Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  But the scientists who study the lake are concerned that 13%is too small an amount. The lake still contains more CO2 than was released in the 1986 disaster, and as if that’s not bad enough, a natural dam on the north side of the lake is eroding and could fail in as little as five years. If the dam collapses, the disaster of 1986 may prove to be just a small taste of things to come: In the event of a dam failure, 50 million cubic meters of water could pour out of the lake, drowning as many as 10,000 people as it washes through the valleys below. That’s only the beginning—releasing that much water from the lake would cause the level of the lake to drop as much as 130 feet, removing the water pressure that keeps the CO2 at the bottom of the lake and causing a release of gas even more catastrophic than the devastation of 1986.

  SOLUTION

  Scientists and engineers have devised a plan for shoring up the natural dam with concrete, and it’s believed that the installation of as few as four more siphon tubes could reduce the CO2 in the lake to safe levels in as little as four years. The scientists are hard at work trying to find the funding to do it, and there’s no time to waste: “We could have a gas burst tomorrow that is bigger than either [the Lake Monoun or the Lake Nyos] disaster,” says Dr. George Kling, a University of Michigan ecologist who has been studying the lake for 20 years. “Every day we wait is just an accumulation of the probability that something bad is going to happen.”

  * * *

  THIRSTY?

  Pete Conklin worked as a lemonade vendor for the Mabie Circus in the 1850s. One hot day, business was so brisk he had to make a batch in a hurry and used a bucket of water from a nearby tent. When he poured his first glass, he noticed the lemonade was pink. Conklin immediately began selling his mistake as “strawberry lemonade.” So what made it pink? A circus performer’s red tights had been soaking in the bucket of water Conklin had used.

  Cats lose almost as much fluid through grooming as they do through urination.

  JESUS IN SHINGO

  An unusual legend, and a fascinating place to visit.

  THE ROYAL TOMB

  If you’re visiting the tiny village of Shingo in the far north of Honshu island in Japan, you can take a path up into the woods until you come to a dirt burial mound. Rising above it is a large wooden cross. This, says local legend, is the last resting place of Jesus Christ.

  The legend claims that Jesus’ brother took his place on the cross, allowing Jesus to escape from Israel. He made his way across Siberia, then traveled into what is now Alaska, and finally ended up in Japan. There, the legend continues, he married a Japanese woman named Miyuko, had three daughters, and lived to the ripe old age of 106. Many people in Shingo believe the legend is true—and the “Christ Museum” next to the tomb claims it has the proof.

  The story seems to have started somewhere around 1935, when a priest in the area discovered what he claimed were ancient scrolls. The 1,900-year-old documents were Christ’s last will and testament, he said, indicating that Shingo is the location of Jesus’ grave. According to a local museum, the original scrolls were destroyed in World War II and all that exist now are copies. But other evidence supposedly supports the claim:

  • Although the tomb was never opened, rods thrust into the dirt around it confirm it is lined by stones, an honor only bestowed on people of great importance.

  • For hundreds of years it has been a local tradition to draw charcoal crosses onto babies’ foreheads, a practice found nowhere else in Japan.

  • Many ancient kimonos from Shingo have been found decorated with what appears to be a Star of David.

  No serious historian believes the legend, but more than 40,000 people make the trip to the “Tomb of Christ” every year, and many visit with the garlic farmer who owns the land on which the tomb sits—a man who is reputed to be a direct descendant of Jesus. He, like a surprising number of other people in the area, has blue eyes.

  In 2003 Andy Martell of Canada created the world’s largest ball of plastic wrap: 54 inches across.

  THE CURSE

  OF MACBETH

  Actors won’t even call it by its name—they refer to it as “the Scottish play.” Why? Because they say it’s cursed. And after reading this, you may think so too. Here’s one of our favorite “classic” Bathroom Reader articles.

  OUT, OUT DAMN SPOT

  In a scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, three witches stand around a bubbling cauldron, brewing up a stew which includes ingredients such as eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog—“double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble”—we all know the scene. But there’s a story behind that scene…and a curse on the play.

  In 1606 King James I commissioned Shakespeare to write a play in honor of the visit of his brother-in-law, King Christian of Denmark. The play Shakespeare wrote was Macbeth.

  POOR KING

  James was no stranger to tragedy. He was taken from his mother shortly after birth and never knew her. His father was murdered soon after that. His mother was forced from the throne of Scotland, imprisoned for 19 years in England, and beheaded by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. James began his rule of Scotland at age 19, married Anne of Denmark, had nine children, and survived a number of assassination attempts. When Queen Elizabeth died, he ascended the throne.

  Moving to England from Scotland was like turning on a light in a dark room for James. He was particularly taken with Shakespeare’s plays. He gave Shakespeare and his company royal protection in a time when actors were considered scoundrels. Shakespeare now had the security, popularity, respect, and money that he needed. He produced six new plays in the next five years.

