Creepy.
Bullsh*t! The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten book on 240 vellum pages from the early fifteenth century. As far as we know, the book was not written by a seven-year-old, or anyone named Matthias. All 35,000 words are written in an unknown language with an unknown alphabet, and, since its discovery in 1912, nobody has been able to translate or decode it, including celebrated cryptographers, military code breakers, and sophisticated computers. The book is genuinely from the early fifteenth century, and its language does follow normal patterns of the written word (and is therefore not gibberish), but the meaning of those words is still lost on us today.
PAJAMAS!
The word “pajama” is originally derived from the Persian word paejamah, which means “leg clothing.” The word was adopted by the British during their presence in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
According to a recent ABC News poll, only 10 percent of Americans wear pajamas to bed. Some 33 percent responded that they wear underwear to bed, and a whopping 48 percent responded that they wear nothing at all.
A Welsh supermarket caused an international stir when it instituted a strict no-pajamas policy in 2010. Customers in PJs were turned away at the door.
Fact. The Indian version in the nineteenth century was pai jamahs, which were actually loose-fitting pants. The British found them exceedingly comfortable, and brought them home. Eventually, they became common sleepwear.
“Pajama” is sometimes spelled “pyjama,” which is the primary spelling in England and Canada.
Bullsh*t! You wanted to believe it, though, right?
The survey showed that 33 percent of Americans wear pajamas to bed, 23 percent wear “shorts/ T-shirt,” 16 percent wear underwear, 22 percent go naked, and 1 percent wear “sweatshirt/sweatpants.” In the poll, 2 percent responded that they wear “something else,” which I assume includes such popular choices as astronaut suit, scuba gear, diaper, and chain mail.
Fact. The Tesco supermarket in Cardiff posted this rule “To avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store (footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted).” BBC News interviewed at least one customer who was turned away: a full-time mother of two who was swinging by the store after dropping her kids off. Her reaction? “I think it’s stupid.”
The dress code ignited debates in both the U.K. and the U.S. about the habit of wearing sleepwear in public, and whether it should be regulated or not.
I say let it go. If you ban pajamas today, you might ban pirate costumes tomorrow, and none of us want that, do we?
ELEVEN!
Eleven is an extremely significant number in multiple religions: In Hinduism, a feast is organized on the eleventh day of death. Eleven is the number of nodes in Metatron’s Cube, which is used in the Kabbalah. Eleven is the traditional number of witches in a Wiccan coven. According to the Torah, God has eleven attributes of mercy.
The word “eleven” comes from the German word meaning “one left over,” because it’s the first number that can’t be counted using the fingers (and thumbs) of both hands.
The armistice with Germany, which ended World War I, occurred on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year.
Bullsh*t! All of these statements are true of the number thirteen, not eleven.
Fact. The Old High German word is einlif, literally meaning “one remaining.” The Old English word, meaning essentially the same thing, is endeleofan. In case you were wondering.
Fact. The agreement between the Allies and Germany was made at 5 A.M. on November 11, 1918, but was set to go into effect at 11 A.M. The last six hours were marked by a surge in fighting, as many wanted to get in the last best shot before the cease-fire.
Armistice Day is still celebrated on November 11.
MURDER!
According to the FBI, there were 28,138 murders in the United States in 2009. Of this number, just over 16,000 were committed with firearms. Forty-eight cases were murder by poison, and there were twenty-seven murders by explosives.
“If a man commits murder, that man must be killed” was written in the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu at around 2050 B.C., making it the oldest known codified law against murder.
In 2006, a German man, Armin Meiwes, was convicted of the 2001 murder of Bernd Jürgen Brandes. The case was controversial because Brandes consented beforehand to the murder, and furthermore, requested to be eaten by Meiwes.
Bullsh*t! Things aren’t nearly that bad. A truly accurate number is hard to come by, but the FBI estimates around 13,636 reported murders for 2009, with 9,146 by firearms. There were six murders by poison, and two by explosives.
Fact. The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest-known example of a written code of law that survives today. It is attributed to the king of Ur at the time, Ur-Nammu.
Fact. Meiwes posted an online ad, looking for victims to be slaughtered and eaten. Brandes eagerly answered the ad and stated that it was his wish to be killed and consumed.
Brandes went to Meiwes’s house, where Meiwes videotaped the murder and butchering of the body. He proceeded to freeze most of it and consume the flesh over the course of several months.
Meiwes is known as the “Cannibal of Rotenburg.”
TUESDAY!
In English, Tuesday gets its name from a one-handed god of war in Norse mythology. In most Romance languages, Tuesday is named after the Roman god of war.
Fat Tuesday has been observed annually in New Orleans since its founding as the capital of French Louisiana in 1702, making it the oldest Fat Tuesday celebration in America.
Keith Richards wrote the Rolling Stones song “Ruby Tuesday” about a groupie named Linda Keith, who quit following the band and later became involved with Jimi Hendrix. The Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain is named after the song.
Fact. “Tuesday” comes from “Tiw’s Day,” and Tiw is the Old English version of the Norse Týr. Týr was a warrior from the Nordic pantheon, who was associated with combat, tactics, law, and victory. The legend says that Týr sacrificed his hand to the great wolf Fenrir.
