The Know-It-All

by A. J. Jacobs

  And what about the husbands? Yes, these yearned-for women were, in many cases, married, but you never get these schmos’ side of the story. Beatrice, the daughter of a noble Florentine family, got married to a man named Simone. If he didn’t, Simone needed to have a little conversation with Dante:

  “I can’t help but notice that you keep writing love poetry to my wife. Well, you see, I married her, which makes her my wife. You know what you might want to try? Writing some poems about the sunset. The sunset isn’t fucking married.”

  I know I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. I know they make me sound like a philistine. I know I’m looking at the long and marvelous history of romantic love through my shallow 21st-century lenses. I’m supposed to be smartening up. Shouldn’t I marvel at the depth of their emotion? Shouldn’t I be inspired to read their love poems?

  Instead, I just want to tell them to shut their cake holes and get over it. I want to tell them to go on Dr. Phil and get their head chewed off. I want to tell them what I tell my friend John, who is still hung up on his college crush, a woman who later went on to star in an Adam Sandler movie. “John, you can’t have her. It’s over. Sign on to match.com and find yourself a new woman. Okay?”

  Of course, Petrarch and Dante probably didn’t have match.com available. They’d have to settle for something more primitive, like video dating services. But you get the idea.

  philosophy

  I studied philosophy for four years. But I’d trade everything I learned for this passage, originally written by a scholar named Robert Ardrey and quoted in the Britannica:

  But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.

  Amen. That’s great stuff. If ever I was going to faint like the woman who read Montaigne’s essays, this would be the time, because that is a powerful set of sentences. That has been the major and ongoing battle as I read the Britannica and live my life—the battle to find the bright side, which is something I’m not constitutionally inclined to do. Never has the case been stated better. Of course, I don’t like poems. But I’m happy to substitute that we are known among the stars by our movies, books, a great joke, a comfortable pair of shoes, a beautiful and towering building—and not by our corpses.

  Phryne

  I now know far too much about odd legal proceedings. I know about the 9th-century trial of Pope Formosus. He didn’t do so well under cross-examination, seeing as he was—I believe this is the technical term—dead. His successor—Pope Stephen VI—hated Formosus’s policies so much, he had Formosus’s corpse exhumed, propped up on a throne, and put on trial. Shockingly, Formosus lost. As punishment, his fingers were cut off and his corpse was thrown into the Tiber River.

  I also know about the Burmese practice known as “Ordeal by divination,” in which two parties are given candles of equal size that are lighted simultaneously; the owner of the candle that lasts longer wins the case. And I know about the medieval practice of “appeal to the corpse,” which allowed the dead body to point out the murderer.

  So I know some things. But nothing could prepare me for the trial of Phryne. Phryne was a famous prostitute in ancient Greece. Her name means Toad—a sobriquet she picked up because of her sallow complexion. Phryne was phenomenally successful at her job; she made so much money she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes. But she was also controversial, as prostitutes tend to be.

  Phryne was on trial for blasphemy, a capital offense. Things were looking a bit bleak for Phryne, so she employed an interesting defense. In the words of the Britannica, Phryne tore her dress and “displayed her bosom, which so moved the jury that they acquitted her.” That’s what the EB says. She flashed her tits and she got released. I believe in legal circles this is called the “Greek Whore Gone Wild defense.”

  Now, I don’t need the EB to teach me that your average heterosexual man loves looking at boobs. I’ve worked at a couple of magazines that based their economic model on this fact. I’ve received an e-mail from my previous boss expressing outrage that Jodie Foster’s nipple had been digitally erased from a photo. So I know.

  Still, this is surprising historical evidence. Men really will do anything after looking at a lady’s top shelf. A pair of breasts are mesmerizing enough to be a powerful weapon. No doubt, Phryne’s were particularly impressive—they were green, for one thing. And earlier in the Britannica, I read that jury duty lasted an entire year in ancient Greece. So the guys were probably desperate for a little variety.

