A cat will almost never meow at another cat. (They save that sound for humans.)
GREAT SCOTT
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was one of the literary giants of the 20th century. Here’s why.
“At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”
“Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”
“A sentimental person thinks things will last; a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.”
“Action is character.”
“The extraordinary thing is not that people turn out worse or better than we had prophesied. The extraordinary thing is how people keep their levels, fulfill their promises, and seem actually buoyed up by an inevitable destiny.”
“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
“It’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.”
“Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.”
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind and still retain the ability to function.”
“Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.”
“The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.”
“A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.”
“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”
“The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.”
“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.”
The Earth’s gravity makes it impossible for mountains to be taller than 49,213 feet.
WEIRD VIDEO GAMES
Pac-Man concerned a tiny, pie-shaped creature who ate power pills so that he could catch ghosts. An odd premise, but nothing compared to these.
• SOCKS THE CAT ROCKS THE HILL (1992). Socks, the pet cat of President Bill Clinton, must get to the Oval Office to warn the president about a stolen nuclear bomb. To do that, he must defeat villains including Russian spies, the press corps, and former presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush.
• CHAOS IN THE WINDY CITY (1994). Basketball superstar Michael Jordan battles an army of basketball-headed zombies that has invaded Chicago. To defeat them, he uses an arsenal of magic basketballs (including fiery-hot basketballs and ice-block basketballs).
• TOOBIN’ (1988). At the beginning of the game, the player floats down a backwoods river in a inner-tube race. Things suddenly take a turn for the worse as the player is chased by dinosaurs, ancient Inca warriors, and angry hillbillies.
• BILL LAIMBEER’S COMBAT BASKETBALL (1991). Basketball is supposed to be a noncontact sport. Not the way Laimbeer played it. As a Detroit Piston in the 1980s, he was well-known for frequent flagrant fouls and starting fights on the court. His notoriety led to this futuristic basketball game in which players punch, kick, push, and throw bombs at each other.
• COOL SPOT (1993). In the early 1990s, 7-Up created a mascot—an anthropomorphic dot (with arms, legs, and sunglasses) based on the red dot in the 7-Up logo. The Spot was licensed for this game, which was essentially one long 7-Up ad in which the character wanders around a beach firing soda bubbles at enemies.
• MICHAEL JACKSON’S MOONWALKER (1990). A drug dealer named Mr. Big has kidnapped some children and takes them to the Moon, where he plans to use a laser cannon to destroy the Earth. As Michael Jackson, you have to defeat Mr. Big and his cronies by using dance moves that shoot “magic rays.”
• THE TYPING OF THE DEAD (2000). This semi-educational game is supposed to teach kids to type and spell. In order to fend off hungry zombies, you have to accurately type words. Get them right, the zombies leave you alone. Misspell, and the zombies will eat your b-r-a-i-n.
• EXODUS (1991). After solving some difficult logic puzzles, you have to answer questions about the Bible. Get those right, and you get to control Moses. The goal is to spread the word of God by shooting large Ws (for “word of God”) at ancient Israelites.
• THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF DIZZY (1991). A walking egg named Dizzy must save his family from an evil wizard by solving puzzles. One of the puzzles: Dizzy must pick certain plants and mix them in a bottle to make a medicine for his sick grandpa egg.
• DRUM MASTER (2006). In the game Guitar Hero, you get a plastic guitar and play along with well-known rock songs. Drum Master is made for the handheld Nintendo DS—you get to drum along with popular songs with two toothpick-sized sticks.
• JOHN DEERE’S HARVEST IN THE HEARTLAND (2007). Using various John Deere tractors and farm implements, you have to plant crops, fertilize crops, harvest crops, and milk cows. (And it’s one giant ad for John Deere.)
• FACE TRAINING (2007). Using a small camera that attaches to the TV, you have to copy the facial expressions the game tells you to make.
• PRINCESS TOMATO IN THE SALAD KINGDOM (1991). On a mission from the dying King Broccoli, the noble knight Sir Cucumber has to rescue Princess Tomato from her captor, Minister Pumpkin. Sir Cucumber is assisted by Percy, a baby persimmon.
• TOILET KIDS (1992). A little kid gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and is sucked through the toilet into another dimension populated by creatures who look like bathroom fixtures. The Toilet Kid must then do battle with tough toilet bodyguards and an evil giant urinal.
The average age of Forbes’s 400 wealthiest individuals is 63.
One in four Americans fall asleep with the TV on at least three nights a week.
THE CONSTELLATIONS
Mrs. Uncle John loves to call Uncle John out of the house (guess where he usually is at the time) to look at the stars. But he’s always amazed at the beauty and wonder of the sky. Turns out he’s not the only one.
