PHact or PHib ?
Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh did not cut his ear off as previously thought. in recent studies of van Gogh’s “Sunflower” paintings, art historians have discovered sunflower pollen mixed into the artists pigments along with nostril mucus (a.k.a. snot), suggesting the artist’s extreme allergy to the botanical weed. Evidence in the artist’s studio points to the artist forcefully sneezing his ear off by holding the sneeze in his nose. Medically this is known to have happened throughout the Netherland region in the late nineteenth century. He did, however, mail his blown off ear to his girlfriend. That part of the story is true.
PHact or PHib ? You decide.
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Charles Shultz, creator of the Peanuts comic strips, was a secret musical composer. Whenever he drew the child prodigy, Schroeder, at his piano, Shultz drew a small puzzle piece of his own musical composition in hopes that it would be played by some of his talented fans.
Over a 40 year span, Schultz completed a Piano Concerto hiding in plain sight.
The Chinese born pianist, Lang Lang, discovered this breathtaking detail by piecing together said comics in chronological order, and will perform Shultz’ masterpiece this coming holiday season at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Tickets are on sale now.
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Sept 4 answer = PHib
Renowned comic artist Rube Goldberg, famous for his contraption comics, was unable to attend the birth of his own child.
Goldberg loved his comic inventions of complicated machines performing menial tasks so much that he had a few installed in and around his New York home during the late 1910s.
On a cold winter day, February 8, 1920, Rube’s wife, Irma, went into labor with their second son, Thomas. The doctor and midwife were already at the house, but when Mr. Goldberg frantically arrived in his automobile, his contraption attached to the garage door took so long to open that it wouldn’t let him into his own home.
With 11 different contraptions attached to the garage, including a helium balloon, a duck, and a water pistol, the door finally opened, just in time for Rube to discover that Thomas had already been born.
Rube didn’t think to use the front door at that time because the machine designed to put a key into the keyhole had a chicken in it, and the poor hen had frozen to death in the frigid temperature outside.
Rube and Irma never had any more children after that.
There simply wasn’t any room left in the house for another one.
PHact or PHib ? You decide.
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Sept 11 answer = PHib
Recent X-ray and synchrotron micro-analysis of the Mona Lisa has uncovered a startling new discovery beneath the layers of pigment, reshaping historical understanding of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous masterpiece.
Besides two distinct underlying drawings of different women, researchers discovered that the painting’s enigmatic subject originally featured a tattoo on her left shoulder.
The body art reportedly consisted of the Latin word “Mater” (Mother) alongside a graphic image strikingly similar to the iconic “Lips and Tongue” logo of the rock band The Rolling Stones. This unexpected revelation has ignited an intense debate among art historians regarding the true social class and identity of the mysterious smiling maiden.
The discovery has also sent shockwaves through the modern graphic design world, embroiling British artist John Pasche, the creator of said logo, in an unexpected plagiarism controversy. Emerging evidence, including a historic letter written by Pasche to his grandmother, indicates that the designer was aware of da Vinci’s early concept. Pasche allegedly viewed an uncatalogued, torn page from da Vinci’s notebooks during a visit to Milan, Italy, in the late 1960s.
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Sept 18 answer = PHib
A FISHERMAN’S REVENGE
A remarkable New Vision newspaper article details how Mubarak Batambuze, a 56-year-old fisherman in Uganda, Africa, tracked down and killed a massive man-eating crocodile after it devoured his pregnant wife.
In early 2014, Demeteriya Nabwire went to fetch firewood along the shores of Lake Kyoga when the apex predator snatched her, ate her up completely, and left nothing but her slippers.
Blindsided by grief and rage, Mubarak spent his life savings of 20,000 Uganda shillings (about $5 USD) to have a local blacksmith forge a custom steel spear with a barbed hook so he could pull it back to rip the flesh off off the giant croc.
Armed with his new weapon, he confronted the beast, and after a brutal 90-minute battle, Mubarak successfully killed the monster.
