TFN

Chris Broughton (photograph by Matt Nager) dove into the shallow end and emerged a genius, literally. At 39, Broughton hit his head after carelessly diving into the shallow end of a pool and was diagnosed with a severe concussion. He was told that he would lose 39% of his hearing over time, as well as his memory. What he wasn’t told is that he would emerge a musical savant.

It's as if my knock on the head unlocked something latent, or enabled me to use some part of my brain I simply couldn't access before. But I still can't read or write music conventionally, and have to rely on special software to translate what I play into scores. I've played alongside a classically trained concert pianist, who was fascinated by my technique – in some respects, I play like someone who has just started learning, in others my skills outstripped his. It can be exhausting, though. The music often keeps me up at night, and I'll sometimes wake my girlfriend by "playing" her arm in my sleep.

                                       -The Guardian

­

Broughton says while he is worse off financially now, after the accident he quite his corporate job, but he is much happier concentrating on his music.

Via Unique Daily

... they developed a new communication service in the way of an iPhone application and device called “Chat Perf,” which can send smells across cyber space. Amazing!

Chat Perf is, surprisingly a simple gadget. All it takes is the Chat Perf attachable device, which includes an atomizer and a smell tank and fits snugly into your iPhone’s dock port. Just plug it into your iPhone and the smell can be sent to another iPhone user using the same device in a puff of spray.

Rocket News 24 has the story: Link - via PopSci. I can't wait to get one from John. He smells like rainbow and awesomeness.

So close. Perhaps she could have gotten away with it had she added an extra paragraph that said, "P.S., I myself have a condition that makes it so when I write notes to my daughter's teacher, I adopt the handwriting legibility and excuse-formulating skills of a spelling-challenged 12-year-old child. P.P.S., Please do not call my house in an attempt to verify any of the above information, as I also have a condition that makes it so when teachers call my house it slowly kills me."

How about this, instead of another (boring) debate we have a Presidential Rap Battle? The guys are Epic Rap Battle are already ahead of us.

Without taking sides, the candidates spit out everything from how Mitt thinks Obama won his first election, to exactly what Obama plans to do with his stimulus package (word to the wise- it isn’t pretty).

Check out the video at Tastefully Offensive.

In honor of nobody's favorite holiday, Boss's Day, we've put together a presentation to help you comprehend the dark, depraved intricacies of your boss's psyche, and all the childhood trauma and personal demons that make him exhibit such strange and annoying behavior around the office. To keep it office-friendly, we put it together in Powerpoint so your boss will think you're actually doing work, when in fact you're trying to find out once and for all just what is up with that guy. 

Hopefully a marriage joined with this ring will last more than 38 minutes. The Seattle-based company Wedding Band Designs says that the inner ring spins like a real stargate. This is just a design concept, so I hope that it does spin, or else we'll be stuck here for a long, long time.

Link -via When Geeks Wed

Redditor SkeletonKeys visited Seokbulsa Temple in Busan, South Korea, where he found a bas relief that may depict the origin of the Gangnam Style dance. What do you think?

Farmerj0hn left a comment that may shed further light:

This is actually probably a depiction of the ancient story of Joo Rim Hoon, a hero of Korean folklore who crushed the demon of ignorance (the thing that looks like a baby) beneath his calloused feet (it was supposed to be poisonous to the touch, the skin on his feet was too tough).

Link

Now even your pubes can be pumpkin-spiced.

Meet the inspiration for the never-before-seen Halloween special, "It's The Not-At-All Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown." There's so much to love about Autumn — the apple picking, the crisp sweater-weather, but we could do without the naked guys with fragile hairlines wearing pumpkin diapers. Still, if it wasn't for this image of unwanted pumpkin violation we would never have gotten the idea to carve our "Entire Cast Of Law & Order SVU (including Christopher Meloni)" jack-o-lanterns.

