A: A mechanic.
Q: Why can’t horses dance?
A: Because they have two left feet.
Q: Why was the horse from Kentucky so generous to his horse friends?
A: Southern horspitality.
A horse with a bandage on its head limps into a bar. He orders a glass of champagne, a brandy, and two beers. He downs the lot and says to the bartender: “I really shouldn’t be drinking with what I’ve got.” The bartender says, “Why, what have you got?” The horse says, “About $2 and a carrot.”
Q: When does a horse talk?
A: Whinny wants to.
Q: How to you make a horse a sandwich?
A: With thoroughbred.
Q: What would you name a horse with no legs?
A: Flattery, because it’ll get you nowhere.
A horse walks into a bar. “Hey!” yells the bartender. “Yes please!” says the horse.
Q: What do you call a horse popularity contest?
A: A gallop poll.
Q: Why did the horse eat with its mouth open?
A: Bad stable manners.
A racehorse owner’s best horse gets sick, so he takes him to the vet. Once the vet has finished his examination, the owner anxiously asks him, “Will I be able to race him again?” The vet replies, “Of course! And you’ll probably beat him, too!”
Q: What did the horse say when it fell down?
A: “I’ve fallen and I can’t giddyup!”
Q: What did the momma horse say to the baby horse?
A: It’s pasture bedtime.
Q: What do you call a horse wearing Venetian blinds?
A: A zebra.
Q: Why was the racehorse named Strawberry Ice?
A: Because he’s a sherbet.
Q: Which side of a horse has more hair?
A: The outside.
Just as human babies suck their thumbs, baby elephants comfort themselves by sucking their trunks.
THAT’S VERY COOL
The term cryonics is often used interchangeably with cryogenics, but they’re very different. Cryogenics is the study of how materials behave when subjected to extremely low temperatures, usually for industrial applications. Cryonics is the science of freezing biological tissue, and it usually refers to the process of freezing dead bodies with the hope of reanimating them later when science finds a cure for whatever killed them. (That led to a lot of confusion in January 2018 when the ice-cream manufacturer Dippin’ Dots announced that it was starting a cryogenics company.) Here’s everything you need to know about the exciting world of cryonics.
DEEP FREEZE
Thinking of freezing your body when you die so you can get thawed out later and live in the future? The cryonics process is complicated (and expensive). To be properly preserved, a body must reach an internal temperature of –320°F. And for the process to work correctly, a corpse must be treated by cryonics specialists immediately after death. The deceased must be declared legally dead before technicians can start freezing, but they must start within two minutes of the heart stopping to meet ideal conditions. If 15 minutes pass, it’s pointless, because irreversible brain death and damage have set in. If you’ve passed those hurdles, here’s what’s next:
First, the body of the departed is packed in a box full of ice (or dry ice). Then it’s injected with anticoagulants, which prevent the blood from clotting en route to the cryonics facility.
Once the body arrives at the storage facility, it’s placed in a bath of extremely cold chemicals that slowly and carefully chill the body to an internal temperature of 33°F.
At that point, the blood is drained and is replaced with an injected solution that preserves organs. It consists mostly of an antifreezing substance that prevents the water in the body from turning into ice crystals, which would lead to permanent and unfixable cell damage.
The body is then placed in an ice bath, where it will gradually cool down to –202°F.
Then the body goes to its resting place for the next few years (or centuries): a coffinlike box that is placed into a vacuum flask called a dewar. (It looks like a man-sized propane tank.) The body is suspended, upright, floating in liquid nitrogen set permanently to a temperature of –320°F.
Math trick: Pick a three-digit number. Repeat the digits to form a number with six digits. It will be evenly divisible by 7, 11, and 13.
THE ICEMEN COMETH
While science hasn’t yet come up with a cure for death, it has mastered the fine art of freezing a dead body. Still, as of 2018, fewer than 500 people around the world have had their bodies preserved via the method described above.
First person to have themselves cryopreserved: a World War I veteran and psychology professor named James Bedford. He died of kidney cancer at age 73 in 1967, and was frozen immediately thereafter. Bedford has been in his dewar ever since…except for a few minutes in 1991 when he had his preservation liquids changed.
Bedford’s corpse awaits rebirth at Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company in Arizona that is one of only four human freezing facilities in the world. The others: Alcor’s second facility in Portugal, one called KrioRus in Russia, and the Cryonics Institute in Michigan.
In addition to Bedford, the Arizona branch of Alcor houses about 150 human-cicles, among them Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams.
The Cryonics Institute houses 160 patients, but claims to have a list of 2,000 people who’ve signed up to be frozen upon their deaths.
Family Guy creator and star Seth MacFarlane has reportedly arranged for his body to be frozen, eventually. So has talk show host Larry King. Paris Hilton and American Idol judge Simon Cowell have both publicly said they’re thinking about getting iced when they die.
Muhammad Ali looked into it in the 1980s, but ultimately decided against it and was buried in the traditional way when he died in 2016.
ANOTHER PART OF THE STORY
How far has science come on reanimating dead organs? Not very. Frozen hearts and kidneys have never been successfully transplanted.
