Largest land invertebrate: the 40-pound, 3-foot-wide coconut crab.
PICTURE PERFECT
That was Sheldon’s theory, anyway, and to prove it he needed to collect photographs of many thousands of people, both to refine and perfect his measuring techniques and also to have a large enough sample of people to be able to extrapolate his findings to the population at large. A voluntary study was out of the question, as far as Sheldon was concerned: He believed that some body types were more likely to agree to be photographed than others, and that would make the study sample unrepresentative of the general population, and therefore worthless.
As an academic, Sheldon was well acquainted with the long-standing practice of taking posture photographs of an entire freshman class, and he began approaching colleges and universities for permission to take photographs of his own. His standing in the scientific community was such that with very little effort he was able to convince the best schools in the country to let him take compulsory nude photographs of their most vulnerable charges: young men and women who had been high school students just a few months before.
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER
In the 1940s, when colleges still placed great emphasis on developing proper posture, the nude photo sessions served the school’s purpose (documenting each student’s posture) as well as Sheldon’s. But even as the years passed and the academic world gradually got out of the business of teaching students how to stand up straight, Sheldon’s nude photo sessions continued unabated. Even his own friend and colleague, Ellery Lanier, conceded that in the end the “posture photo” program had become little more than pretense, “part of a facade or cover-up for what we were really doing,” he told the New York Times in 1995.
Don’t be shy. Part II of the story is on page 251.
The burnt wick of a candle is called the snast.
WEIRD CANINE
STOMACH NEWS
Dogs eat the darndest things. (Now pass the haggis.)
UNCHAIN MY HEART
“A puppy called Harley has survived after wolfing down a 16-inch-long metal chain. Her owner, Devina Alderson from Cambridge, said she saw 18-week-old Harley chewing on it, and then the next minute it was gone. Vets had to carry out an urgent operation to remove the chain from the dog’s stomach, and she’s fine now. ‘I think she may have a metal fetish because she tried to eat the scissors too,’ her vet said.”
—BBC
RUBBER DUCKY, YOU’RE THE ONE
“A rubber duck sat in a dog’s stomach for five years before being removed by Swedish vets, a local newspaper said. The owner of Apollo, a Boxer, assumed the toy had dissolved in the dog’s stomach over the years as it had not come out any other way. But Apollo’s owner, from Ostersund, took the dog to a vet when he began vomiting and refused to drink. The vet removed the rubber ducky, which had turned black and gone rock hard.”
—Reuters
NOT TOO SHARP
“Jake, a 12-week-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier mix who swallowed a kitchen knife nearly as long as he is, is recovering after surgery to remove the implement. Owner John Mallett, 22, says he knew something was wrong when he saw the dog ‘trying to keep his body in a straight line.’ Vets spotted the knife, with the handle against the dog’s pelvis and the point lodged against his throat, on an x-ray. ‘Dogs are always swallowing strange things,’ said vet Christina Symonds, ‘but this was particularly unusual because it was such a large knife in a small puppy.’ They operated immediately. Jake survived, and according to Mallett, ‘He’s totally back to his old self.’”
—Yahoo! News
Prussia’s Frederick the Great tried to ban coffee, insisting people drink alcohol instead.
UNDER(WEAR) FED
“A German vet who operated on a dog to remove a suspected stomach tumor found a g-string instead. Claudia Schuermann, head of the Troisdorf animal rescue home, said bull terrier Breiti was abandoned after his previous owners complained he ate ‘anything that wasn’t nailed down’. The vet noticed ‘a hard lump in his stomach,’ and after examining 10-year-old Breiti, she concluded he had stomach cancer and operated immediately to remove the ‘tumor’. But when the pet was cut open the vet found the cancer was actually an undigested g-string the dog had stolen from his last owners. ‘Bull terriers tend to have fetishes,’ an aide said. ‘Some like shoes, but with Breiti, it’s lacy lingerie.’”