Bruce Gardner of Orem, Utah was just settling in for a day of work at his office when he received a phone call. No one spoke, but there was banging and scratching on the line. And the caller ID indicated that the call came from his own house! Gardner immediately called the police:

Officers went to Gardner's home, and entered. They investigated, but did not see any evidence of forced entry and nothing appeared out of place. Police couldn't locate the phone, but left after they concluded nothing had been taken.

Several hours after police left, Gardner called back saying he had an explanation for what had happened.

"Apparently his dog had gotten a hold of his cordless home phone and in the midst of chewing on it, it happened to hit 'redial,' called the man's cell phone," said Orem Police Department Sgt. Craig Martinez.

Gardner had found the phone lying face down in the garden after he tried locating it by calling the phone. After noticing tooth marks on the back of the phone, he put the pieces together.

Link -via The Agitator | Photo: KSL

TARDIS vs. Dalek Doctor Who Salt & Pepper Shakers - $17.95

Attention Doctor Who fans! Behold the amazing TARDIs vs. Dalek Doctor Who Salt & Pepper Shakers from the NeatoShop. This dynamite set is made of glazed ceramic and features hand painted details. It is the perfect gift for any Doctor Who fan!

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Doctor Who items and great Salt & Pepper Shakers.

Link

Here's a gift that shows your boss that you care enough to send the very... last cake that was available on the shelf. "Uh, can you make the inscription say 'Happy Boss's Day,' but with the least amount of effort physically possible?" Between the "Happy" that looks like "Nappy," the misspelling of boss that makes it sound like you're jeering him, and the period at the end that caps the whole message off with a resounding "Meh," it's pretty clear this cake decorator hates her job as much as you do.

Ransom Riggs has an unusual hobby: he collects old photographs of people he doesn't know. But it's not necessarily about the snapshots themselves — the interesting part is what's written on the backs. Riggs explains:

When you’re looking through bins of thousands of random, unsorted photos, every hundredth one or so will have some writing on it. It’s generally just identifying information (“me and Jerry at the Grand Canyon, 1947″), but every once in a while I'll find a something surprising, emotional, candid, hilarious, heartbreaking -- a few words that bring the picture to life in a profound new way, transforming a blurry black-and-white snapshot of people who seem a million miles and a million years away into an intensely personal sliver of experience that anyone can relate to. It becomes something not just to look at, but to listen to.

(YouTube link)

The following photos are excerpted from Talking Pictures, which is on sale today.

From the chapter "Clowning Around," which is 100% tomfoolery:

This one's from "Love and Marriage" -- in this case the subject has neither:

This is from "Times of Trouble," which in this case gives us a little insight into what people did to survive during the depression (or maybe he's joking? we'll never know). In case you can't make out the handwriting, it says "Stealing everything I could get my hands on. Ha ha"

And from "Hide This Please," which demonstrates how people have always felt self-conscious about how they look in pictures, since time immemorial.

We love Talking Pictures so much that we're giving away a copy to one lucky Neatoramanaut! Just leave a comment here telling us which picture you like best, and we'll choose a winner by random drawing. Good luck!

With the candid quirkiness of Awkward Family Photos and the confessional intimacy of PostSecret, Ransom Riggs's Talking Picturesis a haunting collection of antique found photographs—with evocative inscriptions that bring these lost personal moments to life. Each image in Talking Pictures reveals a singular, frozen moment in a person’s life, be it joyful, quiet, or steeped in sorrow. Yet the book’s unique depth comes from the writing accompanying each photo: as with the caption revealing how one seemingly random snapshot of a dancing couple captured the first dance of their 40-year marriage, each successive inscription shines like a flashbulb illuminating a photograph’s particular context and lighting up our connection to the past.

Ransom Riggs is an LA-based photographer, filmmaker and the author of best-selling illustrated novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. We also love his series of photoessays, Strange Geographies, on Mental Floss.

Talking Pictures is available at Amazon and bookstores near you.

Authors and publishers: Want to feature your book in front of millions of readers for free? Email info AT neatorama DOT com for details on Neatorama's Book Excerpt feature.

