Uncle John’s Briefs (23 page)

“The right answer to a fool is silence.”

—Afghani proverb

Who has the world’s largest shell collection? The Smithsonian (over 15 million specimens).

ANATOMY OF A HICCUP

Have the
…hic…
hiccups? Reading this page won’t cure them…
hic…
but at least…hic…you’ll have a better idea of what you’re
…hic…
dealing with
.

W
HAT YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW
si• A hiccup occurs when a stimulus causes an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm, the muscle separating the lungs from the abdomen. The contraction makes the sufferer take a quick breath, causing the glottis (located in the voice box) to close, which makes the “hic” sound.

• Technical term for hiccups: a diaphragmatic spasm, or
singultus
.

• Unlike other body reflexes (coughs, sneezes, vomiting), hiccups serve no useful purpose.

• Most common causes: too much alcohol, spicy food, cold water, carbonated drinks, indigestion, or asthma. They can also be caused by liver or kidney problems, abdominal surgery, or a brain tumor.

• The word “hiccup” may come from the French
hocquet
, which was used to describe the sound of a hiccup. The earliest known version in English is
hicket
, dating from the 1500s.

• Hiccup lore: In ancient Greece, a bad case of the hiccups meant an enemy was talking about you. To get rid of them one had to guess the enemy’s name. The Scots thought holding your left thumb (or your chin) with your right hand while listening to someone singing a hymn would stop the hiccups.

• Some forms of
encephalitis
(swelling of the brain) can cause hiccuping. During the encephalitis pandemics of the 1920s, several cities reported cases of mass hiccuping.

• Fetuses hiccup in the womb.

• Charles Osborne of Anthon, Iowa, holds the title of “World’s Longest Hiccuper.” It started in 1922, hiccuping as often as 40 times per minute. Sometimes he hiccuped so hard his false teeth fell out. In 1987—nearly 70 years later—the hiccups stopped.

• Folk cures: eat peanut butter, eat Wasabi, drink vinegar, eat Lingonberry jam, drink a glass of water while urinating.

After WWI, the German government trained the first guide dogs to assist blind war veterans.

WHY ASK WHY?

Sometimes the answer is irrelevant—it’s the question that counts
.

I
f money doesn’t grow on trees, why do banks have branches?

What disease did cured ham have?

Why do we say we “slept like a baby” when babies wake up every hour and a half?

Why do alarm clocks “go off” when they start making noise?

Instead of “All things in moderation,” shouldn’t it be “Some things in moderation”?

Why do we yell “Heads up!” when we should be yelling “Heads down!”

Why is it so hard to remember how to spell “mnemonic”?

Why is it called quicksand when it sucks you down very, very slowly?

If everyone lost five pounds at the same time, would it throw the Earth out of its orbit?

Why is it called the Department of the Interior when they are in charge of everything outdoors?

Why are they called marbles if they’re made out of glass?

When French people swear, do they say, “Pardon my English”?

What color hair do bald men put on their driver’s license?

How do you know when it’s time to tune your bagpipes?

If practice makes perfect, and nobody’s perfect, then why practice?

How do you throw away a garbage can?

Why do we put our suits in a garment bag and our garments in a suitcase?

When two airplanes almost collide, why is it a “near miss”? Shouldn’t it be a “near hit”?

How can something be both “new” and “improved”?

Why do we shut up, but quiet down?

How did the “Keep Off the Grass” sign get there in the first place?

Storm rule of thumb: If it has wind speeds greater than 74 mph, it’s a hurricane.

DIVA OF THE DESERT

This unique performer craved the spotlight…but didn’t much care about the size of the audience
.

I
F YOU BUILD IT…
In the scorched wasteland of Death Valley, California, lies one of the most unusual theaters in America: the Amargosa Opera House. The quirk is that for years, no opera was ever performed there—only ballet. And there was only one performer: a prima ballerina named Marta Becket, who, well into her 70s, performed her solo show in the desert as she had for nearly 40 years.

In 1967 Becket, a dancer and artist from New York, was on a camping trip in the desert with her husband. When they had a flat tire on their trailer, a local park ranger told them they could get it fixed in Death Valley Junction. The town had been built in the 1920s by the Pacific Coast Borax Company to house its mine workers. While her husband stayed at the gas station with the trailer, Marta poked around the small compound of adobe buildings. Aside from the old company offices, there was a 23-room hotel with a lavishly painted lobby, still open for business, and something that really caught her eye: a rundown community center known as Corkhill Hall.

Peeking through a hole in Corkhill’s door, she saw a small stage with tattered cotton curtains. Trash was strewn between the wooden benches that faced the stage. Marta said later, “Peering through the tiny hole, I had the distinct feeling that I was looking at the other half of myself. The building seemed to be saying, ‘take me…do something with me…I offer you life.’”

