by Will Pearson
A ceremonial ball game played by the Aztecs a few hundred years before the European discovery of America, Ullamalitzli called for players on two teams to don large stone belts or hip paddles that were used to bounce a small rubber ball back and forth down a narrow court with inclined stone walls. The players used each other’s bodies and the walls as they attempted to maneuver the ball into a small stone ring high above mid-court, an extremely difficult task. The game ended when either side scored a goal. Amazingly enough, the game enjoyed long popularity among the native peoples of Mexico and Central America before the Aztecs played it. Of course, the stakes were a little greater when the Aztecs came to play. In their version of the sport, at the end of the game one of the captains was sacrificed to the gods, giving even more meaning to the phrase “sore loser.”
instant personalities
To make himself more attractive to the opposite sex, SALVADOR DALI used to shave his armpits and wear a homemade scent made of fish glue and cow manure.
As a child, the parents of famed poet RAINER MARIA RILKE dressed him up in girl’s clothing and referred to him as Sophia.
For the three years he managed to scrape by, WILLIAM FAULKNER might have been one of the postal service’s worst employees. Not only did he spend most of his days reading unclaimed periodicals on the job, but he also threw away most mail rather than sorting it.
PAGANINI
(sells his soul and fetches a good price)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, classical music intermissions, and chatting up string players
KEYWORDS: Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin, or any other big name person who supposedly sold his soul
THE FACT: Forget what you’ve heard about Robert Johnson and the crossroads, Niccolò Paganini was accused of selling his soul years before the blues was around.
It’s true (the accusation part, at least!), Italian violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini was one of the most astounding virtuosos of all time. He had amazing technique and enormous passion. He also promoted himself shamelessly, doing tricks to astonish his audience. Often before a concert he would saw partway through three of the four strings on his violin. In performance, those three strings broke, forcing him to play an entire piece on one string. Rumors flew that Paganini had sold his soul to the devil in order to play so well. And sometimes Paganini would order the lights dimmed while he played particularly spooky music. Everybody fainted—when the candles were lit again, the room appeared to be full of dead bodies sprawled everywhere. (Clearly, it didn’t take much to stun an audience in those days.)
THE PAPER CLIP
(fighting Nazis since World War II)
USEFUL FOR: water cooler conversation, making friends at Kinko’s, Staples, or OfficeMax
KEYWORDS: Norway, pride, Nazis, or office supplies
THE FACT: In 1899, soon to be Norwegian icon Johan Vaaler designed a paper clip and promptly set out to get his idea patented. He quickly found out that Norway had no patent laws to speak of.
Undeterred by his countrymen’s apparent lack of creativity (or, at least, foresight), the tenacious Norwegian obtained a copyright in Germany and, later, another in America. Interestingly, Norway has yet to recover from the excitement surrounding this achievement. Far from a simple office supply, residents consider the paper clip a symbol of national pride—like the eagle in America, only less endangered. During World War II, the occupying Nazi forces made it illegal for Norwegians to wear or display images of their former king, so resistance fighters looked for a more subtle way to display their sympathies. A paper clip fastened to the lapel proved just the thing, and it soon came to represent a free Norway.
PASSENGER PIGEONS
(and one terrible 14-year-old)
USEFUL FOR: PTA meetings, chatting up bird lovers, convincing yourself your teen would never do that
KEYWORDS: hunting, conservation, or extinction
THE FACT: If you’re hankering for a peek at the passenger pigeon, you’re flat out of luck. Oh, and you can thank a 14-year-old kid for your disappointment.
The naturalist John James Audubon once reported seeing a flock of passenger pigeons so numerous it took three days to fly over them. And he wasn’t exaggerating! In the early part of the 19th century, the birds were estimated to make up as much as 40 percent of North America’s entire avian population. But the abundance of the creatures made them easy marks. Effortlessly hunted, the birds were mowed down mostly for food but occasionally for sport, with some “sportsmen” bagging as many as 5,000 in a day. Unfortunately, the birds were unable to sustain themselves except in large flocks, and they quickly dwindled. In 1900, a 14-year-old boy shot the last wild passenger pigeon out of existence. (Boys will be boys.) Fourteen years later, the last one in captivity died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her name was Martha.
PATERNITY
(and some painful traditions)
USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, letting people in the waiting room know just how good they have it
KEYWORDS: dad, daddy, pop, or stud
THE FACT: According to some traditions in French Guyana, several days before his wife is expected to give birth, the husband is expected to quit working.
In fact, he’s also expected to maintain a strict diet, because many foods consumed by the father are believed to directly affect the unborn child. When the baby finally arrives, the woman must return to work as soon as she is able. The father, however, is restricted to his bed and kept in relative seclusion. After about six weeks of this, relatives cut openings in his skin and rub his body with a ground pepper plant. (If only he could just buy a few cigars.) Similar ceremonies are found in remote areas all over the world, and they are all related to the concept of couvade, in which the father is expected to share in the pain of his wife’s birthing experience. These days, when expectant fathers experience “sympathy pains” in the abdomen, it’s known as “couvade syndrome.”
