Double-Speak: The U.S. government called the invasion of Grenada a “predawn vertical insertion.”
THAT JUMPY FEELING
Q: How far can a kangaroo jump?
A: “One large kangaroo, at a single desperate bound, is reported to have cleared a pile of timber 10-1/2 feet high and 27 feet long.” (From Can Elephants Swim?, compiled by Robert M. Jones)
STEEL AWAY
Q: “What makes stainless steel stainless?”
A: “Stainless steel is coated with a thin, transparent film of iron oxide and chromium. This prevents soap, food, water, and air from getting to the metal below and eating it away. Since its coating is smooth, stainless steel is [also] very sanitary. Bacteria, fungi, and dirt have nowhere to hide and are easily washed away….[Ironically, the metal] was developed in 1913 by British metallurgist Harry Brearly, who was searching for a better lining for cannons.” (From The Book of Totally Useless Information, by Don Voorhees)
QUESTION WITH A-PEEL
Q: Are most of a potato’s nutrients in the peel?
A: “In most cases, the vitamins are spread evenly throughout the potato. But eating the peel is still a good idea. Certain minerals that your body needs, such as calcium and zinc, are found in larger amounts in the peel….In baked potatoes, the peel does contain more than its share of vitamins. Baking causes vitamins and other nutrients to pile up in the peel….[However], potatoes are members of the nightshade family. The stems, seeds and skins of this family are poisonous—some more so than others….While the flesh of the potato (the white part) is okay, the leaves and skin contain [a small amount of] substances called glycoalkaloids….That’s why you should never eat potato eyes—that’s where the glycoalkaloids concentrate.” (From Know It All, by Ed Zotti)
The Chilean Pudu, the smallest member of the deer family, is no larger than a rabbit.
THE GREAT REGURGITATOR
We found this in a book called David Wallechinsky’s The Twentieth Century. Sure, it’s gross, but you can’t say it’s not fascinating.
COMING OUT
Would you pay good money to watch someone throw up? Thousands once did, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Born in Egypt in 1892, Hadji Ali traveled to the United States in the early 1930s, where he appeared in fairs, carnivals, and vaudeville. Billed variously as “the Amazing Regurgitator” and “the Egyptian Enigma,” Ali would swallow a variety of household objects—coins, buttons, stones, watermelon seeds, hickory nuts, costume jewelry, even live goldfish—washing them down with copious amounts of water.
As audience members called out specific items, he would spit them up, one at a time. Ali acquired a small but enthusiastic following, and his grand finale brought down the house every night: His assistant would set up a toy castle in a corner of the stage while Ali gulped down a gallon of water chased with a pint of kerosene. To the accompaniment of a dramatic drumroll, he would spit out the kerosene in a six-foot arc across the stage, setting the castle on fire. Then, as the flames shot high into the air, Ali would upchuck the water and extinguish the fire.
FLEETING FAME
Ali remained more a sideshow curiosity than legitimate vaudeville headliner; according to Joe Laurie, Jr. in his book Vaudeville: From the Honky Tonks to the Palace, Ali “lasted four weeks” in one theater “before they got wise that he was killing their supper shows.”
Even so, Ali’s remarkable talent was recorded in at least three films: Strange as It Seems, a 1930 short subject; Politiquerias, a Spanish-language comedy made in 1931; and Gizmo, a documentary filmed in the 1930s that is occasionally shown on cable television today. He was also featured at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood from 1930 to 1931. (Ali died during a theatrical tour of Great Britain in 1937.)
The country’s oldest school bus began work in Quincy, Mass., in 1869. It was pulled by horses.
UP-AND-COMING STARS
To be sure, Ali’s talent for selective regurgitation was not unique or unprecedented. A performer named MacNorton, headlined as “The Human Aquarium,” made a living in Europe ingesting and disgorging live fish and frogs on stage. He tried to bring his art to the United States in the 1920s but was prevented from doing so by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Around the same time, German-born Hans Rohrl gained fame as “The Living Hydrant.” He wowed audiences by propelling a mouthful of water 15 feet across a stage in a spray nearly 7 feet wide.