  But I wonder if lawyers today could make this work. It could revolutionize the profession. “Yes, my client poisoned her husband and chopped him into chunks the size of croutons and fed him to her Rottweiler. We admit that. But gentlemen of the jury: have you seen her rack?”

  pigeon

  I know I just talked about passenger pigeons. But I’ve reached the entry on the nonpassenger kind, the regular old pigeons who are, right now, as always, strutting on the windowsill of my office.

  After reading about them, I lay my volume on the glass table and spend a good five minutes observing the three-dimensional version. Their characteristic head bobbing when they walk from one end of the ledge to the other. The skin saddle between the bill and the forehead. Their little orange eyes. The way they dive their bill into their feathers to preen, which I have learned spreads skin oil to the feathers.

  They’re remarkable. They may be flying rats, as my mom calls them, but they’re remarkable flying rats. Plus, they’re monogamous for life—and when one dies, the surviving spouse accepts a new mate only slowly—which makes me empathize with them all the more.

  As I stare dumbfounded at the three pigeons head-bobbing their way along the ledge, I have that “whoa” feeling, as if I’ve just done some bong hits, like that freshman in Animal House who said, “You mean, our whole solar system could be one tiny atom in the fingernail of some giant being?” Three hours of heavy reading will do that to me, send my mind into a different state. I find myself being blown away by pigeons.

  Earlier, I was concerned that all this reading was bad for my relationship with the world. I wondered if I wasn’t like John Locke’s blind man, who learned all about the concept of scarlet but remained totally clueless as to its true nature. Maybe. But I’ve decided it can have the opposite effect too. It can enhance my relationship with the world, make me marvel at it, see it with new eyes.

  And those eyes are constantly shifting. When I read about the hydro-sphere, I see the world as a vehicle for water—the rain, the evaporation, the rivers, the clouds. Then I’ll read about energy conversion, and see the world as a collection of ever-shifting quanta of energy. There are infinite numbers of ways to slice the universe, and I keep seeing cut after cut. Recently, I tried to trace the role of pumpkins through history (the highlight being the Pumpkin Papers, which were documents from alleged spy Alger Hiss that were hidden in pumpkins). Pumpkins might be slicing it too thin. Perhaps gourds would be better.

  Pirandello, Luigi

  The Italian playwright, creator of Six Characters in Search of an Author. Pirandello said in 1920: “I think that life is a very sad piece of buffoonery; because we have in ourselves, without being able to know why, wherefore or whence, the need to deceive ourselves constantly by creating a reality (one for each and never the same for all), which from time to time is discovered to be vain and illusory. … My art is full of bitter compassion for all those who deceive themselves; but this compassion cannot fail to be followed by the ferocious derision of destiny which condemns man to deception.” Good Lord. That’s a bleak paragraph. T
hat is just the kind of thinking I’m a sucker for—that life is just a sad piece of buffoonery. But it’s not healthy. I’ve got to fight it, wash it out of my mind with thoughts like Robert Ardrey’s on the miracle of man. Is Ardrey’s point of view just pitiable self-deception? I hope not.

  planetary features

  Julie comes into my reading room.

  “Honey,” she says, “look at this. What do you think is going on?”

  She lifts her shirt to reveal a rash that has taken over a good part of her stomach.

  “Looks like the Great Red Spot on the surface of Jupiter.”

  “What?”

  “The Great Red Spot. It’s this strange big red cloud on Jupiter, like fifteen thousand miles long. Scientists don’t know what causes it, but they think it’s a storm or maybe a—”

  Julie pulls her shirt down and walks out. Not another word. Just walks out of the room and shuts the door a little too hard. Uh-oh. Not good. When she’s peeved, Julie argues with you, gives you sass, lets you know exactly what’s annoying her.

  But when she’s furious, she clams up and walks right out of the room. When she’s furious, she goes scarily silent and retreats to another place until she calms down.

  This is a furious.

