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Stravinsky and Nijinsky
The most infamous riot in the history of the performing arts began with the violins in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” But more remarkable than the fistfight was the way the piece revolutionized classical music and ballet.
On the night of May 29, 1913, an elegant Parisian crowd assembled for the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s eagerly anticipated new ballet, “The Rite of Spring.” The opening seemed promising, but then the violins kicked in with a pulsing chord so dissonant that it made spectators wince. As the orchestra continued, the audience hissed and booed. They rose to their feet and shouted—some defending the music, but most denouncing it. People began whacking each other with canes, umbrellas, and, before long, bare fists. Stravinsky’s musical revolution had arrived.
Prelude to “The Rite”
By one account, the idea for “The Rite of Spring” came to Stravinsky in a dream. He envisioned a pagan rebirth ritual, with people throwing themselves before vengeful gods. Rather than a cheerful celebration of springtime, it was a dark and superstitious rite. To compose music appropriate for such a vision, Stravinsky tossed aside convention and broke new ground in rhythm and harmony. He constructed atonal chords never heard before and developed a meter so complex that he struggled to accurately record it on paper. At times in the piece, parts of the orchestra actually seem to be playing against each other.
Stravinsky first performed “The Rite of Spring” for ballet director Sergei Diaghilev and orchestra conductor Pierre Monteux. Both men were shocked and overwhelmed. Later, Monteux wrote that he didn’t understand one note of it and wanted to flee the room. Nevertheless, plans for the ballet got under way. Diaghilev entrusted the choreography to dance phenom Vaslav Nijinsky, whose steps proved just as inspired as the music.
Concept, costumes, and set designs by Nicholas Roerich.
The first signs of trouble came during rehearsals. The ballerinas complained that Nijinsky’s flat-footed, straight-knee jumps jarred them to their bones, and the musicians struggled to keep up with Stravinsky’s galloping pace. At one point, after practicing a particularly dissonant section, the orchestra couldn’t help but burst into nervous laughter.
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You’ve heard of these people -because they wanted you to! Here are some pointers in the art of publicity from history’s greatest masters of hype.
KILL OFF YOUR RIVALS | Benjamin Franklin
During colonial times, the almanac business was cutthroat. The books were the bestsellers of their day -fun compendiums full of facts and witticisms. So, in 1732, Benjamin Franklin decided to enter the game with Poor Richard’s Almanack. In an early edition, Franklin jokingly predicted that rival almanac writer Titan Leeds would die on October 17, 1733 at 3:29 PM, the very instance of a conjunction of the Sun and Mercury.
Humorless, Leeds took the bait and ridiculed Franklin publicly. The response only generated more press for Poor Richard’s Almanack, turning it into a best seller. After October 17 came and went, and Leeds was still breathing, Franklin kept up the gag, claiming Leeds was dead and pretenders were writing under his name. Five years later, when Leeds finally passed away for real, Franklin thanked the imposters for stopping their ruse. By then, Poor Richard’s Almanack had made Franklin a rich man many times over.
STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANT … TURTLES | Salvador and Gala Dali
Though notorious in Europe, Salvador Dali and his savvy wife, Gala, weren’t famous in the United States until 1941, when they took the nation by metaphysical storm. To introduce themselves to Americans, the Dalis threw an unforgettably weird party in Pebble Beach, California, called “Night in a Surrealist Forest.” Dali decked the room with 12,000 shoes, 2,000 pine trees, 24 animal heads, 24 mannequins, and a wrecked car. His guest list ranged from A-list stars, such as Clark Gable, to wild animals, including a baby tiger. At one point in the evening, Bob Hope screamed when, after removing the dome from a plate, a toad leapt out at him. After the bizarre bash, Dali conducted an interview for American Weekly from a tall chair -its legs resting on the backs of four giant turtles. Gala claimed the chair “stimulates the artist’s creative powers.”
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Vatican City may have fewer than 1,000 citizens and span only 110 acres, but it also has a multimillion-dollar budget and an unbelievably complex history. Understanding how it all works requires parsing through centuries of religious texts. Is the Vatican confusing and mysterious? Is the Pope Catholic? Here’s a look behind the scenes.
1. Regular Exorcise!
Baudelaire once said that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.” But in modern-day Vatican City, the devil is considered alive and well. The former Pope John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his reign, and the current Pope Benedict XVI is expanding the ranks of Catholic-sponsored exorcists throughout the world. In fact, Father Gabriele Amorth, the Church’s chief exorcist, claims to expel more than 300 demons a year from the confines of his Vatican office, and there are more than 350 exorcists operating on behalf of the Catholic Church in Italy alone. Amorth also teaches bishops how to tell the difference between satanic possession and psychiatric illness, noting that those who suffer from the former seem to be particularly repulsed by the sight of holy water and the cross.
2. Where Thieves Go to Prey
With 1.5 crimes per citizen, Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world. It’s not that the cardinals are donning masks and repeatedly robbing the bank, it’s just that the massive crowds of tourists make Vatican City a pickpocket’s paradise. The situation is complicated by the fact that the Vatican has no working prison and only one judge. So most criminals are simply marched across the border into Italy, as part of a pact between the two countries. (The Vatican’s legal code is based on Italy’s, with some modifications regarding abortion and divorce.) Crimes that the Vatican sees fit to try itself—mainly shoplifting in its duty-free stores—are usually punished by temporarily revoking the troublemaker’s access to those areas. But not every crime involves theft. In 2007, the Vatican issued its first drug conviction after an employee was found with a few ounces of cocaine in his desk.
3. The Worst Confessions
Some sins are simply too much for a local bishop to forgive. While priests can absolve a sin as serious as murder (according to the Church), there are five specific sins that require absolution from the Apostolic Penitentiary. This secretive tribunal has met off and on for the past 830 years, but in January of 2009, for the first time ever, its members held a press conference to discuss their work.
Three of the five sins they contemplate can only be committed by the clergy. If you’re a priest who breaks the seal of confession, a priest who offers confession to his own sexual partners, or a man who has directly participated in an abortion and wants to become a priest, then your case must go before the tribunal to receive absolution. The other two sins can be committed by anyone. The first, desecrating the Eucharist, is particularly bad because Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ. Messing with them is like messing with Jesus. And then, there’s the sin of attempting to assassinate the Pope. That one’s pretty self-explanatory.
The meetings of the Apostolic Penitentiary are kept confidential because they’re a different form of confession. The sinner is referred to by a pseudonym, and only the Major Penitentiary, Cardinal James Francis Stafford, decides how the sin shall be dealt with. Presumably, a bunch of Hail Marys doesn’t cut it.
4. Read the Pope’s Mail
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Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the first gunshots of the Civil War -and the first gunshot wounds. As it turns out, the bloodiest war in American history was also one of the most influential in battlefield medicine. Civil War surgeons learned fast, and many of their MacGyver-like solutions have had lasting impact. Here are some of the advances and the people behind them.
Life Saving Amputation: The General who Visited his Leg
The old battlefield technique of trying to save limbs with doses of TLC (aided by wound-cleaning rats and maggots) quickly fell out of favor During the Civil War, even for top officers. The sheer number of injured was too high, and war surgeons quickly discovered the best way to stave deadly infections was to simply lop off the area -quickly.
Among those saved by the saw was Daniel E. Sickles, the eccentric commander of the 3rd Army Corps. In 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg, the major general’s right leg was shattered by a Confederate shell. Within the hour, the leg was amputated just above the knee. His procedure, publicized in the military press, paved the way for many more. Since the new Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. had requested battlefield donations, Sickles sent the limb to them in a box labeled “With the compliments of Major General D.E.S.” Sickles visited his leg yearly on the anniversary of its emancipation.
Daniel Sickles' leg on display at the the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Nis Hoff)
Amputation saved more lives than any other wartime medical procedure by instantly turning complex injuries into simple ones. Battlefield surgeons eventually took no longer than six minutes to get each moaning man on the table, apply a handkerchief soaked in chloroform or ether, and make the deep cut. Union surgeons became the most skilled limb hackers in history. Even in deplorable conditions, they lost only about 25 percent of their patients -compared to a 75 percent mortality rate among similarly injured civilians at the time. The techniques invented by wartime surgeons -including cutting as far from the heart as possible and never slicing through joints- became the standard.
As for the nutty-sounding behavior of the leg-visiting commander, Sickles can be justifiably accused. In 1859, while serving in Congress, he shot and killed U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key for sleeping with Sickles’ wife. Charged with murder, Sickles became the first person in the United States to be found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
The Anesthesia Inhaler: A Knockout Breakthrough
In 1863, Stonewall Jackson’s surgeon recommended the removal of his left arm, which had been badly damaged by friendly fire. When a chloroform-soaked cloth was placed over his nose, the Confederate general, in great pain, muttered, “What an infinite blessing,” before going limp.
Nerdy reputation or not, coin collecting (otherwise known as numismatics) has been a hobby since the days of ancient Rome. If you’re not a member of the enthusiast crowd, though, knowing a thing or two about the following faves just might be enough to help you rub elbows with true aficionados.
1. The Stupidest Coin the Government Ever Made: The Racketeer Nickel
(Image credit: Hephaestos at the English language Wikipedia)
In 1883, the United States issued a newly designed five-cent piece called the “V nickel.” The coin got its name because the value was indicated on the back simply with the Roman numeral ‘V,’ sans the word “cents.” After all, it was obvious it was a nickel, right? Apparently not. Turns out, the V nickel was the same size as a U.S. $5 gold piece, and both coins featured a bust of Lady Liberty on the front.
It wasn’t long before light bulbs started going off over the heads of con men all across America. Within weeks of the V’s debut, crooks were gold-plating the nickels and palming them off as $5 gold pieces. Meanwhile, government officials scoffed at the notion that anyone would fall for such an obvious hoax. Unfortunately, they were wrong again. Despite the gold-plated nickels not looking like $5 coins and not being nearly as heavy, most people didn’t notice, because the gold coins were rarely used in everyday purchases.
