• Each blimp can carry 9 passengers along with the crew. The seats have no seatbelts.
• The camera operator shoots from the passenger compartment through an open window from about 1,200 feet up, from which you can see everything, read a scoreboard, and hear the roar of a crowd. The hardest sport to film is golf, because the pilots have to be careful not to disturb a golfer’s shot with engine noise or by casting a sudden shadow over the green.
• If punctured, the worst that will happen is that the blimp will slowly lose altitude. Good thing, too, since the company reports that a blimp is shot at about 20 times a year.
• Each blimp is 192 feet long, 59 feet high, and holds 202,700 cubic feet of helium. The helium does leak out, like a balloon’s air, and has to be “topped off” every four months or so.
• The word blimp is credited to Lt. A. D. Cunningham of Britain’s Royal Navy Air Service. In 1915 he whimsically flicked his thumb against the inflated wall of an airship and imitated the sound it made: “Blimp!”
Creative naming: “Booker” T. Washington got the nickname Booker because he loved books.
GO ASK ALICE
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass aren’t just for kids. They’re great reading for grown-ups, too. Especially in the bathroom. Here are some sample quotes.
“Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next questions is, ‘Who am I?’ Ah, that’s the puzzle!”
—Alice, Alice in Wonderland
“Cheshire Puss,” began Alice, “would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if only you walk long enough.”
—Alice in Wonderland
Alice laughed. “There’s no use in trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—Through the Looking Glass
“You should say what you mean,” said the March Hare.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same as ‘I eat what I see’!”
Before he was nicknamed “Stonewall,” Thomas Jackson was known as “Fool Tom.’
“You might as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” “It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter.
—Alice in Wonderland
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
—Alice, Alice in Wonderland
“Be what you would seem to be—or, if you would like it put more simply—Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”
—The Duchess, Alice in Wonderland
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone: “So I can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the hatter: “It’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
—Alice in Wonderland
“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”
“Which would not be an advantage,” said Alice. “Just think what work it would make with the day and night! You see, the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—”
“Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!”
—Alice in Wonderland
Believe it or not: The U.S. Congress was so unpopular during the American Revolution that its
WEDDING
SUPERSTITIONS
If this book was Modern Bride, we’d probably call these “wedding traditions” rather than superstitions. But think about it—most of them were started by people who believed in evil spirits and witches and talismans.
BRIDAL VEIL. The veil has served a number of purposes throughout history, including: 1) protecting the bride from the “evil eye;” 2) protecting her from jealous spinsters (who might also be witches); and 3) protecting the groom, his family, and other wedding guests from the bride’s psychic powers—just in case she has any.
WEDDING KISS. A toned-down but direct throwback to the days when the couple was required to consummate their marriage in the presence of several witnesses, to insure that the consummation actually took place.
BRIDE’S GARTER AND BOUQUET OF FLOWERS. Originally the groomsmen fought with each other to see who would get the bride’s garter, which was supposed to bring good luck to the person who possessed it. But the Catholic Church frowned on the rowdy practice, and it was eventually replaced by a milder custom: the bride throwing a bouquet of flowers to her bridesmaids. Today the customs exist side by side.
WEDDING RINGS. One of the oldest wedding practices. Ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks all exchanged rings during their wedding ceremonies. Because a circle is a round, unending shape, it came to symbolize the ideal love that was supposed to come from marriage: it flowed from one person to the other and back again, forever. The ring has always been worn on the left hand—and was originally worn on the thumb. It was later moved to the index finger and then to the middle finger, and eventually ended up on the third, or “medical,” finger. Reason: The third finger was believed to lead straight to the heart, via a single nerve.
detractors named it “King Congress.” The name was later shortened to “King Cong.”
HONEYMOON. This European tradition dates back hundreds of years and gets its name from the fact that newlyweds were expected to drink honey (believed to be an aphrodisiac) during the period of one full cycle of the moon (about a month).
THROWING RICE OR CONFETTI. Originally a fertility ritual. Wedding guests threw wheat at the bride only, in the hope that she would bear children the same way that wheat produced bread.
WEDDING CAKE. Guests originally gave “bride-cakes” to a just-married woman to encourage fertility.
JUNE WEDDING. It was customary for Romans to marry in June to honor the queen of the gods, Juno—who was also the goddess of women. They hoped to win her favor to make the marriage last, and make childbirth easier.