If the thought of going to the dentist filled your head with dread, this may help: a dental drill that plays music! An Indonesian dentist came up with the musical drill to help anxious kids:

Dhanni Gustiana, a dental surgeon from Purworejo in Central Java, has modified a conventional dental drill by changing the buzzing sound to the music from a MP3 player.

"The children are not afraid of doctor, many of them are afraid of drill. I modified this by putting a toy on the head of the drill and telling them that the toy will clean their teeth," said Gustiana.

ITN has the video clip: Link - via PSFK

Ironically, this XBox Achievement requires putting your XBox away long enough to establish an emotional connection with an actual, flesh-and-blood, non-pixelated human being. It's basically the highest difficulty level any gamer has ever faced. Fortunately, since they're having their honeymoon in Skyrim, they can pay for it entirely in XBox Points.

But I always fired into the nearest hill or, failing that, into blackness. I meant no harm; I just liked the explosions. And I was careful never to kill more than I could eat.

Take a culinary journey into the dark heart of America with Hunter S. Thompson and Tattoo Cakes. 

Link -via Foodiggity

You recall the classic comic caption, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Many people were following the story of David Rose, also known as Dave on Wheels, on Blogger and Twitter. Dave told of his struggles as a man who is deaf and has cerebral palsy. He recently left a long "final post" before he died. Canadian blogger K-A hadn't been following the story, but when she heard about it, she started digging into it. What she found was a hoax. A simple Google image search revealed that Dave's pictures actually belonged to a young man in Virginia named Hunter Dunn.

So after seeing this, naturally my stomach sank. First, because one of my closest friends was so affected by Dave, and his message, although not true, was positive. At this point I wasn't sure whether it would be the right thing to come forward with the information because so many people were affected in a positive way. At the same time though, I realized this wasn't just any ordinary person impersonating some ordinary person. This was some "able bodied" person (referencing his final blog post) impersonating someone that is affected by this horrible disorder. And if anyone deserves credit for having a beautiful mind it is Hunter Dunn. So I searched on.   

K-A lays all her research out on a web page, and the person behind the hoax left a series of comments explaining -and justifying- the fiction. It's a fascinating read, whether you are familiar with the story of Dave on Wheels or not. The Dave on Wheels blog and the Twitter account have since been deleted, but a Twitter search revealed reactions to the hoax.

Link -via Shaun Usher

You know how the story goes. Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy gets freaked out by psycho robot hand, girl destroys humanity. Yeah. That’s the good stuff.

Tears of Steal was crowd-funded and produced by an open source 3D creation tool known as Blender. There is more information available about the film and its making at the YouTube channel and official website.

-Via Short of The Week.

You know how the story goes. Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy gets freaked out by psycho robot hand, girl destroys humanity. Yeah. That’s the good stuff.

Tears of Steal was crowd-funded and produced by an open source 3D creation tool known as Blender. There is more information available about the film and its making at the YouTube channel and official website.

-Via Short of The Week.

Jay Mark Johnson uses a slit camera to take surreal photographs that emphasize time over space. What comes through the lens looks different depending on whether it is moving or stationary. Where some folks are surprised by odd digital camera "mistakes," Johnson selects the subjects and adjusts the scan rate to come up with works of art.

Yes, it’s a confusing concept. Johnson—an architect, painter, political activist, cinematic special-effects designer, and student of cognitive sciences—probably would not have come up with the idea, himself, were it not for a chance discovery. He had purchased a $85,000 rotating slit-scan camera for high-resolution panoramas. (The camera records vast landscapes sliver by sliver.) Finding the accidental effects of motion in front of the camera strangely poetic, he experimented with stopping the rotation and honing in on one tiny area. These images are the result.

This unique look is possible because the fixed-position slit camera registers only a vertical sliver of a scene. Whatever passes that slit by gets registered in a narrow line. Over a period of time, which Johnson can control, it registers line after line. The final result is a bunch of these lines all pushed together. (In this sense, you could say each photograph is actually a composite of hundreds of very skinny images.)

Read more about the process at Slate. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jay Mark Johnson)

Previously: A slit-scan video.

