In China, American football is known as “olive ball.”
WRINKLES IN TIME
Time travel has fascinated scientists and writers for centuries. While the mainstream scientific community continues to research it, some already claim to have done it. Are they brilliant visionaries, or just lunatics?
TIME TRAVELER: Father Pellegrino Ernetti
BACKGROUND: In 2002, Francois Brune, a French priest, wrote The Vatican’s New Mystery, a book about how his friend, Ernetti, an Italian priest, invented a machine he called the chronovisor in 1952. Housed in a small cabinet (like a TV set) it displayed events from anytime in history on a screen (like a TV set). The user selected where and to what year they wanted to “travel” with a series of dials (like a TV set). Ernetti said it worked by picking up, decoding, and displaying “radiation” left behind by the passage of time. He claims he was helped on the project by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi and Nazi rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun. Ernetti said he used the chronovisor to visit ancient Rome to view and produce an English translation of Thyestes, a Latin play thought to be lost. He also heard Napoleon give a speech in Italy in 1804 and saw Christ dying on the cross. So what happened to the chronovisor? Brune says the Catholic Church forced Ernetti to disassemble the machine because of its potential for espionage.
WHAT HAPPENED: Scientists have never found any evidence that the passage of time leaves a trail of radiation. And the existence of the chronovisor has never been confirmed.
TIME TRAVELER: John Titor
BACKGROUND: In 2000, Titor posted messages on Internet paranormal discussion boards claiming he was a soldier from the year 2036 sent back in time to retrieve a computer to fix software bugs on machines of the future. He made more posts, offered pictures of his time machine and its instructional manual, and gave incredibly detailed accounts of world events between 2000 and 2036. For instance, Titor claimed an escalating global war ends in 2015 when Russia drops nuclear bombs on the United States, China, and Europe, instantly dismantling all governments and killing three billion people. (Millions more die of mad cow disease.) Survivors group into agricultural communes. Despite the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape, technology is well advanced, with wireless Internet providing all phone service, television, and music. Titor achieved a huge following on paranormal websites and talk radio. Many thought he really could be a bona fide time traveler. But a few months later (in March 2001), Titor announced that he had found the computer he needed and he “returned” to the future. He was never heard from again.
In Los Angeles, it’s illegal for infants to dance in public halls.
WHAT HAPPENED: “Titor” contradicted himself all over the place, claiming that World War III had destroyed all governments, but also that the U.S. government sent him back in time. Other “predictions” just didn’t pan out. He said a second American civil war would take place from 2004 to 2008, and that the 2004 Olympics were the last ones ever held. Also, when asked how his time machine (a modified 1967 Chevrolet, which somehow survived nuclear annihilation) worked, Titor claimed ignorance, calling himself a hired hand, not an engineer. So who was Titor? Some speculate it was a hoax concocted by author Michael Crichton.
TIME TRAVELER: Darren Daulton
BACKGROUND: Daulton was an all-star catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida Marlins during the 1980s and ’90s. But he’s also an amateur metaphysicist. He claims that a little-known dimension causes all objects on Earth to vibrate slightly, and that only a handful of people, Daulton included, can detect it, and use this ability to manipulate objects, the weather…and time. Daulton says that instead of dreaming, he leaves his body every night and travels into the future (but not the past). One event he’s witnessed: the end of the world, which he says will occur on December 21, 2012. However, Daulton has also been arrested several times for drunk driving, charges he says he’s innocent of. “I’ve been thrown in jail five or six times,” he says. “My wife blames everything on drinking. But I’m not a drunk. Nicole just doesn’t understand metaphysics.”
WHAT HAPPENED: Daulton was a career .245 hitter. If he could manipulate time and objects, one would think he’d be able to give himself a better batting average.
The left drumstick of a chicken is more tender than the right one.
ALLICRACKER
The BRI’s crack team of researchers has uncovered the hidden—and dangerous—link between drugs and alligators. Who knew? Nobody…until now.