By April 1883, “gilded nickels” were both a national joke and a growing concern for commerce and law enforcement. The U.S. Secret Service made arrests in 10 states related to the scam. In one raid, they seized a “half bushel” of coins waiting to be plated. But all good things come to an end, and con artists had a hard time getting enough new nickels to keep the racket going. Finally, embarrassed officials put an end to the scam by halting production of the nickels until new dies were prepared. This time, the redesigned backs read “V cents.” Today, the V nickel remains a favorite among coin collectors.
2. The Coin You Carry in Bundles: The Kissi Penny
Money hasn’t always been strictly confined to coins and bills. In Biblical times, for example, people used sheep and cattle as currency. Of course, because deceased livestock don’t paste that well into scrapbooks, numismatists have to draw the line somewhere. And that’s where the phrase “odd and curious money” comes in. It’s a numismatist category used to classify various pre-cash societies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
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"Black Bart" Boles
Guns? Check. Masks? Check. Poetry book? If you’re going to rob a stagecoach, here’s how to do it with flair.
If You’re A Poet, Show It
Even if you’re a no-good, law-flouting bandit, it pays to mind your manners -and your meter. In California, between 1875 and 1883, Charles E. “Black Bart” Boles held up more than two dozen Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Even though he seemed to have an intense private grudge against the bank, he was always polite to its employees, asking stage drivers to “please” throw down the money. Stranger still, Boles often left poetry at his crime scenes. This poem was his most well-known:
I’ve labored long
and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches,
But on my corns
too long you’ve tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.
In 1883, Boles was wounded during a holdup and accidentally left a handkerchief at the crime scene. When Wells Fargo detectives traced it back to him, he was arrested and imprisoned, and although Boles’ career as a robber was over, his literary influence was just beginning. During his imprisonment, several copycat stagecoach robbers left truly dreadful bits of poetry at the scenes of their crimes.
Spin the Media
Jesse James and his One-armed Mother
Jesse James spent as much time honing his public image as he did robbing people. In fact, James frequently wrote letters to newspapers, stressing that his gang never attacked innocent farmers, only corrupt banks and railroad companies. He also claimed lawmen hounded James and his brothers because they had been Confederate soldiers, which won the gang sympathy in the South. His letters were widely reprinted, even in The New York Times, helping turn the Missouri bandits into national legends.
One night in 1875, Pinkerton detectives threw a flare into the James family home. The agents were trying to light up the dark house so they could shoot at the outlaws, but the flare exploded in the fireplace, killing Jesse’s young half-brother and maiming his mother, who lost her right forearm. James made the incident seem even worse than it was in his letters to the press, falsely claiming the detectives had tossed a 32-pound military shell into his mother’s home. The public was horrified, and after the explosion, Pinkerton agents received little help from Jesse’s neighbors, who were often happy to provide the James gang with food, information, and hiding places.
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The hottest thing about chili peppers isn’t the way they taste; it’s everything else they can do for you.
1. THEY STRANGLE CANCER
Human cells aren’t the happy-go-lucky characters we’d like to imagine. In fact, our cells commit suicide on a regular basis, via a process called apoptosis. Unlike the messy deaths that happen when a cell is injured or diseased, apoptosis is a peaceful passing, wherein an otherwise healthy cell reaches the end of its life span, then shuts down, shrinks, and is absorbed by its neighbors. But with certain types of cancer, the natural process of apoptosis doesn’t occur. Unwilling to go quietly into the great night, cancer cells rage on, refusing to die, continuing to multiply, and eventually forming tumors.
That’s where chili peppers come in. New studies have shown that capsaicin -the chemical compound that gives chili peppers their kick- may be the key to controlling cancer cells. During the past few years, research has indicated that capsaicin can induce apoptosis in cancer of the lungs, pancreas, and prostate. In the case of prostate cancer, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles found that capsaicin also slows the cancer’s ability to grow. This means chili pepper treatments could be lifesavers for men who’ve survived one bout of cancer but are at risk of another.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people should feast on pepper-only diets just yet. Right now, there’s little evidence that gorging on chiles will prevent healthy males from getting the disease. In fact, thus far, all research tests on capsaicin have been limited to Petri dishes and some very unlucky mice. That said, scientists remain optimistic about the pepper’s potential to help control the disease.
2. THEY PROTECT MEN AT SEA
Any good sailor knows that barnacles are bad news. If enough of these water-dwelling pests clamp onto a boat’s hull, it becomes less hydrodynamic. In fact, barnacle build-ups can force ships to use as much as 30 percent more fuel. That’s why many seafarers choose to safeguard their vessels by coating them with anti-barnacle paint. The only problem is that these paints are generally filled with toxic chemicals and metals.
Fortunately, in the early 1990s, an American sailor named Ken Fischer came up with a better idea. While chowing down on a Tabasco-laced sandwich, Fischer realized that barnacles might not share his love of spicy food. His hunch was right. Before long, Fischer was making millions off his pepper-based repellant, Barnacle Ban.
Surprisingly, barnacles might not be the only sea creatures averse to chili peppers. The Kuna tribe of Panama reportedly still sails with strings of chilies tied to their boats. The peppers supposedly make the ships (and the Kuna themselves) less appetizing to sharks.
3. THEY NUMB THE PAIN
In addition to killing cancer and fending off barnacles, capsaicin has the ability to dull pain. When it hits the tongue, the spice activates pain receptors that fire up the burning sensation. But after a while, the same process depletes the body of Substance P, a chemical involved in the perception of pain. The message “ouch” stops getting through to your brain, and your discomfort fades.
Medical science has already turned this trick into an over-the-counter cream for arthritis, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Have you noticed that after a trip to the dentist, you talk funny and can’t move parts of your face? That’s because traditional anesthesia temporarily deadens your senses to the extent that you lose control over those body parts. In October 2007, however, researchers at Harvard Medical School announced that they’d used capsaicin to numb rats without rendering them immobile. The researchers first injected rats with capsaicin and then with a local anesthetic. As the capsaicin flowed through the pain receptor pathways, the anesthetic followed in its footsteps, deadening any discomfort while leaving the rats free to scurry about their cages.
In the future, this could mean better painkillers -ones that could make it possible for women in labor to be mobile after an epidural or allow dental patients to move their faces normally after getting a filling.
4. THEY MAKE YOU FORGET HOW BAD THEY TASTE
Although pepper fanatics are always itching for new ways to assault their taste buds, chilies aren’t actually addictive. Numerous scientific studies have shown that chili peppers don’t induce physical cravings, withdrawal, or loss of control -the classic signs of addiction. Yet, there is something about peppers that keeps people coming back for more.
(Image credit: Flickr user Esteban Cavrico)
Scientists think that when pain receptors come into contact with capsaicin, it triggers the body to release endorphins -chemicals that bind to the same receptors in the brain as opiates such as heroin and morphine. And while endorphin highs from peppers aren’t like the ones in Trainspotting, they can provide enough of a euphoric kick to keep people engaged in the actions that release them, such as jogging or bungee jumping. This observation may go a long way toward explaining why humans are the only mammals that keep eating chili peppers, even though the sensation burns. Scientists believe that the little high we get from the spice has helped us convince ourselves that we like the taste. The truth is that we do the same thing -for the same sort of pleasurable payout- with other bitter flavors such as coffee, tobacco, and beer.
(Title image credit: Flickr user cMeFiSh (What’s Next)
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The above article by Maggie Koerth-Baker is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
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Apollo 8 wasn’t just a NASA mission; it was the biggest, coolest, most mind-blowing Christmas special of all time.
The men of Apollo 8 -Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders- had their work cut out for them. They were slated to become the first humans ever to leave the Earth’s orbit, enter lunar orbit, and see the far side of the Moon. But as their launch date approached in December 1968, NASA added an even more terrifying task to the crew’s to-do list: public speaking. The agency wanted the astronauts to host a live broadcast from the spacecraft on Christmas Eve. Worse still, the men were given only one cryptic instruction: “Say something appropriate.”
The astronauts were in a tough spot. When millions of people of different faiths and backgrounds are listening, what exactly constitutes appropriate? To make matters trickier, 1968 had been a grim year for Americans -the Vietnam War was raging, and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. had both been assassinated. How could the astronauts simultaneously orbit the Moon, introduce millions to outer space on TV, and buoy the American spirit?
The men were stumped. They began enlisting the help of media experts, who were mostly just as clueless as they were. The answer finally came from the wife of Joe Laitin, a former reporter who’d worked as a public affairs officer under five presidents. She made an elegant, simple suggestion: Why not just read from the book of Genesis?
The astronauts jumped at the idea. They reasoned that genesis had a broad enough appeal across religions to add a hint of spirituality without ostracizing non-Christians. Borman, the mission’s commander, had the first ten verses typed onto fireproof paper and tucked the sheet into his flight plan. The astronauts had their script.
The broadcast began with the crew showing some of the first images of Earth ever seen from space. Lovell remarked, “The vast loneliness up here of the Moon is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there in Earth.”
Viewers were captivated. But as airtime dwindled, Anders revealed that the crew had a special message for all the people of the planet. He started with the familiar “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth…”
He read the first four verses; Lovell read four more. Borman recited the last two and ended the show, saying, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with a good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -all of you on the good Earth.”
In the end, the crew’s effort paid off. Half a billion people tuned in, making it the largest TV event in history at the time, and the reception was overwhelmingly positive; even Walter Cronkite admitted that he had tears in his eyes. Of course, not everyone on Earth was thrilled; one atheist activist sued NASA for interjecting religion into a government project, but the Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. Enough nitpicking! The Christmas Eve special won an Emmy, and Time made the crew the magazine’s “Men of the Year” for 1968. The broadcast was truly out of this world.
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The article above, written by Ethan Trex, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
Each year, America spends about $250 billion on marketing and advertising — more than the entire GDP of Thailand. Too bad most of that money is a complete waste. For an increasingly savvy, TiVo-equipped public, our brains seem to shut down whenever something registers as “advertising.” Which means all those marketing creatives at the big ad firms have had no choice but to, well, get more creative.
Some advertisers have relied on product placement (think James Bond stopping mid-gunfight for a refreshing sip of Heineken). Others have attempted to make their ads so entertaining that people will watch them in spite of the sales pitch. And then there’s the more mischievous route — the grassroots, take-it-to-the-streets method — and that’s where guerrilla marketing comes in.