In fact, voluntary upchucking, through controlled expansion and contraction of the throat and stomach muscles, has been a popular form of entertainment since the 1600s. A French theatrical text published in 1812 noted that a highly distinguished member of the Faculty of Paris was capable of emptying the contents of his stomach at will, without nausea or excessive effort. Unlike Hadji Ali, however, there is no indication that anyone paid to see him perform.
*****
ANDY WARHOL SAYS…
“Ghetto space is wrong for America. It’s wrong for people who are the same type to go and live together. There shouldn’t be any huddling together in the same groups with the same food. In America it’s got to be mix ’n’ mingle. If I were president, I’d make people mix ’n’ mingle more. But the thing is, America’s a free country and I couldn’t make them.”
—The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, 1975
In one four-year period, inventor Thomas Edison obtained an average of 1 patent every 5 days.
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES
Death may be lurking closer than you think. Judging from these stories, it might be a good idea to have a box of Tuna Helper on hand, just in case. Here are a few classic “near misses.”
TUNA SURPRISE
“During a robbery at a grocery store in Chicago, employee Vincente Arriaga was shot by the robber at a distance of 20 feet. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the bullet barely broke Arriaga’s skin because it was slowed down as it passed through a box of Tuna Helper he was holding.”
—News of the Weird,
January 10, 1996
A STIRRING STORY
“Someone fired a .45 caliber bullet into Ava Donner’s kitchen. Luckily, she was holding a spoon. Donner was stirring a pot of macaroni and cheese when a bullet hit the stem of the stainless steel spoon, ricocheted off the refrigerator and landed on the kitchen counter….‘If it had been an inch either way, it would have been in her chest,’ said Donner’s husband. Police suspect the shot was fired by youths target shooting in a nearby vacant lot.”
—San Francisco Chronicle,
February 26, 1996
RADAR RANGE
“Two members of the British traffic police were in Berwickshire with a radar gun, checking for speeding motorists, when suddenly their equipment locked up with a reading of over 300 miles per hour. Seconds later a low flying Harrier jet flew over their heads and explained the mystery. When the policemen complained to the RAF, they were informed they were lucky to be alive. The jet’s target-seeker had locked onto their radar gun as ‘enemy’ radar…which triggered an automatic retaliatory air-to-surface missile attack. Luckily for the traffic cops, the Harrier was unarmed.”
—Pilot magazine
Top speed attained in the first American auto race in Chicago in 1895: 7.5 mph.
MODERN-DAY LATIN
Latin may be a dead language for most people…but not for the Vatican. In 1991 they published the Lexicon Recentis Latinitas, an 18,000-word dictionary updating Latin for modern usage. Here are some of the entries for you bathroom scholars.
AIDS: syndrome comparati defectus immunitatis
amnesia: memoriae amissio
baby doll: tunicula dormitoria
babysitter: infantaria
to be lazy at work: neglegenter operor
bestseller: liber maxime divenditus
bidet: ovata pelvis
bottlewasher: machina lageonis expurgandis
brainwashing: coercitio mentis
carburetor: aeris benzinique mixtura
car wash:
autocinetorum lavatrix
cellulite: cellulitis
Christmas tree: arbor natalicia
cover girl: exterioris paginae puella
disc brakes: sufflamen disci forma
discotheque: orbium phonogra-phicorum theca
flashbulb: fulgor photographicus
fax: exemplum simillime espressum
to flirt: lusorie amare
guerrilla warfare: bellum tectum
gulag: campus captivis custodiendis
hypertension: hypertensio
hypnotherapy: hypnotherapia
leased property: locatio in emptionem convertibilis
pinball machine: sphaeriludium electricum nomismate actum
photocopy: exemplar luce expressum
refrigerator: cella frigorifera
secret agent: speculator tectus
sycophant: assentator turpissimus or adulator impundens
television: instrumentum televisificum
traffic jam: fluxus interclusio
travel agency: itinerum procuratio
warmonger: belli instigator
washing machine: machina linteorum lavatoria
First U.S. president born outside the original 13 states: Abe Lincoln.