—Ananova
THAT’S RICH
“A German woman thought she had been robbed when she returned to her car to find 380 euros ($470) missing and her dog vomiting, only to discover the pet had eaten the cash. ‘She thought the dog had been drugged and that thieves had taken the money,’ police in the western town of Aschaffenburg said. ‘The woman had withdrawn the money and hidden it under bank statements on the passenger seat.’ When she figured out what had happened, she took the dog to a vet, who gave the dog a laxative and within 20 minutes six of the 50 euro notes reappeared.”
—Reuters
WRETCH THE STICK, MILLIE!
“In a feat that put human sword swallowers to shame, a British dog managed to gulp down a stick only two inches shorter than its own body…and escape unscathed. Millie, a two-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier, was on a walk with her owner, John Hurst, in Portsmouth, England. Hurst threw the 16-inch stick for the 18-inch Millie to retrieve, but it stuck in the ground like a javelin and the sprinting dog impaled herself on it, swallowing it whole. Hurst rushed his pet to a vet, where micro-cameras found the stick had somehow worked its way deep into her stomach without hitting any vital organs on the way. After a two-hour operation, the only injury to Millie was a small scratch inside her stomach.”
—USA Today
Aargh! If you lost an eye, you would only lose about 1/5 of your vision.
RED ROCKER
For 20 years this American singer was the face of rock ’n’ roll in the East Bloc. Was he just a stooge of the Kremlin propaganda machine?
ALL-AMERICAN BOY
In 1958, 20-year-old Dean Reed moved from his home outside Denver, Colorado, to Los Angeles. Blessed with drop-dead good looks, and hungry for success, Reed thought he could be the next Elvis. Capitol Records agreed—they signed him to a recording contract. Over the next four years he released eight singles as the record company booked him on variety shows, trying to market him as a teen idol, like a hipper Tab Hunter. All eight records flopped in the United States, but South America was another story. His record “A Summer Romance” was a monster hit in Argentina, so Reed headed south of the border to capitalize on his regional success with a follow-up tour—and thus began one of the strangest odysseys in rock history.
“RED ELVIS”
To Reed’s astonishment, he wasn’t just a hit in Argentina—he was a superstar. Mobbed at every stop by screaming fans, his records outsold Elvis’s. But something happened on the tour that changed Reed’s life forever—he became a revolutionary. Argentina was in the midst of a grass roots social upheaval. The longer Reed stayed there, the more he got caught up in the movement, especially when he was booked to play concerts at prisons, in poor neighborhoods, and at rallies protesting U.S. nuclear testing policy.
Nicknamed “the Red Elvis,” Reed churned out dozens of hit records, starred in a bunch of cheap movies (like Elvis) and had his own TV variety show in Argentina. Within a few years, Reed was the #1 performer not only in that country, but in socialist-leaning South American countries including Chile, Peru, and Venezuela.
Unknown in America, Reed had become a rock ’n’ roll poster boy for the extreme left…which got him on the wrong side of the right wing Argentine government. Reed was thrown out of Argentina in 1966. But that was just a bump in the road. His star was rising—and it was red.
14 people have died during Pamplona, Spain’s, annual “Running of the Bulls.”
PARTY BOY
Combining American rock ’n’ roll with Socialism had an unexpected bonus: it made Reed a hit in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Melodiya,
the U.S.S.R.’s state-run record label, signed him to make records and tour. It was a win-win situation: Reed became the international teen idol he’d always wanted to be and the Soviet Union got an American rock star who would speak out between songs, publicly denouncing U.S. involvement in Vietnam, insisting that the Berlin Wall was a necessary and prudent security measure, and touting the glories of the Communist system.
Some historians question whether Reed was really a Marxist-minded revolutionary, or just a fame-hungry, mildly talented musician who just went along with the Communist propaganda because it made him famous somewhere. Reed insisted he was sincere…but he never defected to the Soviet Union, never joined the Communist Party, and kept his money in a West German bank.
MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
By 1981 Reed was 43; Eastern European audiences were moving on to newer, fresher music. No longer an icon in the Soviet Union, Reed began to speak openly about wanting to return to Colorado. In an effort to rehabilitate his reputation in the U.S., he attended the 1985 Denver premiere of American Rebel, a documentary about his life. He even wrote a song for the film, titled “Nobody Knows Me Back In My Hometown.” He gave radio interviews and was profiled nationally on 60 Minutes. The campaign backfired—Reed received hate mail and death threats, and fled back to East Berlin.
A few months later, on June 17, 1986, Dean Reed’s body was found in a lake near his East German home. The police called it an accidental drowning, but rumors quickly began to circulate. Was it really suicide? Reed had been known to suffer from bouts of depression and had cut his own arm with a machete a few months earlier. Or was it murder? Had the Stasi, the notorious East German secret police, exterminated a traitor? There was even speculation that Reed was actually a CIA mole deep undercover for over 20 years; he’d been an American patriot all along. Most historians agree with the official report: Reed committed suicide, a victim of depression and loneliness…but the real story may never be known.
A pig’s snout is called a gruntle.
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Other cultures’ sports and games may seem weird, but keep in mind that those same people might find the idea of a warlike game where 300-pound athletes crash into each other to move an oblong ball a few inches just as absurd.
BUZKASHI
Popular in the central Asian countries of Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, buzkashi is similar to polo: Teams of men on horseback have to move an object past a goal line to score. But instead of a ball, buzkashi is played with a headless, limbless, sand-weighted goat carcass, which players must toss over the goal line. To steal the carcass from the other team, players are permitted to trip horses or whip their opponents.
HASHING
British colonists created this game in Malaysia in the 1930s, and it’s still played by locals. Hashing involves a lot of running, but it’s not really a race. Participants start the event drunk, and then run through a five-mile maze. Every quarter mile there’s a checkpoint where more booze is consumed and the course branches out into three or four possible routes, with only one being correct. It doesn’t even matter who wins—just who is able to finish and tell his story after the race, which traditionally takes place at a bar.
TRISKELION
A complicated version of soccer played by three teams on a triangular field. (It was invented by Green Party chairman Steve Kramer.)
CHESSBOXING
Inspired by a Serbian comic book, chessboxing is now played by small groups across Europe. It’s exactly what the name implies: chess and boxing. Opponents box for one round, then sit at a table adjacent to the ring and play a four-minute round of chess. Then they go back to the boxing, then the chess, until a winner is determined in either one event or the other.
In 1498, Columbus declared that the Earth was pear-shaped, not round.
POOH STICK RACING
This Japanese game is not what you think. Inspired by a game played by Winnie the Pooh in A.A. Milne’s classic books, pooh stick racing involves finding sticks, dropping them into a river, and seeing which stick floats across the finish line first.
BOSSABALL
An instant sensation in Spain where it was created in 2006, bossaball combines volleyball…and bouncy castles. The net is very high; the field of play is one of those inflatable castles you see at kids’ parties. Players can touch the ball with their hands or feet, but to make the game harder, the castle is set on top of large, bouncy, unstable, inflatable tubes. And to make it even harder, a “joker” from each team bounces on a trampoline next to the castle, trying to sabotage the other team by knocking the ball away.
COLEO
This sport is popular in Venezuela. Four men on horseback chase a bull down a narrow pen, trying to pull its tail to make it fall over. Each successful tipping earns a point. After the bull falls over, the game must continue, so the men try to get the bull back on its feet by twisting or biting its tail or shocking it with an electric prod.
KURLBOLLEN
Known as “feather bowling” in English, this sport originated in Belgium. Wooden balls shaped like large wheels of cheese are rolled down a dirt alley in the direction of a feather sticking out of the ground. The goal is to get the “ball” close to the feather without running over it. Each team gets 12 attempts; the side with the most balls closest to the feather wins.
CONGER CUDDLING
Since 1974, fans have flocked to the English village of Lyme Regis to watch two nine-man teams try to knock each off of a wooden platform…by swinging five-foot dead eels at each other. (A conger is a type of eel.) In 2006 the contest was almost cancelled when animal-rights activists protested the event because “it’s disgraceful to the memory of the eel.” The contest was held—with rubber boat fenders instead of dead eels.
