Uncle John's Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader Read online

  No rice necessary: In Tudor-era English weddings, guests threw shoes at the newlyweds.

  Malm had steps installed inside the whale’s mouth, and had a room built inside the body, running nearly the entire length of the whale. He covered the wooden floor with a carpet, installed bench seating on either side of the whale, and decorated the walls with fabric.

  BRASS TACKS

  When the whale’s skin was ready, workers stretched it over the outside of the wooden form and nailed it into place with rows of some 30,000 zinc and copper nails. The nails were visible (and remain visible to this day), giving the whale a stitched-together, Frankenstein-like appearance if you looked too closely.

  When the taxidermied whale was finished, it was exhibited in Gothenburg for a time, then it toured Europe for several years before being reinstalled in the museum next to the skeleton. It has been the main attraction of the museum’s whale exhibit ever since.

  A LITTLE TOO MUCH FUN

  For many years, climbing inside the whale was the highlight of a visit to the Gothenberg Natural History Museum; no trip to the place was complete without it. People were even allowed to purchase food and drinks and take them inside the whale to eat. When VIP guests visited, tables were set up and banquets served; as many as 20 people at a time could dine in style inside the whale. But the party ended in the 1890s when an amorous couple was caught in flagrante di-whale-o (we made up that word, but you probably get the meaning), and that ended the fun for everybody. The whale’s mouth has been kept closed—and people kept out—ever since. The only exceptions are certain holidays and special occasions, such as national elections, which are held every four years. Only then is the mouth opened and people allowed inside. (Unrelated fact: valdagen, the Swedish word for “election,” also translates as “whale day.”)

  More than 150 years later, the Malm whale is still the world’s only taxidermied blue whale. Reason: Artificial whale models are cheaper and easier to make, much easier to preserve, and—ironically—they’re more lifelike than the genuine article, even when the genuine article isn’t held together with 30,000 zinc and copper nails. So if you want to climb inside a real blue whale, or at least inside the skin of a real blue whale, you have to go to Gothenburg. Just be sure to plan your visit on a holiday or during the national elections, or you’ll find yourself on the outside of the whale looking in.

  Gross fact: Some flea larvae feed on dried blood emitted from adult fleas’ butts.

  THE “ANDY GRIFFITH” SHOW

  The late Andy Griffith is best known for playing small-town sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s. But when a real-life guy named Andy Griffith tried to be a small-town sheriff, he found himself in need of a lawyer (and Matlock wasn’t around).

  NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN

  People running for office will sometimes do whatever it takes to win. Even in small places, and for positions like sheriff, the candidates employ dirty tricks—negative ads, smear campaigns, etc.—anything to get some kind of advantage in voters’ hearts on Election Day. In 2006 a candidate running for sheriff of Grant County, Wisconsin, tried to manipulate voters, too, but in a positive way. He wanted to associate his name with happy times, safety, and nostalgic good feelings.

  So just before he filed his paperwork to get his name on the ballot, 42-year-old William Harold Fenrick made a stop at another government office…and had his name legally changed to Andy Griffith. That, he hoped, would remind voters of Griffith in his role of Sheriff Andy Taylor on the 1960s TV classic The Andy Griffith Show.

  SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE

  Fenrick, er, Griffith, played up his name on the campaign trail, trying his best to make voters think he’d be as good a sheriff as Griffith’s character had been, or at least one as folksy. During a campaign rally, he promised to get rid of speed traps in Grant County, arguing that “they never did unethical stuff like that in Mayberry!” One refrain he constantly repeated on the campaign was, “See, that’s the thing about Andy Griffith. He was honest and straightforward and people respected him for that.” Griffith also printed up T-shirts, hats, keychains, and other promotional items bearing the name “Andy Griffith” for sheriff—which cost him a few thousand dollars, paid for out of his own pocket—and gave them away in an attempt to secure votes.

