Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Survey results: 68% of 18-year-olds have a driver’s license but only 28% are registered to vote.

  • “These are critical times—times that demand the best we have, times that demand the best America has. We have, therefore, an obligation to pick the man best qualified not only to lead our party but to lead our country....Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my privilege to present to the convention as a candidate for the president of the United States...the man from Libertyville...Adlai Stevenson.”

  THE REACTION. The speech, described as “Kennedy’s second success of the convention,” put Stevenson in a quandary: Should he pick Kennedy, Kefauver, Sen. Albert Gore, or Sen. Hubert Humphrey?

  In the end, Stevenson decided not to pick anyone. He announced to the convention that they could select the vice presidential candidate with a roll-call vote. “The choice will be yours,” he told them. “the profit will be the nation’s.”

  Kennedy came within about 30 votes of the nomination on the second ballot. But in a wild scene on the convention floor, he eventually lost to Kefauver. On learning the news, he rushed to the convention center and pushed his way onto the stage. The chairman saw him and brought him up to the microphone.

  THE CONCESSION. “TV coverage of conventions was still something fresh and new in 1956, and a hundred million Americans were watching,” writes historian Ralph G. Martin. “They saw this freshman senator on the podium before a packed national political convention, listening to the roar, picking at some invisible dust on his boyish, handsome face, nervously dry-washing his hands, waving to yelling friends nearby, his smile tentative, but warmly appealing, his eyes slightly wet and glistening. He spoke without notes, and his words were short, gallant, and touching. For the TV audience, it was a moment of magic they would not forget.”

  AFTERMATH. The Stevenson/Kefauver ticket went down in a landslide, but JFK emerged as the Democrats’ rising star. His performance on TV made him the most sought-after political speaker in America and opened the door for a 1960 presidential run.

  Most engaged couples who split up do so between 9 p.m. and midnight.

  WHO WROTE

  SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS?

  We include this to inspire you to add the Bard’s writing to your bathroom reading. BRI members have a lofty image to uphold, after all.

  William Shakespeare authored 36 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems between 1588 and 1616. Though his works are among the most influential literature of Western civilization, little is known about the man himself—and no manuscripts written in his own hand have ever been found.

  • This fact has inspired speculation by pseudoscholars, cranks, and English society snobs that Shakespeare—the commoner son of a glovemaker—couldn’t have been intelligent or educated enough to write “his own” works.

  • Why would the real author have given the credit to Shakespeare? One theory: Many of the plays dealt with members of the English royal family and were politically controversial. It may have been too dangerous for the real author to take credit for the radical ideas they contained.

  • The real William Shakespeare, according to this theory, was a third-rate actor, playwright, and theater gadfly who was more than happy to take credit for work he was not capable of producing.

  • Whatever the case, more than 5,000 other authors (including Queen Elizabeth I and a Catholic pope) have been proposed as the real Shakespeare. Here are five of the more popular candidates:

  1. SIR FRANCIS BACON. An English nobleman, trusted advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, and renowned writer, scholar, and philosopher.

  Background: The Sir Francis Bacon-as-Shakespeare theory was popularized in 1852 by Delia Bacon (no relation), a 41-year-old Connecticut spinster who detested William Shakespeare, referring to him as “a vulgar, illiterate...deer poacher” and “stableboy.”

  • Bacon believed that Shakespeare had been buried with documents that would prove her theory. She spent much of her life struggling to get permission to open the crypt. She never succeeded and died insane in 1859.

  Ninety percent of all animal species in the history of the Earth are now extinct.

  Evidence: According to some theorists, a number of Shakespeare’s plays demonstrate “profound legal expertise.” But Shakespeare was not a lawyer—and according to one theorist, “A person of Shakespeare’s known background could not have gained such knowledge.” Sir Francis Bacon, on the other hand, was so gifted as a lawyer that he eventually became Lord Chancellor of England.

