't forget a headline like that. Nevertheless, it has now been demoted to third place in my headline hierarchy. What do these three headlines have in common? The copy editors, in their brilliance, saw rare opportunities and grabbed them. And in so doing, they've given me (and perhaps you) and will continue to give me (and perhaps you) many moments of internal giggling. Ramp clamp eye pie moray amore... Only a genius could have put it all together. Dear Bloggelinis: You may have noticed I have not yet returned to grappling with the world. I have been feeling all grappled out. Perhaps you too? But the grappling is still needed, so I'm gradually returning to my Blogmistress ways. Perhaps soon I will write something deep and insightful. Terry