  HERE COMES TROUBLE

  King James was fascinated by witchcraft and obsessed by death and demons. He wrote a book about demonology and was considered the foremost authority on the subject. With this in mind, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that looked seriously at the king’s favorite subject, and he did his homework. The plot was a thinly disguised account of the death of James’s father; the witchcraft scene was crafted with care and filled with authentic details.

  The Finnish language has about 4,000 irregular verbs (English has less than 500).

  CURSES!

  Some say the play’s witchcraft spells and incantations were so faithfully reproduced that they created a curse, and that the curse is renewed every time the words are uttered. Others claim that local witches were so incensed at having their secrets revealed that they placed a perpetual curse upon the play. Whatever the case, for 400 years, Macbeth has been uncannily surrounded by death and disaster. So malevolent is the spell that it is said that bad luck will befall any actor who merely quotes from the play.

  The curse manifested itself immediately. The young actor scheduled to play Lady Macbeth for King James came down with a fever right before the performance. Some accounts say he died. King James, who had a phobia about knives and gore, was horrified by the death scenes, which were realistically portrayed with guts and blood secured from a butcher. He immediately banned performances of Macbeth for five years.

  After the ban ended, the play was performed at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. A few days later, the theater burned to the ground and with it all of the company’s scenery, props, costumes, and manuscripts.

  DISASTER STRIKES

  Skeptical? Here is just a sampling of the disasters that have surrounded Macbeth in the 20th century:

  • In the early 1900s, the Moscow Arts Company was doing a dress rehearsal when actor Constantin Stanislavski forgot his lines in the middle of the murder scene. He whispered for a prompt but the prompter was silent. He yelled for a prompt, but the prompter remained silent. Investigating, he found the prompter slumped over the script, dead. The show never opened.

  • During a 1937 production at the Old Vic Theatre in England, the theater’s founder, Lilian Baylis, suddenly died of a heart attack just before the play opened. Laurence Olivier, who was starring in the lead role, missed death by seconds when a sandbag accid
entally fell from the rafters.

  • In 1948, during a production in Stratford, Connecticut, Diana Wynyard as Lady Macbeth loudly announced she thought the curse was ridiculous. She also decided it was silly to play her sleepwalking scene with her eyes open, and tried it with her eyes closed. She walked off the edge of the stage during the next performance and fell 15 feet down.

  • A version of the play directed by John Gielgud in 1942 was plagued by death. First, Beatrice Fielden-Kaye, in the role of one of the witches, died of a heart attack. Next, Marcus Barron, in the role of Duncan, died of angina. Another of the witches, Annie Esmond, died on stage one night while she was vigorously dancing around the cauldron. Finally, set designer John Minton committed suicide in his studio, surrounded by his designs for the Macbeth sets and costumes. The repainted sets were later sent on tour with matinee idol Owen Nares, who died during the tour.

  • A Russian film version of the play was canceled when nine members of the crew died of food poisoning.

  • During a 1971 production at the Mercer O’Casey Theatre, no less than seven burglaries and one fire marred the three-month run.

  First museum dedicated to the study of extraterrestrial life: the Alien Museum (Portland, OR).

  A CURE

  To avoid the curse, veteran actors give this advice: Walk out of the dressing room, turn around three times, spit or swear, knock on the door three times, and then humbly ask for readmittance. If that doesn’t work, try quoting this line from one of Shakespeare’s “lucky” plays, The Merchant of Venice: “Fair thoughts and happy hours attend you.”

  Final note: Abraham Lincoln was quoting passages from Macbeth to his friends the evening before he was assassinated.

  * * *

  Random Fact: The Cairo Opera House was destroyed by fire in 1970. The Cairo fire station was located in the same building.

  Experts say that about 80% of the talking you do in a day will be to yourself.

  INCIDENT AT HAVERING

  A sheepish tale of political intrigue from the United Kingdom.

  BAAACKGROUND

  In September 2005, a zoning meeting took place in the town hall of the east London borough of Havering. The meeting concerned a proposal to convert an exotic horse and sheep farm into a mobile home park. To do so would require a zoning change and the council would have to approve it. Such zoning changes are commonplace throughout the world, but this one was different. Councilman Jeff Tucker, who represented the area where the proposed mobile home park would be built, got up to speak in favor of the idea. And that’s when the trouble started.

  Somebody in the room apparently did not agree with Tucker. The anonymous adversary began making loud, sheep-like “baa” noises whenever Tucker tried to talk, drowning him out. Despite the fact that there were only a handful of people in the room—including just five city council members—nobody could figure out who made the noises…and nobody would own up to it.

