Noble.
This category allows us to become even more variously awestruck, complimentary, admiring, and capricious.
In an earlier draft Ella Fitzgerald was here. But it turns out there’s a critical mass of punning that cannot be exceeded without damage to the neurological pathways.
Spoiler alert. Some entries in the Table make veiled reference to entries elsewhere in the Table. Some of you tell us you’ve enjoying discovering these associations on your own, so maybe hold off reading these rubric items until you’ve spent time with the Table as a whole. Which, if you can’t spring for the print version right now, you’ll find it here.
noble.
62 | Oliphant Chuckerbutty
Soorjo Alexander William Langobard Oliphant Chuckerbutty was an English composer, well known as well both as a church organist and as a cinema organist. If you should wish your child to be a musician and composer, you could do worse than to name your child something with such a cadence as Soorjo Alexander William Langobard Oliphant Chuckerbutty.
noble.
63 | Harry Belafonte
Singer, songwriter, actor. Political and social activist. Humanitarian. Unabashedly we take this opportunity to celebrate the great Harry Belafonte.
noble.
64 | Joseph Carey Merrick
Nicknamed “The Elephant Man,” Joseph Merrick suffered substantial deformities. The Not Here to Frighten You… tagline for his promotions only hints at the deeply isolating personal struggle he underwent despite his popularity as a curiosity.
We admire elephants for the miracle of their compassion toward one another.
noble.
65 | Dumbo
In this 1941 Disney animated feature film, its main character, Jumbo Jr., nicknamed “Dumbo,” is ridiculed for his big ears, which he learns he can use as wings enabling him to fly. The Boeing 747 was initially to be marketed as a dumbo jet until negative focus group responses led to a rethink of the aircraft’s branding strategy.
noble.
66 | Mamie
Mamie, a Knoxville Zoo loxodont, was one of the first “mature” elephant painters in North America (who now number as many as thirty worldwide). Zoo elephants in Thailand not given formal training have actually ben observed to use sticks to scratch images on their cage walls.
Up to four tons of bananas, peanuts, and carrots have been known to be consumed at a single gallery opening.
noble.
67 | Batyr
One of several talking elephants. No surprise, zoo visitors to the Karaganda Zoo, probably small boys, taught Batyr the word penis.
Note this word does not appear on our 3x2-foot poster, which substitutes the word eat. Bry maintains childhood innocence is vital and something to be invested in for as long as possible, that we may as adults retain the ability to summon wonder, delight, and desire.