Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (51 page)

PROBLEM #7

Your friend dies in a climbing accident in Yosemite National Park in California. Before he left, he told you, “If anything happens to me you can have my guitar.” Do you have any legal claim to the instrument?

a)
Sorry, no. Wills have to be in writing, signed by witnesses, and notarized.

b)
Yes—as long as there were credible witnesses to the promise.

c)
Sure, if he hasn’t already promised the guitar to someone else.

More random questions, with answers from America’s trivia experts.

A
LOT OF BULL

Q:
Do
animals see color?

A:
We often act as if they do, but the truth is, most don’t. “Apes and some monkeys perceive the full spectrum of color, as may some fish and birds. But most mammals view color only as shades of gray.” So, for example, “bulls don’t charge because a cape is red. They charge because of the
movement
of the cape.” (From
The Book of Answers,
by Barbara Berliner)

CARROT TRICK

Q:
What are the “baby carrots” sold in plastic bags at supermarkets?

A:
“Take a closer look. Right there on the bag, it says clearly: ‘baby-cut.’ These aren’t now and never were baby carrots. In the early 1990s, a carrot packer in Bakersfield, California thought of a clever way to use his misshapen culls. Mechanically he cut them into short pieces, then ground and polished them until they looked like sweet, tender young carrots.

“Baby-cut packers today don’t rely on culls….They use a hybrid carrot called ‘Caropak’ that grows long and slender; it doesn’t taper much and has little or no core. In the processing shed, the carrots are cleaned, cut into pieces, sorted by size, peeled in abrasive drums, then polished. Bagged with a little water and kept cold, they stay crisp and bright orange.” (From the S.F.
Chronicle)

THREAD OF TRUTH

Q:
Is fiberglass really made of glass?

A:
“It is, literally, tiny strands of glass that are anywhere from .0004 inches to two-millionths of an inch in diameter. They can be from six inches to more than a mile long.

“It’s made by either of two processes. The longer, thicker fibers are made by melting glass marbles, then drawing melted strands through holes in a platinum bushing. Shorter, thinner fibers are made by an
air-stream
or
flame blowing
process that pulls bits of melted glass into tiny fibers. As the glass fibers cool, they are sprayed with a polymer that protects their surface and keeps the fibers strong.” (From
Everything You Pretend to Know and Are Afraid Someone Will Ask
, by Lynette Padwa)

THAT JUMPY FEELING

Q:
How far can a kangaroo jump?

A:
“One large kangaroo, at a single desperate bound, is reported to have cleared a pile of timber 10-1/2 feet high and 27 feet long.” (From
Can Elephants Swim?,
compiled by Robert M. Jones)

STEEL AWAY

Q:
“
What makes stainless steel stainless?”

A:
“Stainless steel is coated with a thin, transparent film of iron oxide and chromium. This prevents soap, food, water, and air from getting to the metal below and eating it away. Since its coating is smooth, stainless steel is [also] very sanitary. Bacteria, fungi, and dirt have nowhere to hide and are easily washed away….[Ironically, the metal] was developed in 1913 by British metallurgist Harry Brearly, who was searching for a better lining for cannons.” (From
The Book of Totally Useless Information
, by Don Voorhees)

QUESTION WITH A-PEEL

Q:
Are most of a potato’s nutrients in the peel?

A:
“In most cases, the vitamins are spread evenly throughout the potato. But eating the peel is still a good idea. Certain minerals that your body needs, such as calcium and zinc, are found in larger amounts in the peel….In baked potatoes, the peel
does
contain more than its share of vitamins. Baking causes vitamins and other nutrients to pile up in the peel….[However], potatoes are members of the nightshade family. The stems, seeds and skins of this family are poisonous—some more so than others….While the flesh of the potato (the white part) is okay, the leaves and skin contain [a small amount of] substances called glycoalkaloids….That’s why you should never eat potato eyes—that’s where the glycoalkaloids concentrate.” (From
Know It All
, by Ed Zotti)

We found this in a book called
David Wallechinsky’s The Twentieth Century.
Sure, it’s gross, but you can’t say it’s not fascinating.

C
OMING OUT

Would you pay good money to watch someone throw up? Thousands once did, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Born in Egypt in 1892, Hadji Ali traveled to the United States in the early 1930s, where he appeared in fairs, carnivals, and vaudeville. Billed variously as “the Amazing Regurgitator” and “the Egyptian Enigma,” Ali would swallow a variety of household objects—coins, buttons, stones, watermelon seeds, hickory nuts, costume jewelry, even live goldfish—washing them down with copious amounts of water.

As audience members called out specific items, he would spit them up, one at a time. Ali acquired a small but enthusiastic following, and his grand finale brought down the house every night: His assistant would set up a toy castle in a corner of the stage while Ali gulped down a gallon of water chased with a pint of kerosene. To the accompaniment of a dramatic drumroll, he would spit out the kerosene in a six-foot arc across the stage, setting the castle on fire. Then, as the flames shot high into the air, Ali would upchuck the water and extinguish the fire.