CARRYING THE BRIDE OVER THE THRESHOLD. Romans thought good and evil spirits hung around the entrance of a home. They also believed that if you walked into your house left foot first, the evil spirits won. So to be sure the bride—whom Romans figured was “in a highly emotional state and very apt to be careless”—didn’t accidentally step into her new home with the wrong foot, the groom just picked her up and carried her.
RECEPTION SPEECH. In pre-Christian Rome, newlyweds hired an “official joker” to tell dirty stories to guests during the reception. The Romans believed that “unclean” thoughts in the minds of guests turned the attention of vengeful gods away from the newly-weds, which helped protect them from evil.
DECORATING THE WEDDING CAR. In medieval France, when a couple was unpopular, people deride
d them publicly by banging on pots, kettles, etc This was a charivari, or “rough serenade.” In America it became a shivaree, and people got the treatment from friends. This gave way to a new custom—trying to keep a couple from consummating their marriage by making noise at their window. When newlyweds began leaving weddings by car, the only way to harass them was to deface the vehicle.
Most popular sheet-music song of all time: “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
LIMERICKS
Limericks have been around since the 1700s. Here are some that readers have sent us over the years.
There once was a spinster from Wheeling,
Endowed with such delicate feeling,
That she thought any chair
Should not have its legs bare,
So, she kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
There was a young lady of Kent,
Who always said just what she meant;
People said, “she’s a dear—
So unique—so sincere—”
But they shunned her by common consent.
There once was a pious young priest,
Who lived almost wholly on yeast;
“For,” he said, “it is plain
We must all rise again,
And I want to get started at least.”
I sat next to the Duchess at tea,
Distressed as a person could be.
Her rumblings abdominal
Were simply phenomenal—
And everyone thought it was me!
A rocket explorer named Wright
Once traveled much faster than light.
He set out one day
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.
There once was an old man of Boolong
Who frightened the birds with his song.
It wasn’t the words
Which astonished the birds
But the horrible
dooble ontong.
A classical scholar from Flint
Developed a curious squint.
With her left-handed eye
She could scan the whole sky
While the other was reading small print.
There was a young girl from Detroit
Who at kissing was very adroit;
She could pucker her lips
Into total eclipse,
Or open them out like a quoit.
Size of the smallest man alive, in inches: 26.
FAMILIAR PHRASES
Here are the origins of a few common phrases.
TO CLOSE RANKS
Meaning: To present a united front.
Origin: “In the old-time European armies, the soldiers were aligned side by side, in neat rows, or ranks, on the battlefield. When the enemy attacked, officers would order the troops to close ranks; that is, to move the rows close together, so that the enemy faced a seemingly impregnable mass of men.” (From Fighting Words, by Christine Ammer)
FOR THE BIRDS
Meaning: Worthless.
Origin: According to Robert Claiborne in Loose Cannons and Red Herrrings, it refers to city streets before cars. “When I was a youngster on the streets of New York, one could both see and smell the emissions of horse-drawn wagons. Since there was no way of controlling these emissions, they, or the undigested oats in them, served to nourish a large population of English sparrows. If you say something’s for the birds, you’re politely saying that it’s horseshit.”
BEYOND THE PALE
Meaning: Socially unacceptable.
Origin: “The pale in this expression has nothing to do with the whitish color, but comes originally from Latin palus, meaning a pole or stake. Since stakes are used to mark boundaries, a pale was a particular area within certain limits.” The pale that inspired this expression was the area around Dublin in Ireland. Until the 1500s, that area was subject to British law. “Those who lived beyond the pale were outside English jurisdiction and were thought to be uncivilized.” (From Getting to the Roots, by Martin Manser)
I’VE GOT A FROG IN MY THROAT
Meaning: I’m hoarse from a cold.
Origin: Surprisingly, this wasn’t inspired by the croaking sound of a cold-sufferer’s voice, but a weird medical practice. “In the Middle Ages,” says Christine Ammer in It’s Raining Cats and Dogs, “throat infections such as thrush were sometimes treated by putting a live frog head first into the patient’s mouth; by inhaling, the frog was believed to draw out the patient’s infection into its own body. The treatment is happily obsolete, but its memory survives in the 19th-century term frog in one’s throat.”
Whew! Chances you’ll get stung by a scorpion in your lifetime: 1 in 2,000,000.
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES
Meaning: Trying to do as well as your neighbors.