ALLIGATOR CASE
Border agents in Yuma, Arizona, arrested a California man in December 2006 when their drug-sniffing dog went on alert near his vehicle. A search of the car turned up 13 grams of marijuana. And an alligator. The four-foot-long cayman was inside a suitcase. The alligator was taken to an animal refuge in Phoenix; the man was taken to jail.
THAT BITES
In 2006 a man walked into a home in Frederic, Michigan, with a sawed-off shotgun and demanded the thousands of dollars the homeowner owed a crack-cocaine dealer. When the homeowner said he didn’t have the money, the man confiscated his 18-inch alligator instead. “I think he was planning to hold it for ransom, or something,” Sheriff Kirk Wakefield said. “It’s really weird.”
AMPHETIGATOR
Sheriffs in Aransas County, Texas, received an anonymous tip in December, 2006, that someone had illegally shot a white tailed deer. They went to check it out…and found a dead alligator instead. And 15 grams of methamphetamines. Corey Flowers was arrested for drug and alligator possession. (Really.)
BAD COP
Los Angeles police were trying for months to find out who released a seven-foot-long alligator in the Harbor City community’s Lake Machado when they finally got a reliable tip in December, 2005. Based on that information, they searched the home of former police officer Todd Natow, 42, and discovered three alligators, four piranhas, three desert tortoises, a scorpion…and 10 pounds of marijuana. Natow was the one who’d released the alligator, nicknamed “Reggie,” into the lake because it had gotten too big for him to take care of. (As of December, 2006, the city had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in attempts to catch Reggie the gator. He’s still free.)
Defined scientifically, one second is “9,129,631,770 periods of radiation.”
CRACK TEAM
In November 2006, four police officers in Lakeland, Florida, risked their lives when they jumped into a lake in the middle of the night to pull a man from the jaws of an 11-foot-long alligator. The man lost part of his left arm—but survived. He later told police he was at the lake—naked—smoking crack when he was attacked. The incident led to several odd news headlines, including: “CROCODILE BITES NAKED MAN ON CRACK.”
* * *
MORE ANIMALS IN THE NEWS
MOOVY, BABY: In 2006 a woman in Lobez, Poland, was charged with “cultivating a narcotic” when police found marijuana plants on her property. The 55-year-old farmer defended herself by saying that it wasn’t for humans—she was feeding the plants to her cow, which had been “skittish and unruly.” She said that ever since she started feeding the cow the marijuana, it had been “calm as a lamb.” She faces up to three years in jail.
CAT-ASTROPHE: Bill Jenness got in trouble with the city of Whitman, Massachusetts, because of his cat—its poop was radioactive. The 11-year-old cat, Mitzi, was being treated for hyperthyroidism with radioiodine, which can make cats radioactive for weeks. The vet had warned Jenness that he had to limit his snuggling time with Mitzi, had to keep the cat away from children, and had to use gloves when flushing the cat’s litter. But Jenness was afraid the litter would clog his septic system, so he put it in the garbage instead. After alarms at the local incinerator detected the radioactivity, workers found Mr. Jenness’ mail nearby, and the city fined him $2,800 to clean up the radioactive scat.
If you’re average, your left lung is smaller than your right lung.
KOOKY STARS
In addition to fame and fortune, many celebrities also have some really bizarre personalit
y quirks.
PAST LIVES
• Sean Connery believes that in a previous life he was a polygamist alcoholic railroad builder.
• Sylvester Stallone says he was a French nobleman who was executed during the French Revolution.
• John Travolta believes he was silent film actor Rudolph Valentino.
• In her autobiography, Anne Heche declared herself both “the reincarnation of God” as well as an alien named “Celestia.”
QUIRKY BEHAVIOR
• Nick Nolte has tanks of ozone in every room of his house because he thinks ozone kills “bad things.”