PERFUME
(and why Willy can stop worrying)
USEFUL FOR: perfume counter conversation, chatting up someone from PETA, and calming down your pet whale
KEYWORDS: ambergris, cologne, or whaling
THE FACT: Whales can finally relax! Today’s chemists have learned how to mimic ambergris in the laboratory, causing high-pitched sighs of relief in oceans across the world.
For those of you unaware, ambergris is the waxy liquid coating the stomachs of sperm whales, and it protects them from the sharp bones of the cuttlefish they eat. When fresh, it’s soft and black and smells awful. When exposed to sun and water, it hardens, becomes lighter colored, and develops a pleasant smell. Bizarrely, ambergris is an excellent “fixative” that keeps perfume’s scent from evaporating too quickly and for this reason was once a prize booty for whalers. A piece of ambergris weighing 922 pounds was once found floating in the ocean, making its discoverer instantly wealthy. But synthetic analogues have now eliminated the need to kill whales for perfume manufacturing. And ladies no longer have to cope with the notion of anointing themselves with whale regurgitation.
PET ROCKS
USEFUL FOR: cheap gift nostalgia, convincing your kids they’re spoiled for having a dog
KEYWORDS: boulder, stone, or Lassie
THE FACT: Pet rocks were perhaps the greatest idea P. T. Barnum never had, and there were more than a few suckers born for it every minute.
The brilliant mind behind this moronic craze is Gary Dahl, a California advertising exec. Gary conceived the idea one evening in 1975 while sitting around at a bar with his buddies pontificating about the hassles of owning a pet and jokingly proposing rocks as the perfect low-maintenance pal. Still amused by the idea the next morning, or still drunk, Dahl decided to create a prototype, complete with carrying case and the Pet Rock Training Manual. In August of that year, he took the kit with him to the annual gift show, then in New York, where Neiman Marcus (of all stores) immediately snatched up 500 of them. By the end of October, Dahl was shipping 10,000 pet rocks out every day. By the end of the 1975 Christmas season, he had used up thr
ee tons of stone from Rosarita Beach in Baja, Mexico, and made several million dollars. So when the pet fad quickly waned in early 1976, he had man’s second best friend—a fat stack of bills—to keep him smiling.
PETS
(you probably shouldn’t let around your kids)
USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, making small talk at the Reptile House, and deciding what pet Santa shouldn’t get little Timmy
KEYWORDS: cold-blooded, lizard, or the worst pet ever
THE FACT: Among morbid options, if your choice is between dying alone in a house full of cats, or dying alone in a house full of monitor lizards, we suggest you choose the former.
Although highly intelligent creatures, monitor lizards are notoriously unaffectionate (at least toward our species), and more than a little temperamental when it comes to handling. In fact, careless owners are frequently subject to tail lashings and toothy “love” bites. And as appealing as that sounds, before you rush off to get yourself a pet monitor you might want to consider the tale of Newark, Delaware’s Ronald Huff. After Huff passed away in his efficiency apartment, his seven hungry pals (clearly not in mourning) made a buffet of his body.
PEZ
(now in delicious flower flavors?)
USEFUL FOR: stirring up some conversation anytime you see a PEZ dispenser
KEYWORDS: azalea, daffodil, or pansy
THE FACT: No, those aren’t typos. Although it would be equally disgusting, we’re talking about flower, not flour.
Introduced in the late 1960s, flower-flavored PEZ was designed to appeal to the hippie generation, complete with groovy, mod packaging. But even in the decade full of free love, no love could be found for the flavor power of the flower. Floral scents make for great perfume, but nobody eats perfume, and apparently, there’s a reason why. The flower version flopped, and became the next addition to PEZ’s long and disturbing list of flavor failures. Since its introduction in 1927, the company has also sold (however briefly) coffee, licorice, eucalyptus, menthol, and cinnamon flavors.
PHYSICISTS
(as in the one you definitely want at your party)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, impressing nerdy dates, and anytime you’re arguing who’s the greatest physicist of all time
KEYWORDS: atom bomb, safecracking, or physics
THE FACT: Anyone whose hobbies include bongo playing, chasing skirts, and picking government locks can’t be your typical physicist—and Richard Feynman certainly wasn’t!
One of the most famous physicists of the post–World War II era, Feynman contributed heavily to the Manhattan Project, garnered a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics, and contributed key insights on the presidential team investigating the NASA Challenger disaster. He was also well known for banging away on his bongos whenever he got the chance and for trying to perfect the art of picking up women (from college parties to red light districts). If you’d like some insight into his mischievous personality, though, consider how he let the great minds working on the Manhattan Project know that their “classified documents” weren’t exactly safe. Feynman studied up a bit on safecracking, then picked the government locks with ease, taking nothing from the vaults. Instead, he left amusing notes for the officials letting them know just how good their security was.
POLO
(with a dead goat!)
USEFUL FOR: impressing your gym teacher, disturbing folks at the polo grounds, and chatting up anyone with a hatred for goats
KEYWORDS: goats, polo, or Afghani X games
THE FACT: While snobby English aristocrats and that guy on those Ralph Lauren shirts usually play the sport with a small ball, we think they should be using a human head or a dead goat. After all, that is how the “sport of kings” began.