STARGAZERS
When ancient humans looked up at the night sky, why did they start making conceptual pictures based on the pattern of stars? Were they bored? Were they simply being creative? No, at least not all of them. According to historians, they were charting the stars primarily as a way to keep time—as important a thing in ancient times as it is today. Ancient peoples knew for many thousands of years how to keep time generally. They could, of course, keep track of passing days, seasonal changes, and lunar phases. But more precise measurements weren’t made until they discovered something that they could measure more precisely: the stars.
FOR THE BIRDS
An example: The Australian aboriginal Boorong people noticed at some point that a particular group of stars disappeared for a long portion of the year—and that their reappearance happened to coincide with the beginning of the nesting season of the neilloan, a bird known today as the mallefowl. The eggs of the neilloan were an important food source for the Boorong, so charting the movement of those stars also became important. They began to associate the stars with the bird, which had a very practical effect: What better way to remember them than to draw a mental picture (of a bird) based on their configurations and to tell stories and develop traditions based on it?
That’s exactly what they did. The constellation Neilloan became one of many (including ones for a possum, an eagle, and an evil emu) in a system that was passed down by word of mouth for…who knows how long? The Boorong had no writing system, so no records exist, but some people think it may have been many thousands of years, longer than any other culture in the world. (Neilloan corresponds to our constellation Lyra, and it becomes visible in the Southern Hemisphere in March, which is still when the mallefowl begin nesting.)
Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States, by an act of Congress.
GIVE THEM A BELT
In many parts of the world the emer
gence of farming and permanent settlements brought about serious star study and hence, the creation of more constellations. Ancient farmers all over the world noted, for example, that when three particularly bright stars rose above a particular point on the horizon, it was time to harvest the crops. Those three bright stars became central in constellations in virtually every part of the world, and are the “warrior’s belt” on the constellation we know as Orion.
The history of our modern constellations goes back to the writings of Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy, who in the second century wrote The Almagest, or “The Great Book.” In it he catalogued 1,022 stars and the 48 constellations that held them, including Cancer, Cassiopeia, Gemini, and Leo. The Almagest would be the foundation of Western astronomy for more than a thousand years. Hundreds of constellations were added over the centuries, including many by sailors, who used them for navigation. But not all of them lasted: Here are a few notable “extinct” constellations that can be found on some early 19th century star maps:
The Battery of Volta. Created in 1806 in honor of Alessandro Volta, inventor of the first electric battery.
Globus Aerostaticus. Latin for “hot air balloon,” created in 1810 in honor of French ballooning pioneers, the Montgolfier brothers
Marmor Sculptile. Latin for “marble sculpture,” it represented a sculpted bust of Christopher Columbus.
Officina Typographica. It means “printing office,” and was created in 1810 in honor of the printing press.
THE MODERN AGE
In 1922 the International Astronomical Union (IAU), formed that year for the purpose of standardizing the science of astronomy, threw out most of the newer constellations, took Ptolemy’s 48 (with some alterations) and added 40 more recent ones to come up with 88 constellations that cover the entire sky. They are still the only ones officially recognized by astronomers today. A few highlights:
Fresh apples will float in water.
An odd one that made it in was Antlia. Its original name was Antlia pneumatica, which is Latin for “air pump,” and so named in honor of the air pump’s inventor, French physicist Denis Papin.
How many stars are there in a given constellation? Traditionally constellations were made up of a relatively small number of stars—seven in Taurus, nine in Virgo, etc. But scientifically each constellation contains all the stars within its boundary—even the ones we can only see with the most powerful telescopes. That means that there are trillions of stars in each constellation.
The largest constellation: Hydra, a long, snaky region of stars named after the Greek’s many-headed serpent that covers approximately 4 percent—of the entire sky. The smallest: Crux, the “Southern Cross,” seen only in the Southern Hemisphere and covering just .016 percent.
There have been some curious coincidences concerning constellations: Ancient Greek stargazers looked at at particular group of stars and saw…a bear. The Micmac people in Eastern Canada looked at that same group and saw…a bear.
That group of stars is of course the constellation Ursa Major, “Great Bear” in Latin. It is best known for containing seven very distinctive stars that we know as the “Big Dipper.” The seven stars of the Big Dipper were interpreted in many different ways around the world: as a plough, a coffin, a chariot—and a hog’s jaw—just to name a few.
Terminology lesson: The Big Dipper is an an asterism, a recognizable grouping of stars that are not an actual constellation. Orion’s Belt is another.
Some cultures had constellations with no stars in them. The ancient Incas, who lived high in the Andes Mountains, saw an especially brilliant display of stars. They constructed most of their constellations within or near the Milky Way. Some were for dark, splotchy areas of the Milky Way caused by clouds of space dust (the Incas didn’t know that, of course), and included the Shepherd, the Toad, the Serpent, and the Llama.
Even a small star shines in the darkness.—Finnish proverb
It takes 70% less energy to produce a ton of paper from recycled paper than from trees.
THERE’S NO PLACE
LIKE ZAMUNDA
Match the imaginary place with the book, movie, or TV show it’s from. (Answers on page 541.)
