“At least one bear in West Milford, New Jersey, doesn’t want to know Jack. Jack is a 10-year-old orange-and-white tabby. And when the cat spotted the bear in a neighbor’s yard, the clawless kitty sprang into action. The bear scurried up a tree and eyed the cat for 10 minutes while Jack hissed from the ground. The bruin inched its way down before jumping off and running away.
“But then Jack chased the bear into the brush and up another tree. That’s when Jack’s owner realized what was happening and called her cat. The bear took off as Jack rubbed up against his owner, Donna Dickey, who told the Newark Star-Ledger that Jack considers the area his turf and doesn’t want anyone in his yard.”
Fish don’t have it: Helminthophobia is the fear of worms.
—Associated Press
DOLPHINS WITH A PORPOISE
“A pod of dolphins circled protectively around a group of New Zealand swimmers to fend off an attack by a great white shark. Rob Howes and three other lifeguards were on a training swim about 100 meters offshore near Whangarei when the dolphins raced in and herded the group together. Howes said: ‘They pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us.’ At that time the lifeguards didn’t realize what the dolphins were doing… until Howes tried to drift away from the group, and two of the bigger dolphins herded him back. That’s when he spotted a nine-foot great white shark swimming toward the group. ‘I just recoiled. It was only about two meters away from me, the water was crystal clear, and it was as clear as the nose on my face.’ The lifeguards spent the next 40 minutes surrounded by the dolphins before they could safely swim back to shore.”
—StunningStuff.com
SSSSSSOMETHING IN THE WAY HE MOVES
“A woman who fell in love with a snake has married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests. Bimbala Das wore a silk sari for the ceremony at her village. Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives. A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom. ‘Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way,’ Das, 30, told reporters. Das converted to the animal-loving Vaishnav sect, whose elders gave her permission to marry the cobra. ‘I am happy,’ said the bride’s mother, Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off. ‘Bimbala was ill,’ she said. ‘We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake, and she was cured. That made her fall in love.’ Since the wedding, Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill.”
—Hindustan Times
Death fact: 40% of all heart attacks are fatal.
TV OF THE 1940S
When national broadcasting began in the late 1940s, TV was such a novelty that nearly anything could get on the air. Weird shows can be found on cable access today… but back then these were prime-time viewing.
Author Meets the Critics (NBC)
Yes, they actually used to talk about books on TV! On this show, one critic would praise a new book and another critic would trash it. The author would then defend himself.
The Red Caboose (ABC)
This show consisted of film of model trains running on tracks, over which a narrator told railroad stories. It was sponsored by Lionel Trains.
Let’s Rhumba! (NBC)
A 15-minute show of people dancing the rhumba.
Night Editor (Dumont)
A newspaper editor reads stories and acts them out as he describes them.
Gay Nineties Revue (ABC)
Vaudeville was already dead by 1948…except on this program, a showcase for old vaudeville acts. Today there are few TV hosts over 40, but this show was hosted by 81-year-old Joe Howard, a vaudeville veteran of the 1890s.
You Are an Artist (NBC)
This popular show featured an artist named Jon Gnagy, who drew a picture while he talked about how he did it.
Teenage Book Club (ABC)
Not even in 1948 did teenagers want to stay home on Friday nights and discuss books. The show lasted just two months.
The Amazing Polgar (CBS)
Dr. Franz Polgar hypnotized selected members of the studio audience.
Cash and Carry (Dumont)
A game show held in a supermarket in which everything on the shelf was a Libby product (the show’s sponsor). One segment had viewers phone in and guess what was hidden under a barrel. Bonus: There was a mime performance on every show.
Monodrama Theater (Dumont)
One actor performs an entire play—by himself—in front of a curtain. No sets, no props.
There are 20 possible answers on a Magic 8-Ball: 10 positive, 5 negative, and 5 neutral.
BOXERS OR BRIEFS?
Whatever your choice, Uncle John’s betting his boxers (or briefs) that you don’t know much about where either of them came from.
COVERALLS
Maybe you’ve noticed it from time to time while watching Westerns: cowboys running around in long-legged, long-sleeved one-piece undergarments that cover almost their entire body. Called “union suits,” these undergarments had a row of buttons running down the front and a button “trapdoor” in the back. As late as the turn of the 20th century, they were the most popular kind of men’s underwear in the U.S. Women and children wore them, too.
Then, when the U.S. entered World War I, the Army began issuing shorts to soldiers to wear during the hot summer months. These were more like the shorts we wear as clothing than the ones we wear as underwear today: They opened at the front and were secured by a button on the waistline; the fly was secured with buttons, too, and there was a drawstring that tied on the side.
BOXER SHORTS
Undershorts didn’t become “boxers” until 1925, when Jacob Golomb, the founder of Everlast, invented shorts for boxers that were held up by an elastic waistband instead of the traditional leather belt. It didn’t take long for underwear companies to copy what was obviously a good thing: Shorts with no buttons were more comfortable, both to sleep in and to wear under trousers, and the buttons didn’t break off in the hand-cranked wringers that people still used to do their laundry. Boxer shorts accelerated the trend away from union suits—by 1930 only old fogies wore them.
