The new pope, Stephen VI, quickly switched sides and crowned Lambert emperor.
Who’s the St. Pauli Girl? Hint: The German beer is named for Hamburg’s red-light district.
THE TRIAL
What followed was one of the most peculiar episodes in the history of the Catholic Church. Eager to prove his loyalty to the Spoletos, Pope Stephen convened the “cadaver synod,” in which he literally had Pope Formosus’s nine-month-old, rotting corpse put on trial for perjury, “coveting the papacy,” and a variety of other crimes. On Stephen’s orders the cadaver was disinterred, dressed in papal robes, and propped up on a throne for the trial. Since the body was in no condition to answer the charges made against it, a deacon was appointed to stand next to it during the proceedings and answer questions on its behalf.
Not surprisingly, the cadaver was found guilty on all counts. As punishment, all of Formosus’s papal acts were declared null and void. The corpse itself was also desecrated: The three fingers on the right hand used to confer blessings were hacked off, and the body was stripped naked and dumped in a cemetery for foreigners. Shortly afterwards it was tossed in Tiber River, where a hermit fished it out and gave it a proper burial.
WHAT GOES AROUND...
Stephen VI himself survived the cadaver synod by only a few months. While the gruesome synod was still in session, a strong earthquake struck Rome and destroyed the papal basilica. Taking this as a sign of God’s anger with the upstart pope, and encouraged by rumors that Formosus’s corpse had begun performing miracles, Formosus’s supporters arrested Stephen and threw him into the papal prison, where he was later strangled.
TIME FLIES
According to recent studies, in a lifetime the average American spends...
8 months opening mail
5 years waiting on line
2 years returning phone calls
1 year looking for misplaced items
Government stats: The poorest county in the U.S. is Shannon County, South Dakota.
DAVE BARRY’S
EMBARRASSING MOMENTS
The inspiration for this section was a column written by humorist Dave Barry. Why put his name in the title? Strategic planning. If we mention his name, maybe he’ll put us in his column. Clever, huh? On the other hand, what if it backfires on us? Boy, that would be an embarrassing mess...
THE UNFORGETTABLE EMBARRASSMENT
Ever embarrassed yourself so badly that you’re still suffering from it? Of course you have. And of course, Dave Barry writes, “you’ve probably noticed that your brain never lets you forget it.” Doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve become in life—certain moments will haunt you forever.
Barry’s “special moment”: “My own personal brain is forever dredging up the time in 11th grade when I took a girl, a very attractive girl on whom I had a life-threatening crush, to a dance. I was standing in the gym next to her, holding her hand, thinking what a sharp couple we made—Steve Suave and His Gorgeous Date—when one of my friends sidled up to me and observed that, over on the other side, my date was using her spare hand to hold hands with another guy....I thought: What am I supposed to do here?” Finally I turned to my date, dropped her hand, looked her square in the eye, and said: “Um.” Just like that: “Um.”
“My brain absolutely loves to remember this. “Way to go, Dave!” it shrieks to me, when I’m stopped at red lights, 23-½ years later. Talk about eloquent! My brain can’t get over what a jerk I was.”
Sound familiar? Well, things could be worse. Imagine screwing up like that in front of millions of people were watching. A few examples:
MOST EMBARRASSING
MOMENT AT THE OSCARS
“Frank Capra is one of Hollywood’s most famous directors. Among his achievements: It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, It Happened One Night. In 1933, Capra was so sure he was going to win the Best Director Oscar for his film Lady for a Day that even before the presenter, Will Rogers, finished announcing the winner, he stood up headed for the podium.
Number, in degrees, a bowling pin needs to tilt in order to fall down: 7.5.
“He kept saying, ‘Over here, over here,’ says Hollywood historian Stephen Schochet, “because the spotlight was thrown on the other side of the room and he wanted to bask in his triumph.
“Capra was even more confused on his way up to the dais when Rogers opened the envelope and said, ‘Come on up and get it, Frank.’