Over a thousands of years ago polo was played under a different name: “bughazi.” In fact, the game wasn’t so much a leisure activity as military training for Persian cavalry, and it was possibly adopted from tribesmen in modern-day Pakistan or Afghanistan. Besides the dead goat, there were other differences in play. Instead of four players on a side, the ancient version involved armies of men—literally—with hundreds or even thousands of players on each side. It’s believed that the first tournament was won by Turkish tribesmen playing against the Persians in 600 BCE. And although the game was often played with animal heads, the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan made a popular change, instituting the practice of decapitating military opponents and making a game ball of their noggins, still in their helmets.
PONZI SCHEME
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, impressing your history teacher, and making quick decisions on all those son-of-a-wealthy Nigerian forwards
KEYWORDS: scam, scheme, cheat, or dupe
THE FACT: Being a scam artist is bad enough, but having a type of scam named after you is a perverse sort of immortality.
Consider the case of Charles Ponzi, who showed great chutzpah even by 1920s standards. Promising investors a return rate of 100 percent in just 90 days, Ponzi lured trusting thousands into his Security and Exchange Company (no relation to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates U.S. financial markets). But the supposed whiz kid merely used the new funds to pay off existing investors, a practice now known as a Ponzi scheme. The arrangement collapsed when the authorities began investigating, and after doing a stint in the slammer, “the Ponz” finally got a real job, working for Alitalia, the Italian national airline.
POPCORN
(and its devilish origins)
USEFUL FOR: impressing your history and science teachers, and convincing your ultra-religious relatives not to steal from your buttery tub
KEYWORDS: popcorn, extra butter, Pop Secret
THE FACT: If you want to know why the devil popcorn tastes so darn good, chief Quadequina has a pretty original answer for you.
English colonists were introduced to popcorn at the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth by Quadequina, a Native American chief. They were told that popcorn pops because a demon living inside each kernel gets angry and has to escape when placed near heat. If you’re looking for a better explanation, look to the steam. Each kernel of corn has a small amount of moisture inside that changes to steam when heated. Gases expand as the temperature increases so that pressure builds up inside the kernel until it can take it no more. Then there’s a sudden explosion, and the kernel is literally blown inside out. Interestingly enough, if a small hole is bored into an unpopped kernel it won’t pop because the steam has a means of escaping.
POPES
(gone wild)
USEFUL FOR: cocktail parties, confession booths, and shocking Mother Superior
KEYWORDS: bad popes, dying in the act, or bad popes dying in the act
THE FACT: Sometimes religious power corrupts, and absolute religious power corrupts absolutely—well, at least in the case of some of history’s worst popes. Believe it or not, history caught more than a few of these pontiffs with their holy pants down.
That’s right, we’re talking about popes, plural. Apparently papal infallibility only gets you so far. First, we have Pope Leo VII (d. 939 CE), who died of a heart attack during sex. Then there’s Pope John XII (d. 963 CE), who was reportedly bludgeoned to death, naked in bed, by the jealous husband of his mistress. And who could forget Pope John XIII (d. 972 CE), who, remarkably enough, departed this earthly existence in exactly the same way as John XII. Then, of course, there’s good ol’ Pope Paul II (d. 1471 CE), who for variety’s sake had a heart attack while getting it on with a page boy.
PORN
(of the panda variety)
USEFUL FOR: barroom banter, bachelor party planning, and chatting up your date at the zoo
KEYWORDS: Ling-Ling, Hsing-Hsing, and Ralph (the Panda)
THE FACT: We don’t want to pass judgment about their “performance” in the wild, but while in captivity, male giant pandas have a very hard time finding (or keeping) their mojo. Guess what helps them get their groove on.
Basically, the mojo dilemma has forced
scientists to try a series of different methods to help put pandas in the mood. In the mid-1990s, researchers in Shanghai tried out a few Chinese medications thought to increase sex drive. They succeeded in raising the male libido, but simultaneously raised their tempers, making females the subject of more violence than romance. In 2002, scientists tried a heaping helping of the erectile dysfunction medicine Viagra, but that didn’t work either. So what’s the most successful aphrodisiac so far? Panda porn! For several hours a day during mating season, researchers in China played X-rated video of pandas having sex for their subjects and reported increased rates of arousal.
instant personalities
Folk singer/songwriter and country boy JOHN DENVER once got so angry at his wife, Annie, that he sawed his bed in half.
Besides his many hunting and sporting accidents, ERNEST HEMINGWAY was notorious for wrecking a number of planes. During an African safari in 1954, he crashed near Murchison Falls. Within forty-eight hours, he’d crashed again in a second plane.
When drummer KEITH MOON was asked by a hotel manager to keep the noise down on his 21st birthday, he threw a fit. He also threw a cake right at the manager. He then proceeded to streak, steal a fire extinguisher, wreck his room, dive into the pool, trip on a doorsill, and, finally, knock out a front tooth. Holiday Inn promptly banned him for the rest of his life.