Mars was the Roman god of war, and is often identified as an analogue of Týr. “Tiw’s Day” may have been a translation of the Latin dies Martis, or “Day of Mars.” Tuesday in most Romance languages is named after Martis, such as the French mardi, Spanish martes, Italian martedi, Catalan dimarts, and Romanian marţi. Even the Irish use it: Dé Máirt.
Other languages prefer Týr over Mars, as English does, such as the Danish tirsdag, Swedish tisdag, and Finnish tiistai.
In either case, Tuesday is a good day to do battle. Tell that to your coworkers.
Bullsh*t! New Orleans wasn’t founded until 1718. Mobile was founded as the capital of French Louisiana in 1702, even though it is now, of course, firmly in Alabama. Mobile’s original Fat Tuesday (which translated into French is mardi gras) celebrations were the first in America, and continue to this day.
Fact. Keith Richards said the song was “about Linda Keith not being there. She had pissed off somewhere. It was very mournful …
and it was a Tuesday.”
The first Ruby Tuesday restaurant was founded in 1972, five years after “Ruby Tuesday” was released and hit number one on the music charts.
PINK!
We call our little fingers “pinkies” because, with young children, the little finger is often the rosiest.
Before the 1930s, it was commonly held in the United States that blue was for girls and pink was for boys.
In the seventeenth century, if you sent your sheets to be dyed pink, you’d be very likely to get them back bearing a rich shade of yellow.
Bullsh*t! We get the word “pinky” (or “pinkie”) from the Dutch word pink, which means … wait for it … ”little finger.”
Fact. Pink, as a shade of red, was thought to be a bolder color, more suitable for masculinity. Blue, which is associated with the Virgin Mary, was thought to be
soft and feminine.
In a 1918 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, you can find this passage: “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger colour is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”
Fact. Back then, “pink” or “pinke” referred to the pigment extracted from unripe buckthorn berries, which was similar in shade to goldenrod yellow. The pigment is now called “stil de grain yellow.” “Pink” did not become the widespread word for the cotton-candy color we know and love until the eighteenth century.
THE PENCIL!
The world’s largest pencil is 76 feet long, weighs 22,000 pounds, and contains 4,000 pounds of Pennsylvania graphite. It was built by Ashrita Furman, who has set more than three hundred Guinness World Records in his lifetime.
Though he’s remembered primarily as a philosopher, Henry David Thoreau was also an inventor, and he often included the words “civil engineer” after his name. His father was a pencil maker, and Thoreau was an avid participant in the business, designing a pencil-making technique that turned the business into a wild success.
Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac were avid pencil pushers, using the implement to write their books. Hemingway sometimes went through sixty pencils in one day. Cormac McCarthy writes all his books exclusively in pencil.
Fact. One of Furman’s records is for “the most current Guinness world records held at the same time by an individual.”
Furman’s records are eclectic, such as the “fastest mile on a kangaroo ball,” a record that he set while on the Great Wall of China.
Furman’s enormous pencil cost $20,000 to produce and beat the 65-foot pencil that sits outside of pencil maker Faber-Castell’s headquarters in Malaysia.
Fact. Thoreau spent a lot of his adult life pitching in to the family business. He discovered a way to mix inferior graphite with clay to make a smooth-writing pencil of any hardness desired. The result was a booming pencil company.
Of course, Thoreau being Thoreau, he walked away from the success and sought no personal gain from the invention.
Bullsh*t! Hemingway and Kerouac favored the typewriter, as does McCarthy, who may be the most famous surviving writer to still use the machine exclusively. In 2009, McCarthy’s typewriter, on which he believes he wrote 5 million words, sold at auction for $254,500.
John Steinbeck was a pencil fanatic, sometimes going through sixty pencils in one day. It is said that he would start each writing day with twenty-four sharpened pencils, which he would need to re-sharpen before the day was out. He spent 300 pencils in the writing of East of Eden.
FELINE CRUELTY!
In a top-secret 1967 experiment, the CIA surgically implanted a set of microphones and a battery into a cat, and an antenna in its tail, hoping to use the poor animal for spy missions. In its first test mission, operatives directed the cat to eavesdrop on a pair of men outside of the Soviet compound in Washington, D.C. As soon as the cat was released, it darted into the street and was promptly run over and killed by a taxi cab. The project was scrapped.
In late medieval France, a truly disgusting spectacle was common during midsummer festivals: cat burning. Dozens of live cats would be collected in a bag or net and suspended over a bonfire. Revelers collected the ashes afterward, believing them to be good luck.
In the 1940 Soviet “science” film Experiments in the Revival of Organisms, the severed head of a cat is shown to be kept alive by receiving a steady supply of oxygenated blood from an artificial heart and lung simulator called an autojector. The head responds to stimuli such as being poked and being brushed with a feather.
Fact. The operation was nicknamed by the people involved “Acoustic Kitty.” Despite the $15 million price tag, the dead prototype, and the discontinuation of the project, the CIA memo reported that the experiment was a “remarkable scientific achievement” because “cats can indeed be trained to move short distances.”