  I probably should have known this is not the best time for a fun fact. I already pushed Julie to the breaking point this morning. She suggested that maybe we have a picnic in the Central Park—it was such a nice day. I told her no thanks. I could see the park from the window in the reading room.

  So that didn’t go well. And now this.

  I try to go back to reading. I start in on Plateau Indian and platform tennis, but it’s not working; I’m too distracted.

  Julie doesn’t even have to argue with me. I’m arguing with myself, and I’m losing: She doesn’t need this now, not with our fertility woes already blackening moods. She doesn’t need to hear about an astronomical phenomenon. She needs to hear: “Oh, no. I’m sorry to see that you have a rash. Does it itch? Can I help? Have you eaten anything unusual?” When these facts in my brain push out my ability to empathize, then maybe I’ve got to reassess. When I’m too busy parading around my knowledge to ask about the health of my wife, that’s bad news.

  A couple of days ago I was congratulating myself on my appreciation for pigeons. But now I feel like doing some penance. I feel as though I should flagellate myself like a 14th-century Christian (before the practice was condemned by Pope Clement VI). Instead, I go to the bathroom and fetch a tube of Lanacane anti-itch cream.

  I crack the door of the bedroom, where Julie has retreated. Her fury has melted to sadness. I hold out my peace offering, a yellow tube of ointment.

  “Sorry.”

  “I really need you to be here for me.”

  “I know.”

  Plath, Sylvia

  What is it with writers and suicide? I knew about Plath before I read the Ps—and I knew about Hemingway before I read the Hs. But man, what an army of company they have. Writers are drawn to self-destruction like hawk moths to the Madagascar orchid (the insect has a remarkable nine-inch nose that it uses on the orchid’s long nectar receptacle). I tried to start a body count every time I read another self-destructive writer, but it got so high I’d need scientific notation.

  A French writer I’d never heard of hanged himself from a lamppost. A Peruvian did it in a deserted classroom. A Japanese poet finished himself off with his mistress at a mountain retreat. They throw themselves down stairwells, they leap from bridges. One Hungarian writer weighted his clothes down with stones and jumped in a lake, foreshadowing Virginia Woolf, who will do the same in another few thousand pages.

  And that’s not to mention the writers who tried to commit suicide and failed. Among them: Joseph Conrad, Maxim Gorky, Guy de Maupassant, Eugene O’Neill. Pretty impressive list, actually. If I plan to continue this writing thing, I better tell Julie to hide my razor blades and remove the shoelaces from my sneakers.

  I find the whole phenomenon a bit baffling. As far as jobs go, writers have a pretty sweet deal. You make your own hours, the dress code is remarkably lax. You rarely strain your back, you don’t have your phone calls recorded for training purposes, and you don’t have to intentionally lose to clients at golf. And the ladies like you.

  These writers need to buck up and suck up and keep the nooses off their damn necks. I haven’t read about a lot of coal miners committing suicide (okay, there aren’t quite as many coal miners who get write-ups in the Britannica, but you get the idea).

  Plato

  More philosophy. I get to Plato as I sit on an Acela train that’s whizzing quietly and efficiently toward Philadelphia. It’s Friday, and I’m with Julie—who is, thankfully, rash free—on our way to visit her brother Doug for the weekend.

  I read the fable about Plato’s cave just as the train emerges from a tunnel. Weird, I think to myself. I’m coming out of a cave just as I read about coming out of a cave. Well, maybe not that weird. These coincidences happen all the time. I read the fatigue entry as I huffed away on the Stairmaster. I read about the Julian calendar while watching a miniseries about Julius Caesar. I read so damn much, these overlappings are bound to happen. If the tunnel hadn’t happened, something else might have—some guy might be eating a Greek salad in the next row, or slightly less likely, drinking a glass of hemlock.

  In any case, I’m reading Plato and I have to say, I’m not impressed. His theory of forms seems absurd, even infuriating. Plato wrote about the existence of another world, apart from the physical world, a world filled with ideal forms. Somewhere, there’s an ideal man, stone, shape, color, beauty, justice. Somewhere, there’s the Platonic ideal of a bottle, of a chair.