Dirt-cheap and chock full of trickery, guerrilla marketing is advertising with a wink. The successful campaigns usually corral attention through subversive means before revealing their true purpose, and they distinguish themselves by being so clever that even once the bait and switch is revealed, there’s no negative outcry.
In other words, even though consumers know they’ve been duped, the reaction amounts to nothing more than a bashful, “Oh Pepsi! We can’t stay mad at you!”
And it’s with that good-humored and awe-inspired mindset that we pay homage to the best “gotcha” moments in advertising.
1. The Blair Witch Project
Arguably the most important aspect of a successful guerrilla campaign is staying one step ahead of the public. As consumers become more attuned to ad agency efforts, marketers have to figure out how to attack the mob from unexpected angles. The brand standard for catching the public off guard? 1999′s The Blair Witch Project. With no stars, no script, and a budget of around $50,000, University of Central Florida Film School pals Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez successfully scrubbed out the line between reality and fiction.
The film’s tagline set the stage: “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found.” Audiences were expected to believe what they were watching — shaky, low-quality videotape of three runny-nosed kids weeping in the woods — was an edited-down version of real recovered footage. And while it was certainly an inventive way to challenge the boundaries of cinematic storytelling (not to mention justifying the low-budget look of the film), Blair Witch didn’t exactly seem poised to rival Titanic. That is, until an inventive guerrilla marketing scheme was devised.
To ease the suspension of disbelief and stir up some buzz, Sánchez created a Web site devoted to the Blair Witch — a fictitious, woods-based specter who’d been snapping up Maryland kids for the last century. Although the legend was created out of whole cloth, it was soon snapped up by gullible Interneters everywhere, and a first-ballot hall of fame urban legend was born. Pretty soon, thousands of people were terrified of the Blair Witch. Even when the actors who played the “film students” started showing up (alive) doing interviews about the movie, many across the country refused to believe the Blair Witch wasn’t real.
From that point, the “I’ve got to see for myself” effect took over, and Blair Witch dominated at the box office. Considered the most effective horror hoax since Orson Welles’ The War Of The Worlds broadcast, the film grossed $250 million worldwide. Not a bad return for Artisan Entertainment, which paid only $1 million for the flick after its Sundance screening.
2. Acclaim Entertainment
Nowhere are the semi-criminal aspects of guerrilla marketing more important than in pitching to video gamers. Regular folks might occasionally enjoy being duped by an unusually clever campaign, but gamers seem to suck down daring and deception like a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew. The more the stunts flaunt the law, the more the gaming demographic seems to like them.
The undisputed high-score holder in this renegade arena is Acclaim Entertainment, a plucky little company that began as a one-room outfit in Oyster Bay, New York, and bloomed into a multinational juggernaut. Eschewing artistry in favor of an “all publicity is good publicity” philosophy, Acclaim stirs up the stuffy types — and then laughs all the way to the bank. One of its bedrock tactics is to offer people money for performing some insane stunt on behalf of its upcoming game. Prior to the release of “Turok: Evolution,” for instance, the company offered £500 to the first five U.K. citizens who’d legally change their names to Turok. (Almost 3,000 people tried to claim the prize.) Later, promoting the release of “Shadow Man 2,” Acclaim announced it would pay the relatives of the recently deceased to place promotional ads on the headstones of their dearly departed. The company said the promotional fee might “particularly interest poorer families.”
The latter campaign was, of course, shouted down. But Acclaim blew it off and said the whole thing was a joke — right after its name had been conveniently plastered all over the headlines. In fact, many of the company’s schemes are designed to die on the vine that way. Acclaim actually counts on law enforcement and city officials to shut down their antics — preferably as publicly as possible. In 2002, the company announced its plans to promote “Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance” using something called “bloodvertising.” Touting it as the bloodiest game of all time, Acclaim said it was developing bus shelter ads that would seep a red, blood-like substance onto city sidewalks throughout the course of seven days. Officials thought that might not be in the best taste, so the campaign was aborted, as the world looked on. Also in 2002, Acclaim offered to pay all speeding tickets incurred in the U.K. on the day its racing game “Burnout 2″ was released. Naturally, the bobbies balked, feeling that removing the consequences for speeding might encourage people to speed. Acclaim judiciously rescinded the offer, but, yet again, not before the name “Burnout 2″ was burned into the public consciousness.
3. Half.com
Once upon a time, fairy tales were dark fables designed to scare children into good behavior. This is the story of one American author who thought kids deserved better.
In December 1900, L. Frank Baum was a struggling, 44-year-old writer living in Chicago with his wife and four children. Christmas was only days away, and Baum was desperately searching for a way to buy presents for his family.
On a whim, Baum went downtown to ask his publisher for a royalties’ advance for the five books he’d written that year. He walked out with a check for one of the books, and promptly stuck it in his pocket. He didn’t bother to take a look at it.
When Baum arrived home, his wife, Maud, was ironing a shirt. He reluctantly handed her the check, and at the same moment, they both discovered that it was for $1,423.98—roughly $40,000 today. Paralyzed with disbelief, Maud burned a hole through the shirt.
That book, of course, was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
Lyman Frank Baum was born in 1856 in Chittenango, New York. As a child, his weak heart limited his capacity for rough-and-tumble play. So, despite being the seventh of nine kids, he spent most of his childhood alone, indoors, and dreaming.
As a young man, Baum leapt like a flea from career to career. By his early 30s, he’d been a journalist, a printer, a postage-stamp dealer, and a champion poultry breeder, which led him into publishing, with his trade journal The Poultry Record. He also ran his own theater company, where he wrote, directed, and acted in his own plays.
Then, in 1881, Baum met his leading lady—Maud Gage, a sophomore at Cornell. But Maud’s mother, Matilda, disapproved of the union. Matilda Gage was a feminist who marched alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in the women’s suffrage movement. She saw Baum as a flake who’d never amount to anything, and she told her daughter she’d be a “darned fool” to marry the itinerant actor. Yet, Baum’s charm, sincerity, and uncanny ability to tell fantastic stories were no match for Matilda, and he soon won her over. He also became a feminist.
Frank married Maud in 1882, but troubles were around the corner. Baum’s theater company went belly-up, and without local prospects, he looked west for opportunity. In 1888, he moved his family to the Dakota Territory, where he opened a store in the town of Aberdeen. (Years later, when Baum wrote descriptions of the Kansas prairie in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he was actually describing South Dakota.) His shop, Baum’s Bazaar, sold Chinese paper lanterns, Bohemian glass, gourmet chocolates, and other exotic items. But Baum overestimated the frontier’s demands for novelty shopping. In a few short years, he’d gone bust yet again.
At this point, L. Frank Baum was 35 with no career. He headed east for Chicago, where he received guidance from an unexpected source: his mother-in-law. Matilda Gage convinced Baum to pursue his one true talent, telling stories. In Aberdeen, children had stalked Baum, demanding story hour from the raconteur. Kids loved his tales because they weren’t thinly disguised morality lessons. Instead, Baum’s stories were fantasies filled with candy, toys, magic, and adventure. Heeding Matilda’s advice, Baum decided to give writing a try.
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Art Conservator Gwynne Ryan
Dead sharks? Edible statues? Contemporary artists rely on exotic materials to push the boundaries of art. And they’re using a new breed of conservators to fix things when they go bad.
Forget the white coats, Forget the magnifying glasses and tiny brushes. Sure, classical art conservators still spend their days and nights obsessing over ways to remove centuries of grime from Renaissance frescoes, but contemporary art preservation is an entirely different picture. After all, how do you save a putrefying shark? How do you deal with an avant-garde video installation that’s blinking out? And what do you do when the industrial-grade fireworks stuffed in the headless cow carcass stubbornly refuse to light? Modern art represents the Wild West of art preservation -a world in which artists push the envelope with outrageous ideas and materials, and conservators use any means necessary to keep those works in one piece and on display.
We asked top pros to share the inside stories behind some of the most outlandish and challenging conservation projects. Norman Rockwell paintings these ain’t.
(Image credit: Fickr user Rupert Ganzer)
“The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” by Damien Hirst
The shark was, well, rotting. Despite its portentous title, Damien Hirst’s 1991 masterwork was pretty straightforward: a dead tiger shark suspended in an acrylic glass tank filled with 224 gallons of water. The problem was that the huge fish began to decompose almost immediately -Hirst had failed to preserve it properly. To stem the stench, London’s Saatchi Gallery pumped bleach into the water, but that only made the shark decompose faster. None of this stopped an American hedge-fund manager from buying the work for $8 million in 2004, making it one of the most expensive contemporary art sales ever.
An almost comical series of attempts to preserve the putrid predator ensued. Hirst and his conservators had the shark skinned and its hide tanned and mounted onto a fiberglass skeleton. But the result, intended to inspire terror, looked like a rejected prop from Jaws 3-D.
So Hirst threw in the fish towel. He struck a deal with the buyer: For a six-figure fee, he simply acquired another dead shark from an Australian fisherman, and this time preserved it with formaldehyde. Shark number two is a foot shorter, but its gaping jaws are wider and scarier. If all goes well, it will last 250 years. “That piece is like the Sistine Chapel, it’s so iconic,” says Gwynne Ryan, sculpture conservator at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, who has worked on other Hirst pieces. “Will we look back on all these changes and say: ‘God, what a ridiculous thing to do?’ It’s kind of hard to know.”
As for shark number one? It went from a multimillion dollar artwork to 1,800 pounds of biological waste in the blink of an eye.
(Image credit: Flickr user Ian T Edwards)
“Video Flag” by Nam June Paik
Even back when cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions were the norm, repairing one was a headache. It meant hauling the heavy box to a cluttered shop, where a guy named Murray in a stained shirt would place it on a shelf, and then call you two weeks later with a Kansas-sized bill. Now imagine having to fix 70 of them, with the added problem that CRTs are obsolete and Murray is retired or dead.