Jay Mark Johnson uses a slit camera to take surreal photographs that emphasize time over space. What comes through the lens looks different depending on whether it is moving or stationary. Where some folks are surprised by odd digital camera "mistakes," Johnson selects the subjects and adjusts the scan rate to come up with works of art.

Yes, it’s a confusing concept. Johnson—an architect, painter, political activist, cinematic special-effects designer, and student of cognitive sciences—probably would not have come up with the idea, himself, were it not for a chance discovery. He had purchased a $85,000 rotating slit-scan camera for high-resolution panoramas. (The camera records vast landscapes sliver by sliver.) Finding the accidental effects of motion in front of the camera strangely poetic, he experimented with stopping the rotation and honing in on one tiny area. These images are the result.

This unique look is possible because the fixed-position slit camera registers only a vertical sliver of a scene. Whatever passes that slit by gets registered in a narrow line. Over a period of time, which Johnson can control, it registers line after line. The final result is a bunch of these lines all pushed together. (In this sense, you could say each photograph is actually a composite of hundreds of very skinny images.)

Read more about the process at Slate. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jay Mark Johnson)

Previously: A slit-scan video.

(Video Link)

Whee! Swing through a waterfall and never get wet on this installation by Mike O'Toole, Andrew Ratcliff, Ian Charnas and Andrew Witte. The water pours down only when the riders aren't passing through the nadir of the swing's arc. Here's how it works:

Water recirculates through 273 independently controlled solenoid valves at the top of the structure to create a wall of water. This water starts from a collection pool on the ground and is pumped up to a large pipe that feeds the solenoids. Sensors mounted on the swingset gather information about the angle and speed of each swing. That information is sent to a computer that predicts the action of the rider. The computer then creates a hole in the wall of water, allowing the rider to swing through without getting wet.

Link -via Colossal

(Video Link)

Whee! Swing through a waterfall and never get wet on this installation by Mike O'Toole, Andrew Ratcliff, Ian Charnas and Andrew Witte. The water pours down only when the riders aren't passing through the nadir of the swing's arc. Here's how it works:

Water recirculates through 273 independently controlled solenoid valves at the top of the structure to create a wall of water. This water starts from a collection pool on the ground and is pumped up to a large pipe that feeds the solenoids. Sensors mounted on the swingset gather information about the angle and speed of each swing. That information is sent to a computer that predicts the action of the rider. The computer then creates a hole in the wall of water, allowing the rider to swing through without getting wet.

Link -via Colossal

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer was the most famous and popular member of the Little Rascals comedy shorts series. Several generations grew up watching these funny, talented kids in dozens of short subjects in the 1930s. (Note; the series was originally called Our Gang and was later changed to The Little Rascals, which is how most fans refer to it today.) These black-and-white films enjoyed a whole new life in television in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and even now the classic shorts are seen by countless new generations on video and DVD.

Producer Hal Roach (who also produced the classic Laurel and Hardy films) produced dozens of Little Rascals and Our Gang comedy shorts throughout the depression years of the 1930s. They starred very talented kids with names like Spanky, Buckwheat, Froggy, and girl heroine and sometimes love interest for the boys, Darla Hood.

Like Curly of the Three Stooges, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer quickly rose above his young co-stars in terms of popularity. Alfalfa received fan mail from kids all over the world. According to one "Hollywood legend," Alfalfa was once mobbed by a big group of fans, while nearby, Clark Gable stood by unnoticed.

With his too-tight suit, freckles, and slicked-down haircut (complete with high cowlick), Alfalfa became a true Hollywood icon. Although he played an immensely likable character in the comedy shorts, in real life Alfalfa Switzer was no angel. According to co-star Darla Hood, "Alfie once put fish hooks in Spanky's back pockets and poor Spanky had to have stitches placed on his tush."

Another time, "Alfie put an open switchblade in his pocket and tricked Darla into into putting her hand in his pocket on the pretense that he had a ring for her from a Crackerjack box. She almost lost her fingers." On one occasion, to get back at a rude cameraman, Alfalfa had the kids all chew big wads of gum. then he took the combined wads and put them inside the man's camera.

