Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader Read online

  “It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

  —Julius Caesar

  “I want you to remember that no son of a bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

  —Gen. George S. Patton

  “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

  —Mao Zedong

  “In war, you win or lose, live or die—and the difference is an eyelash.”

  —Gen. Douglas MacArthur

  “Do not forget your big guns, the most respected arguments of the rights of kings.”

  —Frederick the Great

  “If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man’s intelligence and his comprehension would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.”

  —Dwight D. Eisenhower

  “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

  —Herman Goering

  “They are in front of us, behind us, and we are flanked on both sides by an enemy that outnumbers us 29 to 1. They can’t get away from us now!”

  —Gen. Chesty Puller

  Snobs? Rabbits and hares never mate with each other.

  THE WORLD’S (UN)LUCKIEST MAN

  Is he lucky...or unlucky? You decide.

  THE SELAK ZONE

  On a cold January day in 1962, a Croatian music teacher named Frane Selak was traveling from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik by train. Well, that’s where he thought he was going. Little did he know that he was actually about to embark upon a strange 40-year odyssey marked by freak accidents and near-death experiences.

  •The train carrying Selak in 1962 inexplicably jumped the tracks and plunged into an icy river, killing 17 passengers. Selak managed to swim back to shore, suffering hypothermia, shock, bruises, and a broken arm, but very happy to be alive.

  •One year later, Selak was on a plane traveling from Zagreb to Rijeka when a door blew off the plane and he was sucked out of the aircraft. A few minutes later the plane crashed; 19 people were killed. But Selak woke up in a hospital—he’d been found in a haystack and had only minor injuries.

  •In 1966 he was riding on a bus that went off the road and into a river. Four people were killed—but not Selak. He suffered only cuts and bruises.

  •In 1970 he was driving along when his car suddenly caught fire. He managed to stop and get out just before the fuel tank exploded and engulfed the car in flames.

  •In 1973 a faulty fuel pump sprayed gas all over the engine of another of Selak’s cars while he was driving it, blowing flames through the air vents. His only injury: he lost most of his hair. His friends started calling him “Lucky.”

  •In 1995 he was hit by a city bus in Zagreb but received only minor injuries.

  •In 1996 he was driving on a mountain road when he turned a corner and saw a truck coming straight at him. He drove the car through a guardrail, jumped out, landed in a tree—and watched his car explode 300 feet below.

  Melon is from the Greek word for apple.

  BAD NEWS (AND GOOD NEWS) TRAVELS FAST

  By this time he was starting to get an international reputation for his amazing knack for survival. “You could look at it two ways,” Selak said. “I am either the world’s unluckiest man or the luckiest. I prefer to believe the latter.”

  How does the story of Frane Selak end? Luckily, of course. In June 2003, at the age of 74, Selak bought his first lottery ticket in 40 years...and won more than $1 million. “I am going to enjoy my life now,” he said. “I feel like I have been reborn. I know God was watching over me all these years.” He told reporters that he planned to buy a house, a car, and a speedboat, and to marry his girlfriend. (He’d been married four times before and reflected, “My marriages were disasters, too.”)

  Update: In 2004 Selak was hired to star in an Australian TV commercial for Doritos. At first he accepted the job, but then changed his mind and refused to fly to Sydney for the filming. Reason: He said he didn’t want to test his luck.

  BACKWARD TOWN NAMES

  The names of dozens of U.S. cities come from other words spelled backward. Most were forced to do it after realizing that the town name they wanted was already taken. Others have quirkier origins.

  •Enola, South Carolina. Originally named “Alone,” but residents began to feel too isolated.

  •Nikep, Maryland. Changed because it kept getting Pekin, Indiana’s, mail by mistake.

  •Adaven, Nevada. America’s only city with its state’s name spelled backward. It’s a palindrome!

  •Tensed, Idaho. Named for a missionary named DeSmet, the name was reversed when it was discovered there was already a DeSmet, Idaho. The town submitted their new name, Temsed, to Washington, D.C., but a clerical error resulted in the misspelling.