WHAT A TRIP! THE CIA & LSD
Just say no to drugs? It may surprise you to know that the U.S. government was using them—and maybe even spreading them. This story is from It’s a Conspiracy, by the National Insecurity Council.
During World War II, Nazi scientists tested hallucinogenic drugs (like mescaline) on inmates at the Dachau concentration camp. The Nazis were ostensibly trying to find a new “aviation medicine,” but what they were really looking for was the secret to “mind control.”
After dosing inmates for years, the Nazi scientists concluded that it was “impossible to impose one’s will on another person…even when strong doses had been given.” But they found they could extract “even the most intimate secrets” from subjects under a drug’s influence.
After the war, U.S. military intelligence found out about the Nazi experiments and wondered if hallucinogenic drugs might be used for espionage. Could such drugs be sprayed over enemy armies to disable them? Could the drugs be used to confuse or discredit leaders in hostile countries? The possibilities seemed endless. So, in 1950, the CIA took over where the Nazis had left off.
THE CIA ON DOPE
• In 1953, the CIA initiated a full-scale “mind-control” program called Operation MK-ULTRA. Its experiments included hypnosis, electroshock, ESP, lobotomy—and drugs. The operation is said to have lasted 20 years and cost $25 million.
• According to the book Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion: “Nearly every drug that appeared on the black market during the 1960s—marijuana, cocaine, PCP, DMT, speed, and many others—had previously been scrutinized, tested, and in some cases refined by the CIA and army scientists. But…none received as much attention or was embraced with such enthusiasm as LSD-25 [lysergic acid diethylamide]. For a time CIA personnel were completely infatuated with the hallucinogen. Those who first tested LSD in the early 1950s were convinced that it would revolutionize the cloak-and-dagger trade.”
It takes about 30 minutes for aspirin to find a headache.
But how could the CIA find out if the drug was an effective secret weapon unless it was first tested on people?
THE SECRET DRUG TESTS
In 1973, the CIA destroyed most of its files on the MK-ULTRA project; but some files escaped destruction. From these files, Congress and the public learned, for the first time, that for years the CIA had been experimenting with drugs.
• To test LSD, the CIA had set up both clandestine operations and academic fronts. For instance, it established a “Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology” at the Cornell University medical school, which dispensed “grants” to institutions in the U.S. and Canada to conduct experiments with LSD.
• The LSD project was administered by the CIA’s Technical Services Staff. A freewheeling atmosphere developed in which anyone was likely to be dosed without warning in the name of research. Before the program concluded, thousands of people had been involuntarily dosed.
• Not only the CIA, but also the U.S. Army was involved in LSD experiments. Acid Dreams reports that in the 1950s, “nearly fifteen hundred military personnel had served as human guinea pigs in LSD experiments conducted by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.” The Army even made a film of troops trying to drill while stoned on acid.
THE REST
The government had no choice but to admit it had given LSD to about 1,000 unsuspecting people from 1955 to 1958 and has paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits that were filed when subjects given drugs became permanently incapacitated or committed suicide. A few examples:
• In a San Francisco operation code-named “Midnight Climax,” prostitutes brought men to bordellos that were actually CIA safe houses. There, as reported in Acid Dreams, they would “spike the drinks of unlucky customers while CIA operatives observed, photographed, and recorded the action.”
Quick fact: 20% of drivers get 80% of the traffic tickets.
• In one experiment, black inmates at the Lexington Narcotics Hospital were given LSD for 75 consecutive days in gradually increasing doses.
