Catch-37

Contrary to popular belief, Catch-37 is not related to Catch-22 or Joseph Heller's classic World-War-II novel that introduced the concept of the Catch-22. Catch-37 is an actual catch introduced in 1837 by the Child Labor Company. Its purpose was the restraint of children: the Catch-37 prevents children who labor in factories from leaving their place at the machines. Even though factory owners in the late nineteenth century had many means at their disposal for keeping children in the factories - such as locked doors, barred windows, and the threat of beatings or being thrown in the gears of the machines - keeping the children at their specific work locations within the factories was no small task. Hence the Catch-37.

The Catch-37 quickly and easily secured the ropes that were used to tie child laborers to the machines. It was designed so that it could only be undone by two "large" (larger than a child's) hands. Instead of having to tie knots which the more industrious children might be able to undo, the foreman could simply use the Catch-37.

The Catch-37 was very popular among factory owners and businessman in general, but it became a subject of criticism as child labor itself began to lose popularity. As child-labor laws were passed, so were laws limiting the use of, and ultimately outlawing, the Catch-37. As a result of these laws, the Child Labor Company was driven to the brink of bankruptcy.

Today, the Child Labor Company has rebounded as it manufactures the Catch-37 for use in countries where child labor is still permitted. Until 2003, the Child Labor Company produced all of its Catch-37s in America, but, due to rising labor costs in the United States, moved its factories overseas.

Moriarloks

Moriarloks are a fictional alien species well known to readers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries. They first appeared in the story "The Visitors" with the plan of cloning Holmes, taking the clones to their home planet (Moriartia) and using them to solve elaborate problems of logic. They are named after an asteroid-based space-travel theory put forth by Holmes' nemesis Professor James Moriarty in his book The Dynamics of an Asteroid.

Even though the aliens are clearly more advanced than humans, given their ability to travel through space (and, it is revealed, time), Holmes' logical capabilities clearly surpass theirs. As one of the aliens remarks, "^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^.......00001110000000>>>>> [One Holmes can clearly out-think us all, yet a series of cloned Holmeses would propel our thinking forward three-hundred stardates]."

Ultimately, the story ends with a series of cloned Holmeses battling a series of Moriarloks on top of a series of Reichenbach waterfalls. All of the cloned Holmeses and all of the Moriarloks fall to their deaths. The reader is left to assume that Holmes has defeated the Moriarloks at the cost of his own life and the lives of his clones. However, in a twist ending, Dr. Watson discovers that one of the Moriarloks tied the real Holmes to a spacechair in a spaceship. Before Dr. Watson has a chance to explain to Holmes what happened, Holmes says, "Let me guess. My clones faced a series of Moriarloks atop a series of Reichenbach waterfalls and they wiped each other out." In response to Watson's stunned expression, Holmes merely replies, "It's all elementary, my friend."

The Moriarloks make a return appearance in a diminished state in "SpaceRevenge" when the two remaining Moriarloks (the reader was previously made to assume that the Moriarloks were all defeated in "The Visitors") publish a tell-all memoir about Holmes called "The Elementary Man." Holmes preserves his reputation by showing the Moriarloks' accusations to be false, most frequently by showing that they commit the fallacy of "begging the question."

Robert Halloway

Robert Halloway (December 13, 1912 - January 12, 1998) was a standup comedian from Cleveland, Ohio. He became famous for his half-hour stage act in which he balanced a spoon on his nose and discussed the act of balancing a spoon on his nose.

The son of a bicycle repairman, Halloway had a way with silverware from a young age. As an infant, he would spoon-feed himself baby food without the assistance of his parents. By age five, he could use a fork as a catapult to launch small bites of food into his mouth with an eighty-two percent success rate. By the age of seven, he could eat soup with a fork. By the age of twelve, he was morbidly obese due to the number of food stunts he insisted on performing. Finally, by the age of eighteen, he mastered the trick that would make him famous: balancing a spoon on his nose.

Halloway was the first to do this. Prior to Halloway's breakthrough, many had speculated on the possibility, but no one had tried it. For instance, Aristotle wrote of spoon-balancing in his Physics, but ultimately rejected it as an improbability, saying "it is both clear and true that the balancing of a spoon on one's nose may be achieved in certain circumstances, but those circumstances are neither to be desired nor expected, so by observation we reject the notion that a spoon may be balanced on one's nose."

In Halloway's case, spoon-balancing was not just a feat but a source of amusement. By 1933, Halloway had become a phenomenon. Wherever Halloway went, large crowds would gather to watch his shows and attempt to perform his trick themselves. Unfortunately, Halloway's breakthrough stunt proved too popular: once people realized that they could perform the trick themselves with a little practice, they began to do so. Some theorists estimate that as much as seventy-percent of the population of American learned the trick. Soon, Halloway's act proved redundant. By 1934, Halloway was no longer able to book even small crowds and he joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed during the Great Depression.

Halloway never recaptured his fame. He ultimately became a bicycle repairman like his father and made a modest living. He had a son with his wife, Mary Coolidge, in 1938, who went on to operate his own silverware company. Halloway died January 12, 1998 of a heart attack brought on by his weight problems. He was eighty-five.

The Encyclopedia Vital

The Encyclopedia Vital is a new type of encylopedia. It includes all the information that is vital to you yet is not included in mainstream encyclopedias. Why is that, you ask? The reasoning is simple. Most encyclopedias are censored to meet the requirements of the tyrannical Encyclopedia Oversight Committee. The less you know about this organization, the better. However, what you should know is that there are vast amounts of information out there that you know nothing about. Numerous encyclopedists, including myself, have known about this secret information for years, but have been prevented from sharing it. But that is all about to change. Here, on this blog, The Encyclopedia Vital, for the first time ever, this information will be made public. As I, The Vital Encyclopedist, create new entries to what I hope will become the first published encylopedia of all the facts that you have been denied, I will post them on this blog. This will be the only place where such important articles as "Superbureaucracy," "Ptimmy the Pterodactyl," "Three-Hand Disease," "Robert Halloway," "Seacowboy," and many, many others can be found. The purpose of the blog is to generate word of mouth, or "buzz," so that publishers will finally bow to the inevitable and publish the first encyclopedia to include this vital, but censored, information. Tell your friends, your enemies, those you are indifferent to, and those you regard as being somewhere else on the spectrum that all the vital information that you need to know is here. Do that, and soon enough I will obtain my goal of putting all of this information into the published form, a form that you will have to pay for.

(Note: the other articles included in The Encyclopedia Vital will not be written in such a savvy marketing style; The Encyclopedia Vital is nothing if not a serious enterprise. This is merely a "gimmick article" intended to attract readers and does not reflect the ultimate goal of The Vital Encyclopedist or The Encyclopedia Vital.)