  The Klingon Dictionary has sold over 250,000 copies to date.

  THE ETERNAL TWINKIE

  We at the BRI have an insatiable appetite for finding misinformation, including these food myths.

  Myth: French fries aren’t really French—they’re Belgian.

  Truth: Fried, salted potato strips did originally come from Belgium (they were introduced to America by soldiers returning home from World War I). But French fries are also French. How so? The term refers to the way they’re cut—long, thin strips are called julienne, or French style.

  Myth: Belgian waffles are Belgian.

  Truth: They’re American. Some enterprising food vendor in the Belgian Village pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair added yeast to normal waffle batter so they’d be fluffier. To make his new creation sound more exotic, he called them “Belgian” waffles.

  Myth: The Chinese invented pasta.

  Truth: Legend has it that Marco Polo discovered noodles during his travels to China and brought his discovery back to Italy. But actually, the Italians already had noodles. They’d been making them for centuries. The difference: Chinese noodles are made from rice or buckwheat. Italian pasta uses semolina flour, a type of wheat.

  Myth: Twinkies will stay fresh forever.

  Truth: True, Twinkies have a longer shelf life than most other baked goods. But that’s because they contain no dairy products, not because they’re full of preservatives. How long do they really stay fresh? According to Hostess, a mere 25 days.

  Myth: Sugar makes kids hyper.

  Truth: For years scientists have conducted studies, trying to link sweets with hyperactivity...without success. A 1995 double-blind American Medical Association test concluded that there is absolutely no chemical link between sugar and behavior problems. There may be a psychological link, however: parents who expect sugar to affect their child tend to imagine the kid is misbehaving.

  All spiders are cannibals.

  FAMOUS PEOPLE’S PETS

  Do you think an animal cares that its owner is a celebrity? Probably not...but we do.

  MADONNA has a Chihuahua named Chiquita.

  ERNEST HEMINGWAY had Springer Spaniels named Black Dog and Negrita (and 30 cats).

  LEONARDO DICAPRIO has a Poodle named Rufus and a lizard named Blizzard.

  MARTHA STEWART has cats named Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Verdi, Teeny, and Weeny.

  PINK has a Jack Russell terrier named F**ker.

  VIRGINIA WOOLF had a marmoset named Mitz.

  ADOLF HITLER had a German Shepherd named Blondi.

  JESSICA SIMPSON has a pot-bellied pig named Brutus.

  MICHAEL JACKSON has a llama named Louie.

  CALVIN COOLIDGE had raccoons named Rebecca and Horace.

  MUHAMMAD ALI has a tabby cat named Icarus.

  CAMERON DIAZ has a cat named Little Man.
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  GEORGE CLOONEY has a pot-bellied pig named Max.

  SIGMUND FREUD had a Chow named Jo-fi.

  DREW BARRYMORE has a Lab/Chow mix named Flossie.

  TRUMAN CAPOTE had a Bulldog named Bunky.

  SYLVESTER STALLONE has a Boxer named Gangster.

  BRITNEY SPEARS has a Yorkshire Terrier named Baby.

  SLASH has a Golden Retriever named Belle.

  GEORGE ORWELL had a dog named Marx and a goat named Muriel.

  CHRISTINA AGUILERA has a dog named Jackson (for her idol, Michael Jackson).

  CHARLES DARWIN had a dog named Bob.

  Pet tip: If your dog has bad breath, he may need to have his teeth cleaned. (Or maybe he’s just a dog.)

  THE CHAUCER OF CHEESE

  Have you heard of one James McIntyre? His unusual verses set the world afire. Think of this while eating your Cheerios: In the 1800s he was the bard of southwestern Ontario. His work is published this day still, If you read his poems, they’ll make you ill.