  Seems like a bunch of what they used to call hogwash. Problem is, reading the Britannica is a very un-Platonic experience. Over the last 21,000 pages, I’ve watched everything change and evolve—men, stones, beauty, everything. How can there be an ideal form of a chair? Which of the dozens of chair styles would you choose to represent this ideal? The 18th-century ottoman? The 19th-century cockfighting chair? And what of beauty? Anyone who says that it’s eternal needs to take a look at the stone cutting they show in the Britannica representing Helen of Troy, the great beauty of her day. She looked like a drag queen in need of a nose job. Today, that Helen of Troy wouldn’t make it past a local Miss Broccoli pageant, much less Miss Universe. She wouldn’t launch a dinghy today.

  Yes, there are a few constants among the thousands of changes. Like Planck’s constant, a physical law that says that radiation emitted from atoms remains steady. And I’d like to think that “Thou shalt not kill” is a moral constant. But you won’t find them in some outlandish otherworld of ideal forms.

  Likewise, I hate Plato’s theory of knowledge. He resides on the knowledge-is-internal side of the spectrum. Like his teacher Socrates, Plato said that men already have all the knowledge in the world, they just need to have it drawn out of them. This, in my opinion, is more of what they used to call claptrap. I’m on the empiricist side of the knowledge debate, the side that says it all comes from the senses. I don’t trust internal knowledge. Of course, there’s a little rationalization going on here. I’ve just spent the last eight months getting knowledge through my senses. If it’s true that the most important knowledge is interior, then I’m a moron.

  Regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, I have to give myself credit: this is a big improvement over my interior dialogue during the Aristotle entry. Remember that one? The one that went something like: “Hey, he likes hot young girls.” “Yeah, that’s cool.”

  plumbing

  Allow me to present Sir John Harington, another in the Britannica’s continuing series of unsung heroes, and one who got his own two solid paragraphs back in the Hs. I’m stunned I haven’t heard of Harington. This guy invented a device that affects my life just as much as Edison’s lightbulb or the Wright brothers’ airplane, something every American uses several times a day, not counting that drunken Sig
ma Chi pledge who repeatedly peed on my duvet cover freshman year of college. And yet I’d never seen Harington’s name.

  At one point, I’d heard Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet. Then I was told that was a myth—which it is—but I never learned the real identity of the man behind the can. Finally, here he is. And what a likable rascal he is.

  The first thing to strike me is that Harington is no shlub; he’s the godson of Queen Elizabeth I of England and a member of her court. But as befits the father of the toilet, he wasn’t exactly the most pristine courtier. In his twenties, Harington distributed among the ladies of the court a “wanton tale” from the 16th-century Italian poet Ariosto. Elizabeth was not amused. She banished her godson, imposing on him a punishment that doesn’t qualify as cruel, but it sure is unusual. She ordered him to translate Ariosto’s notoriously long epic poem, Orlando Furioso. Beats becoming a prison bitch, I guess.

  After doing his homework and returning to court, Harington invented the flush toilet and installed one for Queen Elizabeth in her palace. You’d think he’d get a parade. Not so much. He had the gall to write a playful book about his invention called The Metamorphosis of Ajax (a pun on “a jakes,” which was Elizabethan slang for a water closet). As the Britannica says, Harington’s book described his toilet “in terms more Rabelaisian than mechanical,” and he was again banished from court. Exasperated—at least I would be—Harington went on a military expedition to Ireland, which finally got him knighted. A moderately happy ending for Sir John. I think Harington has my favorite résumé in the Britannica—even better than Goethe’s: plumber, translator, wit, army officer, royal godson, scoundrel. I don’t know how history overlooked him. What does a guy have to do to get some respect? A forgotten military jaunt to Ireland gets him knighted, but revolutionizing the bathroom doesn’t? And don’t think Harington gets respect whenever we call the bathroom a “john.” That name came about independently. We really should be calling it the Harington.