  Then Election Day 2006 arrived. When the results came in, it turned out that ten-year veteran sheriff Keith Govier won reelection with 8,452 votes. In second place was challenger Doug Vesperman with 6,985 votes. In third place: Andy Griffith, with just 1,248 votes.

  NIP IT IN THE BUD

  That wasn’t the end of the new Andy Griffith’s life as Andy Griffith. The day after the election, attorneys representing the real Andy Griffith—the actor—filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Madison, Wisconsin. The suit alleged that “Andy Griffith’s” name change, his publicity stunt, and his unsuccessful political campaign had violated trademark laws, copyright laws, and the personal privacy of the real Andy Griffith. TV Griffith’s lawyer, Jim Cole, said that the former William Fenrick had changed his name with “the sole purpose of taking advantage of Griffith’s notoriety in an attempt to gain votes.” Griffith and Cole demanded that the defendant in the suit go back to using the name William Fenrick, and issue a public apology in local newspapers explicitly stating that he is not the actor Andy Griffith.

  Q: What well-known novel had the working title First Impressions? A: Pride and Prejudice.

  Not-Sheriff-Griffith called the lawsuit “incredibly absurd,” saying his campaign was all in good fun, and that nobody in Grant County actually believed he was TV’s Andy Griffith. “For such an American icon, it’s a pretty un-American thing to do to me,” Fenrick/Griffith told reporters.

  FINAL EPISODE

  Six months after the suit was filed, U.S. district judge John Shabaz dismissed the case. In his decision, Shabaz wrote, “There is no evidence that anyone believed that [Griffith] sponsored or approved [Fenrick’s] candidacy. There is not a scintilla of evidence that anyone thought [Griffith] was running for Grant County sheriff or that [Griffith] was backing [Fenrick’s] campaign for sheriff.”

  Wisconsin’s Andy Griffith held on to the name Andy Griffith for about another year…and then changed it back to William Fenrick in 2008.

  PAPER ROUTE

  With nearly everyone using a computer these days, you’d think the world was ready to go paperless, but the opposite is true. Global consumption of paper has increased by 50 percent since 1980. Here’s what happens in a single year:

  •Two billion books, 350 million magazines, and 24 billion newspapers are published.

  •The United States uses 68 million trees to produce paper and paper products.

  •The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper.

  •The average college student uses 300 pounds of paper.

  •The average North American uses 700 pounds of paper products.

  •The U.S. Post Office delivers more than 100 million pieces of junk mail.

  •Landfills receive 26 million tons of paper.

  •Enough paper is thrown away to make a 12-foot wall from New York to California.

  Ironic fact: Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night during the daytime.

  THE BUMHOLE

  RESUSCITATOR

  Ever hear the expression “I’m not just blowing smoke up your a**”? (Uncle John hears it from his writers all the time.) Here’s where that cheeky turn of the phrase comes from.

  FIRE IN THE HOLE

  Accidentally falling into any river can be shocking, but imagine taking a nosedive into London’s sewage-filled river Thames in the 1700s. Now picture total strangers dragging your drowned body out of the water, stripping off your clothes, and pumping warm tobacco smoke into your rectum using a set of bellows and a length of ivory tubing.

  The “bumhole resuscitator,” as it was called, was invented in 1774 by Drs. William Hawes and Thomas Cogan. They were concerned that of the 123 people who had drowne
d in London in 1773, some may have been incorrectly identified as dead and ended up being buried alive. Their invention was a way to revive the nearly dead with stimulation from tobacco juice and smoke. The doctors formed the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned (which later became the Royal Humane Society) and had resuscitator kits placed along the Thames at regular intervals, like life preservers. They also placed the kits in coastal towns. The society also offered rewards to the rescuer, as well as to any shopkeepers who allowed the drowning victim to be stripped and resuscitated on a table on their premises (pubs included).

  SMOKE SIGNALS

  The idea of a tobacco-smoke enema can be traced back to Native Americans who had discovered that tobacco juice and smoke were powerful irritants to the body’s insides and could shock a drowned person back to life. They passed this information to early American settlers, who spread the word back to Europe. At that time, the ancient theory that a person’s health depended on balancing their four “humors”—choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic—was still widely accepted. A drowning victim would have had too much water in their humors and could only be put back in balance by introducing warm and stimulating air into to the body. Up until the 1830s, many Londoners had home resuscitator kits, which also included tubing for injecting tobacco smoke into the lungs, stomach, and rectum.

  Microwave tip: Place thicker, longer-to-cook parts of food near the outside.

  CODE BLUE

  By 1903 doctors had moved to the other end of the body and were using chest compressions on a drowned patient. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation came into favor in the 1950s, and by 1960, Drs. Peter Safar and James Elam had invented cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which combined both.

  Today, England’s Community Resuscitation Steering Group, working with the National Health, has placed more than 14,000 public-access defibrillators in towns and cities across the UK, so that anyone can administer a high-energy shock to the heart of a person experiencing cardiac arrest. However, there are still wilderness first-aid guides that recommend shocking an unconscious, or possibly deceased, person back to life by spraying cold water on their most sensitive body part, the anus.

  MAGICIANS ON MAGIC

  A few thoughts from magicians that apply to the world of illusion, and beyond.

  “Magicians are the most honest people in the world.

  They tell you they’re going to fool you, and then they do it.”

  —James Randi

  “For a professional magician, a stack of playing cards is as good as a stack of money.”

  —Amit Kalantri

  “Practice until it becomes boring, then practice until it becomes beautiful.”

  —Harry Blackstone Jr.

  “If it sounds too good to be true, it always is.”

  —Ricky Jay

  “If I produce a 450-pound Bengal tiger, it’s going to create a lot more wonder than if I produce a rabbit.”

  —Doug Henning

  “The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.”

  —Ben Okri

  “No man should regret dying because of a good act. In fact, it’s a privilege.”

  —Harry Houdini

  Cleopatra took baths in donkey milk. Each bath required the milk of 700 lactating donkeys.

  ATTACK OF THE DRONES

  With more and more drones in the skies, there are bound to be more drone mishaps on the ground, and in the trees, in airplanes, in helicopters, at TGI Fridays, at the White House…

  RIGHT OF WAY

  It had to happen someday. That day was October 12, 2017—the first time an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), better known as a drone, hit a passenger plane in North America. The collision occurred about three miles from the Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec City, Canada. The small plane, carrying eight people, was flying at an altitude of 1,500 feet when the pilot saw the drone for a split second before the plane’s left wing clipped it and knocked it out of the sky. “That drone should not have been there,” said Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau, adding that it was flying five times higher than is legally allowed, and much too close to the airport. Garneau also pointed out the plane’s occupants were extremely lucky that the UAV didn’t hit the engine or the cockpit. The plane landed safely, suffering only scratches on its wing. Neither the drone nor its owner were ever located.

  DON’T DRINK AND DRONE

  One night in 2015, a Washington, DC, government worker (name not released to the press) had too much to drink and ended up flying a drone at around 3:00 a.m. from his apartment balcony. When the drone failed to come back, the man panicked; he was only a few blocks away from the White House. Sure enough, the next day, the news broke that a “mysterious drone crash-landed on the White House lawn.” As newscasters wondered if it was a botched terror attack, the worker called the Secret Service and turned himself in. It’s unclear whether he was reprimanded, but the mishap did raise a serious question: how is it possible that a common quadcopter bought at RadioShack could fly undetected right up to one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the world?