  ABARD IS BORN

  James McIntyre (1827–1906), known to his admirers as the “Chaucer of Cheese,” was born in the Scottish village of Forres. He moved to Canada when he was 14 and lived most of his life in Ingersoll, a small town in Ontario, where he worked as a furniture and coffin maker. But what earned him his reputation was his hobby—writing poetry. McIntyre wrote poems on a variety of topics: He described Ontario towns, saluted his favorite authors, and sang the praises of farming and country life. He even composed tributes to his furniture.

  WHAT RHYMES WITH GOUDA?

  Most famously, he wrote poems to promote the local economy. And in the mid-1800s, the economy of southwestern Ontario was cheese. In 1866, for example, Ontario dairy farmers produced what was then the world’s largest block of cheese—it measured more than 21 feet across and weighed 7,300 pounds. The giant inspired two of McIntyre’s best-known poems: “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese” and “Prophesy of a Ten Ton Cheese.”

  When the Toronto Globe printed some of his work, including such poems as “Oxford Cheese Ode,” “Hints to Cheesemakers,” “Dairy Ode,” and “Father Ranney, the Cheese Pioneer,” his fame spread across Canada and then around the world. What makes McIntyre’s poetry fun to read isn’t just his choice of subject matter (cheese) or his weird rhymes (pairing “fodder” with “Cheddar,” or “shoes Norwegian” with “narrow toboggan”).

  “If you read his poetry, what comes out is his enthusiasm,” says Michael Hennessy, mayor of Ingersoll. “People might say they are terrible poems, but McIntyre was a trier, and that is a great quality in a writer.”

  More fun to say it than read it: Uranus is green.

  WHO IS THE WORST?

  Giving new meaning to the term cheesy, many of McIntyre’s admirers argue that he, not Scotland’s William McGonagall (see page 145), deserves the title of World’s Worst Poet. But McGonagall’s fans steadfastly disagree. “McGonagall is by far the worst poet in the English language,” says Scottish poet Don Paterson. “He could write a bad poem about anything. This cheese guy may be a bad poet, but it seems he could write bad poetry about only one subject.”

  A MCINTYRE SAMPLER

  A few excerpts from our favorite McIntyre poems:

  “Hints to Cheesemakers”

  All those who quality do prize Must study color, taste and size, And keep their dishes clean and sweet, And all things round their factories neat, For dairymen insist that these Are all important points in cheese.

  Grant has here a famous work Devoted to the cure of pork, For dairymen find it doth pay To fatten pigs upon the whey, For there is money raising grease As well as in the making cheese.

  “Dairy Ode”

  Our muse it doth refuse to sing Of cheese made early in the spring. When cows give milk from spring fodder You cannot make a good cheddar.

  The quality is often vile Of cheese that is made in April, Therefore we think for that reason You should make cheese later in the season.

  Cheese making you should delay Until about the first of May. Then cows do feed on grassy field And rich milk they abundant yield.

  Jack Kerouac wrote his first novel at 11.

  Utensils must be clean and sweet So cheese with first class can compete, And daily polish up milk pans, Take pains with vats and with milk cans.

  And it is important matter To allow no stagnant water, But water from pure well or stream The cow must drink to give pure cream.

  Though ’gainst spring cheese some do mutter, Yet spring milk also makes bad butter, Then there doth arise the query How to utilize it in the dairy.

  “Oxford Cheese Ode”

  The ancient poets ne’er did dream That Canada was land of cream They ne’er imagined it could flow In this cold land of ice and snow, Where everything did solid freeze, They ne’er hoped or looked for cheese.

  “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese”

  We have seen thee, queen of cheese, Lying quietly at your ease, Gently fanned by evening breeze, Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

  All gaily dressed soon you’ll go To the great Provincial show, To be admired by many a beau In the city of Toronto.

  Cows as numerous as a swarm of bees Or as the leaves upon the trees, It did require to make thee please, And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.

  May you not receive a scar as We have heard that Mr. Harris Intends to send you off as far as The great world’s show at Paris.

  Of the youth beware of these, For some of them might rudely squeeze And bite your cheek, then songs or glees We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.

