Captain ILL is no stranger to failure, though he prefers to keep them on the down low. Unfortunately, the failures of superheroes, like the failures in The Book of Heroic Failures are so great and earthshattering that they often end up in the news. Here's a timely example:The Least Successful Firework
The most unsuccessful firework so far ignited was the "Fat Man" Roman candle perfected in 1975 by Mr George Plimpton of New York. It weighed 720 pounds, was forty inches long and was developed to break the record for the most spectacular firework ever. It succeeded admirably. Lighting it, Mr Plimpton confidently predicted that it would reach an altitude in excess of 3,000 feet. Instead of this, however, it hissed, whistled and blew a ten-foot crater in the earth.
Captain ILL prefers to avoid explosives and sticks to laser beams shot out of his eyeballs when something needs to be blown up.
5 comments:
A fine example of BowlingJoe's comment, "It's not the size of the lightsaber (or firework, in this case), it's what you can do with it."
I have to wonder if Mr. Plimpton himself became a part of that ten-foot crater? And it reminds me of why, like Groovelily, I'm afraid to light fireworks. Love to watch them! But you won't catch me lighting them.
According to Wikipedia: "Plimpton died of natural causes at his apartment in New York City at the age of 76." and "A longtime fireworks aficionado, Plimpton wrote the book Fireworks and hosted an A&E Home Video with the same name. He was appointed Fireworks Commissioner of New York by Mayor John Lindsay, an unofficial post he held until his death."
My son and I used to pass the fireworks stands and imagine the names of the people who worked there -- let's see, there was Patch, of course, and Stubby, and Stumpy, and Wobbles. See how many names YOU can come up with!
I meant to look into whether or not that was the same George Plimpton but I see that Joe (again, not to be confused with Captain ILL) has done that for me.
I was a big fan of Plimpton's books and Sports Illustrated writing as a kid. In fact, he came to Port Angeles while on a speaking tour in the 1970s and I went to see him. I almost wish I hadn't, as he seemed really disinterested in being there and pretty much "phoned it in". Maybe he was just having a bad day.
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