Bee’s Knees
The discoveries of Mars’ moons and a honey of a drink
By Pam Scrabb
WASHINGTON • 1877 — Asaph Hall was afraid to go home. He’d left Maxfield’s Tavern and returned to his office at the U.S. Naval Observatory rather than face his wife. Half drunk, he sat at his desk, talking to the observatory’s cat, Señor Freckles. “Angie’s going to be so mad at me, Señor,” the math professor said as the cat stretched its front legs, ignoring him. “Why am I such an idiot?!”
In fact, that was a question Angeline Stickney Hall had been asking since she first met her husband 22 years earlier. At the time, she was 25 and had just graduated from New York Central College, where she studied calculus and mathematical astronomy, and had become a suffragist and abolitionist.
She taught geometry and German to NYCC undergraduates, one of whom was a brilliant but annoying boy named Asaph. He and his friends recognized that their teacher, whom they called Miss Angeline, was a genius. They loved to try and stump her with complicated questions about the Flemingtide theory of dynamical systems, or phase space recurrence hypothesis, or ergotic lattice cavity matrixes.
Asaph and his friends never produced a problem Angeline couldn’t solve, and she enjoyed punctuating her complex answers with curt dismissals. “Enough for today, boys,” she’d say. “Back to your little arithmetics.”
Bee’s Knees
2 ounces of gin
¾ ounce of lemon juice
¾ ounce of honey syrup*
*Whisk together 3 parts honey to 1 part warm water for 30 seconds
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled coupe
But she was drawn to Asaph’s love of math. He had grown up in a poor New England farming family, and every success he’d managed in life was rooted in that love of numbers, outcomes, and patterns. But he was so focused on those things that he left little room in his mind for anything else.
They married, and Angeline gave up her academic career to raise their family. But she didn’t entirely give up on academia. Instead, she worked behind the scenes, securing Asaph jobs teaching at a number of universities while she also homeschooled their four children. (All of whom would attend Harvard.) Angeline also participated (from home) in Asaph’s planetary astronomy research, specifically his work on the orbits of double stars and determinations of stellar parallax. With Angeline's guidance, that work landed Asaph a position teaching at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood.
Once in Washington, Angeline and Asaph decided on a project to measure the orbits of what they believed were two moons circling Mars. They would confirm the moons' existence if they could find precise orbital measurements. The work was difficult and could be monotonous. Over the years, Asaph threatened to abandon the effort multiple times. But Angeline pushed him to keep searching, keep working through the data, keep his chin up.
One day in 1877, Asaph came home from the observatory and barely put his things down before hugging Angeline. “I think we’ve found them!” he said excitedly. “I believe I established the orbits. Will you run through the final numbers with me this evening? I want to be 100% sure before informing the committee.”
“Asaph, this is so exciting!” Angeline said. They worked Asaph’s data for the next three hours, going over them repeatedly before finally opening a bottle of champagne that had been chilling in the mechanical artificial refrigeration box that took up most of their kitchen. Over champagne, they discussed what Asaph would call the moons.
“You must name them for the two sons of Ares: Phobos and Deimos,” Angeline said.
“But what does Ares have to do with Mars?” Asaph asked.
“Mars is the Roman name for the Greek god of war, Ares,” Angeline said.
“Uh-huh,” said Asaph.
“Yes, sweetie,” Angeline continued. “And his two sons, whose names mean “fear” and “terror,” often accompanied Ares on the battlefield.”
“What’s that?” Asaph asked.
“What’s what? A battlefield? Never mind, Asaph. Just name the moons Phobos and Deimos, ok?” Angeline said. “Trust me, it makes sense, and your colleagues and peers will think it’s a wise choice.
“What is a Phobos?”
“Another thing, Asaph,” Angeline said. “I’d like you to ask the committee that I be paid the equivalent of a man’s salary for my contribution to this discovery.”
Asaph looked at her blankly for a moment. “No,” he said. “But I will name a giant moon crater for you.”
Now it was Angeline’s turn to look blankly at her spouse. When her face turned a sort of purply-orange she exploded. “Are you fucking serious? What the fuc…”
Asaph interrupted her. “I’m going to the pub,” he said.
Asaph took a stool at Maxfield’s and asked Max to make him something he’d never made before. He was celebrating discovery and wanted a drink no one had ever had.
“What did you discover, Asaph?” Max asked.
“The two moons of Mars,” Asaph said.
“Well, that does deserve something special and new,” Max said. He began mixing a drink with gin, adding honey as a sweetener, balanced with some sour lemon juice. “Let’s call it the Bee’s Knees!”
“This is delicious!” Asaph said after his first sip. “In the spirit of discovery and to spite my wife, I decided while you were mixing this new Knees Bees that I would name the two new moons of Mars for your creation, Max.”
He stood up, wobbled and bit, and banged on the bar. “Excuse me, everyone! I have made an enormous discovery today. The planet Mars has two moons, and you all are the first to hear that I will name them Knees and Bees after this drink Max made.”
“It’s actually the other way around and possessive,” Max said. “Bee’s Knees. Like a bee has knees. Which it doesn’t, which is why the saying is funny.”
“Yes, ok,” said Asaph. “Max, a round of Knees Bees for the house, on me!” After a moment, everyone turned back to their tables and resumed their conversations. Some spoke of the sad decline in quality of Maxfield’s patronage in recent months.
The following morning, the nine-member Planetary Committee of the U.S. Naval Observatory unanimously rejected Asaph Hall’s nomination of Knees and Bees as the names of the two moons and asked if he had any backup names. Though he still had no idea what they were, he sheepishly offered Angeline’s Phobos and Deimos idea to the committee, and its members unanimously approved.
The committee members laughed very hard when Asaph Hall told them his wife asked to be paid for her work. When Asaph told them that Angeline had asked not only to be paid but had asked for the equivalent of a man’s salary, the laughter in the room was so intense that one committee member, struggling to remain standing, knocked over a decorative crystal case holding President Lincoln’s eyeteeth. Another member ruptured his rectum and required hospitalization.
Editor’s Note: Fact-based cocktail historians claim that while the Bee’s Knees was long associated with Titanic survivor Molly “Unsinkable” Brown, the drink was actually created in 1929 by Frank Meier, head bartender at the Hôtel Ritz Paris.
SOURCES:
Kyle Chipplehaunt, “Phobos, Deimos, Lobos, Three Most: Discarded Dr. Seuss Titles of the Cold War Era,” Children’s Literature and Central Asian Border Disputes Review (Issue 45, 1988): pp. 567-599
Jill Rapply-Krafg, Lady Craters: Impact Depressions Named for Female Leaders and Artists (New York: Zibble & Co, 1927)
Contributors Notes:
Pam Scrabb creates art that wrestles with issues of isolation, yearning, bad meat smells, and a double-cut metal bandsaw she found in a Mekong Delta boatyard. She graduated from the University of Hyderabad, where she studied synecdochic uses of metonymy in relation to the heteronormative coefficients of learned cultural restraints. She was also in the Cheese Club. Her work has been shown at the Red Lobster on Collins Rd. in Cedar Rapids.
Next week: Better & Better • A soulful mezcal sipper named for 1970s sweet soul superstars