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(Image credit: Wikipedia user Salix alba)
In 2002, a reclusive Russian genius named Grigori Perelman put an end to more than 100 years of suffering in the mathematical community. He solved the most difficult math problem of the 20th century -the Poincaré Conjecture. Its siren call had lured generations of mathematicians to intellectual graves. It first, its simplicity would seduce them, and they’d become convinced the answer was near. But as years passed, they’d be left with nothing to show for their lives’ toil but dead ends. By the time Grigori Perelman proved the Conjecture, the solution was worth $1 million.
THE MAN BEHIND THE MADNESS
Henri Poincaré
In 1885, all of Europe was talking about Henri Poincaré, a 30-year-old genius who’d mathematically proven why the solar system holds together. When a hole appeared in his calculations, he plugged it up by essentially inventing chaos theory: Kings were tripping over themselves to make him a knight· and Sweden gave him a small fortune in prize money. To this day; Poincare holds the record for the most physics Nobel Prize nominations, though he never actually won one.
But his most legendary achievement was something no one noticed until much, much later. At the turn of the century: Poincaré invented an entirely new field called algebraic topology; and today, it’s one of the most complicated and vibrant branches of mathematics. Think of it as a twisted version of geometry, in which shapes stretch, bend, and fold inside out. Poincaré’s goal was to classify objects by identifying their basic form, much the same way botanists classify new species of plants. In the process of creating topology, Poincaré tossed out a conjecture that seemed to be true. It was a side note to a larger problem, and he figured he’d work out the details later. Little did he know; his side note would become one of the greatest challenges in the mathematical world.
THE VICTIMS
Poincaré’s conjecture seemed simple enough. It claimed that any object without a loop is essentially a sphere. Think of a knife made out of Play-Doh. Without punching a hole in it or closing a loop, can you squish it into a ball? Yes, of course. Now picture a pair of Play-Doh scissors. No matter how hard you try, you can’t crush it into a ball without closing up the finger holes. It’s impossible. Poincare believed that objects like the knife were related to spheres, while objects with holes and loops in them were not.
Poincaré thought the conjecture would be easy to prove, and he even published a solution. But then, he saw a flaw in his work and retracted it. After his death in 1912, the question lay dormant for decades, until an Oxford professor named J.H.C. Whitehead rediscovered it in the late 1930s. J,H.C. (known to his students as “Jesus, he’s confusing”) also published a solution. But he, too, found a mistake and retracted it. However, his work sparked interest in the problem. By the 1950s, the Poincaré Conjecture was one of the best-known challenges in the math community:
Christos Papakyriakopoulos
That’s when two Princeton students, Edwin Moise and Christos Papakyriakopoulos (commonly known as Papa), decided to try their hands at it. Moise in particular looked like the guy to do it. Young and brash, he liked to announce his next big problem like a batter calling his shot. Twice that included one of the toughest problems in topology; and twice he returned with the solution. Then, he set his sights on Poincaré.
Papa was vastly different. A self-taught political refugee from Greece, he was famous for his odd, obsessive nature. Legend has it that when he came to Princeton, he checked into a motel and never checked out. He never even unpacked his bags. He simply fell into a routine that he followed every day; down to the minute, which always included a midday nap on top of his desk.
Throughout the 1950s, the two geniuses dueled with each other over Poincaré. Papa would announce a proof, and Moise would shoot it down. Then Moise would announce a proof, and Papa would shoot it down. This went on for years, while neither man worked on almost anything else.
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Some writers can just sit at their desks and bang the keys. Others need to get naked and climb a mulberry tree before they’re sufficiently inspired. Right now, we’re only interested in the latter.
1. Take Orders from a Dog
Sometimes the only thing standing between an artist and true greatness is the lack of a good pet. German composer Richard Wagner relied on his spaniel, Peps, to guide him through the creation of Tannhäuser, an epic opera about the struggle between sacred and profane love. Peps had his own stool next to Wagner’s piano, and whenever Wagner was having difficulty with a passage, he’d take direction from his pooch. In the process, Peps would go berserk when something didn’t agree with his ear, and Wagner would tweak the opera to please him.
2. Turn Hatred into Motivation
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen despised Swedish playwright August Strindberg, but he couldn’t have written some of the greatest works of modern drama without him. The two traded jabs for well over a decade at the turn of the 20th century: Strindberg accuse Ibsen of copying his work, claiming that Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler ripped off his Miss Julie; Ibsen countered that Strindberg was psychotic. And Ibsen may have had a point -Strindberg was given to catatonic spells and often lashed out with a knife at invisible enemies behind his back. Ibsen loathed Strindberg so fiercely that he hung a portrait of his nemesis over his desk, which he used as a particularly masochistic form of inspiration. Ibsen would tell visitors, “I cannot write a line without that madman standing and staring down at me with those crazy eyes.”
3. Smell the Success
German writer Friedrich von Schiller composed the 1785 poem “Ode to Joy,” which Beethoven later set to music in his Ninth Symphony. What inspired Schiller’s passion for happiness? Rotten apples. The poet insisted that he needed the smell of putrefying fruit in the air to write, so he kept his desk drawer well stocked. But here’s the weird part: Schiller may not have been (completely) crazy. In 1985, researchers at Yale University found that the scent of spiced apples can lift a person’s mood significantly and stave off panic attacks.
4. Play Dead
When poet Dame Edith Sitwell was a little girl growing up in Victorian England, her parents would lock her into an iron frame to straighten out her spine. Sitwell hated them for it, and she rarely spoke to her parents later in life, even as she became increasingly famous for her poems about the London Blitz during World War II. The countless hours that Sitwell spent locked inside of that iron frame may have had a peculiar effect on her mind. As an adult, to cultivate a state of tranquility, Sitwell would wake up every morning and lie down in a coffin. After a few hours, she’d feel calm enough to write.
5. Get a New Hairdo
Ancient Greek orator Demosthenes found early in his career that he had trouble staying on task while studying or writing -it was just too tempting to throw on some sandals and go to town! But Demothenes found a clever way to make himself work: When he felt wanderlust, he’d shave off half of his hair. Knowing that he looked far too ridiculous to leave the house Demosthenes would be able to concentrate on his writing for a couple months at a time -or at least until his hair grew back.
6. Lay Everything Bare
Clothes can be such a distraction. Victor Hugo, the celebrated French author of realist novels that would become sentimental musicals (Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), conquered writer’s block by shutting himself in a room, completely naked, with just a desk, a pen, and paper. He ordered servants not to give him clothing until he’d finished working.
To write his final novel, Ninety-Three, Hugo took his nudity outdoors. Every morning, he’d stand in the buff on his roof and pour a bucket of water over his head. Fully refreshed, he’d then go into a glass cage, which he called his “look out” and write standing at a podium, naked.
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The article above, written by Ethan Trex and Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
Megalonyx jeffersonii
Fossils rarely do scientists the courtesy of showing up intact, so putting them together is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. A tough one. Without a picture on the box to go by. It’s no wonder a few old bones have made some of the world’s smartest scientists look so stupid.
1. All the President’s Sloths
In decades past, American presidents apparently had hobbies other than playing golf and eating at McDonald’s. Thomas Jefferson, for one, was an avid paleontologist. As early as the 1790s (before it was cool), he kept an impressive fossil collection at his home in Monticello. So when a group of confused miners came upon some unidentifiable bones in a West Virginia cave, they sent them to Jefferson. Judging from the long limbs and large claws, the president suspected they belonged to a giant cat “as preeminent over the lion in size as the mammoth is over the elephant” and that the animal might still exist somewhere in the unexplored West.
Jefferson got the size right. The description? Not so much. The animal he named Megalonyx (giant claw) was actually one of the giant ground sloths that very slowly roamed America during the last ice age. And while Jefferson later agreed with this alternative diagnosis, his error wasn’t a complete waste. The Megalonyx marked one of the first important fossil finds in the United States, and it prompted the first and second scientific papers on fossils published in North America. In honor of the president’s contribution, the sloth’s name was later formalized to Megalonyx jeffersonii.
2. A Bone-headed Approach
To this day, the Brontosaurus remains one of the most popular and recognizable dinosaurs in history – an impressive feat for an animal that never existed. The confusion started in 1879, when collectors working in Wyoming for paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh found two nearly complete – yet headless – sauropod dinosaur skeletons. Wanting to display them, Marsh fitted one specimen with a skull found nearby, and the other with a skull he found in Colorado. Voila! – the Brontosaurus was born.
(Image credit: Flickr user yuan2003)
Unfortunately for Marsh, the skeletons were later exposed as adult specimens of a dinosaur already discovered, the Apatosaurus. The error was formally corrected in 1903 by Elmer Riggs of Chicago’s Field Museum, and scientific papers haven’t called the animal Brontosaurus since. Seventy more years passed before researchers determined that the skulls Marsh borrowed really belonged to the Camarasaurus, a discovery of his archrival, Edward Drinker Cope. Pop culture, however, missed the memo altogether.
3. Getting Your Head Screwed on Right
Paleontology’s version of the Hatfields and the McCoys, Marsh and Cope had a nasty and long-running professional rivalry. Although they’d actually started out as friends (with each even naming a discovery after the other), by 1870 their relationship had taken a turn for the worse. A year earlier, Cope had assembled a skeleton of the sea reptile called Elasmosaurus. However, in his rush to publish his discovery, he placed the head on the wrong end, giving everyone the impression that the animal had a very long tail instead of a very long neck. Marsh poured ample salt in that wound by making fun of Cope’s error in print (suggesting he rename the animal “twisted lizard”) and constantly ridiculing it at parties and exhibitions. Given the stakes, he might as well have slapped Cope across the face with a glove and insulted his mother. As it was, all Cope could do was try and buy up all the published examples of his posterior-backwards construction.
Incorrect image of Elasmosaurus published by Cope.
The feud only grew from there. The two men fought over allegations that, on a tour of Cope’s digging operations in New Jersey, Marsh bribed collectors to send key fossils to him. And in 1877, a part-time collector in Utah incited a whole new string of cutthroat arguing by trying to sell bones from his site to both of them. Other feud highlights included a series of snippy “he said, he said” pieces in the New York Herald and the time the Smithsonian confiscated much of Marsh’s fossil collection after Cope accused him of misusing tax dollars to hoard fossils for himself.
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It’s time to unlock your body’s full potential.
