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It’s always the Quick 10, isn’t it? Well, it’s Friday, and I think I’m developing an immunity to caffeine, because I’m not moving very quick today. To complement my mood, we’re going to look at slow things for the Q10… or the “S10,” as the case may be.
1. The Slowest Kentucky Derby winner record since the course was changed to its current 1.25-mile length in 1896: Stone Street. He finished the race in 2:15 in 1908, 16 seconds slower than the fastest horse to win the race – Secretariat, of course. He probably would have been much faster, but the track conditions were terrible and muddy that day.
2. The Slowest Sports Day of the Year: the day after the MLB All-Star game in July. There are no baseball games, no basketball, no football, no hockey, not even golf or tennis.
3. Slowest Car in the World: According to a May report from Motor Trend, it’s the Smart ForTwo, which takes 14.70 seconds to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour.
4. Slowest Concert in the World: Written by composer John Cage, the organ piece started on September 5, 2001, and will end 639 years later. The next sound change is scheduled for July 5, 2012.
5. Slowest Mammal: The three-toed sloth. It moves at a maximum of 10 feet per minute, making it the slowest animal ever. Coming in at a close second would be my husband while grocery shopping.
6. Slowest-flying birds: there are two birds that can fly as slow as five miles per hour: the American and the Eurasian woodcock. The fastest-flying bird, by the way, isn’t the Hummingbird. Its wings beat the fastest, for sure, but the peregrine falcon moves the fastest at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.
7. The Slowest Mouse in all Mexico: the aptly named Slowpoke Rodriguez. He’s Speedy Gonzales’ cousin, and while he may be slow in movement, he makes it a point to mention that he’s not slow en la cabeza. Here he is in action:
8. Slowest Marathon Time Ever: 54 years, eight months, six days, eight hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds. In 1912, an Olympic marathoner from Japan just disappeared right in the middle of the race. Supposedly he stopped to get a drink at an outdoor party and ended up staying longer than he meant to. Once he realized how long he had spent, he was too embarrassed to finish the marathon, and quietly went back to his hotel and left for Japan the next day. In 1966, he finally returned to finish the run he started.
9. The Slowest Man in Baseball (maybe): Ernie Lombardi is often called the slowest man in baseball, or at least one of them. He played from 1931 to 1947 and lumbered a bit due to his height and weight – some say it was nearing 300 pounds near the end of his career. One manager said Lombardi ran like he was carrying a piano on his back – and the man who was tuning the piano. Despite his slowness, he had a great arm and did OK when he was up to the plate as well – at 190 home runs, he has earned a spot on the top 500 MLB home run hitters (#312, in case you were wondering).
10. The Mammal with the Slowest Heartbeat: the blue whale, which has a heartbeat of only four to eight beats per minute, depending on whether it’s diving or not.
And here’s one I can’t verify but I thought was interesting nonetheless – the slowest song to ever move up the Billboard Hot 100 Charts and finally reach #1 is supposedly Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling.” He recorded it on February 3, 1972, and it didn’t reach #1 until October 21 of the same year. My Spidey Senses tell me that there must be a single that took longer than that to chart and then hit #1, but I can’t find it. If anyone knows, I bet you _flossers do!
Comments (14)
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“Coming in at a close second would be my husband while grocery shopping.”
Zing!
posted by Charles Thomas on 7-31-2009 at 3:38 pm
It looks like “Find Out Who Your Friends Are” is a slow mover too. It was orignally release by a country artist named Tracy Lawrence in August of 2006 and didn’t enter the Billboard Top 40 of Country until January 2007.
Then there was an alternate version being played with Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw adding additional vocals. That one hit #1 in June 2007. It became the slowest climbing single on the Billboard country singles and the second-slowest climbing single on and Billboard singles chart.
posted by Colene on 7-31-2009 at 4:15 pm
I don’t know about songs, but for slowest album I would bet Appetite for Destruction by Guns N’ Roses would win that one–released 7/28/87 and didn’t hit #1 until the summer of 1988.
What about the shuttle transporter that moves it to the launchpad–I don’t even think it hits 1mph.
posted by Wayne on 7-31-2009 at 4:23 pm
Forever Your Girl is the debut album from singer Paula Abdul. It was released on June 13, 1988 and took 62 weeks from its release to hit number one on the Billboard 200 album sales chart, the longest an album has been on the market before hitting number one.
There were 4 #1 singles from this album and 3 of them break Chuck Berry’s record.
Forever Your Girl: May 1989 ~11 months
Cold Hearted: Sept 1989 ~15 months
And my all time favorite video…
Opposites Attract Feb. 10, 1990 ~20 months
posted by Stacy on 7-31-2009 at 4:29 pm
Everyone knows Paul Konerko is the slowest man in baseball!
posted by andy on 7-31-2009 at 5:00 pm
How can the John Cage piece technically be a concert? Ain’t no one sitting in a concert hall for 11 years. If the next “sound” is 11 years away, then is there some organ somewhere programmed to play a “sound” for 11 whole years? And if so, that can’t be going on in an active concert hall, or that place is already out of business. Yes? No?
Details, please!
posted by Bubba on 7-31-2009 at 5:04 pm
I think the Molina brothers could make a relay of it and still be slower than Konerko . . .
posted by Cole on 7-31-2009 at 5:06 pm
Oh, and as for John Cage’s ingenuity for producing such a thing: ho hum.
posted by Bubba on 7-31-2009 at 5:06 pm
The kings of Leon’s newest album was released 2 years ago and is just getting big now.
posted by Jill...NOT Jillian on 7-31-2009 at 5:43 pm
Agreed 100 percent Cole. when Bengie was in Toronto I would have given anything to see a race between he and Frank Thomas…would have been glorious
posted by Helder on 7-31-2009 at 7:44 pm
I swear I was reading somewhere about how the hummingbird is actually faster than the peregrine falcon, when body length is taken into account.
http://tinyurl.com/kwrfbp
Anna’s hummingbird hits 385 body lengths a second, peregrine falcons hit around 200, fighter jets around 150.
posted by Mercutio Stencil on 7-31-2009 at 9:32 pm
Bubba:
As far as I understand it, there is, right now, an organ inside a medieval church in Germany that is in performance of “Organ²/ASLSP “. The piece is an adaptation of one written for piano. Typically performances would last from 20 minutes to over an hour. This one will be lasting a bit longer.
You speak too soon regarding Cage’s ingenuity. His instructions were for the piece to be played “as slowly as possible.” There seem to be differing opinions as to whether Cage would approve of the epic performance of his piece. The idea for the current performance was thought up in 1997, 5 years after Cage passed away. Mechanical Organs have the ability to sound notes indefinitely. So, yes, the notes are lasting for years on end. The organ in question is actually being constructed as the piece is being performed.
posted by jo on 8-1-2009 at 2:38 am
I swear I saw Matthew LeCroy (another catcher, like Ernie Lombardi) get thrown out at first from the left field corner when he was playing with the Twins.
posted by eric! on 8-1-2009 at 8:53 am
So I just watched the Speedy Gonzales/Slowpoke video and while Slowpoke is walking into the house he sings a little ditty in Spanish which basically translates as ‘I can’t run, because I smoke marijuana’ How in the world did this get past the editing room? No wonder Speedy Gonzales cartoons were discontinued…
posted by Ashley on 11-2-2009 at 1:01 pm