“But he wasn’t referring to the humiliated Capra. ‘It turns out the winner was another Frank—Frank Lloyd, for the film Cavalcade. Capra called his return to his seat ‘the longest, saddest, most shattering walk in my life.’”
—The Wolf Files, ABC News
MOST EMBARRASSING FAST FOOD PROMOTION
“Back in 1964, Colonel Sanders sold Kentucky Fried Chicken to some Louisville entrepreneurs; they, in turn, sold it to Heublein, Inc., in 1971. Through it all, the Colonel was expected to remain a well-paid living legend, with no direct control over the product. One July day in 1975, however, the living legend told a Bowling Green, Kentucky newspaper that the new, ‘extra-crispy’ KFC was a ‘damn fried doughball stuck on some chicken,” and referred to the gravy as ‘pure wallpaper paste.’
“A year later, the Colonel visited a New York City outlet and declared its food ‘the worst fried chicken I’ve ever seen.’ Embarrassed parent company execs called Sanders ‘a purist.’”
—Ira Simmons, in Junk Food
MOST EMBARRASSING NEWSPAPER HEADLINE
Or maybe the 2nd-most embarrassing. You may have seen the 1948 photo of President-elect Harry Truman holding up a Chicago Tribune emblazoned with the headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman!” But have you heard about the Baltimore Sun on April 15, 1912? It said: “All Titanic Passengers Are Safe; Transferred In Lifeboats At Sea.”
“It’s heartwarming to know that the famous headline is still giving assurance to Sun readers,” writes John Leo. “Certain editors have been known to send the headline to people who complain that the paper doesn’t carry enough positive news.”
Our experts say: In your lifetime, you’ll sleep about 220,000 hours.
He continues: “The Sun’s famous mistake, repeated by the Los Angeles Express, had many authors—a White Star spokesman who kept explaining that the Titanic was unsinkable, radiomen who garbled emergency messages and the usual mix of reporters eager to beat the competition with news almost certain to be correct, since everybody already knew the ship couldn’t possibly sink.
“One confident [section] of the Sun’s erroneous headline said ‘Towing Great Disabled Liner Into Halifax.’ This phrase had some basis in real-world confusion: a message sent from ship to ship in Morse code confused Titanic with a no-name oil tanker, which in fact was being towed to Halifax because of engine trouble. A few frantic radio operators who came upon the message in the middle of transmission assumed the report referred to Titanic and passed the word on. The moral for modern days: assume nothing.”
MOST EMBARRASSING TV GASOLINE AD
Hard to imagine a “most embarrassing” oil company ad—but this one fits because the company got caught.
From 1962 through 1968, Shell Oil claimed that its gas provided superior gas mileage. Why? Because it contained the special ingredient, Platformate. To prove it, in TV ads they showed two cars driving down a road. One was filled with “Shell with Platformate”; the other contained an unidentified gas with no Platformate. Of course he Platformate-less car ran out of gas while the other kept on running, breaking through a paper barrier to show it had “won.”
Then the government stepped in and stopped the farce. Turns out that all gasolines available at the time contained Platformate...or equivalent chemicals known as “reformates,” which were used to produce higher octane gas, reduce knocking, and improve mileage. (Shell used platinum as a reformate, which is how it came up with the name “platformate.”) For that matter, Shell admitted that both of the cars in the commercial contained Shell gasoline. The only
difference was that Shell chemists removed the Platformate from the “unidentified” gasoline so it would run out of gas first.
Howard Judson, Shell’s embarrassed advertising manager, defended the ads as technically accurate. “Our advertising has never claimed that Platformate, or any equivalent, is Shell’s exclusively,” he insisted. The government insisted, too—that Shell withdraw the commercials and stop advertising the “secret” ingredient.
—John Dollison
Read my lips: 13% of women reapply their lipstick more than eight times a day.
COLORS
Colors have a lot more impact on our daily lives than you might think. Here are some things researchers have found out about people and color.
