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The belongings of the late billionaire Howard Hughes – who had vowed to live on $3.25 a day because he was, well, weird – are confiscated from a Las Vegas storage facility in a fee dispute and put up for auction in 1979. The recluse’s souvenir spoons fetch the highest price (although the crowd comes perilously close to rioting when auctioneers attempt to sell the collection piece by piece rather than as one intact whole). Other hotly bid-for items include Hughes’ toenail clippers, as well as a dozen hard-boiled eggs he left behind in a cigar box.

British writer George Orwell, famous for his book Animal Farm, publishes his masterwork, 1984,in 1949. The novel features an omniscient ‘Big Brother’ who represents the horrors of totalitarian government. Soon thereafter, Orwell’s real big brother, Manny, sues his sibling for defamation of character.

Entertainer Carl Babar dies in 1968. Known to most as ‘Monsieur Nickels,’ to others as ‘That Guy With A Lot of Oomph,’ and sometimes called ‘Emile Zola’ (usually behind his back), the vocalist and keyboard player’s trademark schtick was to wear five-cent coins in his penny loafers, which always got huge yucks. He lost many fans, however, when it was revealed that the music for his entire act came from a tape recorder in his pants, not the piano. Hence his other nickname, ‘No Requests Carl.’

In 1993, Calvin Klein introduces a line of colognes aimed at the lucrative pet market. Obsession for Dogs, however, does not sell well, especially after activists condemn the manufacturer for performing inhuman product testing on laboratory people.

Artist Howard Millet, though considered a brilliant up-and-comer, still has trouble selling canvasses, which are all still lives of turnips. In 1927, Millet constructs a scratching post for his cat Skitch. Taken by the form’s inherent possibilities, he gives up the brush and proceeds to build 11,000 of them over the rest of his career, never making much money but attracting tons of strays to his studio.

American author and adventurer Ernest Hemingway undertakes a daring escape by aeroplane from Spain in 1939 where he has been held by Fascist forces during that country’s Civil War. While many of his fellow members of the expatriate Lincoln Brigade were running guns to the Loyalists, Hemingway had been running second-hand sports shirts and sneakers. Said he, after landing his single-engine bi-plane in Morrocco: ‘Don’t call me a hero. I knew the Spaniards were mad about casual wear, and figured there was a buck to be made.’

The philosopher Kierkegaard publishes his seminal work A Savage Love in Autumn in 1873. It becomes a bestseller, but his musical version is met with confusion and derision by the critics, who label it, ‘Indulgent and dense, yet strangely frothy and romantic.’ Though the author is awarded a special Tony, he will never again write for the stage and, in fact, refuses to even enter a theater, claiming an allergic reaction to ushers.

In 1919, Harry Houdini first performs his “Escape From Chained & Locked Trunk” routine over New York’s East River. It has taken four years of intense trial and error to perfect the bit, which, in earlier versions, was known variously as ‘Escape From Closed Orange Crate,’ ‘Escape From Taped-Up Cardboard Box’ and ‘Escape From Thumb-Tacked Laundry Basket.’

About the artist

Chris Callard lives in Long Beach, CA. His poems have appeared in Beach Chair Press, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Spillwords, The Writing Disorder, Ariel Chart, Witcraft, Cadence Collective, and One Sentence Poems. His short fiction in 10 by 10 Flash Fiction Stories, Maudlin House, Friday Flash Fiction, Bright Flash Literary Review, Witcraft, Ariel Chart, Gemini Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions.