Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® (11 page)

Q:
Why do migrating ducks and geese fly in V formation?

A:
“Scientists aren’t really sure why this behavior occurs. Some believe that each bird in the V receives lift from the bird in front of it. (Lift, an upward draft created by air currents rushing over and under the wing, is also what gets airplanes off the ground.) By staying in close V formation, each bird, except the leader, may get enough of a lift that it can fly longer with less effort.

“It may also be that the V formation helps birds avoid midair collisions, because each bird knows its position and can see the other members of the flock.” (From
101 Questions and Answers About Backyard Wildlife,
by Ann Squire)

Q:
Will TV cause eye damage?

A:
“Although the contrast between a bright screen and a dark room will temporarily tire the eyes, there is no long-term eye damage. According to Dr. Theodore Lawwill, of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, ‘children like to be as close to the action as possible and would climb into the TV if they could.’ Nevertheless, young children are able to focus sharply on objects as close as a few centimeters away from their eyes.’

“Dr. William Beckner, of the National Council on Radiation Protection, also dispels the notion that TV causes radiation damage: ‘No matter how close you sit to the set, X-rays just aren’t a problem.’ ” (From
The Odd Body: Mysteries of Our Weird and Wonderful Bodies Explained,
by Dr. Stephen Juan)

Q:
How much gold does the United States store in Fort Knox?

A:
“The U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox contains approximately 315 million troy ounces of gold. At the official government price of $42.222 per troy ounce, the gold in the vault is worth $13 billion. At a market price of $300 an ounce, the gold would be worth $94.5 billion.” (From Do Fish
Drink Water?,
by Bill McLain)

Queen Elizabeth II was
Time
magazine’s “Man of the Year” for 1952.

How well do you know your yolks from your whites? Are you an egghead…or an empty shell? Take our quiz and find out.

1.
Without breaking it open, how can you tell if an egg is fresh?

a)
Carefully feel the shell—if it has soft spots, the egg is rotten.

b)
Hold the egg up your ear and shake it. If you hear the yolk sloshing around inside, the egg is still fresh. A silent egg is a rotten egg.

c)
Drop the egg in a glass of water. If it sinks to the bottom and lies on its side, it’s fresh. If it sinks to the bottom and “stands” on one end, it’s old but probably still edible. If it floats, it’s rotten.

2.
Which part of the egg is known as the “chalazae”?

a)
The protective coating on the outside of the shell.

b)
The membrane separating the yolk from the white.

c)
The thin strands of egg white that connect the yolk to the shell.

3.
What’s the difference between Grade A and Grade AA eggs?

a)
Grade AA eggs contain twice as much vitamin A, because the hens get a diet of fortified chicken feed.

b)
Grade AA eggs have plumper yolks and thicker whites.

c)
Grade AA hens, also known as “yearlings” or “freshmen” hens, are younger and healthier than the hens that lay Grade A eggs.

4.
What’s the best way to store an egg in the refrigerator?

a)
With the tapered end pointing up.

b)
With the tapered end pointing down.

c)
Neither—eggs keep best when they’re lying on their side.

5.
Without breaking it open, how can you tell if an egg is cooked?

a)
Spin it on a flat surface—raw eggs wobble; cooked ones don’t.

b)
Hold it up to a bright light—eggshells that have been cooked for seven minutes or longer are slightly transparent.

c)
Carefully examine the shell—it’s physically impossible to boil an egg without cracking the shell in at least one place.

Answers on
page 507
.

Monkey see, monkey do: Americans eat 12 billion bananas a year.

Ever heard of a chiasmus? Here’s a clue: Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.

Chiasmus is one of those parts of speech you didn’t know even had a name. What is it? It’s a figure of speech in which the order of the words in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second, which gives it extra power or wit. Here are some examples:

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

—John F. Kennedy

“It’s not the men in my life; it’s the life in my men.”

—Mae West

Get the idea? Chiasmus (pronounced kye-AZ-muss) is named after the Greek letter chi (x), and indicates a crisscross arrangement of phrases. Here are some more examples:

“Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.”

—Lord Byron

“The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.”

—Peter De Vries

Certain chiasmuses, such as “All for one and one for all,” and the shortened Cicero quote “Eat to live, not live to eat” are also word palindromes—where the words, when repeated in reverse order, read identically.

Chiasmuses appear to reveal hidden truths and are popular in Biblical writing:

“Whoever sheds the blood of man; by man shall his blood be shed.”

—Genesis 9:6

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.”

—1 John 4:18

“Many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.”

—Matthew 19:30

Red blood cells live for 4 months. In that time they make 75,000 trips to the lungs and back.

The two lines can express contradictory sentiments, as in the French proverb “Love makes time pass; time makes love pass”—the first line is romantic, the second line strips away this romance. Ernest Hemingway was fond of asking people which of these two statements they preferred: “Man can be destroyed but not defeated,” or “Man can be defeated but not destroyed.”