According to other kids in the Our Gang cast: "Alfie would not pay attention to his school lessons in Mrs. Fern carter's class. He'd be kept after school often and kept everyone waiting on the set of the films."

Spanky told of Alfalfa's most dangerous prank: "We were filming one day and the scene called for the kids to show their own movie on a process screen. The rear projection system and the lights (with a thousand watts per bulb) were taking a long time to set up, so Alfie decided to use his time by going behind the screen and peeing on the bulbs. This is extremely hazardous, for even spitting on those bulbs is tantamount to setting off a series of bombs. The lights exploded and filled the studio with a tremendous stench. Everyone had to be taken off the set as the crew and director fixed the bulbs and cleaned up the mess Alfalfa created that day."

The success of The Little Rascals was great, but short-lived. By 1940, the series ended. Like most actors, Alfalfa found work hard to come by, in his case because of his instant recognition and type-casting as the world-famous "Alfalfa of the Little Rascals." Still, he was a talented actor and comedian, and he did get small roles in several films.

If you watch closely, you'll spot him doing a cameo in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and White Christmas (1954), both classics. He did a bit in a John Wayne film called Island in the Sky (1940) and others, too.

Interestingly, Alfalfa's famous schtick in The Little Rascal comedies had him singing off-key. He would belt out painful renditions of famous songs. Ironically, Alfalfa thought he actually had a great voice. He never understood why audiences laughed when he sang his off-key tunes. At auditions, according to Darla, "They used to say to him, 'Hey Alfie, sing off-key for us.' It used to drive him crazy."

By the 1950s, although still acting part-time, Alfalfa had moved to Kansas and found work as a dog breeder and trainer on a farm. It was there that he met and married Diane Collingwood, who gave birth to their son. The marriage was short-lived, lasting only four months. A life of alcohol abuse and brushes with the law followed. Alfalfa was convicted of stealing trees from the Sequoia National Forest and selling them for Christmas trees in 1958.

The death of Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer is still a very murky chapter in Hollywood history. The story usually goes that on the night of January 21, 1959, Alfalfa and a friend named Jack Piott came to the ranch-style Los Angeles home of Bud Stiltz and angrily started pounding on his door. Stiltz opened the door and Alfalfa said, "I want my fifty bucks and I want it now!" Apparently, Alfalfa had loaned out a hunting dog to Stiltz and Stiltz had not paid him the agreed-upon fee of $50.

Stiltz was in the house with his wife and three stepchildren, and at this point, she and all three children ran to a neighbor's house. Stilltz then grabbed a gun from the dresser. When Alfalfa went for it, the gun went off. Alfalfa briefly gained possession of the gun, but Stiltz wrestled it back. At that point, Alfalfa drew a knife and threatened Stiltz by saying, "I'm going to kill you!" and throwing the knife at him. Stiltz had no choice but to shoot and kill Alfalfa. The coroner's jury ruled the death as a justifiable homicide.

But in 2000, a new witness, Tom Corrigan, came forward. He was the son of actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan and Bud Stiltz's stepson, and was only 14 years old at the time of the incident. Although for years it was assumed that the death of Alfalfa was his own fault, Tom disagrees. "He didn't have to kill him," he said of his stepfather.

Tom claimed Alfalfa was drunk when he came to see his stepfather. But he said he remembers Stiltz getting the gun immediately after Alfalfa entered. He says that during the struggle between his stepfather and Alfalfa, he himself was grazed by a bullet or a plaster fragment. At this point, because a kid was hurt, the struggle stopped. Tom then left with his mother and the other children and heard the fatal shot go off.

Tom came back into the house just in time to see the shocked look on Alfalfa's face and watch him slide down the wall -dead. Only by begging for his life was Alfalfa's friend, Jack Piott, spared. But according to Piott, Alfalfa never had a knife. However, a jackknife was found underneath Alfalfa's body, closed, and looking very conveniently-placed with no blade exposed.