1. Friends in High Places
In 2003, a 28-year-old Swedish man named Johan Adolfsson took a nine-hour flight from Thailand to Australia with eight extremely lethal snakes -four king cobras and four emerald tree boas- strapped to his inner thighs. His plan to cash in on the $3,500 booty for black market serpents was dashed when Australian officers captured him as he passed through customs at Sydney airport. Sadly, it too late for some of the snakes; all four king cobras died midflight.
2. Live by the Seat of Your Pants
The business of trafficking exotic animals is a multibillion dollar industry -and it’s more than just shoving reptiles into pairs of Dockers. In 2010, agents at Mexico City International Airport noticed a bulge moving under a nervous passenger’s t-shirt: Roberta Cabrera, 38, had 16 rare, 6-inch titi monkeys in pouches fastened to his chest with a special girdle. Two were dead. In separate incidents, airline passengers have also been caught with two pigeons, six lobsters, 14 songbirds, and 44 lizards crammed into their slacks.
3. Skirt the Issue
Mammals aren’t the only creatures customs officials have to watch for. In 2005, a 45-year-old woman was detained by customs in Melbourne International Airport after she’d arrived from Singapore. “During the search, officers became suspicious after hearing ‘flipping’ noises coming from the vicinity of her waist,” the Australian Customs Service later told the press. They found she had 51 exotic fish -all alive, hallelujah!- swimming in water-filled baggies hidden inside specially made pockets, which were concealed under her skirt.
4. Love Your Curves
In November 2010, two women were caught leaving a T.J. Maxx in Oklahoma with four pairs of boots, three pairs of jeans, a wallet, and one pair of gloves hidden in rolls of fat around their boons and bellies. All told, they’d squeezed $2,600 worth of loot under their excess body fat. The police officer on the scene later struggled to explain the situation to reporters from a local television crew: “These two were actually concealing them in areas of their body where excess skin was, underneath their, um, and their armpits, and things of that nature.”
5. The Cast System
People have been hiding objects inside of fake casts for centuries. In March 2009, a 66-year-old Chilean man one-upped his predecessors by wearing a real, functional cast that was entirely made of pure cocaine. A little more than two pounds of pressed blow, to be precise. What’s more, the cast was covering an actual injury; the Chilean had broken his own shinbone in a failed attempt to make his ruse seem believable. After the police in Barcelona caught him entering Spain, they rushed him to the hospital to treat his broken leg.
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The article above, written by Haley Sweetland Edwards, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
How the KKK helped get children out of the factories and into the classroom.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan liked to think of themselves as white knights. And when it came to compulsory education for schoolchildren, believe it or not, they actually were. To understand how this bizarre heroism came to pass, you have to go back to the 1820s, when about half the laborers in America’s cotton mils were children under the age of 15. Adults had a serious hankering to get those kids out of the workforce -not because they were concerned for their well-being but because adults resented the competition. After all, employers could get away with paying children much lower wages, and the little ones had energy to burn. Mary Kenney O’Sullivan, vice president of the National Women’s Trade Union League, put the situation bluntly: “Wherever child labor prevails there is a corresponding decrease in employment for adults.”
In fact, getting rid of the kids was one of the first causes to unite the American label movement. When labor leaders realized they couldn’t just turn youngsters out in the streets to fend for themselves, they proposed a one-two punch of ending child labor laws and requiring school. Massachusetts was the first state to pass a compulsory education law. In 1837, its state legislature barred factory owners from hiring anyone under age 15 who hadn’t attended public school for at least three months during the previous year. The law was ignored, and factory owners kept hiring kids anyway. Five years later, Massachusetts passed a second law, which went after factories more directly, limiting the amount of time children could work. When this law was ignored as well, the state made education compulsory in 1852.
By 1884, 16 states had instituted laws that forced children to go to school. Business owners, enamored with their short, low cost labor pool, denounced the status as “communist” and “un-American.” But the percentage of children in the workforce in cotton mills fell nonetheless; by 1890 it was just 10 percent. And not coincidentally, adult workers were awarded higher wages and better working conditions over the same period. From 1840 to 1880, average wages rose as much as 150 percent, while at the same time, the average workday fell from 13-14 hours to 10-11 hours.
At the turn of the century, labor unions lobbied for compulsory education nationwide, and they soon found an unexpected ally. The Ku Klux Klan supported the idea of public schools as a way of forcing immigrants to conform to white, Protestant culture. By 1918, labor unions had succeeded in getting compulsory education laws passed in every state. Two years later, a Catholic organization in Oregon demanded that the laws be amended to include private schools. The KKK took a more outspoken stance, and its membership grew quickly in support of the public school system.
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During the Golden Age of Hollywood, big-budget movies were classy affairs, full of artful scripts and classically trained actors. And boy, were they dull. Then came Roger Corman, the King of the B-Movies. With Corman behind the camera, motorcycle gangs and mutant sea creatures filled the silver screen. And just like that, movies became a lot more fun.
Escape from Detroit
For someone who devoted his entire life to creating lurid films, you’d expect Roger Corman’s biography to be the stuff of tabloid legend. But in reality, he was a straight-laced workaholic. Having produced more than 300 films and directed more than 50, Corman’s mantra was simple: Make it fast, and make it cheap. And certainly, his dizzying pace and eye for the bottom line paid off. Today, Corman is hailed as one of the world’s most prolific and successful filmmakers.
But Roger Corman didn’t always want to be a director. Growing up in Detroit in the 1920s, he aspired to become an engineer like his father. Then, at age 14, his ambitions took a turn when his family moved to Los Angeles. Corman began attending Beverly Hills High, where Hollywood gossip was a natural part of the lunchroom chatter. Although the film world piqued his interest, Corman stuck to his plan. He dutifully went to Stanford and received a degree in engineering, which he didn’t particularly want. Then he dutifully entered the Navy for three years, which he didn’t particularly enjoy. Finally, in 1948, he set his sights on something he did want -to make his mark in Hollywood.
Rising from the Ocean Floor
Corman’s career began at the bottom. He started in the film business as an entry-level reader for 20th Century Fox, wading through the worst scripts at the studio. The job was thankless, but the incompetent writing inspired Corman to give screenwriting a try. He moved to Paris to focus on his craft and eventually sold a script to Allied Artists Pictures. However, the resulting film was so awful that Corman vowed never to let a studio meddle with his work again. From that point on, Roger Corman was determined to make his own movies.
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Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cub has been inching towards capitalism -mostly in the form of tourism. Can Havana once again become “the Latin Las Vegas”?
Communist countries aren’t known for being vacation hot spots, and for good reason. To have a thriving tourist sector, you need luxuries to offer and visitors willing to spend money on them. That’s the stuff of capitalism. And yet, Cuba attracts about 2 million sightseers every year, mostly from Europe and Canada. That number is especially remarkable considering that two decades ago, Cuba’s tourism industry was not only nonexistent, it was outlawed.
FROZEN DAIQUIRIS
Cuban tourism was banned in 1960 as part of the Communist Revolution. Shortly after Fidel Castro came to power, his regime closed the island’s internationally renowned hotels. He also cracked down on prostitution, gambling, and illicit drugs -trades that had made the country a den of hedonism. As Castro saw it, tourism was a form of capitalist exploitation in which the rich pleasured themselves on the backs of the poor. He felt that Americans used the island as a playground with little concern for the welfare of those who lived there. In his new country, Cuban citizens would be equal; no one would stay at luxury hotels until everyone could stay at luxury hotels.
(Image credit: Flickr user Tom Graham)
Cuba got by without tourism for nearly 30 years, mostly by exporting sugar to its top trading partner, the Soviet Union. But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, billions of dollars disappeared from Cuba’s coffers overnight. To keep the country from going bankrupt, Castro announced a five-year era of austerity, which he dubbed the “special period.” Never in the history of politics has the word “special” been used more euphemistically. Castro cut mass transit and food rations by 80 percent -moves so drastic that they caused the average Cuban to lose 20 pounds. But cutting costs alone wouldn’t make the country solvent again; Cuba needed new trading partners and new industries. So, very reluctantly, Castro re-opened the tourism sector.
THE TOURISM APARTHEID
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If your mother told you never to play with your food, she probably didn’t grow up in any of these towns. Whether the food is being worshipped, chased, sculpted, or thrown, we’ve found 10 spots around the world where picking at your plate isn’t just acceptable, it’s encouraged.
(Image credit: Flickr user tristam sparks)
Every year, townspeople in Ivrea, Italy, celebrate the three days before Lent by pelting one another with oranges. According to legend, the feudal lord of medieval Ivrea was so stingy that he gave his peasants only one pot of beans every six months. In protest, the villagers would throw the beans into the streets. Over the years, the beans were replaced by oranges, which grow plentifully throughout Southern Italy. The custom now known as the Orange Battle involves revelers standing on parade floats and launching the fruit at fellow participants. And it’s not uncommon to see a little blood mixed in with all that orange juice. Visitors can join in, but you’ll probably want to bring some goggles and a helmet.
(Image credit: Flickr user Will De Freitas)
Each spring, a large wheel of cheese is rolled down a steep hill in England, and dozens of British men go tumbling after it. They risk sprained ankles, broken bones, and massive bruising. The big prize? The winner gets to keep the cheese.
While no one knows exactly how or why the first cheese race took place, local legend pegs the tradition on the ancient Romans. The event hasn’t always been smooth rolling, though. It hit a rough patch during World War II, when rations made dairy difficult to come by. Instead of sprinting after a full hunk of Double Gloucester, contestants raced after a tiny slice placed inside a wooden wheel. A far greater threat to the competition came in 1997, when so many competitors were injured that authorities implemented some major changes. The following year, the cheese was allowed to roll down the hill, but no one could run after it. Thankfully, the toned-down version of the sport lasted just one year. In 1999, authorities introduced a few more safety measures and then let the cheese chasing resume. The games at Cooper’s Hill have been going strong ever since.
Want to know how a bunch of brawny apes evolved into brainy humans? It all comes down to a pair of tongs and a flame.
People and animals eat basically the same food; the only difference is that we cook our meals. But does the ability to flame-broil a burger and burn a meal really make us that special? According to Harvard anthropology professor Richard Wrangham, it does.