…THEY WILL COME

Marta tracked down the town manager and talked him into renting her the hall for $45 a month. Six months later, on February 10, 1968, she gave her first daily performance. There were 12 people in the audience, all of them locals curious to see what the peculiar lady from New York was up to. Occasionally, curious tourists would wander in. Sometimes no one was there at all. Marta always performed no matter what. One night she had just begun her performance to an empty house when four people came in. They sat quietly, applauded politely at the curtain call, and left. Becket thought nothing of it until a few months later, when an article
about her appeared in
National Geographic
magazine. After that, audiences grew. Locals kept coming back; at first they came to gawk and laugh, but left strangely moved by the sight of this intense woman following her muse wherever it led her. Word spread, and soon tour buses were making the newly named Amargosa Opera House a stop on their itineraries. Celebrities would pop over from nearby Las Vegas (comedian Red Skelton was so charmed that he visited four times).

17% of sales reps who golf with clients say they let the clients win.

PAINT THE WALLS

Part of the ongoing attraction of the Amargosa is the whimsical, brilliantly colored murals Becket has painted on its walls. Starting in July 1968, driven partly by her loneliness at playing to such small audiences, Marta spent four years covering the walls with a permanent audience. A king and queen hold court in the royal box. Bullfighters sit next to 17th-century Spanish nobility. Monks and nuns stare disapprovingly at the garish prostitutes leering from the opposite wall. The central dome has 16 women playing musical instruments beneath a flight of doves, and there are jugglers, dancing cherubs, dowdy matrons, and little children—whatever took Marta’s fancy. The result is an arts institution unlike any other. The town of Death Valley Junction (now owned by the Amargosa Opera House) was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

CURTAIN CALL

Becket’s husband wasn’t as dedicated to the venture—he left in 1983. But Becket soldiered on, assisted by Tom Willett, who started out as her stage manager and became her emcee and partner. Willett died in 2005, and though Becket still runs the Amargosa, most of the shows now feature a younger performer, Sandy Scheller.

“I am grateful,” Becket says, “to have found the place where I can fulfill my dreams and share them with the passing scene…for as long as I can.”

FOUR THINGS MICK JAGGER

(BORN IN 1943) IS OLDER THAN

It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

When you think about it, baseball is kind of an absurd game: hit a ball with a stick, and then run around a square as fast as you can. But that’s nothing compared to these actual games and sports played around the world
.

C
ontest:
Vinkenzetting

Played in:
Flanders, a region of Belgium

How it’s played:
In
vinkenzetting
, or “finch-sitting,” competitors put a male finch in a box cage. Whoever’s bird makes the highest number of complete calls in an hour wins. Winning birds usually make several hundred calls per hour. In one competition, a bird called 1,278 times, inviting doping allegations.

Contest:
The Tough Guy

Played in:
England

How it’s played:
This grueling competition begins with a 10-mile cross-country run. It’s followed by an obstacle course with an electrified fence, underground tunnels, under
water
tunnels, barbed wire, and waist-deep patches of mud. And it’s held in the winter, so the temperature is well below freezing. Around 4,000 people compete every year; their entry fees are donated to charity.

Contest:
World Screaming Championships

Played in:
Poland

How it’s played:
The rules are simple: One by one, participants step forward and scream really, really loudly. Loudest scream wins. The record scream was produced in 2000 by Dagmara Stanek, who registered a scream of 126.1 decibels, as loud as a jackhammer.

Contest:
Kabaddi

Played in:
South Asia

How it’s played:
Two seven-player teams each occupy half of a court about the size of a soccer field. The teams take turns sending a “raider” into the opposition’s territory; the raider tries to tag as many players as possible—without getting blocked or tackled—and then return to his
home side…all in one breath. To prove he’s not inhaling, the player has to chant “KABADDI” throughout the raid.

The tradition of a man proposing with a gold ring dates as far back as 860 A.D.

Contest:
Rootball

Played in:
North Carolina

How it’s played:
Invented by Max Chain, owner of an Asheville bar called the Root, it’s a combination of horseshoes and lawn bowling, played outdoors on a court made of sand. Two metal stakes are placed 32 feet apart. The player stands at one stake and tosses a plastic ring at the opposite stake, and then tosses a spiky plastic ball. The closer to the stake, the more points awarded, with bonuses for landing the ball inside the plastic ring, throwing the ball through the ring, leaning the ring against the stake, etc. (It’s patented, by the way.)

Contest:
Unicycle Hockey

Played in:
England and Germany

How it’s played:
It’s actually been played since 1925, when European unicycle manufacturers first suggested it as a new use for the one-wheeled contraptions. No skates are used, and it’s played on flat pavement, not ice. Ice hockey may be hard, but balancing on a unicycle while reaching out with a stick to hit a plastic ball is even harder. It’s actually more like polo than hockey…if polo were played on wobbly horses.