BRIEFS
The next milestone came in 1934, when an executive with the Cooper Underwear Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin, happened to see a photograph of men on the French Riviera wearing a new kind of bathing suit that was little more than a snug-fitting pair of shorts. The executive figured if men were wearing body-hugging shorts on beaches, they’d wear them under their clothing, too. Years earlier, the company had revolutionized the union suit business by replacing the traditional button trapdoor with two pieces of overlapping fabric that could be pulled apart to create a rear opening when nature called—an innovation the company famously called the “Kenosha Klosed Krotch.” For their new piece of underwear, the company’s designers shrank the Kenosha Klosed Krotch, modified it a little, and moved it from the rear to the front of the briefs, giving them a distinctive upside-down Y-shaped appearance in front. (In England, briefs are still called “Y-fronts.”)
King Tut was buried with 145 pairs of loincloth underwear.
The new design was such a radical departure from ordinary underwear that Cooper worked with a urologist to perfect the design and tested it extensively before rolling it out before the public. The new underwear provided about as much “masculine support” as an athletic supporter, or “jock strap,” and to call attention to this fact, the company named them “Jockey briefs.”
COLD COMFORT
The first hint of how popular Jockey briefs would become came on January 19, 1935, when Chicago’s Marshall Field’s department store unveiled the new design in a window display. That weekend the city was slammed by the worst blizzard of the year—what was the point in displaying skimpy undies in long-underwear weather? The store ordered the display taken down, but by the time noon rolled around the salespeople hadn’t gotten around to it yet…and the store had sold more than 600 pair
s. The display stayed up.
Marshall Field’s sold 12,000 pairs that first week alone and would have sold more than that, had Cooper been able to supply them. Stores sold out of them so fast that the company chartered a special “masculiner” airplane to fly the masculine support briefs to retailers as fast as the factory could make them. Sales have been strong ever since: More than 70 years later, briefs are still the most popular style of men’s underwear in the U.S.
…WORTH THE TROUBLE?
Inventing the Kenosha Klosed Krotch for the Cooper Underwear Company made its creator, a knitting-room supervisor named Horace Greeley Johnson, a very rich man. But it also saddled him with the nicknames “Edison of Underwear” and “Klosed Krotch Johnson.” His granddaughter Barbara Hunt says he didn’t really mind. “After all, all our money was in underwear,” she says.
August 13th is National Underwear Day.
CARD SHARKS, PART I
Most of us fantasize about beating the odds and winning big. Some play the lottery, others are hypnotized by the ding-ding-dinging of slot machines. But what if you knew a system that gave you an advantage—every time?
THE HOUSE RULES
It’s a given among gamblers that over time the “house” always wins. That’s partly because most casino games—roulette, dice, slot machines—are singular events. What happened in the previous throw of the dice, turn of the wheel, or pull of the “one-armed bandit” has no impact on the outcome of the next game. With every throw, turn, or pull, a player has the same chance of winning as in any other throw, turn, or pull, unless the casinos set their wheels and slot machines to improve the house’s odds (which, in the case of slots, they do).
But the game of blackjack, or “21,” is something else again.
• It’s a straightforward game, played head to head against the dealer (the house).
• Cards are dealt one at a time. The player’s objective is to get as close to 21 points as possible without going over; the first to go over 21 loses.
• The round is over when all the cards have been dealt.
• Traditionally, a single deck was used for each round of play, with the used cards being set aside after each hand.
All this makes blackjack a game where what happened before any hand actually does matter in terms of predicting a winning outcome. If a player can keep track of the cards that have been played, and bet only when the odds shift into his favor, he can win big. What’s amazing is that no one ever figured that out…until about 40 years ago.
ENTER THE PROFESSOR
In 1962 a young math professor named Edward Thorp published a book called Beat the Dealer. He was the first person to prove mathematically that blackjack could be beaten by systematic card counting—a system he called “the High-Low Count.” When he tested his system in Reno, he doubled his stake of $10,000 dollars in one weekend (he later disclosed that he’d been bankrolled by a mysterious investor called “Mr. X”; Thorp suspected his sponsor of being an underworld kingpin, but used the money anyway).
“Life is a combination of magic and pasta.”—Federico Fellini
Thorp’s book was an immediate bestseller, and soon every blackjack table in Nevada was swarming with would-be card counters trying to score with his system.
THE HIGH-LOW COUNT
Thorp’s card-counting system was brilliant in its simplicity. Rather than force a player to remember the value of every card dealt (which would be an incredible feat of memory), Thorp’s strategy relied on approximations. He divided the deck into three groups, and gave each group a simple value: The 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of any suit would have a value of +1; 7, 8, and 9, a value of 0; and the 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace would equal –1. During a game, the player simply had to keep a running total of the count, adding or subtracting as each card was dealt (this isn’t as easy as it sounds—it still requires tremendous concentration). A negative high-low count gave the advantage to the casino; when it became positive, the player had the edge. That was the moment to strike: Bet heavily and win big.