Origin: “Keeping Up with the Joneses” was the name of a comic strip by Arthur R. “Pop” Momand that ran in the New York Globe from 1913 to 1931. At first, Momand planned to call it “Keeping Up with the Smiths,” but his real-life neighbors were named Smith, and a lot of his material came from observing them. So he picked another common surname. (From Why Do We Say It?, by Nigel Rees)
XXX
Meaning: A kiss, at the end of a letter.
Origin: In medieval times, when most people were illiterate, “contracts were not considered legal until each signer included St. Andrew’s cross after his name.” (Or instead of a signature, if the signer couldn’t write.) To prove his sincerity, the signer was then required to kiss the X. “Through the centuries this custom faded out, but the letter X [became associated] with a kiss.” This is also probably where the phrase “sealed with a kiss” comes from. (From I’ve Got Goose Pimples, by Martin Vanoni)
TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES
Meaning: To perceive or understand a hidden meaning.
Origin: In the 16th century, it became common for politicians, soldiers, and businessmen to write in code. “To a person ignorant of the code, a secret paper was meaningless. Ordinary folk fascinated with this mystery concluded that the meaning was not in lines of gibberish, but in the space between them.” (From Why You Say It, by Webb Garrison)
Q. Who was the first person to put Frankenstein on film? A. Thomas Edison.
CAFFEINE FACTS
What’s America’s favorite drug? You guessed it—caffeine. We use more caffeine than all other drugs—legal or illegal—combined. Want to know what the stuff is doing to you? Here’s a quick overview.
BACKGROUND
If you start the day with a strong cup of coffee or tea, you’re not alone. Americans ingest the caffeine equivalent of 530 million cups of coffee every day. Caffeine is the world’s most popular mood-altering drug. It’s also one of the oldest: according to archaeologists, man has been brewing beverages from caffeine-based plants since the Stone Age.
HOW IT PICKS YOU UP
Caffeine doesn’t keep you awake by supplying extra energy; rather, it fools your body into thinking it isn’t tired.
• When your brain is tired and wants to slow down, it releases a chemical called adenosine.
• Adenosine travels to special cells called receptors, where it goes to work counteracting the chemicals that stimulate your brain.
• Caffeine mimics adenosine; so it can “plug up” your receptors and prevent adenosine from getting through. Result: Your brain never gets the signal to slow down, and keeps building up stimulants.
JAVA JUNKIES
• After a while, your brain figures out what’s going on, and increases the number of receptor cells so it has enough for both caffeine and adenosine.
• When that happens, caffeine can’t keep you awake anymore... unless you increase the amount you drink so it can “plug up” the new receptor cells as well.
• This whole process only takes about a week. In that time, you essentially become a caffeine addict. Your brain is literally restructuring itself to run on caffeine; take the caffeine away and your brain has too many receptor cells to operate properly.
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br /> Experts say: Humans and elephants are the only animals that can stand on their heads.
• If you quit ingesting caffeine “cold turkey,” your brain begins to reduce the number of receptors right away. But the process takes about two weeks, and during that time your body sends out mild “distress signals” in the form of headaches, lethargy, fatigue, muscle pain, nausea, and sometimes even stiffness and flu-like symptoms. As a result, most doctors recommend cutting out caffeine gradually.
CAFFEINE’S EFFECTS
• Good: Caffeine has been scientifically proven to temporarily increase alertness, comprehension, memory, reflexes, and even the rate of learning. It also helps increase clarity of thought.
• Bad: Too much caffeine can cause hand tremors, loss of coordination or appetite, insomnia, and in extreme cases, trembling, nausea, heart palpitations, and diarrhea.
• Widely varying the amount of caffeine you ingest can put a strain on your liver, pancreas, heart, and nervous system. And if you’re prone to ulcers, caffeine can make your situation worse.
• If you manage to consume the equivalent of 70-100 cups of coffee in one sitting, you’ll experience convulsions, and may even die.
CAFFEINE FACTS
• The average American drinks 210 milligrams of caffeine a day. That’s equal to 2-3 cups of coffee, depending on how strong it is.
• How you make your coffee has a lot to do with how much caffeine you get. Instant coffee contains 65 milligrams of caffeine per serving; coffee brewed in a percolator has 80 milligrams; and coffee made using the “drip method” has 155 milligrams.
• Top four sources of caffeine in the American diet: coffee, soft drinks, tea, and chocolate, in that order. The average American gets 75% of their caffeine from coffee. Other sources include over-the-counter pain killers, appetite suppressants, cold remedies, and some prescription drugs.
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