The crocodile, measured at over 13 feet (4m) long and weighed an astonishing 1,300 lbs (600kg), was believed to have terrorized the village for years and killed at least six other women and children. Today, Mubarak is hailed as a local hero.
PHact or PHib? You decide.
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Sept 25 answer = PHib
SUPERMAN FROZEN IN TIME
In late 1970, 24-year-old Arthur Mandelko thoroughly angered his Los Angeles neighbors by claiming he was the real-life Man of Steel. Donning a homemade Superman outfit, Arthur would continually jump from rooftop to rooftop at all hours of the day and night, damaging tiles and waking residents with loud, thumping landings.
Arthur truly believed he possessed superpowers, and was actively engaged in fighting for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” just like the hero seen on TV. His exhausted neighbors however, did not see it the same way and lodged formal complaints with his landlord.
Things went quiet for a while and the people believed the landlord intervention had been successful. No one checked up on Arthur until it was realized that he hadn’t been seen in over a month.
When the landlord entered the apartment to investigate, he found no sign of Arthur… that is until he opened the refrigerator. Whereupon, he discovered Arthur, frozen to death, clutching a rope in his hand and still wearing his Superman outfit.
While the official record states he died of hypothermia, the coroner speculated that Arthur imagined the fridge was a spacecraft and was attempting to return to the planet Krypton. He became trapped inside the icebox when the rope attached to the outside release handle slipped off.
Reacting to the bizarre tragedy, one neighbor told reporters, “Perhaps he should have used his heat vision.”
PHact or PHib? You decide.
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Oct 2 answer = PHact
The Rosetta Stone Is Wrong: Cambridge Scholars Claim Original Translation Is Flawed
LONDON — A Cambridge University research team has shocked archaeologists by claiming the Rosetta Stone was fundamentally mistranslated over two centuries ago. If verified, the discovery could rewrite our understanding of ancient Egyptian history.
Discovered in 1799 and decoded by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, the 1,680-pound slab has long been accepted as the definitive “key” to unlocking Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Using advanced AI to analyze the stone’s three fragmentary texts, classical linguist Dr. Charles Wise found a critical flaw in the original 19th-century translation. His team argues the text does not decree the divine cult of Pharaoh Ptolemy V. Instead, it dates much earlier, written by a 26th-Dynasty council of priests, and functions as a civic etiquette stela.
Among its detailed instructions on how to be a good neighbor, the text explicitly notes that it is bad manners to appear at another’s door unannounced.
“The original translators projected a grand political narrative onto what is actually a strict code of domestic decorum,” Dr. Wise stated.
The team also pointed to a newly analyzed cache of palm-sized stones in the British Museum’s archives. Long dismissed as weaponized projectiles, these artifacts feature matching Demotic script and are now believed to be formal introductory markers left at residential thresholds. According to Dr. Wise, the text on several stones reads simply: “Hello, I’m your new neighbor.”
The study has been submitted to the Archaeological Digest for peer review. Despite immediate debate among global Egyptologists, Dr. Wise remains confident his findings will permanently change how the world views ancient Egyptian society.
PHact or PHib? You Decide.
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Oct 2nd Answer = PHact !
This Week’s Activity Pages
CONNECT THE DOTS
WORD SEARCH
Find the “PHunny”
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FOLLOW the LINE
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Color This Baboy Picture
Last Week’s Coloring Page, colored by our fan Sophie
Steve’s Card Trick
Participate in a Card Trick with Steve — pick a card, follow along, and see if Steve can guess it!
FIND THE DIFFERENCE
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Break the Secret Code
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It’s a Secret. Get Someone to Help You.
Creature Design Challenge
DRAW A
MUSTACHE MONSTER
The LAST LAAPH
PHunny Man, Tim Hodge created all the NetFlix DVD mailers you used to get.
Brought to you by Disney veterans, Tim Hodge and our guest Animator, Broose Johnson.
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