Guess What? July 2013

The Arab World’s 3Rs
by Bob Cahn – “The Primitive Man”
It Rattles, Resonates, Reverberates
And helping with the Guess What’s noise-making qualities are small cast iron ball-like pellets; (they could have been dried beans or pebbles or beebees) … making for an economical and environmentally acceptable supplementation.
The item is cast bronze with intricate symbolic carvings – a god-like image, which we haven’t a clue. Any Egyptologists, please check in. There is an Arabic inscription, written in printed English characters. Measures 6″ across and 5″ deep.
Readers familiar with past columns know that from time-to-time we do what we like to call “stipulating” where we acknowledge in advance what a certain entity partially accomplishes. Then you have to figure out the remaining factors surrounding its existence. This is one of those times.

We’re stipulating that it’s a noisemaker of sorts. The rest is up to you:
Is it:
1) Dancing camel ankle attachment rhythm maker
2) Tribal confrontational conflict “come to make peace offering” rattle
3) Shaman (medicine man) evil spirit chaser
4) Familial teen come-of-age celebratory award
5) Jungle hunting season arrival first outing announcement indicator
6) Village dance movement background cadence keeper
7) Beggar alms solicitation attention getter
8) Tribal storyteller dramatic tale background effect enhancer
9) Village child innoculation (needle) distractor
10) Superstitious “good harvest” rain dance inducer
11) Feminine tribal ankle adornment
12) Belly dancer’s rhythm accompaniment.
Pick one – you could be right.
’Til then!
Answer to June’s Guess What

When automated bottle-capping assembly line plants were first designed (for beer and soda – and it still holds true to this day), the bottle cap with its cork lining was a flat disc … and individually formed and shaped one at a time as the bottles passed the capping station.
Regularly, the line would be stopped and the inspector would slip this cast iron 3-hole tool over the head and neck of the bottle.
Each hole had slightly different circumference tolerances – the middle one being the optimum one. This enabled the inspector to check for thickness and pressure tightness and make adjustments if necessary.
The Crowne Cork & Seal Co., manufacturer of the basic product – furnished this tool – with its name cast in the handle … a collectible item – for the inspectors at each bottling plant.*
*Available for acquisition from the archives of Mike Goodman, “King of Stuff,” Townshend, Vt. (soon to be Sarasota, Fla.)