FLEETING FAME

Ali remained more a sideshow curiosity than legitimate vaudeville headliner; according to Joe Laurie, Jr. in his book
Vaudeville: From the Honky Tonks to the Palace
, Ali “lasted four weeks” in one theater “before they got wise that he was killing their supper shows.”

Even so, Ali’s remarkable talent was recorded in at least three films:
Strange as It Seems
, a 1930 short subject;
Politiquerias,
a Spanish-language comedy made in 1931; and
Gizmo
, a documentary filmed in the 1930s that is occasionally shown on cable television today. He was also featured at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood from 1930 to 1931. (Ali died during a theatrical tour of Great Britain in 1937.)

UP-AND-COMING STARS

To be sure, Ali’s talent for selective regurgitation was not unique or unprecedented. A performer named MacNorton, headlined as “The Human Aquarium,” made a living in Europe ingesting and disgorging live fish and frogs on stage. He tried to bring his art to the United States in the 1920s but was prevented from doing so by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Around the same time, German-born Hans Rohrl gained fame as “The Living Hydrant.” He wowed audiences by propelling a mouthful of water 15 feet across a stage in a spray nearly 7 feet wide.

In fact, voluntary upchucking, through controlled expansion and contraction of the throat and stomach muscles, has been a popular form of entertainment since the 1600s. A French theatrical text published in 1812 noted that a highly distinguished member of the Faculty of Paris was capable of emptying the contents of his stomach at will, without nausea or excessive effort. Unlike Hadji Ali, however, there is no indication that anyone paid to see him perform.

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ANDY WARHOL SAYS…

“Ghetto space is wrong for America. It’s wrong for people who are the same type to go and live together. There shouldn’t be any huddling together in the same groups with the same food. In America it’s got to be mix ’n’ mingle. If I were president, I’d make people mix ’n’ mingle more. But the thing is, America’s a free country and I couldn’t
make
them.”

—The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
, 1975

Death may be lurking closer than you think. Judging from these stories, it might be a good idea to have a box of Tuna Helper on hand, just in case. Here are a few classic “near misses.”

T
UNA SURPRISE

“During a robbery at a grocery store in Chicago, employee Vincente Arriaga was shot by the robber at a distance of 20 feet. According to a report in the
Chicago Sun-Times
, the bullet barely broke Arriaga’s skin because it was slowed down as it passed through a box of Tuna Helper he was holding.”

—News of the Weird,

January 10, 1996

A STIRRING STORY

“Someone fired a .45 caliber bullet into Ava Donner’s kitchen. Luckily, she was holding a spoon. Donner was stirring a pot of macaroni and cheese when a bullet hit the stem of the stainless steel spoon, ricocheted off the refrigerator and landed on the kitchen counter….‘If it had been an inch either way, it would have been in her chest,’ said Donner’s husband. Police suspect the shot was fired by youths target shooting in a nearby vacant lot.”

—San Francisco Chronicle,

February 26, 1996

RADAR RANGE

“Two members of the British traffic police were in Berwickshire with a radar gun, checking for speeding motorists, when suddenly their equipment locked up with a reading of over 300 miles per hour. Seconds later a low flying Harrier jet flew over their heads and explained the mystery. When the policemen complained to the RAF, they were informed they were lucky to be alive. The jet’s target-seeker had locked onto their radar gun as ‘enemy’ radar…which triggered an automatic retaliatory air-to-surface missile attack. Luckily for the traffic cops, the Harrier was unarmed.”

—Pilot
magazine

Latin may be a dead language for most people…but not for the Vatican. In 1991 they published the
Lexicon Recentis Latinitas,
an 18,000-word dictionary updating Latin for modern usage. Here are some of the entries for you bathroom scholars.

AIDS:
syndrome comparati defectus immunitatis

amnesia:
memoriae amissio

baby doll:
tunicula dormitoria

babysitter:
infantaria

to be lazy at work:
neglegenter operor

bestseller:
liber maxime divenditus

bidet:
ovata pelvis

bottlewasher:
machina lageonis expurgandis

brainwashing:
coercitio mentis

carburetor:
aeris benzinique mixtura

car wash:
autocinetorum lavatrix

cellulite:
cellulitis

Christmas tree:
arbor natalicia

cover girl:
exterioris paginae puella

disc brakes:
sufflamen disci forma

discotheque:
orbium phonogra-phicorum theca

flashbulb:
fulgor photographicus

fax:
exemplum simillime espressum

to flirt:
lusorie amare

guerrilla warfare:
bellum tectum

gulag:
campus captivis custodiendis

hypertension:
hypertensio

hypnotherapy:
hypnotherapia

leased property:
locatio in emptionem convertibilis

pinball machine:
sphaeriludium electricum nomismate actum

photocopy:
exemplar luce expressum

refrigerator:
cella frigorifera

secret agent:
speculator tectus

sycophant:
assentator turpissimus
or
adulator impundens

television:
instrumentum televisificum