  • Shakespeare’s plays also show a strong familiarity with continental Europe, though there’s no evidence the Bard himself ever left England. Bacon, an aristocrat, was well traveled.

  • Bacon had a reason for hiding his authorship: In the 17th century, poetry and playwriting was considered frivolous and beneath the dignity of a nobleman. Bacon may have kept his identity a secret to protect his reputation (as well as his standing in the royal court, since a number of the plays dealt with English monarchs). So he paid William Shakespeare, a nobody, to take the credit.

  2. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. An accomplished playwright of the 1500s. Author of such works as Edward the Second and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Marlowe was considered as talented as Shakespeare by audiences of the day.

  Background: Unlike most candidates for the Shakespearean crown, Marlowe was already dead by the time most of Shakespeare’s plays were written; according to the official story, he was stabbed to death during a drunken brawl in a pub in 1593. Marlowe theorists disagree—they believe he faked his death:

  • Marlowe had a reputation for rowdiness, was an alleged homosexual and atheist, and may have even been an English spy.

  • His wild life and radical beliefs eventually got him into trouble, and in 1593 a warrant was put out for his arrest. Marlowe theorists believe that his alleged lover, Sir Thomas Walsingham, staged the pub fight, had someone else murdered, and then bribed the coroner to report that Marlowe was the man who’d been killed. Marlowe escaped to France to continue his writing career, and Sir Thomas hired Shakespeare to publish—under his own name—the manuscripts Marlowe sent back from France.

  Evidence: Though the theory was first suggested by W. G. Zeigler, a California lawyer, in 1895, it wasn’t until the early 1900s that an Ohio professor, Thomas C. Mendenhall, checked to see if the claims were credible. He spent months analyzing more than 400,000 individual words from Shakespeare’s plays and comparing them with words from Marlowe’s known works.

  Long-distance travelers: Hummingbirds can fly 500 miles without stopping.

  • His stunning conclusion: The two men had similar writing styles, and for both Marlowe and the Bard, “the word of greatest frequency was the four-letter word.” (One problem with the research: Mendenhall studied contemporary editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which spelled many words differently than they had appeared in the original plays.)

  • Other researchers dug up Sir Thomas’s grave to see if it held any clues to whether Marlowe really was a homosexual. The search turned up nothing—not even Sir Thomas.

  3. EDWARD DE VERE, 17th Earl of Oxford. Though none of his plays survive, de Vere was an accomplished author in his own right. He’s also been described as a “hot-tempered youth, a spendthrift, and a philanderer specializing in the queen’s maids-of-honor.”

  Background: J. Thomas Looney, father of the de Vere-as-Shakespeare theory, was an English schoolmaster and Bard buff in the early 1900s. Over time he came to believe that Shakespeare’s descriptions of Italy in The Merchant of Venice could only have been made by someone who’d actually been there, and Shakespeare had not. Looney began researching the lives of other writers of Shakespeare’s day to see if he could find the real author. He eventually settled on de Vere.

  Evidence: De Vere had traveled abroad. After emitting “an unfortunate flatulence in the presence of the Queen,” he was compelled to leave England and spent several years traveling in Europe. During his travels he spent a great deal of time in Italy and gained th
e knowledge Looney alleges he needed to write The Merchant of Venice and other plays.

  • According to Looney, many of de Vere’s relatives had names that were similar to the names of characters in Shakespeare’s plays—too many relatives to be a coincidence.

  4. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. Raleigh, an “author, adventurer, and explorer,” was the founding father of the state of Virginia and, like Bacon, was popular in Queen Elizabeth’s court. But he fell out of favor when James I took the throne, and was beheaded in 1618.

  When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

  Background: George S. Caldwell, an Australian, first advanced the theory that Raleigh wrote Shakespeare’s plays in 1877. The theory later became popular with U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, who made speeches supporting it in the 1890s. In 1914 Henry Pemberton, Jr., a Philadelphia writer, gave the theory new life in his book Shakespeare and Sir Walter Raleigh.

