DISCOVERED IN MR. PEARLROTH’S BRIEFCASE FOLLOWING THE APPENDAGE’S DEMISE IN THE ROSE READING ROOM OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY: presumed notes for his alter–ego Rip-Li’s autobiography.

1. Proclaim: The Human SlateTheHumanCorkTheHumanBeltTheHumanFlagThe HumanAutographBookTheHumanPincushionTheHumanUnicornTheHumanMusical Chair (a three-legged Sicilian mandolin player) - put the word HUMAN in front of anything and people are spellbound. Ditto the world’s largest broom, frying pan, tallest man, etc.

2. Train an animal to ape humans, produce a time-telling horse, a cigarette smoking duck, a roller-skating Chihuahua, a typewriting rooster, a fat, pie-guzzling dog….and you have the country’s ear.

3. Seek out feats involving time: world champion chicken picker “Buck” Fulford of Port Arthur, Texas, who could kill, pick clean, cut up, cook and eat a chicken in one minute and fifty seconds.

4. Ferret out the improbable tinged with the pathetic: World’s Busiest Man: a one armed paper hangar with hives

5. Unveil the Shocking and Horrific Stunt: El Gran Lazaro, El Indio de Baracoa of Havana, sticks a needle in his eye socket and pulls it out of his mouth.

6. Deliver up the Born-Odds: the extra-limbed or no-limbed, the hole-headed, the quadruple jointed, the dual sexed, the gleeful midgets and glum giants, the one-eyed and triple-tongued, the albino, the bearded, the conjoined, the parasitic, these cause the self-haters, self-loathers, self-cringers and self-abusers of the world to pluck up, to perk up, put a spring in their step, hey, at least I’m not YOU.

7. In a singular category, proclaim:  “El Fusilado,” The Executed One, who faced a firing squad, received eight bullets through the head and body—and the coup de grace—yet LIVED!

Was Nostradamus Right?
Are we in the end days?
Apocalypse: 2012!
^{Answers Withheld}