  BACK TO NATURE

  UAVs are prohibited at national parks. Here’s one of the reasons why: In 2014 Theodorus Van Vliet of the Netherlands crashed his drone into one of nature’s most awesome spectacles—the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The largest hot spring in the United States—at around 300 feet in diameter—the Grand Prismatic is known for its steaming turquoise waters. It’s also a fragile ecosystem that, luckily, wasn’t seriously affected by the impact. Van Vliet, however, was banned from the park for a year and fined $3,200. His drone sank into the steaming cauldron and was never seen again.

  “Snoezelen rooms” stimulate the senses of Alzheimer’s patients using sound, smells, colors, and images. Patients are less likely to wander off afterward.

  UNMANNED INCENDIARY VEHICLE

  While national parks are a no-no for drones, there are no such restrictions in flying them in national forests…yet. In March 2018, a drone landed on dry grass in Arizona’s Coconino National Forest. Then the drone caught fire. Then the grass caught fire. By the time firefighters arrived, the blaze had grown to 50 acres, and they were unable to start containing it until it had reached 335 acres. The drone operator’s identity and whereabouts remain unknown.

  HEAD SHOT

  A Miami Beach photo shoot with a swimsuit model named Jess Adams came to an abrupt end when she got hit in the face by a drone. She was standing on a rock facing the ocean but looking back at the camera when the quadcopter got caught in a wind gust and blindsided her. Adams was fortunate that none of the four spinning rotors inflicted much damage. Despite a few scratches and a bruise under her left eye, she was okay. In fact, she seemed pleased that the crash was caught on video. “If you’re gonna get hit in the face with a drone,” she wrote on her Instagram page, “better at least be able to watch it and die laughing.”

  BLACK HAWK DOWNER

  Two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters were flying at 500 feet over New York City in September 2017 when one of the pilots spotted a drone coming right at him. It was too late to take evasive action, and the Black Hawk’s rotor smashed the drone into tiny pieces, several of which got lodged in the helicopter’s hull. The pilot maintained control and made an emergency landing in New Jersey. Meanwhile, two and a half miles from the point of impact, Vyacheslav Tantashov was wondering what happened to his DJI Phantom 4 drone. He’d been filming the New York City sunset when the video feed suddenly blipped out. He figured that his drone—which had a low battery and was on the way home—had run out of power and crashed in the Hudson River. Tantashov learned otherwise a few days later when he received a call from the National Transportation Safety Board asking if he’d lost his Phantom 4. (They obtained a serial number from a drone part that got lodged in the Black Hawk.) It turned out that Tantashov was flying in violation of “temporary fli
ght restrictions” due to a presidential visit to the United Nations. But Tantashov had an app that was supposed to tell him if his drone entered illegal airspace, and even it didn’t know that. After a National Transportation Safety Board investigation, Tantashov was found to be at fault. It’s unclear from press reports whether he was charged with a crime or fined, but either way, he’s out one drone.

  Myth-nomer: “Styrofoam” cups are made from expanded polystyrene, not Styrofoam (extruded polystyrene).

  THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

  “FIRST-EVER DRONE SWARM ATTACK.” That scary headline from January 2018 told of the 13 weaponized drones that Syrian militants flew up to two Russian military bases at sunset. Even though the bases’ defense systems were able to take out the enemy drones—which were equipped with small bombs—without sustaining much damage, a Russian official told the Washington Post, “They thought the base was secure, but now it seems it is vulnerable.”

  WHO NOSE?

  In December 2014, a TGI Fridays in New York City held “Mobile Mistletoe” night. It went like this: an employee flew a drone—adorned with mistletoe—from table to table, prompting couples to kiss. Flying a UAV with exposed blades indoors poses certain risks, and a Brooklyn Daily photographer covering the event felt the effect of those risks when a drone cut off the tip of her nose. It also took out a bit of her chin. “Thank God it didn’t go anywhere under my eye,” said the photographer, Georgine Benvenuto. “That is my livelihood.” Interestingly, the drone operator blamed the photographer, claiming that she flinched when the drone hovered close to her face. “He’s the one controlling it,” said Benvenuto. “He needs to be more careful.”