PINK
• Studies show that people almost always believe “pastries from a pink box taste better than from any other color box.”
• People are willing to pay more for personal services (e.g., haircuts) performed by people wearing pink.
• Men believe pink products do the best job, but don’t want to be seen buying them. If they think someone’s watching, they’ll choose something brown or blue.
ORANGE
• A quick attention-getter, it communicates informality.
• When it’s used on a product, it “loudly proclaims that the product is for everyone.”
PALE BLUE
• Pale blue can actually make people feel cooler. Designers often use it in places where men work, “because men feel 5° warmer than a woman in the same room temperature.”
• Blue inhibits the desire to eat; in fact, researchers say “people tend to eat less from blue plates.”
• Because blue is associated with eating less, marketers use it to sell products like club soda, skim milk, and cottage cheese.
BROWN
• Researchers say a brown suit “a symbol of informality that invites people to open up.” It’s recommended for reporters and marriage counselors.
GRAY
• Your eye processes gray more easily than any other color.
• Even so, people often become prejudiced against it, especially in areas with a bleak climate.
BRONZE
• This metallic hue gets a negative response. Researchers say it’s “useful when rejection is desired.”
GREEN
It’s used to sell vegetables and chewing gum. But people avoid using it to sell meat, because it reminds consumers of mold.
Red is rarely used on ice cream packages because it reminds people of heat.
FIRST FILMS
Stars like Madonna would probably just as soon you forgot about what they were doing before they hit it big. You’d never guess they started out this way.
TOM SELLECK
First Film: Myra Breckinridge (1970)
The Role: In his 17 seconds onscreen, Selleck plays an unnamed talent agent (listed as “The Stud” in the credits) opposite Mae West, the star of the film, who wants to help him find “a position.” West discovered Selleck in a Pepsi commercial and had him cast in the bit part.
HARRISON FORD
First Film: Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)
The Role: The 24-year old Ford plays an unnamed bellhop who appears in only one scene, in which con man James Coburn gets some information from him and then refuses to give him a tip. The part is so small that Ford is not even listed in the credits.
Memorable Line: “Paging Mr. Ellis...”
MADONNA
First Film: A Certain Sacrifice (1979)
The Role: In this Super 8 student film, Madonna plays a minor character named Bruna, who shows her breasts, has “simulated” group sex, and gets smeared with a dead man’s blood. The film is so bad that the home video version opens with a disclaimer warning the viewer of the film’s “technical inconsistancies.”
Memorable Line: “I’m a do-do girl, and I’m looking for my do-do boy.”
JEFF GOLDBLUM
First Film: Death Wish (1974)
The Role: Goldblum plays “Freak #1,” one of three unnamed punks who break into Charles Bronson’s house, kill his wife, and rape his daughter. Bronson spends the rest of the film (and three sequels) gunning down punks on the streets of New York.
Memorable Line: “Don’t jive, mother, you know what we want!”
IRS workers suffer fewer assaults on the job than workers in any other government agency.
KEVIN COSTNER
First Film: Sizzle Beach, USA (1974)
The Role: Costner is John Logan, a wealthy rancher, in this film about three big-breasted women who share a house in Malibu. The girls exercise and perform household chores while topless, and one of them, Dit, falls in love with Costner’s character. (Incidentally, Costner also played a corpse in The Big Chill, but all of his scenes were cut out.)
Memorable Line: “L.A. women seem to be very impressed with money.”
TOM CRUISE
First Film: Endless Love (1981)
The Role: Cruise plays Billy, a teen arsonist who gives the film’s costar, Martin Hewitt, the idea of burning down Brooke Shields’s house in order to act as a hero and win the respect of her parents.
Memorable Line: “When I was eight years old I was into arson.”
SYLVESTER STALLONE
First Film: A Party at Kitty and Stud’s, (1970). Later renamed “The Italian Stallion” to cash in on Stallone’s fame.