  BAAAD FORM

  Councilman Tucker was enraged (and the proposal failed). He lodged a complaint with the Standards Board for England, an oversight agency for governmental disputes. The board didn’t think it worthy of their time to determine who made the sheep noises and why, so they referred it back to the Havering council. The Havering Standards Hearings Sub-Committee began an investigation. They narrowed down the source of the “baa”-ing to four culprits, all of them city councilors. One of the suspects, councilor Denis O’Flynn, called the process “an extremely expensive example of the worst kind of bureaucracy” and “the height of stupidity.”

  Fourteen months later the Havering city council issued a 300-page report, the result of an investigation that cost £10,000 (about $20,000). What did they find? The source of the sheep noises was Denis O’Flynn. The punishment: nothing. By the time the investigation was completed, O’Flynn was no longer a city council member…and no longer subject to any disciplinary action.

  Georgia resident Gary Duda (pronounced “doo-dah”) legally changed his first name to Zippidy.

  RANDOM ACTS

  OF ODDNESS

  Proof that truth really is stranger than fiction.

  TOP CAT

  “A 43-year-old man was hospitalized in Richmond, Virginia, after being blown off the top of a van moving at about 50 miles per hour. Police said the man was trying to hold down some wooden fencing that he and another man were trying to move without the benefit of rope, when a gust of wind carried him off.”

  —Funny Times

  BUT HE HAD A BEARD!

  “A Frenchman was convicted for trying to run over a pedestrian he mistook for Osama bin Laden. The 35-year-old, identified as a struggling artist named Pierre, was sentenced to a three-month suspended prison term and ordered to pay 500 euros (about $615) to the victim. Pierre’s lawyer said his client was traumatized by recent terror attacks in Madrid and was temporarily the ‘victim of a hallucination.’ The victim was unharmed. He was able to run from the oncoming car, which crashed along the side of a street.”

  —Associated Press

  PULL MY FINGER

  “Rose Woodland of Winnipeg, Manitoba, is suing Dr. Andrew Robertson after he tried to fix her middle finger, which would ‘occasionally lock up.’ Instead, he made the finger extend permanently. She claims the stress of constantly giving people ‘the finger’ has led to a heart condition and she now needs surgery.”

  —Winnipeg Sun

  I LIKE BIKE

  “It was simply a case of notifying the next of kin, but when police arrived at the dead man’s house they found the three-bedroom Geelong, Australia, home virtually packed to the brim with bicycles—more than 1,000 of them. ‘In every room including the bathroom and kitchen there are bikes, bike helmets, chains, seats, and tires. It’s something else,’ said Sergeant Adrian Benny. ‘There are also bikes down the side of the house and there are two sheds full.’ He added that it was ‘ironic’ the man, who was aged in his 60s, died in the process of stealing a bike in Melbourne last week. ‘He must have had a bike fetish,’ he said.”

  A cow’s first stomach is called the fardingbag.

  —Free Republic

  DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING

  “A Chinese pensioner who exercises by walking backwards around a lake had to be rescued after he lost concentration and fell in. China Daily, quoting the Beijing Times, says Yan, 72, believes his daily routine of walking backwards around Bayi Lake is good for his health. But he was apparently counting his steps instead of checking his surroundings, miscalculated, and fell backwards. Three other fitness enthusiasts saved him and took him to hospital, where he received three stitches on his head.”

  —Daily Times (Pakistan)

  THAT’S A LAUGH

  “Members of a ‘laughter club’ in Patna, India, described the decision to ban laughing at their local zoo as ‘autocratic.’ Chuckling was outlawed after Laloo Prasad Yadav, the president of Bihar state’s ruling party, was angered by the group ‘merrily laughing in chorus’ when he walked past them in the Sanjay Gandhi Botanical Garden and Zoo. ‘You are disturbing the peace of the flora and fauna of the zoo,’ Laloo reportedly told the group, before issuing instructions to zoo officials to enforce an immediate ban. Laughter clubs—groups of people who gather to laugh loudly in public to relieve stress—are a phenomenon in parts of India.”

  —The Economic Times

  * * *

  BOLD PREDICTION

  “We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.”

  —Postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, 1959

  The fastest-moving muscle in the human body is the one that opens and closes the eyelid.

  UNCLE JOHN’S

  BATHROOM READER

  CLASSIC SERIES

  Find these and other great titles from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Classic Series online at www.bathroomreader.com. Or contact us at:

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  P.O. Box 1117

  Ashland, OR 97520

  (888) 488-4642

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Thank You!

  Contents

  Introduction

  BATHROOM NEWS

  Animal Bathroom News

  Odd Bathroom News

  Uncle John’s Stall of Fame

  RICH, FAMOUS & ODD

  Being Elvis Presley

  Kooky Stars

  I Was Marilyn Monroe

  Celebrity Death Conspiracies

  Love Me Tender

  ODD OF THE PAST

  The Strangest Disaster of the 20th Century, Part I

  The Great London Smog of 1952