All cryonics facilities will accommodate a customer’s wish to have just their heads or brains frozen, but that presents a different technological challenge. Not only will scientists have to figure out how to reanimate dead tissue, but they’ll have to figure out how to jump-start a brain, and then find a way to implant it into a fresh (and brainless) human body. Scientists have actually made some head-way on this, believe it or not. In 2016 Robert McIntyre of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the first person to freeze and then revive a mammalian brain. He used a rabbit’s, and after he brought the brain back to life, it was found to have all of its membranes, cellular structures, and synapses intact.
So how much does this kind of thing cost? It varies by location. Alcor charges $200,000 for a whole body, KrioRus charges $38,000, and the Cryonics Institute has a steal of a deal at $35,000. (Freezing just the head costs about half as much, on average.)
Those are the hows, but how about when? Exactly when will the frozen dead walk among the living? According to Cryonics Institute president Dennis Kowalski…we don’t know. “Cryonically bringing someone back to life should definitely be doable in 100 years, but it could be as soon as ten,” he said in 2018. Kowalski added that while cryonics pioneers like his company are responsible for preserving the dead, it’s up to modern medicine to revive them.
The snow carnival scheduled for May 1, 1953, in Sheridan, Wyoming, had to be canceled.
Reason: too much snow.
DISNEY’S FROZEN
So, is Walt Disney—or just his head—really hanging out in some liquid nitrogen–filled tank somewhere? Short answer: No. Long answer: Disney died in 1966 at age 65, just a month after doctors removed a cancerous tumor on his left lung, but the disease had spread throughout his body. According to news reports, he was cremated two days after his death and buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery outside Los Angeles. In 1972 Bob Nelson, president of the Cryonics Society of California, mentioned in an interview that while
Disney was not frozen, he had expressed interest in the technology, but died before he could make a decision or sign a letter of intent to have his corpse frozen. Oddly, though, two weeks after Disney died, Nelson’s organization froze its first body. The timing led to the notorious urban legend that Walt Disney was frozen. “If Disney had been the first,” Nelson later said, “it would have made headlines around the world…and been a real shot in the arm for cryonics.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT…YOU
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
—Judy Garland
“Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.”
—John Boyle O’Reilly
“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
—Rumi
Ounce for ounce, grasshoppers have four times as much calcium and twice as much iron as beef.
MOUTHING OFF
MORE STRANGE
CELEBRITIES
“I basically love anything that comes in a hot dog bun… except hot dogs.”
—Gwyneth Paltrow
“I’M USING MY BRAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME.”
—Victoria Beckham
“People are always like, ‘Why did you get a monkey?’ If you could get a monkey, well, you would get a f***ing monkey, too! Monkeys are awesome.”
—Justin Bieber
“Do I have a large frog in my hair? I have the sensation that something is eating my brain.”
—Joaquin Phoenix
“I’m thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, ‘Why stop at one?’ I don’t like being limited in that way. Therefore, I’m considering a platoon of monkeys, so that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing feces around.”
—Robert Downey Jr.
“[I] DON’T READ BOOKS, I ONLY READ MINDS.”
—Liam Gallagher, when asked about his favorite book
“I feel like this year is really about, like, the year of realizing stuff. And everyone around me, we’re all just, like, realizing things.”
—Kylie Jenner
“I fed [my 11-month-old son] Bear a tiny bit of veggies…from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite, and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I’m eating.”
—Alicia Silverstone
“What if we spelled ‘people’ like this: ‘peepole.’ That would be funny I think.”
—Kim Kardashian
GETTING IN ON THE
ACTION (FIGURES)
Action figures are big business. But for every blockbuster success like Star Wars action figures or He-Man action figures, there are plenty of failures, such as these.
THE WALTONS
If the majority of a toy company’s customers are already kids—who will eventually outgrow its products—how does the company acquire future consumers? By pitching products to even younger kids. That’s a solid marketing plan, but the Mego Corportion picked the wrong toy line to execute it with. In 1976 the company secured the rights to a line of action figures based on the popular squeaky-clean family TV show The Waltons. But just because the TV series about a Depression-era mountain family was appropriate for kids didn’t mean that kids actually liked the show…or even watched it. Apparently they didn’t. Mego’s line of 8-inch-tall dolls of John-Boy Walton and his kin was a total failure and was out of stores within a year.
ALIEN
Kenner Products made a lot of money in the late 1970s, when they produced the original Star Wars toys and action figures. So why not try a second time? In 1979 the company was offered the toy license for another science-fiction movie, and they quickly signed on. The movie: Ridley Scott’s Alien, a massive hit and one of the top-grossing (and grossest) movies of the year. The only problem was that it was a disturbing, scary, R-rated horror movie. Not many kids were even allowed to see Alien, and most of those that did weren’t allowed to have the centerpiece of the Alien toy line—an 18-inch-tall “Xenomorph,” the film’s villainous, goo-dripping, gigantic, terrifying alien monster. So many parents’ groups complained about the toy being inappropriate for kids that Kenner had to pull the toy out of stores. Most of the rest of the Alien line remained on store shelves, untouched.
