ON MESMERIZING THINGS
Saturday Evening Post; 13 Aug
1949. Researched by Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec 2011.
STEVAN DOHANOS' cover for the July 2nd issue had a lobster on it. The Post's
cover box reported that a pet lobster posed for the
picture, and that it has been trained by its master to stand on its head. A.
Hyatt Verrill, of Lake Worth,
Florida, informs us that any
lobster still in possession of its faculties can easily be made to do a head
stand.
Verrill says that you merely
set a lobster on its nose, with its claws folded and its tail bent down, and
stroke its back up and down a few times. He explains that the reason more people don't do this to lobsters is
because few know of the trick—"I have seen old
lobstermen gaze in speechless amazement at their
lobsters standing motionless on their
heads after I had 'mesmerized' them."
Verrill adds that a similar
staled mind can be produced in a hen. You tuck the
hen's head under one wing and wave her around in the
air a few times. When the
astonished creature is placed on the
ground, she will lie motionless on her side for quite a while, as if deceased.
Does anybody know whether this sort of thing works on animated young
children?
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