A chiasmus can also be implied. Oscar Wilde was a master at this type of ironic wordplay. Some of his classics: “Work is the curse of the drinking class” and “The English have a miraculous power of turning wine into water.”

Other implied chiasmus quips include Mae West’s lines “A hard man is good to find” and “A waist is a terrible thing to mind,” Groucho Marx’s “Time wounds all heels,” and Kermit the frog’s observation that “Time’s fun when you’re having flies.” A hangover has been described as “the wrath of grapes,” and a critic who provided a harsh opening night review was said to have “stoned the first cast.”

Had enough? The elements need not even be whole words; parts of words will suffice. There’s Randy Hanzlick’s song lyric, “I’d rather have a bottle in
front
of me than have a frontal lobotomy,” and the Edwardian toast “Here’s
champagne
for our
real
friends and
real pain
for our
sham
friends.”

Finally, consider the chiasmus contest held by
The Washington Post
some years ago. The winning entry read:

Bill Clinton before: “I don’t know how I can make this any clearer.”

Bill Clinton after: “I don’t know how I can clear this with my Maker.”

Plumbing pipe was originally made from wood or earthenware. Eventually lead was used. The Latin word for “lead” is
plumbum
from which we get the word “plumber.”

Marlon Brando owns a remote controlled whoopie cushion.

One of Uncle John’s favorite movies is the Marx Brothers’ classic
A Night at the Opera.
The Marxes perform some unbelievable
—
and hilarious
—
antics on opening night…but are they so far-fetched? Here are some real-life examples of what can happen at the opera. Honk-honk!

A performance of
Carmen
was being staged in a bull ring in Mexico City. The singer playing the part of Don José had a long wait between acts 3 and 4, so he decided to dash out for a beer in a local tavern. No sooner had he entered than he was arrested by a couple of cops who saw his scruffy costume, thought he was a bum, and dragged him off to jail. When he insisted he was a tenor singing in the opera, they accused him of being drunk. He could only convince them…by singing. (They let him go.)

In 1958 Cesare Siepi was playing the part of Don Giovanni in the Vienna State Opera. The script called for him to descend into Hell using a stagelift. So Cesare said good-bye to the world, and stepped into the netherworld. But the lift got stuck halfway down, leaving his head and shoulders visible to the audience. Stage technicians brought the lift back up and tried to lower it again, but it got stuck a second time and was raised back to stage level. Cesare sang in Italian, “Oh my God, how wonderful—Hell is full!”

When
The Wreckers
opened in England in 1901, King Edward VII came to the opening. Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham later asked the king’s private secretary if the king had liked the music. “I don’t know,” was the reply. “But you were sitting right next to him—surely he must have said something!” “Oh, yes—he did. He woke up three-quarters of the way through and said, ‘That’s the fourth time that infernal noise has roused me!’”

What were they thinking? In 1915 someone made a silent movie version of the opera
Carmen.

In the opera
Tosca,
two soldiers are to execute the character Cavaradossi while the heroine, Tosca, watches in horror. Prior to the performance in San Francisco in 1961, the director had too little time to instruct the firing squad. He told them, “When I cue you, march on stage, wait until the officer lowers his sword, then shoot.” When they asked how to exit the stage, he said, “Exit with the principal characters.” The soldiers marched on stage and were amazed to see two people against the execution wall: Tosca and Cavaradossi. They hadn’t been told which one to shoot—so when the officer dropped his sword, they had to choose—and they shot Tosca. Wrong. Cavaradossi dropped dead 20 yards away, while the person they had just shot ran over to him weeping and wailing in Italian. Tosca then climbed to the top of the castle battlement to commit suicide. The firing squad, having been instructed to exit with the principal characters, followed her, leaping to their deaths as the curtains closed.

In 1849
Charles
VI premiered in Paris. At the beginning of the aria called “Oh God, Kill Him!”, a member of the opera company fell dead. The next night at the same point in the production, a member of the audience died. When the orchestra leader fell dead at the third performance, Napoléon III banned the opera for good.

In 1960 the diva playing the role of Donna Elvira in Don
Giovanni
in New York was to make her entrance in a sedan chair carried by two porters, then step out and begin singing. Unfortunately, she weighed a lot and the two porters struggled with the sedan chair. The porter in front set his burden down to get a better grip, which threw all the weight on the porter in the rear, who in turn threw the chair forward. The violent rocking of the chair caused the soprano inside to fall forward into a somersault, where she promptly got stuck. The porters couldn’t see inside the sedan chair, had no idea what had happened, and carried her onstage like that. There was nothing for her to do except sing upside down from the chair. When they carried her offstage at the end of the song, an axe was needed to extricate her from the chair. Her first act upon regaining her freedom was to slap the two porters.