• In 1953, a civilian working for the Army was slipped LSD at a CIA party. He jumped to his death from a 10th-story window. It was ruled a suicide until 1975, when the government revealed the truth. The CIA apologized and Congress awarded his family $750,000.
• A CIA-funded psychiatrist in Canada dosed patients with LSD and used other mind-control techniques, trying to “reprogram” them. Nine of the patients sued the CIA for damages. The case was settled out of court in 1988.
• According to Acid Dreams: “A former CIA contract employee reported that CIA personnel actually helped underground chemists set up LSD laboratories in the San Francisco Bay area.” Many counter-culture heroes believed this was true:
“The LSD movement was started by the CIA. I wouldn’t be here now without the foresight of the CIA scientists.”
—Timothy Leary
“We must always remember to thank the CIA and the army for LSD. That’s what people forget…They invented LSD to control people and what they did was give us freedom.”
—John Lennon
FOOTNOTE: THE OSWALD CONNECTION
• Was Lee Harvey Oswald given LSD by the CIA? In 1957, Oswald—then a 17-year-old marine—was assigned to the U.S. naval air base in Atsugi, Japan. According to Rolling Stone, this base “served as one of two overseas field stations where the CIA conducted extensive LSD testing.”
• Two years later, Oswald was discharged and moved to the USSR, supposedly as a defector. “If Oswald was sent to Russia as a pseudo-defector, performing some covert task for the U.S., then it’s quite possible he was given LSD as part of his training.” (Rolling Stone)
Recommended Reading: Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain
The longest-surviving Civil War veteran died in 1959.
NOTABLE BOOKS
We can’t identify the first book ever read in the bathroom, but we have been able to find the stories behind a few other publishing milestones.
THE FANNIE FARMER COOKBOOK
Originally, cookbooks didn’t give precise measurements for recipes—they just told readers to use a “pinch” of this, a “heaping spoonful” of that, and a “handful” of something else. Fannie Merrit Farmer, a domestic servant in the late 1850s, had no trouble following such recipes herself—but she found it almost impossible to give instructions to the young girl who helped her in the home where she worked. So she began rewriting the family’s recipes using more precise measurements.
Forty years later, she had become the assistant principal of the prestigious Boston Cooking School. In 1896, she decided to publish her first book of “scientific” recipes, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Her publisher was so worried it wouldn’
t sell that he forced Farmer to pay for the printing costs herself. She did. It sold 4 million copies and permanently changed the way cookbooks are written.
DR. SPOCK’S BABY AND CHILD CARE
Dr. Benjamin Spock was a New York pediatrician with a background in psychology when Pocket Books approached him about writing a childcare book for new mothers. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten such an offer: in 1938 Doubleday had asked him to write a similar book, but he turned them down, saying he was inexperienced and wasn’t sure he could write a good book. He almost rejected Pocket Books for the same reason—until the editor explained that it didn’t have to be a very good book, “because at 25¢ cents a copy, we’ll be able to sell a hundred thousand a year.”
Feeling reassured, Spock accepted the offer and wrote The Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care. He began with rhe admonition “Trust yourself’—and wrote a book that was unlike any child-rearing book that had been written before. “The previous attitude in child-rearing books was, ‘Look out, stupid, if you don’t do as I say, you’ll kill the baby,’ ” Spock recalls. “I leaned over backward not to be alarming and to be friendly with the parents.”
The term “hell on wheels” orginally applied to the Union Pacific Railroad’s saloon railcars.
His warm, supportive voice paid off; The Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care became the second-bestselling book in American history, second only to the Bible. It has sold an average of 1 million copies a year every year since it was published in 1946. Its impact on American culture has been profound. According to The Paperback In America: “For two generations of American parents, it has been the bible for coping with their newborns…. A comparison of new mothers to the number of books sold during the baby boom’s peak years—from 1946 to 1964, when nearly 75 million babies were born in the United States—put the estimate of ‘Spock babies’ at one in five, and that failed to account for the number of women who shared or borrowed the book or used it to raise more than one child.”
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