The facts are conflicting. And why didn't Tom come forward sooner? A statement was taken from him in 1959, detailing the chain of events as he saw it. He had agreed to testify truthfully, but was never called.

One theory is that because Alfalfa was known to be such a nasty, unpleasant person, the police just decided to close the case with no further investigation. Bud Stiltz was easily exonerated.

Oddly, Alfalfa's death received hardly any coverage in the news on TV or in the newspapers. Why? Famed producer Cecil B. DeMille had died the same day and he got the lion's share of news coverage.

Ironically, too, Alfalfa's final movie role had been in the Tony Curtis-Sidney Poitier film The Defiant Ones (1958). In the movie he plays a guy in a posse tracking Curtis and Poitier -with a hunting dog.

One last oddity: Every Christmas after Alfalfa's death, Bud Stiltz would receive a Christmas card signed "Alfie." To the day he died in 1984, he never found out who sent him the annual cards.

(YouTube link)

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer was the most famous and popular member of the Little Rascals comedy shorts series. Several generations grew up watching these funny, talented kids in dozens of short subjects in the 1930s. (Note; the series was originally called Our Gang and was later changed to The Little Rascals, which is how most fans refer to it today.) These black-and-white films enjoyed a whole new life in television in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and even now the classic shorts are seen by countless new generations on video and DVD.

Producer Hal Roach (who also produced the classic Laurel and Hardy films) produced dozens of Little Rascals and Our Gang comedy shorts throughout the depression years of the 1930s. They starred very talented kids with names like Spanky, Buckwheat, Froggy, and girl heroine and sometimes love interest for the boys, Darla Hood.

Like Curly of the Three Stooges, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer quickly rose above his young co-stars in terms of popularity. Alfalfa received fan mail from kids all over the world. According to one "Hollywood legend," Alfalfa was once mobbed by a big group of fans, while nearby, Clark Gable stood by unnoticed.

With his too-tight suit, freckles, and slicked-down haircut (complete with high cowlick), Alfalfa became a true Hollywood icon. Although he played an immensely likable character in the comedy shorts, in real life Alfalfa Switzer was no angel. According to co-star Darla Hood, "Alfie once put fish hooks in Spanky's back pockets and poor Spanky had to have stitches placed on his tush."

Another time, "Alfie put an open switchblade in his pocket and tricked Darla into into putting her hand in his pocket on the pretense that he had a ring for her from a Crackerjack box. She almost lost her fingers." On one occasion, to get back at a rude cameraman, Alfalfa had the kids all chew big wads of gum. then he took the combined wads and put them inside the man's camera.

According to other kids in the Our Gang cast: "Alfie would not pay attention to his school lessons in Mrs. Fern carter's class. He'd be kept after school often and kept everyone waiting on the set of the films."

Spanky told of Alfalfa's most dangerous prank: "We were filming one day and the scene called for the kids to show their own movie on a process screen. The rear projection system and the lights (with a thousand watts per bulb) were taking a long time to set up, so Alfie decided to use his time by going behind the screen and peeing on the bulbs. This is extremely hazardous, for even spitting on those bulbs is tantamount to setting off a series of bombs. The lights exploded and filled the studio with a tremendous stench. Everyone had to be taken off the set as the crew and director fixed the bulbs and cleaned up the mess Alfalfa created that day."

The success of The Little Rascals was great, but short-lived. By 1940, the series ended. Like most actors, Alfalfa found work hard to come by, in his case because of his instant recognition and type-casting as the world-famous "Alfalfa of the Little Rascals." Still, he was a talented actor and comedian, and he did get small roles in several films.

If you watch closely, you'll spot him doing a cameo in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and White Christmas (1954), both classics. He did a bit in a John Wayne film called Island in the Sky (1940) and others, too.