KOJAK
Kojak was one of many gritty 1970s cop shows. It starred bald, middle-aged Telly Savalas as a gruff, lollipop-sucking detective who solved grisly crimes. In other words, Kojak wasn’t a kids’ show. But a company called Excel Toy Corporation, which made dolls of Wild West figures like Annie Oakley and Jesse James, decided to get into the pop culture toy market with a Kojak doll. The packaging boasted “realistic action” and a “removable costume” (so kids could see what Kojak looked like naked). It also came with a Kojak accessory (and choking hazard): tiny lollipops, just like the ones Kojak sucked on in the show. Who loves ya, baby? As far as these toys went, not many.
A best-selling book in 1919, The Young Visiters, was written by a nine-year-old English girl named Daisy Ashford. (She misspelled the word “Visitors” in the title.)
CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE
While 1970s kids were listening to the music of teen idols such as David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, and the Bay City Rollers, their parents were listening to smooth, easy-listening, soft rock acts like the Captain and Tennille, who sang about long-term relationships and lovemaking in “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “Do That to Me One More Time.” The married, middle-aged “Captain” (real name: Daryl Dragon) and Toni Tennille didn’t have much appeal to kids. Nevertheless, in 1977 the Mego Corporation released Captain and Tennille dolls as a tie-in with their TV variety show. Like the TV series, these toys disappeared quickly.
MANIMAL
Manimal is one of the most legendary flops in TV history. Debuting in 1983, this NBC action-adventure series was about an international playboy named Dr. Jonathan Chase who could turn, at will, into any animal on the planet. But he usually turned into either a hawk or a panther, probably because in those days “morphing” footage was expensive to make. The combination of poor reviews and the fact that it aired opposite CBS’s extremely popular Dallas killed Manimal—it was canceled after eight episodes. Fleetwood Toys’ line of Manimal merchandise didn’t do very well either. Even though transforming technology was available (transforming toys such as Transformers were already around) there was no “action” in the Manimal action figures. Fleetwood released three unposable, hard plastic figures of animals—a cobra, a lion, and a panther—with slightly human features and Manimal branding on the package.
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
The French humanitarian organization is also known as Medecins sans Frontieres, and its army of volunteer doctors, nurses, and other personnel bravely head into war zones and areas affected by disaster to provide free medical services to those in need. That’s more heroic than any superhero, so it’s somewhat logical to produce action figures based on these good doctors. But what child would want to play doctor with action figures? French company Berchet quickly flatlined with its Medecins sans Frontieres line of toys, which included doctors and patients—one of whom was a sick, emaciated little boy named “Samba the Dying African.” Really.
Spies in ancient Rome used carrier pigeons to deliver intelligence.
THE CONTRONYMS QUIZ
Contronyms (also called autoantonyms) are words that have two meanings… which are the complete opposite of one another. Can you match the word or phrase to its two opposing meanings? The answers are on page 501.
1. Cleave a) Barely satisfactory…and the best of the best
2. Bolt b) Restrained…and to jump away
3. Fine c) Gone…and remaining
4. Handicap d) A social equal…and a member of the upper class or nobility
5. Wind up e) Dull (in an object)…and sharp (in words)
6. Blunt f) The regular or expected…and the very special
7. Left g) Bring together…and sep
arate
8. Game h) To fasten…and collapse
9. Rent i) To begin…and end
10. Flog j) Paper money…and an invoice
11. Sanction k) To endure…and wear away
12. Trim l) Firmly secure…and quickly move away
13. Bill m) To display…and block
14. Fix n) To authorize…and punish
15. Bound o) To cover with a fine layer…and to remove a fine layer
16. Peer p) A problem…and a solution
17. Weather q) To remove pieces of…and add onto
18. Quantum r) To make…and to end
19. Fast s) Quick…and immovable
20. Either t) To borrow…and loan out
21. Buckle u) To stop…and to repeat
22. Custom v) Extremely small…and extremely large
23. Skin w) One or the other…or both
24. Screen x) A physical or mental disadvantage…and an advantage (in sports)
25. Refrain y) Ready, willing, and able…and nonfunctional
26. Put out z) Relentlessly promote…and relentlessly punish
The fish known as the “sole” got its name because of its flattened appearance, which makes it look like a sandal—solea in Latin.
EXTREME RECYCLING:
BATHROOM EDITION
Recycling isn’t just for paper, bottles, and cans anymore. Here’s a look at a few folks who’ve come up with ideas for recycling just about everything. (Some people are going to miss the good old days…)
Recyclers: Scientists from the University of the Netherlands and the University of Amsterdam
Recycling: Used toilet paper, into electricity
Details: Western European countries treat their sewage differently than American wastewater treatment facilities do. They filter out the toilet paper and dispose of it separately, usually by drying it out and burning it. The heat produced is used to generate a small amount of electricity. But these scientists, led by Els van der Roest, have devised an improved process for generating more electricity from the toilet paper. They “gasify” the paper by feeding it into a chamber and heating it to over 1,000°F. The heat converts the paper into to ash, tar, and various gases, including methane, an odorless flammable gas.
Uncle John's Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader Page 52