  Evidence: Raleigh was familiar with the traditions of the royal court and the military, which were central themes in a number of Shakespeare’s plays.

  • Unlike Shakespeare, who was not known for being emotional, Raleigh was a passionate man, much like the characters in Shakespeare’s plays.

  5. MICHEL ANGELO FLORIO. Florio, an Italian, was a defrocked Franciscan monk who converted to Protestantism. A Calvinist, he lived in exile in England for much of his life. His son John Florio most likely knew William Shakespeare; many historians speculate that the two men were close friends.

  Background: In 1925 Santi Paladino, a writer, visited a fortuneteller and was told that he would someday shock the world with an amazing discovery. Within four years he had published his book Un Italiano Autore Delle Opere Shakespeariane, which claimed that Michel Angelo Florio was the true author of Shakespeare’s works.

  Evidence: Again, the main body of circumstantial evidence is that Florio had an intimate knowledge of Italy that Shakespeare could not have possessed. Florio-as-Shakespearists believe that the elder Florio, whose experience as an exile made him leery of publishing in his own name, wrote Shakespeare’s plays in Italian, had his son translate them into English, and paid Shakespeare to publish them under his own name.

  • Shakespeare’s supporters disagree, arguing that the Bard wrote the plays himself, but got a lot of his information on Italy from the Florios, who were writers themselves and owned a large library of Italian books. Shakespeare may have even borrowed from some of the Florios’ writings, they say, but there’s no hard evidence anyone other than Shakespeare wrote his plays.

  MOOO: Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.

  CARNIVAL TRICKS

  Do the booths at carnivals and traveling circuses seem rigged to you? According to Matthew Gryczan in his book Carnival Secrets, many of them are. Here are some booths to look out for—and some tips on how to beat them.

  The Booth: “Ring a Bottle”

  The Object: Throw a small ring over the neck of a softdrink bottle from a distance of about five feet.

  How It’s Rigged: The game isn’t rigged, but it doesn’t have to be—it’s almost impossible to win.

  • In 1978 researchers stood six feet away from a grouping of 100 bottles and tossed 7,000 rings at it. They recorded 12 wins—an average of one shot in every 583 throws. What’s more, the researchers found that all of the 12 winning tosses were ricochets; not a single aimed shot had gone over the bottles. In fact, the light, plastic rings wouldn’t stay on the bottles even if dropped from a height of three inches directly over the neck of the bottle.

  How to Win: It appears that the only way to win is to throw two rings over a bottle neck at the same time. However, carnival operators usually won’t let you throw more than one ring at a time.

  The Booth: “The Bushel Basket”

  The Object: Toss softballs into a bushel basket from a distance of about six feet.

  How It’s Rigged: The bottom of the basket is connected to the baseboard in such a way that it has a lot of spring to it, so the ball will usually bounce out.

  • In addition, carnies sometimes use balls that weigh as little as 4 ounces, rather than the 6-¼-ounce minimum weight of an official softball. The lighter ball makes the game harder to win.

  • Some carnies use a heavier ball when demonstrating the game or to give to players for a practice shot. Then, when play begins, they switch to a lighter ball that’s harder to keep in the basket.

  How to Win: Ask to use the same ball the carny used.

  A recent U.S. Army study estimates that 25% of U.S. troops cannot be taught to use a map.

  • The best throw is to aim high, so that the ball enters the basket from a vertical rather than a horizontal angle. The worst place to put the ball is directly on the bottom of the basket.

  • Aim for the lip or the sides of the basket. If the rules prohibit these shots, the game will be tough to win.

  The Booth: “Shoot Out the Dots”

  The Object: Using soft graphite bullets, shoot out all the red in three to five dots printed on a paper target.

  How It’s Rigged: The bullet, called an “arcade load,” is discharged from the rifle barrel in little chunks. Propelled by a low-powder charge that ranges from a .22 cap to a .22-short, the chunks barely penetrate the target.