Armed with mounting evidence, Wrangham believes that fire-kissed foods are what separated man from beast, allowing our ancestors to grow bigger brains and evolve into the intelligent creatures we are today.
THE MISSING LINK
The story starts roughly 2 million years ago in the age of the habiline -the so-called “missing link” between humans and apes. Habilines walked upright, made primitive stone tools, and had brains the size of oranges (roughly half the size of our brains today). Like chimpanzees, they subsisted mainly on fruits and veggies, with the occasional bit of raw meat on the side. They had strong teeth to chew all that plant matter, and big guts to process all that fibrous material. For them, digestion took an extremely long time. In fact, it’s believed that their bodies were constantly engaged in processing food. (Even today, chimpanzees spend more than six hours a day just chewing.)
So, how did Homo habilis evolve into Homo erectus? The dominant theory since the 1950s has been that meat-eating was responsible for the shift because it required habilines to gradually develop human intelligence. There’s something to the idea: To hunt game, our apelike ancestors had to reply on more than just physical prowess; they had to be clever and cooperate. The better they got at hunting, the smarter they became.
But the “meat made humans” hypothesis rankled biologist Richard Wrangham. In his 2009 book Catching Fire, Wrangham argues that meat-eating alone cannot account for the tremendous physical changes that occurred in the evolution of humans. Instead, he believes that man’s discovery of fire -and more importantly, cooking- did the heavy lifting.
(Image credit: Banksy work, photo by Flickr user Lord Jim)
For decades, many scientists dismissed cooking as a pleasant byproduct of civilization, a symbol of man’s dominion over nature. But Wrangham builds the case that cooking was crucial to human evolution because it made digestion so much more efficient, increasing the amount of energy our bodies derived from what we ate. As a result, humans became better able to think, hunt, sing, dance, paint on walls, and invent new tools. Ultimately, the top chefs were more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass along cooking techniques to their offspring, along with the physical evolutionary changes that come with them -namely, bigger brains.
The idea that cooked food offers more energy than uncooked food doesn’t immediately make sense. After all, recent studies show that cooking can leach food of its calories and nutrients. To understand the answers, we need to look inside -literally.
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PECANS The All-American Nut
(Image credit: Flickr user Mevrouw Cupcake)
With more than 80% of the world’s output produced in the United States, pecans have been an American favorite since the days of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (both of whom grew them in their gardens). The nuts even helped fight communism during the Space Race! Apollo astronauts regularly munched on pecans during their missions.
CASHEWS Because You’re Worth It
(Image credit: Flickr user Alisa Cooper)
Cashews are one of the only nuts never sold in their shells. That’s because cashew shells contain a toxic liquid that causes nasty skin rashes. In fact, the oil is so caustic that, in the West Indies, it’s used to give extreme facial peels. Women spread it on their mugs, and in a few days, the skin completely blisters off, revealing a smooth, clear complexion underneath.
ALMONDS The Lustiest Nut of All
(Image credit: Flickr user Michael Porter)
For thousands of years, almonds have been associated with the birds and the bees. Pagans used them as fertility charms, and ancient Romans gave them as wedding presents. Even today, they’re involved in a mass reproductive ritual right here in the United States. Every February, close to one million beehives are trucked to California so that the bees can pollinate almond trees. It’s the largest managed pollination event in the world.
BRAZIL NUTS Why People are Falling for Them
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President Cleveland
When Grover Cleveland contracted cancer, it didn’t kill his career; it killed someone else’s.
In early June of 1893, President Grover Cleveland discovered a large tumor on the roof of his mouth. The cancer was progressing quickly. Doctors determined that if the patient were to survive, the growth had to be removed. But the procedure was complicated, and Cleveland’s doctors feared the surgery could trigger a stroke. There was also a 15 percent chance in those days that the president could die under the knife. After weighing his options, Cleveland chose to have the tumor removed, under one condition: The operation had to be conducted in total secrecy. The president feared that Wall Street -already reeling from falling stock in the midst of a depression- would panic if news of his illness leaked. Even his vice president, Adlai Stevenson, was to be kept in the dark.
On the morning of June 30th, under the cover of night, President Cleveland and six of the nation’s finest physicians assembled on board the Oneida, a yacht anchored in New York harbor. Sitting in a deck chair, the president smoked cigars and chatted amiably with the men as the boat set sail for Long Island Sound. The following morning, the doctors scrambled below deck to prepare for the surgery. In lieu of an operating table, a large chair was bound to the mast in the yacht’s parlor. A single light bulb, connected to a portable battery, would provide all the light. The doctors boiled their instruments and pulled crisp white aprons over their dark suits. Shortly after noon, the president entered the parlor and took his seat.
Using nitrous oxide and ether as anesthetics, the doctors removed the tumor, along with five teeth and much of Cleveland’s upper left palate and jawbone. The procedure lasted 90 minutes. It also took place wholly within the patient’s mouth, so that no external scars would betray the clandestine operation.
Four days later, on July 5, Cleveland was dropped off at his summer home on Cape Cod.
He healed remarkably fast. By the middle of July, he was fitted with a vulcanized rubber prosthetic that plugged the hole in his mouth and restored his normal speaking voice. All the while, the public was told that the president had merely suffered a toothache.
THE HEALTH CARE CONTROVERSY
Elisha Edwards
On August 29, The Philadelphia Press published an expose by Elisha Jay Edwards. The headline read, “The President a Very Sick Man.” Edwards, the paper’s Manhattan correspondent, had been tipped off by a New York doctor who’s heard rumors of a secret surgery. After some additional digging, Edwards located Ferdinand Hasbrouck, the dentist who had administered the anesthetic to Cleveland, and verified the details.
The Philadelphia Press story was remarkably accurate. In fact, it still stands as one of the greatest scoops in the history of American journalism. But it wasn’t perceived that way by the public. The Cleveland administration categorically denied the charges and launched a smear campaign to discredit and embarrass the reporter. Newspapers denounced Edwards as a “disgrace to journalism” and a “calamity liar.” The tactics were effective. The public sided with Cleveland, who’d built his reputation as the “Honest President.” Meanwhile, Edwards’ career was effectively ruined. For the next 15 years, the veteran reporter could barely find work. In 1909, he landed a job as a columnist for a struggling young newspaper called The Wall Street Journal. But Edwards’ career was still tainted by the allegations that he’d faked the story about Grover Cleveland.
Dr. W.W. Keen
One of the doctors who performed the surgery, W.W. Keen, always regretted how Edwards had been so unjustly maligned. In 1917, a quarter-century after the operation and a decade after Cleveland’s death, Keen finally decided to do something about it. He published a confessional in The Saturday Evening Post, hoping to “vindicate Mr. Edwards’ character as a truthful correspondent.” The admission was successful. The old newspaperman was inundated with congratulatory letters and telegrams, and the outpouring deeply moved him. Edwards even wrote to Keen to thank him for restoring his reputation.
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The article above is reprinted with permission from the July-August 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
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How a coffee shortage killed the Confederacy.
Even in the midst of the Civil war, there was still one thing that the North and the South shared -a serious addiction to caffeine. In that respect, the Union clearly had an advantage. Not only did the North have more than two-thirds of the population and control most of the heavy industry, railroads, and financial reserves in the country, it hoarded supplies of the highly-addictive little bean, leaving the Confederacy to wage its own war against java deprivation.
COFFEE: IT’S WHATS FOR BREAKFAST, LUNCH, AND DINNER
Throughout the Civiil War, coffee was a as prevalent in battlefields as it is in offices today. In fact, the Union army was fueled by the stuff to the point that, if there was no time to boil water, the Boys in Blue would chew on whole beans as they marched. And at night, Union campsites were dotted with tiny fires, each boiling a pot of coffee like a million miniature Starbucks.
Beyond caffeine cravings, Union troops loved their coffee because it was, literally, the best thing on the menu. Before the advent of helpful (and tasty!) artificial preservatives, a marching soldier’s rations were neither varied nor particularly appetizing. Typically, they consisted of salted meat, unleavened bread (accurately christened “hardtack”), and a little sugar and salt. It didn’t help that Union supply chains were riddled with corrupt food contractors who charged the government top dollar for rotten, stale, and insect-ridden foodstuffs. Coffee, however, was almost always fresh because it was delivered in whole-bean form -making it difficult for even the most dishonest supplier to skimp on quality. Not that they didn’t try, of course. In fact, officials began requesting coffee as whole beans after some crooked contractors tried to up their per pound profits by slipping sand and dirt into packages of ground coffee.
In 1861, hoping to cut down on the time soldiers spent roasting and grinding beans, the army switched to a concentrated proto-instant coffee. The new concoction, called “essence of coffee,” was made by boiling prepared coffee, milk, and sugar into a thick gloop, which soldiers then reconstituted by mixing it with water. The product reportedly tasted every bit as bad as you’d imagine, and thanks to the corrupt dairymen who sold the army spoiled milk, it also tended to cause diarrhea. Needless to say, the Union army was soon back on the bean.
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT
Noxious as essence of coffee was, Confederate soldiers would have gladly downed a cup or two. But, because of a Union naval blockade, coffee (along with weapons, machinery, medicine, and other vital materials) was in short supply in the South. Before the war, a pound of beans would have set you back 20 cents in Yankee dough. Once prewar stockpiles ran out, however, the same amount was running as high as $60 in Confederate money. (Despite the undervalued currency, that was still a lot.)
There was some coffee that made it into the Confederacy -usually carried by steam-powered blockade-runner ships. But, for the most part, Southerners had to rely on coffee substitutes, including various forms of roasted corn, rye, okra seeds, sweet potatoes, acorns, and peanuts. Unfortunately, all these imitations lacked potency, tasted awful, and upset the bowels. The only slightly better alternative was tea made from the leaves of the native yaupon shrub. The good news was that it contained caffeine; the bad news was that it was incredibly difficult to digest. Luckily, there was one surefire way for Southern folk to get their coffee -by making peace with the Union. Soldiers on the front lines often called informal truces so Rebels could swap tobacco for Yankee coffee then dash back to the camps before they were reported missing.