Fact. It’s horrible, deplorable, and awful, but it’s true. In 1648, King Louis XIV lit the fire himself.
In many medieval societies, animals were believed to represent different sides of human nature (look up “scapegoat”), and cats had the awful luck of being associated with the evils in humanity and the devil. For that reason, burning cats was not regarded as cruel; instead it was seen as a way to cleanse society of evil.
How doing something evil can cleanse evil, don’t ask me!
Bullsh*t! Is the story true? No. Is it far-fetched? No. In fact, the whole thing happened as I described it, except it was the head of a dog, not a cat.
To this day, the scientific community doesn’t know what to make of the movie. Some believe it is real and have even cited the experiments in articles and papers, and some believe it was a hoax video, made for the purposes of Soviet propaganda.
Either way, it’s very, very disturbing.
EXPLODING WHALES!
In 1970, an 8-ton sperm whale beached itself on the Oregon coast and promptly died. Cleanup fell under the jurisdiction of the Oregon Highway Division, which decided the most logical course of action was to blow it up. A thousand pounds of dynamite were strapped to the carcass and detonated.
In 2004, a 56-foot-long, 60-ton sperm whale beached itself on the Taiwan coast and promptly died. It took three cranes and fifty workers thirteen hours to get the carcass on the back of an eighteen-wheeler so that it could be transported to a wildlife study center. En route, in the urban center of the bustling city of Tainan, the whale exploded, showering shops, cars, and onlookers with blood and rotting entrails.
In 2010, a 30-foot-long humpback whale became stranded in shallow water near the Western Australia coast, prompting authorities to attempt to tow it back to safety. Before the rescue mission was underway, the whale spontaneously exploded. Nobody was injured, as the whale was safely underwater, and the carcass was towed out to sea anyway. Scientists, unable to examine the body, have offered no adequate explanation for the bizarre bursting.
Fact. The theory went that the dynamite would effectively disintegrate the massive carcass, leaving pieces small enough for scavengers to clean up.
Immediately after the explosion it became apparent that the technique was not beneficial. Large pieces of whale and globs of blubber rained down on buildings and parking lots some distance away, causing damage. As for the whale–only part of it was disintegrated, leaving a massive smoking whale pile for the Oregon Highway Division to clean up.
Fact. The explosion was caused by a natural buildup of gas inside the decomposing whale. A crowd of more than 600 had gathered in the street to watch the bizarre procession, only to have their day go horribly wrong.
No matter how bad a day you’re having, remember, it could be worse!
Bullsh*t! In 2010, a 30-foot-long humpback whale did become stranded in shallow water near the Western Australia coast, and it did explode, though not naturally. Authorities decided to euthanize the trapped animal by blowing it up. They succeeded.
LAUGHTER!
Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, dogs, and rats all laugh.
On average, children laugh at least ten times as often as adults on a daily basis. Laughter can lower your blood pressure, reduce pain, increase vascular blood flow, and improve your ability to learn.
I laughed out loud 357 times and cried once while writing this book.
Fact. So do humans!
Ape laughter sounds quite different from ours (like a combination between breathing and shrieking), but it is definitely present in both captive and wild apes during tickling and horseplay.
Dog laughter sounds to us like heavy panting, but the pattern is quite different from what you’d hear from an out-of-breath dog. Dogs laugh when they play, and research has proven that the sound of a dog laughing elicits a play response in other nearby dogs.
Scientists have proven that rats are ticklish, and while being tickled or engaged in rough-and-tum
ble play they emit ultrasonic vocalization patterns that seem to be primitive laughter.
Fact. Multiple studies have consistently proven that laughter provides a whole host of health benefits. They should call comedians doctors.
Not to put a damper on things, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that laughter can also kill. Laughter can cause atony (muscle failure), which can lead to syncope (fainting), which in turn can put you in jeopardy. In one reported case, a Danish man died during a laughing fit while watching A Fish Called Wanda.
Still, I think it’s worth the risk.
Bullsh*t! According to my estimates, I laughed nearly 10,000 times and cried twice. When things are so strange that the truth sounds like lies, it’s obvious we live in a fascinating world!
I hope you had half as much fun reading this book as I had writing it, because I’ve had a ball.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neil Patrick Stewart is a writer, teacher, director, actor, and a devoted spermologist. He loves variety above all things: He has been a food-and-beverage writer for major magazines; he’s coached middle-school girls’ volleyball; he’s toured France three times performing Shakespeare; he’s taught thousands of young actors in special workshops and at the legendary Broadway Theatre Project; he’s driven across the country fourteen times; he’s danced in two seasons of the Fort Worth Ballet’s productions of The Nutcracker and Cinderella; he’s lived in Russia; he’s interviewed celebrities; he’s filmed a movie in the Egyptian desert; and he’s worked as a professional chef, a literary expert, a fact-checker, a tutor, a mover, a ticket-taker, a babysitter, a speech coach, a life coach, a cashier, a deejay, an event planner, a bookseller, a proofreader, a personal assistant, a voice-over actor, a police decoy, a builder, a driver, and a pizza-slicer. With this book, he adds author to the list.
Fact. Fact. Bullsh*t! Page 19