  • Even if the bullet remained intact, it would not be able to take out all of the red of the .22 caliber-sized dots, because its diameter ranges from .15 caliber to .177 caliber. Besides, the chunks of graphite tear the paper target instead of punching out a clean hole. So there’s always some red left on the target, even with a direct hit.

  How to Win: In many cases, winning is impossible. During a trial, one carny testified that she’d never had one winner in 365,000 plays over five and a half years—despite the fact the game was frequented by U.S. naval personnel with experience in shooting guns.

  The Booth: “The Milk Can”

  The Object: Toss a softball into a 10-gallon milk can.

  How It’s Rigged: Most carnival cans aren’t ordinary dairy cans. For the midway game, a concave piece of steel is welded to the rim of the can’s opening, reducing the size of the hole the ball must travel through to anything from 6-½ inches down to 4- inches in diameter.

  • At one game played at a state fair in 1987, there were 15 wins out of a total of 1,279 tries—one win for every 86 balls thrown.

  How to Win: Carnies say the best way to win is to give the ball a backspin and try to hit the back edge of the can.

  • Another way: Toss the ball as high as you can, so that it drops straight into the hole. This isn’t always easy; operators often hang prizes from the rafters of the booth to make high tosses difficult.

  There are an estimated 508,000 metric tons of tea in China.

  THEY WENT

  THAT-A-WAY

  Malcolm Forbes wrote a fascinating book about the deaths of famous people. Here are some of the weirdest stories he found.

  FRANCIS BACON

  Claim to Fame: One of the great minds of the late 16th century. A statesman, philosopher, writer, and scientist. Some people believe he’s the real author of Shakespeare’s plays (see page 123).

  How He Died: Stuffing snow into a chicken.

  Postmortem: One afternoon in 1625, Bacon was watching a snowstorm. He began wondering if snow might be as good a meat preservative as salt...and decided to find out. With a friend, he rode through the storm to a nearby peasant’s cottage, bought a chicken, and had it butchered. Then, standing outside in the cold, he stuffed the chicken with snow to freeze it. The chicken never froze, but Bacon did. He caught a serious chill and never recovered. He died from bronchitis a few weeks later.

  WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

  Claim to Fame: Ninth president of the United States; elected in 1841 at the age of 67.

  How He Died: Pneumonia.

  Postmortem: Harrison’s advanced age had been an issue in his race against incumbent president Martin van Buren. Perhaps because of this—to demonstrate his strength�
��he rode on horseback in his inaugural parade without a hat, gloves, or overcoat. Then he stood outside in the snow for more than one and a half hours, delivering his inaugural address.

  The experience weakened him, and a few weeks later he caught pneumonia. Within a week he was delirious, and on April 4—just one month after his inauguration—he died. He served in office long enough to keep only one campaign promise: not to run for a second term.

  Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Great Britain are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th cousins.

  AESCHYLUS

  Claim to Fame: Greek playwright in 500 B.C. Many historians consider him the father of Greek tragedies.

  How He Died: An eagle dropped a tortoise on his head.

  Postmortem: According to legend, an eagle was trying to crack open a tortoise by dropping it on a hard rock. It mistook Aeschylus’s head (he was bald) for a rock and dropped it on him instead.

  TYCHO BRAHE

  Claim to Fame: An important Danish astronomer of the 16th century. His groundbreaking research enabled Sir Isaac Newton to come up with the theory of gravity.

  How He Died: Didn’t get to the bathroom on time.

  Postmortem: In the 16th century, it was considered an insult to leave a banquet table before the meal was over. Brahe, known to drink excessively, had a bladder condition—but failed to relieve himself before the feast started. He made matters worse by drinking too much at the dinner, but was too polite to ask to be excused. His bladder finally burst, killing him slowly and painfully over the next 11 days.

  JEROME IRVING RODALE

  Claim to Fame: Founding father of the organic food movement, creator of Organic Farming and Gardening magazine. Founded Rodale Press, a major publishing company.