DRINK TO YOUR HEALTH
In the latter stages of the war, coffee beans that actually did make it to the South proved too valuable to be used by civilians or soldiers. In 1863, Samuel Moore, the surgeon general of the Confederacy, prohibited coffee use for anyone other than patients for whom its stimulant effect would prove beneficial. Lacking some of the basic necessities, however, hospital administrators often traded any java they received for medicines that would do more than just give a wounded man a caffeine buzz.
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The above article by David A. Norris is reprinted with permission from the March-April 2006 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
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Vital. Maligned. Mysterious. How well do you really know the potato?
During the 16th century, Europeans fell in love with a number of exotic plants from the New World. But the potato wasn’t one of them. It would take two centuries and a spectacular PR campaign for people to even consider eating the ugly vegetable. But once the potato took root, it determined the fortunes of nations as no other crop has ever done before.
STARCH RIVALS
Spanish explorers brought potatoes back from South America in the 1500s. They’d been introduced to the veggie by the Incas, who grew hundreds of varieties of spuds. But the tuber had few takers in Europe. Since God hadn’t mentioned potatoes in the Bible, the clergy preached that the starch was the Devil’s handiwork. Also, because the gnarly potato can look like a leper’s hand, rumors quickly spread that potatoes caused leprosy. Needless to say, the talk did little to boost the vegetable’s popularity.
While most Europeans wouldn’t touch the potato, they didn’t mind growing them to feed their livestock. Then something strange happened. During a series of failed harvests in the early 1700s, farmers watched in horror as many of their favorite crops died; meanwhile, the potato flourished. Rulers across Western Europe took note and began actively encouraging their people to cultivate potatoes, going so far as to hand out free seeds, along with pamphlets abut how to grow them. The Austrian government took a more straightforward approach: They threatened peasants with 40 lashes if they refused to convert to the potato.
Parmentier
Some countries began to embrace the crop, but France remained a holdout. Finally, in the midst of a terrible famine in 1770, the government got so desperate that it offered a prize to anyone who could find a food capable of curbing the problem. Agriculturalist and pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier won the essay contest for his rousing defense of the potato. Parmentier believed that the humble starch could prevent the masses from starving to death, and both the scientific community and the monarchy endorsed his ideas. But it would take more than a prize-winning essay to sway France’s working class and its aristocracy, neither of which trusted the suspicious-looking, leprous root.
SPUD MAGNET
Parmentier was determined to save his countrymen, even if it meant tricking them into giving the potato a try. In 1785, he organized a series of promotional stunts to win public opinion. At a royal banquet, he served potato dishes to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette and presented them with potato flowers; the king pinned a flower to his lapel and the queen wore a garland in her hair. The occasion instantly sparked a passion for potatoes among the nobility, who were slaves to royal fashion.
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NOTHING SAYS TECHNOLOGY LIKE FLOWERS
The flower business might seem old-fashioned, but 1-800-FLOWERS is anything but behind the times. In the 1980s, it was one of the first businesses to operate a 1-800 number, taking calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And in 1991, during the Gulf War, the company made the risky move of ramping up its television ads on CNN. At the time, other businesses were pulling their ads from the channel, not wanting to be associated with the station’s non-stop war coverage. But Jim McCann, president of 1-800-FLOWERS, saw it as an opportunity. He bought 24 ads for the price of one. The Gulf War made CNN the biggest cable new network in the world, and 1-800-FLOWERS reaped the benefits.
Then came the emergence of the internet. McCann launched 1-800-FLOWERS.com in 1995, and the company became the first merchant to sign a contract with AOL. By 1995, well before Google was conceived, 1-800-FLOWERS.com had deals in place with at least 13 other online service providers. And the innovation hasn’t stopped. In July 2009, 1-800-FLOWERS.com became the first company to complete an e-commerce transaction entirely on Facebook.
WISTERIA HYSTERIA
On October 3, 2004, Americans met the ladies of Wisteria Lane -the famously fictional street that’s home to TV’s Desperate Housewives. In a matter of months, the rest of the world had been introduced to them, too. According to a 2006 survey of 20 countries, the program was the third most-watched TV series in the world, with 120 million viewers. (That’s one of out every 55 people on the planet!) But not everyone watches the same cast members. In Latin America alone, there are five separate adaptations; each is a scene-for-scene remake using local actors.
Yet, nothing compares to the impact the show has had in Saudi Arabia. In May 2009, Wikileaks unearthed a diplomatic cable about the program, which reported that it’s helped dissuade Saudi youth from radical Islam by giving them a favorable impression of the United States. According to the cable, “Saudis are now very interested in the outside world and everyone wants to study in the U.S. if they can. They are fascinated by U.S. culture in a way they never were before.”
In a country where women can’t vote, drive, or walk outside without a male guardian, the ladies of Wisteria Lane are showing them that life has more to offer, particularly in the way of drama.
FLOWER GIRLS
There’s a reason why so many grandmas are named Rose and Daisy. During the first half of the 20th century, women were basically expected to name their pink bundle of joy after a flower. But as the nation entered the 1960s, the hippie generation became more interested in planting on vans than using them for baby names. Recently, however, floral names have begun cropping up again.
Watch Modern Family and you’ll see Lily; read Us Weekly and you’ll hear about Violet Affleck and Iris Law. While Rose has yet to make a full comeback, other flower names are definitely in bloom. Just check out the graph below:
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
Just as people can be named after flowers, flowers can be named after people. Here are some of our favorite celebrity buds.
Barbra Streisand Rose A notorious diva, Barbra Streisand once said that if a flower were ever named after her, she wanted it to smell good and be disease-resistant. Botanists bred this sweet, purple bloom with a hearty immune system just for her.
Julia Child Rose If you’re wondering what sort of mouth-watering qualities land you the Child name, this one’s the color of butter and smells of licorice.
Chihuly Rose This rose is fittingly named after Dale Chihuly, the master craftsman who’s created some of the world’s most colorful and elaborate glass sculptures. The petals of the Chihuly Rose change color with the light, turning from yellow to orange to red.
Dolly Parton Rose This hybrid tea rose has big double blooms, just like its country-crooning namesake.
George Burns Rose In honor of George Burns’ 100th birthday in 1996, botanists created a ruffled flower with streaks of red, yellow, pink, and orange. They also gave it a lemony scent, making it as colorful and zesty as the comedian himself.
Jackson and Perkins, the iconic rose-peddling company, will allow anyone to name a new rose variety after themselves. All it requires is a small fee of $75,000.
(Title image credit: Flickr user Bart Everson)
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The article above, written by David Goldenberg and Adam K. Raymond, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the July-August 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
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World War II Bulgaria didn’t have a Schindler, and it didn’t have a list. It had a white-bearded mystic named Peter Deunov and an entire nation standing behind him. Together, they saved Bulgaria’s 48,000 Jews from the Holocaust.
Bulgaria wasn’t in the best position during the Second World War. Fenced in by the Soviet Union on one side and Europe on the other, it was forced into the middle of the action. That’s why it’s all the more impressive that Bulgaria is one of only three mainland European nations where the entire Jewish population survived the Holocaust. (Denmark and Finland were the other two, but their relatively small Jewish populations were geographically isolated.) For staying strong in the face of Hitler and his Nazi directives, the Bulgarians credit one man—Christian mystic Peter Deunov. As Albert Einstein would later say, “The whole world bows down before me. I bow down before the master Peter Deunov.”
Philosophical Fitness
Peter Deunov’s philosophy wouldn’t appear to be anything revolutionary at first. He based his beliefs on those of Christ and preached universal love and religious tolerance—only with a more mystical, cosmic slant. Known as Master Beinsa Douno, he garnered a following in Bulgaria in the early 20th century for his teachings, now known as Esoteric Christianity. In fact, during Deunov’s time serving as the Vatican’s ambassador to Bulgaria, the future Pope John XXIII called him “the greatest philosopher living on the Earth.”
But Deunov had his controversial qualities, too. A strong believer in astrology and phrenology (determining personality traits based on the shape of people’s skulls), Deunov also considered physical fitness to be crucial to spiritual development. He designed health camps for his disciples that included climbing to the 9,600-foot summit of Musala, Bulgaria’s highest peak. In addition, he promoted strict vegetarianism and liberal doses of water. But perhaps most controversial was his belief in Paneurhythmy (“sublime cosmic rhythm”), sacred dances Deunov invented to utilize “positive energies.” Unnerved by some of his more unusual ideas, the powerful Bulgarian Orthodox Church went so far as to denounce his teachings.
But far beyond scaling mountains and preaching the joys of good health, Deunov advocated world peace. Unfortunately, that too was seen as contentious by some. During one of his lectures in 1917, he spoke out against Bulgaria’s entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers. Although Deunov would later prove to be right about that decision, that didn’t stop the government from exiling him for a year.
Avoidance Tactics
At the start of World War II, Bulgaria picked the losing side again. Hoping to reclaim the ancestral lands it’d lost during WWI (Thrace and Macedonia), Bulgaria joined the Axis powers in 1941. And although the Nazis did gain control of those territories, Bulgaria reclaimed them in name only. What’s worse, Hitler forced the Bulgarian government to pass oppressive laws against its Jews as part of the deal.
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Pucker up as we explore 10 smooches that changed religion, art, culture, and history.
1. The Kiss of Judas: A Betrayal or Just Misunderstood?
Nothing ends a good “bromance” quite like flagrant, murderous betrayal. A long time ago, a wandering preacher named Jesus was doing pretty well for himself—building up a following and promoting religious teachings—until one of his buddies sold him out to the authorities. In exchange for 30 pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot kissed Jesus on the cheek and, by doing so, identified him to Roman soldiers.
Although Judas double-crossed his best friend for a paltry sum, some scholars argue that Judas is the secret hero of Christianity. The claim is based on a recent translation of The Gospel of Judas, a text written by Jesus’ followers a couple hundred years after his death. In 1978, a farmer discovered the mysterious text in Egypt and sold it to an antiques dealer. Years later, a National Geographic Society team got hold of it. They restored and analyzed the document, and in 2006, they announced that the text painted Judas as a man of valor. According to their interpretation, he was actually Jesus’ most trusted friend, because he agreed to fake a betrayal so that Jesus could die a martyr and then be resurrected.