Interestingly, Alfalfa's famous schtick in The Little Rascal comedies had him singing off-key. He would belt out painful renditions of famous songs. Ironically, Alfalfa thought he actually had a great voice. He never understood why audiences laughed when he sang his off-key tunes. At auditions, according to Darla, "They used to say to him, 'Hey Alfie, sing off-key for us.' It used to drive him crazy."

By the 1950s, although still acting part-time, Alfalfa had moved to Kansas and found work as a dog breeder and trainer on a farm. It was there that he met and married Diane Collingwood, who gave birth to their son. The marriage was short-lived, lasting only four months. A life of alcohol abuse and brushes with the law followed. Alfalfa was convicted of stealing trees from the Sequoia National Forest and selling them for Christmas trees in 1958.

The death of Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer is still a very murky chapter in Hollywood history. The story usually goes that on the night of January 21, 1959, Alfalfa and a friend named Jack Piott came to the ranch-style Los Angeles home of Bud Stiltz and angrily started pounding on his door. Stiltz opened the door and Alfalfa said, "I want my fifty bucks and I want it now!" Apparently, Alfalfa had loaned out a hunting dog to Stiltz and Stiltz had not paid him the agreed-upon fee of $50.

Stiltz was in the house with his wife and three stepchildren, and at this point, she and all three children ran to a neighbor's house. Stilltz then grabbed a gun from the dresser. When Alfalfa went for it, the gun went off. Alfalfa briefly gained possession of the gun, but Stiltz wrestled it back. At that point, Alfalfa drew a knife and threatened Stiltz by saying, "I'm going to kill you!" and throwing the knife at him. Stiltz had no choice but to shoot and kill Alfalfa. The coroner's jury ruled the death as a justifiable homicide.

But in 2000, a new witness, Tom Corrigan, came forward. He was the son of actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan and Bud Stiltz's stepson, and was only 14 years old at the time of the incident. Although for years it was assumed that the death of Alfalfa was his own fault, Tom disagrees. "He didn't have to kill him," he said of his stepfather.

Tom claimed Alfalfa was drunk when he came to see his stepfather. But he said he remembers Stiltz getting the gun immediately after Alfalfa entered. He says that during the struggle between his stepfather and Alfalfa, he himself was grazed by a bullet or a plaster fragment. At this point, because a kid was hurt, the struggle stopped. Tom then left with his mother and the other children and heard the fatal shot go off.

Tom came back into the house just in time to see the shocked look on Alfalfa's face and watch him slide down the wall -dead. Only by begging for his life was Alfalfa's friend, Jack Piott, spared. But according to Piott, Alfalfa never had a knife. However, a jackknife was found underneath Alfalfa's body, closed, and looking very conveniently-placed with no blade exposed.

The facts are conflicting. And why didn't Tom come forward sooner? A statement was taken from him in 1959, detailing the chain of events as he saw it. He had agreed to testify truthfully, but was never called.

One theory is that because Alfalfa was known to be such a nasty, unpleasant person, the police just decided to close the case with no further investigation. Bud Stiltz was easily exonerated.

Oddly, Alfalfa's death received hardly any coverage in the news on TV or in the newspapers. Why? Famed producer Cecil B. DeMille had died the same day and he got the lion's share of news coverage.

Ironically, too, Alfalfa's final movie role had been in the Tony Curtis-Sidney Poitier film The Defiant Ones (1958). In the movie he plays a guy in a posse tracking Curtis and Poitier -with a hunting dog.

One last oddity: Every Christmas after Alfalfa's death, Bud Stiltz would receive a Christmas card signed "Alfie." To the day he died in 1984, he never found out who sent him the annual cards.

(YouTube link)

It's February, 1945. The US Army is advancing into Germany through Luxembourg. Sgt. William Furia of Philadelphia first wore his lace cozy as a joke, but then he found it offered some effective camouflage in the snowy weather.

Link -via Retronaut | Photo: AP

It's February, 1945. The US Army is advancing into Germany through Luxembourg. Sgt. William Furia of Philadelphia first wore his lace cozy as a joke, but then he found it offered some effective camouflage in the snowy weather.

Link -via Retronaut | Photo: AP