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Patriot Games
In some biography of FDR that I read once, I remember learning that one of Roosevelt's parlor tricks was to have a guest draw a straight line anywhere through a map of the United States, and he'd then name every county along the line, as well as the party leaders and other political VIPs in the county. Impressive.
Compared to that, I suppose that drawing a map of the United States freehand isn't that big a deal. Still, it's impressive in its own way. Maybe we should make all our U.S. senators perform patriotic tricks like this. Via James Joyner.
Free drinks!
With a trick like that, you could drink for free for life!
Wow.
Good one Quaker. I got to see Franken at the fair this year, although I missed this trick.
If he was left-handed he'd be perfect, but even with thats handicap he is very impressive.
Sarcasm on:
Too bad we all know that faith in Jesus is all the qualifications a politician needs.
Sarcasm off
Not.
Tripp
He Knows Your Name
I don't know how true the FDR story is, but it is true that FDR's notice was not entirely comforting; if he knew your name it was because he knew what you were up to. This attentiveness was also adopted by HST and LBJ, who knew that power was to be used and not merely flaunted. It is often wise not to draw Caesar's notice.
Twenty two years ago
Al Franken (then a comedian) did this trick on David Letterman (then as host of Late Night), and did pretty much every line the same. Minnesota first, of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn2ofGwDd4A
He did not draw AK or HI, but did complete the drawing in around a minute fifty seconds.
(the YouTube clip should be forwarded to the last 2:30 or so for Franken's self-described "stupid human trick")
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Had a Chemistry professor who could write out the entire periodic table like that. Now that was impressive
Not so much so, no...
The periodic table is a standard(ish) shape, and the atomic numbers would be easily learned by somebody constantly using the elements to perform stochiometric (is that the right word?) calculations.
I haven't seen Franken's video (no Youtube at work), but assuming he got the major details and scales of borders correct, that's a lot more abstract and involved than knowing the periodic table.
(an ability to re-draw the periodic table by something arbitrary like spelling or date of discovery or percent of occurance in nature, now THAT would be impressive).
Yes, it's a neat parlor trick
and yes, Franken's been doing it for years.
But how many US Senators or Congresspersons could even find a state other than their own on the map, let alone draw the sucker?
periodic table
I happen to be a chemistry prof, and have to agree that drawing out the periodic table isn't that big of a deal. Had to memorize most of it as an undergrad for a class, and it really didn't take long at all. And a prof who uses it all the time in teaching doesn't even have to try to memorize it--I've got a lot of the atomic weights memorized unintentionally, just from use. Now learning the names and faces of all 200+ of my students each year--that's a parlor trick!
Poor Maine
It's a bit...diminished, relative to the other states. M-state rivalry?
Saw him do a better version 15 years ago when he visited my college. All that legislating must be getting him rusty.
Hey Campesino, "meh" is way
Hey Campesino, "meh" is way over-rated.
Here is a true story - for a couple years when I was coaching youth baseball my team had three identical triplets on it. No lie. It wasn't too hard to pick out the lefty, since he was superior and already knew the signs, but those two righties were impossible to tell apart. That year I wished they had the numbers on the front of the jersey.
Tripp
Franken / Keillor
OK, so the cartography is the parlor trick used on rare occasions to draw people in randomly.
But, here's the rest of the long-winded Minnesota-nice story which emerges when the comedian is engaged one-on-one:
http://www.dustytrice.com/?p=6421
Franken becomes Garrison Keillor the story-teller, patient, careful, humble, substantive.
His grasp of the oddities and quirks related to the borders and proportions morphs into questions about whether Al understands his Minnesota constituents...
My answer is, YEAH, Al's a good guy... he gets MN, he is MN.
Just like Garrison.
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