Actor Patrick Stewart was bald by the time he was 14.
WEIRD AFRICA
You know, the place Meryl Streep got out of. Where Toto blessed the rains.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
In order to increase membership—and gain media attention—in 2003 the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Cape Town, South Africa, voted 19–2 to change its name to “The Death Penalty Party of South Africa.”
AHH! BABOONS!
In 2006 gangs of large baboons began terrorizing Cape Town suburbs. They break into houses, eat all the food in refrigerators, and defecate everywhere before leaving. Witnesses say the baboons travel in groups of 30, forming an impenetrable front line that’s several baboons wide.
TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET
At the beginning of the Iraq War, Phesheya Dube, a reporter for Swaziland’s state radio station, went to Baghdad to file reports. It turns out he was actually broadcasting from a closet in Mbabne, the capital city of Swaziland. He was exposed when he was spotted trying to get an interview outside of Swaziland’s parliament.
METAL MOUTH
An X-ray revealed metal in the stomach of Gezahenge Debebe, a 40-year-old woman from Ethiopia. In 2001 doctors operated for over an hour to remove the contents of Debebe’s stomach, which included 222 rusty nails, 26 ounces of coins, and several keys. Debebe admitted to eating the metal over the previous 20 years.
AS OLD AS YOU FEEL
In 2006, Kenyan Youth Affairs minister Muhammad Kuti proposed changing the legal definition of the word “youth” to include people aged 31 to 50. Reason: He wants to give more people access a $14 million “youth fund.” If the plan goes through, 50-year-old Kenyan “youths” will have only five years until the legal retirement age, which is 55.
Q: What do you call a cross between a yak and a cow? A: A zum.
HISTORICALLY STRANGE
From the dustbin of history, here are the stories of some of the past’s strangest people and events.
THE FLEA KILLER
Queen Christina ruled Sweden from 1632 to 1654. What did she consider the biggest threat to her kingdom? Fleas. The Queen hated them and wanted each and every one she found in her palace killed…individually. To accomplish this feat (this was long before the inventio
n of chemical insect repellents), she commissioned the construction of a tiny, one-inch-long cannon, that was packed with tiny flea-sized cannonballs. Whenever she spotted one, she fired the tiny cannon at it and occasionally made a killshot.
THE SKULL IS IN THE MAIL
When Germany conquered Tanganyika (a region of eastern Africa) in 1898, Chief Mkwawa, the leader of the Wahehe tribe, was killed. The Germans then sent Mkwawa’s head to Germany, where it was displayed in a museum in Bremen. During World War I, the British kicked the Germans out of Africa, aided by the Wahehe. H.A. Byatt, the British administrator now overseeing the former German-controlled area, lobbied the British government for the return of Mkwawa’s skull in appreciation for the Wahehes’ war effort. The return of the skull was even stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 agreement outlining terms of Germany’s surrender. But Germany denied taking Mkwawa’s head and the British government didn’t push the issue, accepting the German explanation that the skull was lost. In 1953 Sir Edward Twining, the British governor of Tanganyika, vowed to track down the skull… and found it in the Bremen Museum among a collection of dozens of skulls taken in the 1890s. Mkwawa’s skull was finally returned to the Wahehe in July 1954 and now resides in a museum there.
THE GENDER-BENDING BULLFIGHTER
In 1900, a 20-year-old bullfighter known only as “La Raverte” debuted in the Madrid bullring. What’s odd about that? La Raverte was a female bullfighter. She remained a crowd favorite for seven years until 1908, when the Spanish government decided it was immoral for women to fight bulls, and La Raverte was banned from the ring. But La Raverte wasn’t worried. Why? She was really a he. At the conclusion of one of her final bullfights, La Raverte took off her wig and fake breasts, revealing she wasn’t a woman, but a man named Agustin Rodriguez. Did La Raverte resume a bullfighting career as a man? Nope. Bullfighting fans instantly turned on him, angered by the fraud. Within the year, Rodriguez fled Madrid and retired quietly in Majorca.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd Page 11