THE PROFESSOR STOPPER
It should be pointed out that there is nothing illegal about card counting. The player is using information available to everyone at the table. But casinos make their own rules, and as soon as they saw their profits dip as card counting caught on, they stepped in quickly to stem their losses. The first tactic was to shuffle the decks more often. Although effective at ruining the count, the time wasted with extra shuffles drove noncounting (and impatient) gamblers away from the tables in droves. So the casinos dropped that gambit and turned instead to the “Professor Stopper”—a huge card shoe designed to hold over eight decks. The thinking was that having to count up to 400 cards would be too much for most card counters, but that wasn’t the case. It just took a player longer to get to a winning position. The casinos kept losing.
Finally they decided to use Thorp’s system against his own disciples. Casino employees were taught the high-low system and, more importantly, how to spot card counters by their telltale behavior. Since card counting requires intense concentration, for example, card counters tend not to be very conversational or jovial when they play. Anyone suspected of card counting was shown the door and told not to come back. So was that the end of card counting? Hardly. In fact, the battle between counters and casinos had just begun.
Microbial life can survive on the cooling rods of a nuclear reactor.
GAMING COMPUTERS
Keith Taft was an electronics engineer from California, and an aggressive card counter. He studied the books, learned the strategy, and spent hours at the tables trying to perfect his game. But the casinos loved him. Why? Because he was also a big loser. His problem was that he kept losing count. Then in 1969 he had a brainstorm: Why not invent a machine that would do his counting for him, a computer just for blackjack?
• GEORGE. Two years later Taft and his son, Marty, unveiled one of the first portable computers ever made, which they called “George.” Wearing specially modified shoes, the player would use his toes to tap in the value of the card being played. The main computer, which was harnessed to the player’s body, used the data to figure out the best way to play the next hand. That information was then flashed to the player through tiny lights embedded in the frame of a modified pair of glasses. George was a good prototype, but it was too bulky to use in a casino.
• DAVID. It took them another four years and the invention of the microchip to build the computer they wanted: about the size of a pocket calculator, with a keyboard no larger than a credit card. The device, called “David,” was strapped to the player’s thigh; he could work the keyboard through a strategically placed hole in his pocket. But David was more than a fine piece of miniaturization. It took Thorp’s High-Low system to an exciting new level. What had made Thorp’s system so attractive to blackjack players was that it relied on simple mental arithmetic, which made it accessible to almost any player. But that was also its weakness.
Thorp’s system worked on approximations, not on the precise value of each card played. The player still had to make an educated guess on how to play a hand. But David could remember the values of every card played, analyze that information, and tell the player exactly how to play their cards. The player didn’t have to guess at all. They just had to follow David’s recommendations and rake in the dough.
Corn is grown on every continent but Antarctica.
BET ON DAVID
The Tafts debuted David in April 1977 and racked up $40,000 in winnings the very first week. They quickly set up a production line and offered the new blackjack computer for sale at $10,000 apiece. But before they could cash in, Marty Taft was caught with David strapped to his leg. Casino security had never seen anything like it before. They were certain it was a cheating device, but they couldn’t figure out how it worked (the Tafts’ use of microchip technology was far ahead of its time) and had to let Marty go. He had made a narrow escape, and that was the end of the road for David. In 1985 the Nevada legislature passed
the Nevada Devices Law, making it against the law to use a card-counting machine. The maximum sentence was 10 years. Once again, the house ruled.
Or did it?
For part II of the story of the Las Vegas card counters, turn to page 431.
* * *
WORLD’S FUNNIEST JOKE?
In 2002 the University of Hertfordshire set up a Web site where people could rate more than 40,000 jokes—the goal was to determine what joke was the world’s funniest, across wide culture, age, gender, and nationality differences. The winner was from a 1951 routine by comedians Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers:
Bentine: Help! I just came in and found him lying on the carpet in there.
Sellers: Oh, is he dead?
Bentine: I think so.
Sellers: Hadn’t you better make sure?
Bentine: Alright. Just a minute.
(He leaves. Sound of two gunshots.)
Bentine: He’s dead.
Deep-sea fish can explode when brought rapidly to the ocean’s surface.
WHEN IN ROME…
Uncle John is fascinated by the international rules of etiquette (especially anything bathroom-related). Over the years he’s picked up quite a few tidbits of advice to help you get by in foreign countries.
Argentina: People tend to stand very close. If you back away from someone, they’ll assume you’re shy and close the gap. Or they might just be offended by your rudeness.
Austria: Cut your food with a fork. To use a knife implies the food is tough and unappealing.
Brazil: Brazilian women can be romantically aggressive. It’s not uncommon for a woman to send a note to a man in a restaurant asking for his phone number…even if he’s with his wife or girlfriend.
Bulgaria: In this east-European country, shaking your head “no” actually means “yes.” Nodding means “no.”
Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Page 28