  We’rt thou suspended from balloon, You’d cast a shade even at noon, Folks would think it was the moon, About to fall and crush them soon.

  At its thickest point, the ice in Antarctica is 15,700 feet thick.

  BILLION-DOLLAR BABIES

  How does a fad start? What makes millions of people all jump on the same bandwagon at the same time? Is it coincidence...or careful planning? Here’s a look at an interesting craze of the late 1990s.

  TOYCOON

  In 1980 Ty Warner left his sales job at a San Francisco stuffed animal company to start one of his own. He named it after himself—Ty Inc. The business did well from the start, but it wasn’t until 1993 that Warner hit on the idea that would put it on the map. Why not make a stuffed animal so affordable that kids could buy it with one week’s worth of allowance?

  So he came up with tiny stuffed animals made of polyester plush fabric that could sell for about $5. The critters came with a heart-shaped paper tag that gave the animal’s name, its “birth date,” and a four-line poem describing it. He called them “Beanie Babies.”

  The Beanie Babies’ most novel feature was their filling—as the name suggests, they were loosely filled with plastic “beans” that gave them the feel of a beanbag instead of a stuffed animal. They looked slightly deflated, not stuffed, and when Warner showed his tiny slumping cats, dogs, bears, and other animals to people in the toy industry, they thought he was nuts. “Everyone called them roadkill,” Warner told a reporter in 1996. “They didn’t get it. The whole idea was that they looked real because they moved.”

  GET ’EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT

  To help boost sales, Warner adopted a clever “strategy of scarcity”:

  •He avoided giant retailers and toy store chains in favor of small gift shops and specialty toy stores, and he limited sales to these stores, too. No store was able to buy all the Beanie Baby characters that were available, and those they did get were limited to 36 of each character per month. Collectors came to perceive them as scarce—they had to buy them quickly before they were gone.

  •Instead of manufacturing as many as he could sell, Warner regularly “retired” Beanie Baby characters by posting a notice on the company Web site. Some were retired only after a long run; others were retired quickly. There was no logic to it, so when a new character appeared in stores people had to act fast if they wanted one.

  Japan produces more solar power than any country on Earth.


  •Warner made small changes in each character. If the first production run of Shasta the Bear had an orange ribbon around its neck, Warner would then change the ribbon to yellow, and then green on the next runs. Or he might change the color of the bear from white to red, and then to blue. Hardcore collectors felt compelled to buy several versions of each character.

  •But Warner’s most brilliant stroke of all: a near-total information blackout on his company, so that nobody had a complete picture of what was going on. How many Seaweed the Otters was the company going to produce? In how many versions? Which stores would get them? How soon would they be retired? He wouldn’t divulge his plans, which further fueled the frenzy to buy.

  FROM BEANS TO NUTS

  Warner’s clever marketing paid off. Kids spending their allowance money on Beanie Babies were quickly overtaken by crazed adult collectors racing from store to store looking for newly retired Beanie Babies before they disappeared forever. Since no information was coming, Ty collectors organized phone and e-mail networks to compare notes and keep up to date.

  New Beanie Baby characters came out all the time priced at $5 to $7, but as the fad grew, the value of the oldest and rarest of the retired Beanie Babies began to soar on the collectors’ market. Skyrocketing prices drew more people into the craze, which in turn pushed prices even higher. People bought every character they could get their hands on, in the hope that, like the royal blue Peanut the Elephant, one or more of them might one day be worth $5,000.

  NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD

  So how crazy did it get? Collectors made daily calls to their local toy stores to see when new shipments were expected, then on delivery day lined up hours before the store opened to be the first to buy whatever new Beanie Babies might be in the shipment. But why wait? Some people drove around looking for UPS trucks that might be carrying Beanie Babies. People fought over stuffed frogs and crabs in the parking lots of strip malls, and in West Virginia a security guard named Harry Simmons was shot and killed by his “business partner” during an argument over their Beanie Babies.