Soon after the National Geographic Society released its findings, other scholars started picking the interpretation apart. Chief among them was April D. DeConick, a Rice University biblical studies professor, who claimed the team made some critical errors, including translating several passages to mean the exact opposite of what they were intended to communicate. DeConick contends that the Gospel says Judas was a “demon” rather than a “spirit,” as interpreted by National Geographic, and that he was set apart “from the holy generation” rather than “for the holy generation.” With just a few tweaks in translation, Judas has gone right back to playing the bad guy.
2. The Kisses You Can Share with a Quaker
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Beatrice Murch)
The Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, is a small Christian sect best known for rejecting all forms of violence, embracing progressive politics, and dedicating themselves to simple, restrained living. They’ve promoted a more harmonious world by founding causes such as Amnesty International, not to mention lending their name to oatmeal.
So we were surprised to learn that when teenage Quakers get together, their favorite activity is a free-for-all kissing game that often ends in bruising and rug burn. Alternately known as Ratchet Screwdriver, Bloody Winkum, or Wink, the game dates back to the early 1900s. To play, participants divide themselves into girl/boy pairs with one boy left over to be the “Winker.” The pairs sit on the floor, with each boy hugging a girl from behind. When the Winker winks at a girl, she tries to scramble across the room to kiss him, while her male partner does his best to hold her back. Hilarity (and release of pent-up sexual frustration) ensues.
But not everyone finds this game so hilarious. In 2002, the Children & Young People’s Committee of the Quakers in Britain issued a statement discouraging the game at official functions. And while that may not seem surprising, the reasoning is. The committee frowns upon the game because younger children and adults don’t get to play, thus making it ageist. Due to their egalitarian values, Quakers seldom segregate by age at get-togethers, and the committee didn’t want the very young or the very old to feel left out.
3. The Kiss that Proved No Means No
Gentlemen, a word: When a lady rejects your advances, you’d do best to listen. Take, for example, the story of Thomas Saverland, an English gentleman who was at a party in 1837 and, as a joke, kissed Miss Caroline Newton by force. In response, she bit off a chunk of his nose.
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Gathering Iwatake at Kumano. Woodblock print by Hiroshige II.
When making soup requires scaling a cliff, and grabbing a few olives involves avoiding gunfire, it’s time to find some comfort food that’s a little more comfortable.
The annals of Arctic exploration are filled with accounts of frostbitten limbs and near starvation. In fact, many adventurers have reported being so hungry that they’ve scraped papery-crisp lichen off rocks and boiled it into passably edible food. One outdoorsman even claimed that if braised shoe leather was in a taste-test with lichen, the shoe leather would come out on top. And yet, this very same survival food is considered a delicacy in Japan. There, iwatake (iwa meaning rock, and take meaning mushroom) is so highly sought-after that harvesters are willing to rappel down cliff faces for the precious growths. (It takes about a century for the lichen to get to a worthwhile size.)
Needless to say, this is specialty work. As if the rappelling isn’t tricky enough, iwatake is best harvested in wet weather, because the moisture reduces the chance that the lichen will crumble as it’s pried off with a sharp knife. In its preferred preparation, the black and slimy raw material is transformed into a delicate tempura. And while iwatake in any form doesn’t taste like much, it’s esteemed for its associations with longevity. As for the harvesters? Their longevity’s more questionable. “Never give lodging to an iwatake hunter,” goes an old Japanese adage, “for he doesn’t always survive to pay rent.”
(Image credit: Flickr user SpirosK)
Cantilevered high off cave walls and cliffs along the seas of Southeast Asia are the nests of the white-nest swiftlet—a bird that’s managed to turn an embarrassing drool problem into a useful D.I.Y. project. The nests, sturdy constructions no bigger than the palm of your hand, are made from the birds’ spit. Yup, these swiftlets have specialized saliva glands powerful enough to turn their tongues into avian glue guns.
You’d think being stuck in caves high above the ground, and the fact that they’re birds’ nests, would protect them against humans—but no. Ever since sailors first brought the nests home for the Chinese emperor and his family in the first century CE, bird’s nest soup has been a favorite among the country’s elite. Never mind that it’s virtually tasteless; the dish is revered for health reasons.
Of course, acquiring the main ingredient is less healthy. Nest harvesters must stand on rickety bamboo scaffolding hundreds of feet off the ground in pitch darkness. They must also endure unbelievable heat and humidity as they try to avoid all the insects, birds, and bats that live in the caves. In addition, the extraordinary value of the nests means the zones are patrolled by machine-gun toting guards. Harvesting rights are multiyear, multimillion-dollar deals arranged with national governments, and poaching is ruthlessly prohibited. Unarmed fishermen have been shot dead after accidentally beaching in swiftlet territory, and local tour group operators pay exorbitant fees to avoid rifle-assisted leaks springing in their kayaks. It all underscores the fact that being a nest harvester is less of a career choice and more of a life sentence—especially considering that the skill is almost exclusively passed on from father to son.
Novels, movies, cartoons, tattoos… everything is better on the second draft.
1. THE CATCH IN CATCH 22: The Edit that became an idiom
In 1961, author Joseph Heller finally submitted his manuscript for Catch-18 to his editor, Robert Gottlieb. Although Heller had spent seven years perfecting the story, Gottlieb saw room for improvement. The editor taped the pages to his office wall and restructured the novel, giving more emphasis to the now-famous Major Major character and instructing Heller to delete entire 60-page sections. But most importantly, Gottlieb wanted to change the title. Earlier that year, writer Leon Uris had released Mila 18, and Gottlieb didn’t want any confusion between the two books. What followed was an exchange of frantic letters in which Heller and Gottlieb considered and rejected various numbers for the title. They decided 11 didn’t work because of Ocean’s 11; 14 was an “unfunny number;” and 26 just didn’t feel right. “I’ve got it!” Gottlieb blurted out one night in a eureka moment. “It’s Catch-22! It’s funnier than 18.” The edit stuck, and a major, major idiom was born.
2. AN AFFAIR TO FORGET: The Edit that Changed Hemingway’s Life
Hadley and Ernest Hemingway in 1922
The turmoil of Ernest Hemingway’s personal life continued long after his death thanks to the publication of his autobiography, A Moveable Feast. Released in 1964, three years after his suicide, the book was uncharacteristically poignant and sentimental. It even included a tender apology to his first wife, Hadley, whom Hemingway had cheated on with his second wife, Pauline. Yet, for decades, few people knew the apology existed. That’s because it was edited out of the text by Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary.
As the author’s literary executor, Mary prepared the work for publication, and she removed the apology out of spite. Mary had always resented Hadley for being the literary giant’s favorite spouse, and Hemingway confirmed that belief in A Moveable Feast when he wrote, “I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.”
Decades later, in 2009, Hemingway’s grandson Sean reinserted the apology into a new edition of the book. But that wasn’t the only serious edit he made. Sean also scrapped passages about his grandmother, Pauline, whom Hemingway blamed for ruining his first marriage. Of course, literary historians were quick to criticize Sean’s selective whitewashing. They claim that while Hemingway may have wanted to cut Pauline out of his life, he never intended to cut her out of his life story.
3. HALL MARKS: The Edit that Resulted in Two Masterpieces
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Properly managing one’s finances seems like it should be a prerequisite for running a country. But these U.S. leaders could have used more dead presidents in their wallets.
HARRY TRUMAN -THE BUCK STOPPED THERE
Prior to becoming president, Harry Truman’s ventures in private business earned him more trouble than profit. He lost several thousand dollars investing in a fruitless zinc mine, and even more money funding a short-lived haberdashery in Kansas City. Eventually he began to view politics as a more stable career than business. Even as a senator, Truman was forced to borrow money and live more modestly, as he sent much of his income home to support his farm in Missouri.
Upon leaving the White House in 1953, Truman refused to exploit his former office as a stepping stone into the business world. This left him with just a small plot of land off which to live. He hoped that his memoirs would bring in extra cash, but between paying the ghostwriters and the taxes, Truman netted just $37,000 from the book. His insolvency grew so pathetic that President Eisenhower passed the Former Presidents Act in 1958, which created a pension for Truman. The former president made use of every last bit of it, leading an active life until his death at the age of 88.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF MONEYLENDERS
During the 1700s, tobacco rarely turned a consistent profit. So Thomas Jefferson, like many plantation owners of his time, lived in perpetual debt. Eager to look the part of a Virginia gentleman, Jefferson borrowed money for expensive clothes, furniture, and wine. He continued to indulge in this lifestyle through his presidency and into retirement. Jefferson’s beloved country estate of Monticello was especially draining on his finances. Its high ceilings and large windows led to excessive heating costs, and its flat roof and cavernous skylights leaked with every rainfall. by the time Jefferson was in his late seventies, the neglected bills had piled up and doubled with interest.
To lessen his financial woes, Jefferson started selling off the things he loved. He sold his entire collection of books to a Congressional library and even hatched a plot to give away a large parcel of land in a statewide lottery. When news of the lottery (and its purpose) reached his former colleagues, generous donations poured in. Despite these efforts, Jefferson died in debt. Two decades later, his grandson finally paid off the founding father’s tab.
ULYSSES S. GRANT -THE BOOK DEAL OF THE CENTURY
In 1881, former president Ulysses S. Grant settled into his retirement with what seemed like a prudent investment in his son’s Wall Street firm, Grant & Ward. But when the younger Grant’s partner, Ferdinand Ward, absconded to Canada with all the money, Grant found himself short $150,000.
Grant considered it a matter of personal honor to pay back the debt in full and rejected any financial assistance. He sold off much of his land, but it wasn’t enough to cover his losses. To generate more income, the former general wrote a series of articles about his Civil War exploits, which the ever-humble Grant doubted anyone would read. Surprisingly, the articles were a huge success, and Grant’s longtime friend Mark Twain convinced him to pen his personal memoirs. Completed just before his death in 1885, Grant’s autobiography became one of the best-selling books of its time -earning more than half a million dollars.
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The article above, written by Brian McMahon, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May-June 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
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