The Role: In this pre-Rocky soft-core porno flick, Stallone plays Stud, a frisky playboy with big hair (and small muscles) who spends much of the film entirely nude except for a medallion around his neck and a wristwatch...though he never actually engages in intercourse.
Memorable Line: “Mmmmm.”
Can’t Get No Respect
Stallone never lived his blue movie down. According to Esquire magazine, “Even when Rocky won the Oscar for best picture of 1976...the [only] Stallone movie in demand for the private screening rooms of Bel Air and Beverly Hills was the soft-core porn film he’d made when it was the only work he could get.”
The Polish government rewards informants with flowers and chocolates.
MYTH-PRONUNCIATION
It’s surprising how many of our words are references to gods that we’ve never heard of. Here are some of the characters in Greek and Roman mythology we refer to daily.
Cereal: Named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain and agriculture.
Atlas: One of the Greek Titans banished by Zeus when they sided with his son against him. Atlas was condemned to carry the world on his shoulders. That scene was popular with early map-makers, who regularly put it on the covers of their books of maps. The books themselves eventually became known as atlases.
Panic: Named after the Greek god Pan, who was believed to howl and shriek in the middle of the night. Greeks who heard these noises often panicked.
Hygiene: Inspired by Hygeia, the Greek goddess who brings good health.
Panacea: The Roman goddess who cures diseases.
Tantalize: Tantalus was a Greek king who was punished by the other gods for trying to deceive them. He was forced to stand in a pool of water up to his chin, but when he lowered his head to drink, the water receded just out of reach. The same was true with food: Whenever he reached to pick a piece of fruit from a tree, the wind blew it just out of his reach. The tantalizing food filled him with desire, but was completely unobtainable.
Siren: The Greeks believed the Sirens were women who called to passing sailors with their beautiful singing voices. Sailors couldn’t resist them; in fact, men were driven mad by the songs and dashed their ships on the nearby rocks in their frenzy to get closer.
Helium: This element, found in the gaseous atmosphere of the sun, is named after Helios, the Greek god of the sun.
Iridescent: Named after Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow.
Slow Learner: President Woodrow Wilson couldn’t read until he was 11 years old.
Erotic: Named after Eros, the Greek god of...you guessed it: love.
Brownie: These cousins of the Girl Scouts are named after the Celtic brownies, small, brown-cloaked fairies that perform household chores while the family sleeps.
Aphrodisiac: Named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Her specialty: stirring up feelings of desire among the other gods.
Ghouls: From the Arabic word ghul, which was an evil spirit that robbed tombs and ate corpses. Today the name is given to anyone with an unhealthy interest in the deceased.
Lethargy: Named after the mythical Greek river of forgetfulness, Lethe.
Aegis: Originally the name of the shield of Zeus; today anything that’s protected by something else is said to be under its aegis.
Money: Named after Juno Moneta, the Roman goddess of money.
SPACE-FILLER: MONEY FACTS
• Ancient Sparta had a creative way of preventing capital flight: They made their coins so large and heavy that it was almost impossible to take them out of the country.
• The British Pound Sterling, originally composed of 240 silver pennies, really did weigh a pound.
• The Greek word drachma originally meant “handful.”
• Why were gold and silver so widely used in coins? They were rare, valuable, and didn’t deteriorate or rust. They were also pretty to look at—which historians say was no small consideration.
• U.S. law requires that the words “liberty,” “United States of America,” “E Pluribus Unum,” and “In God We Trust” be inscribed on all coins.
• Biggest and smallest coins in history: the 1644 Swedish ten-daler coin (43.4 pounds), and the 1740 Nepalese silver quarter-dam (1/14,000 of an ounce).
• Biggest and smallest bills in history: the 14th-century Chinese one-kwan note (9 × 13 inches) and the 1917 Rumanian ten-bani note (1½ square inches).
John Quincy Adams once said, “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
THREE WEIRD
MEDICAL CONDITIONS
Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Page 38