• Lots of people think crystals have special powers, but British actor Michael York says that a pocketful of crystals caused six thugs who attacked him in Brazil to suddenly run away.
• For reasons unknown, Bruce Willis wears his watch upside down.
• W. C. Fields had chronic insomnia. When he couldn’t fall asleep, he’d wrap his face in hot towels and lie in a barber’s chair. If that didn’t work, he’d try to sleep on his pool table. If that didn’t work, he’d lie in his yard under a beach umbrella while being sprinkled with a garden hose.
• Since he’s so reclusive, author J. D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye) probably has a lot of quirks no one knows about. What is known: he has three cats named Kitty 1, Kitty 2, and Kitty 3.
• Actor Andy Dick (News-Radio) and his wife divorced in 1990 but still lived together to raise their son. Then Dick and his wife both found new live-in partners…but continued to live together. Dick even had children with his new love, with everybody living in the same house for a decade.
• Comedian and author Amy Sedaris runs a cheese-ball and cupcake business out of her New York apartment. She also likes to pick up waitressing jobs occasionally because she enjoys the work.
Real Headline: SHOOTING REPORTED AT FIRING RANGE
PHOBIAS
• Christina Ricci can’t stand houseplants, and will not swim in a pool because she has an irrational fear that a shark might enter through a hatch.
• Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings) is terrified of pigs.
• Roger Moore starts twitching whenever he picks up a gun. His case of hoplophobia was difficult for him to control while he was playing James Bond, a role that required lots of gunplay.
• Billy Bob Thornton has intense fears of antique furniture, stage plays, silver cutlery, and bright colors. He also reportedly doesn’t say his children’s names out loud because he fears it will curse them.
• David Gest, the record producer briefly married to Liza Minnelli, tries not to use the phone. Reason: he has phonophobia, or the fear of his own voice.
• Nicole Kidman hates acting. Whenever she starts a movie, she becomes convinced she’s a terrible actress and presents the director with a list of actresses who would be better suited for her role.
COLLECTORS
• Rush bassist and lead singer Geddy Lee owns the world’s largest collection of monocles.
• With over 6,000, actor Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law) has the world’s largest collection of snowglobes.
• Actor Matt Dillon (Crash) collects baseball cards…but only those of 1980s New York Mets star Mookie Wilson.
• Country singer Faith Hill isn’t into art or photography, but she does collect picture frames.
* * *
“Being Vice President means you get all the French fries the president can’t get to.”
—Al Gore
A human head can remain conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it has been decapitated.
IN THE NAME OF ART
Ever been in a gallery or museum and seen something that made you wonder, “Is this really art?” Answer: If an artist says it’s art, then it’s art. That doesn’t mean it’s normal or makes any sense.
ARTIST: Mark McGowan
TITLE: “Monkey Nut”
THE WORK: In 2003, McGowan, a British performance artist, rolled a nut with his nose to the prime minister’s office to protest high college-tuition costs. This was a follow up to several other “works.” These include “Sausage Chips and Beans,” in which he sat in a bathtub full of baked beans with two chips (French fries) stuck in his nose and sausages draped around his head to protest the decline of the traditional English breakfast; “Big Toe Bus Pull,” in which McGowan pulled a bus with his big toe to protest London’s department of transportation; and “Artist Eats Fox,” wherein he cooked and ate a fox to call attention to the plight of crack addicts.
ARTISTS: Toronto theater company Mammalian Diving Reflex
TITLE: “Haircuts By Children”
THE WORK: In May 2006, MDR recruited a bunch of elementary school kids, gave each one a pair of scissors and a barber chair at the Milk International Children’s Festival of the Arts, and told them to cut people’s hair. The artist’s intent, according to MDR: “Letting a child who doesn’t know how cut somebody’s hair is an exercise in exploring human trust.”