1. Freedonia a) Don Quixote
2. Bacteria b) King Kong
3. Mypos c) Duck Soup
4. San Marcos d) Bananas
5. Shangri-La e) Pippi Longstocking
6. Skull Island f) Nineteen Eighty-Four
7. Zamunda g) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
8. United States of Earth h) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
9. Duloc i) Li’l Abner
10. Lower Slobbovia j) Futurama
11. Loompaland k) The Great Dictator
12. Grand Fenwick l) Perfect Strangers
13. Florin m) Coming to America
14. Barataria n) The Princess Bride
15. Eastasia o) The Mouse That Roared
16. Taka-Tuka Land p) Gulliver’s Travels
17. Lilliput q) Lost Horizon
18. Vulgaria r) Shrek
Chemical name for caffeine: 1,3,7-trimethylzanthine.
ESCAPE FROM AMERICA
Why would anyone want to escape America? These folks had their reasons.
THE SEEKERS
The concept of political asylum—granting protection to foreigners being persecuted for political reasons—has been around for millennia. One of the earliest known cases: In the 13th century B.C., the deposed ruler of the Hittite Empire, Mursili III, fled to Egypt to escape execution. Ramses II, Egypt’s pharaoh, refused Hittite demands that he be sent back. The situation was eventually resolved, leading to history’s first known peace treaty, and rules for extradition—the process by which one state asks another to surrender a criminal back to the state in which the crime was committed. Similar cases have occurred through out history all over the world. In more modern times, the United States is the most popular destination for asylum-seekers, but sometimes it happens the other way around: Some Americans actually flee the United States.
ELDRIDGE CLEAVER
Cleaver was a prominent American civil rights leader and the author of the extremely influential 1968 book on “black power,” Soul on Ice. That same year Cleaver, then the spokesman for the radical Black Panther Party, was charged with attempted murder after being wounded in a shootout with police in Oakland, California. Facing a substantial prison sentence, Cleaver secretly applied for asylum in communist Cuba, claiming he and the Black Panthers were being persecuted by the FBI (an argument many believe to this day). Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whether because he truly supported the Black Panthers as a “liberation movement,” or simply because he liked annoying the Americans, granted it, allowing Cleaver to live there as a free man. Cleaver soon felt restricted by the Cuban government and in early 1969 applied for asylum in Algeria. The Soviet-backed African nation happily accepted, and Cleaver ran a Black Panther “embassy” there until 1972, by which time he had sufficiently annoyed the Algerian government. From there he went to Paris and in 1975, after having converted to Christianity, returned to the United States and renounced his Black Panther past. He spent eight months doing community service to clear up his legal troubles and eventually became a Mormon, a conservative Republican, a Ronald Reagan supporter, a crack cocaine addict, and a radio talk-show host. He died in 1998 at the age of 63.
Of all countries, Brazil has the most plant species, with more than 56,000.
WILLIAM LEE BRENT
In 1968 Brent—another prominent Black Panther Party member—and two other men robbed a San Francisco gas station and got into a shootout with police in which two officers were severely wounded. Brent and the others were arrested. Like Cleaver, Brent jumped bail and headed for Cuba. Unlike Cleaver, he got there by hijacking a TWA flight from Oakland to New York and ordering the pilot to fly to Havana. Brent was granted asylum by the Cubans—and spent the next 37 years there, during which time he went to college, taught high school English, became a disc jockey, and married American travel writ
er Jane McManus, who moved to the island nation in 1969. In 1996 Brent wrote an autobiography, Long Time Gone: A Black Panther's True-Life Story of His Hijacking and 25 Years in Cuba. He died in Havana in 2006 at the age of 75.
HOLLY ANN COLLINS
Not all cases are politically based: In June 1994, Collins, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, picked up her two young children from her ex-husband’s house and took them to the Netherlands. She had been hoping to get to New Zealand but was stopped by customs officials in Amsterdam because she didn’t have the proper papers. When they said they were going to send her back to America, she told them she wanted asylum…to protect her children from the harm they’d face in the United States. Her ex-husband had been granted custody of the children, she said, but he had physically abused them (charges the husband denies). The case was in the Dutch court system for three years, and in 1997 the three were granted refugee status. That’s not the same as asylum—it doesn’t protect against extradition, and Collins was now wanted by the FBI for “International Parental Kidnapping.” So they lived in secret in the Netherlands for the next 10 years. Then, in 2007 a neighbor recognized her from an FBI “wanted” poster and turned her in. At that point, she filed for asylum, and in 2008, to almost everyone’s surprise, got it. Collins is currently working to get her charges dropped in the U.S. so she can come home.
There are over 100 billion known galaxies. How many unknown galaxies there are is not known.
THE JOY OF
COOKBOOKS
Cookbooks are the single most popular segment of the book business. Hundreds of new ones are introduced each year; tens of millions are sold. (Hey, we’ve all got to eat, don’t we?) BRI food-editor-at-large Lorraine Bodger sent us the origins of these classics.
Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader Page 42