ARTIST: Carsten Holler
TITLE: “Test Site”
THE WORK: In 2006, Holler erected five five-story-tall twisty slides inside London’s Tate Modern art gallery. Holler says the slides are “a playground for the body and the brain.” Not only are the slides a fun form of art, Holler says they also have practical implications: Sliding relieves stress, so the adult-sized slides should be used more in society and could possibly be used as a new form of transportation.
In Asia and England, a black cat is considered lucky.
ARTIST: Kira O’Reilly
TITLE: “Inthewrongplaceness”
THE WORK: O’Reilly staged this performance-art piece in Penzance, England. It consisted of a naked woman (not O’Reilly) holding a dead pig in her arms for four hours. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) denounced the show as “sick.” O’Reilly said the piece was about the intimate relationship between humans and animals. She claimed it gave her “an undercurrent of pigginess,” and that “unexpected fantasies of mergence and inter-species metamorphoses began to flicker into my consciousness.”
ARTIST: “Banksy”
TITLE: Untitled
THE WORK: In 2006 a British “guerrilla artist” known as Banksy snuck a dummy dressed as a Guantanamo Bay terrorism prisoner into Disneyland. It was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and black hood and was first noticed by park patrons on the Rocky Mountain Railroad ride. Banksy claims he did it to highlight the plight of prisoners in the military prison. Earlier in the year, Banksy had replaced 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s CD in British record stores with his own “alternate version,” which criticized the socialite with song titles such as “Why Am I Famous?” and the artwork altered to show Hilton topless, with her head replaced by a dog’s.
ARTIST: Ye Fu
TITLE: Untitled
THE WORK: In 2006 Ye, a 28-year-old Chinese poet and artist, locked himself inside a cage in a lion enclosure for 10 days at the Qingdao Forest Wildlife World in an attempt to call attention to the plight of caged animals. Ye ate only raw meat during his captivity. He was joined by Luo Xianhui, 26, who quit her job to participate in Ye’s “art piece.” As part of the performance, they also used plastic bags to go to the bathroom.
ARTIST: Rebecca Warren
TITLE: Untitled
THE WORK: In a London gallery in 2006, Warren displayed five cases filled with various things she found on the floor of her studio and the road outside. Included were bits of dust, hair, twigs, and a cherry pit. The point of the piece, according to Warren: exploring the power of perception. “I’m interested in what a bit of fluff and a bit of twig can mean. For somebody it could mean one thing, and for somebody else, it could mean something else.” Amazingly, Warren’s collage of garbage was the runner-up for the 2006 Turner Prize, England’s highest honor for visual artists.
Russians make a mockba pizza—topped with sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon, & onions.
ARTIST: Zhang Huan
TITLE: Untitled
THE WORK: In 1
998, the San Francisco-based artist took off his clothes, covered himself with liquefied hot dogs and flour, and then had eight dogs lick him. Zhang wanted to “explore the physical and psychological effects of human violence in modern society.” He ended up exploring the effects of canine violence when one of the dogs bit his rear end, ending the exhibition at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum permanently.
* * *
THE DEADLY YEAR OF THE WAYNE
For some unknown reason, there were a lot of violent criminals with the middle name “Wayne” in the news during 1996.
• Conan Wayne Hale: confessed to his priest that he killed three people.
• Michael Wayne Thompson: murderer who escaped from prison and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. (He was captured in Indiana.)
• Danny Wayne Owens: murdered his neighbor in Alabama.
• Ellis Wayne Felker: executed for the 1981 murder of a college student.
• Larry Wayne Cole: died while running from the law on rape charges.
A newborn expels its own body weight in waste every 60 hours.
MEDIEVAL MEDICINE
A lot of medicine is trial and error: Try something—it might cure you. Here are a bunch of real folk cures we found in a book about medical practices in medieval England. (We don’t advocate trying them…but let us know if any of them work.)
• For deafness, a mixture of a rabbit’s gallstone and fox grease was warmed and then poured into the ear.
• To treat baldness, dog urine was rubbed into the scalp. If dog urine wasn’t available, horse urine could be used instead.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd Page 17