Uncle John’s Briefs
Page 20
CHALLENGE OF THE YUKON (ABC/Mutual, 1938–55)
Why stop at The Green Hornet? In 1938 Trendle and Striker reworked the Lone Ranger format a third time, this time moving it to the Alaskan Gold Rush of the late 1890s, and combining the hero’s sidekick and his animal companion into a single character, that of Yukon King, Sergeant Preston’s lead sled dog.
Things to Listen For: Yukon King’s astonishing insight into the human condition: He growls and barks at the bad guys before they are revealed to be bad guys, and whimpers in sympathy when murder victims are discovered. “That’s right, King, he’s dead!”
FLUBBED HEADLINES
These are 100% honest-to-goodness headlines. Can you figure out what they were trying to say?
Factory Orders Dip
SUN OR RAIN EXPECTED TODAY, DARK TONIGHT
PSYCHICS PREDICT WORLD DIDN’T END YESTERDAY
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT BILL CALLED
“DEATH ORIENTED”
CHICAGO CHECKING ON ELDERLY IN HEAT
TIPS TO AVOID ALLIGATORS: DON’T SWIM IN WATERS INHABITED BY LARGE ALLIGATORS
Here’s How You Can Lick Doberman’s Leg Sores
Coroner Reports on Woman’s Death While Riding Horse
CHEF THROWS HIS HEART INTO HELPING FEED NEEDY
CINCINNATI DRY CLEANER SENTENCED IN SUIT
High-Speed Train Could Reach Valley in Five Years
FISH LURK IN STREAMS
KEY WITNESS TAKES FIFTH IN LIQUOR PROBE
JAPANESE SCIENTISTS GROW FROG EYES AND EARS
SUICIDE BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN
DONUT HOLE, NUDE DANCING ON COUNCIL TABLE
POLICE NAB STUDENT WITH PAIR OF PLIERS
MARIJUANA ISSUE SENT TO JOINT COMMITTEE
Girl Kicked by Horse Upgraded to Stable
KILLER SENTENCED TO DIE FOR SECOND TIME IN TEN YEARS
COURT RULES BOXER SHORTS ARE INDEED UNDERWEAR
Nuns Forgive Break-in, Assault Suspect
ELIMINATION OF TREES COULD SOLVE CITY’S LEAF-BURNING PROBLEM
According to race car drivers, peanuts and the color green are unlucky.
WHAT IS SPAM?
Everybody’s tried it and hardly anyone says they like it…but 30% of all American households have a can on hand. So how much do you know about SPAM? How much do you want to know? Not much, probably. Too bad—we’re going to tell you about it anyway.
MAKING A SILK PURSE OUT OF A SOW’S EAR
It’s a question as timeless as the pork-packing industry itself: Once you’ve removed all the choice meat from the carcass of a pig, what do you do with all the pig parts nobody wants?
That’s the question the folks at the George A. Hormel Company faced in 1937. Their solution: Take the parts that nobody wants and make them into a loaf nobody wants. Jack Mingo describes the historic moment in his book How the Cadillac Got Its Fins:
Seeing thousands of pounds of pork shoulders piling up in the Hormel coolers in 1937 gave one of the company’s executives an idea: Why not chop the meat up, add some spices and meat from other parts of the pig, and form it into small, hamlike loaves? Put it in a can and fill the excess space with gelatin from the pig’s leftover skin and bones—you could probably keep the meat edible for months without refrigeration. They tried it. It worked. Hormel’s Spiced Ham quickly found a niche in the market. It was inexpensive, savory, and convenient, and it didn’t need refrigeration.
PORCINE PLAGIARISM
But pig parts were piling up just as high at other pork packers, and as soon as they saw Hormel’s solution they began selling their own pig loafs. Afraid of being lost in the sow shuffle, Hormel offered a $100 prize to anyone who could come up with a brand name that would make its pork product stand out from imitators. The winner: A brother of one of the Hormel employees, who suggested turning “Spiced Ham” into “SPAM.”
PIGS AT WAR
Described by one writer as “a pink brick of meat encased in a gelatinous coating,” SPAM seems pretty gross to folks who aren’t used to it (and even to plenty who are). It probably wouldn’t have become popular if it hadn’t been for World War II.
Because it was cheap, portable, and didn’t need refrigeration, SPAM was an ideal product to send into battle with U.S. GIs It became such a common sight in mess halls (where it earned the nickname “the ham that didn’t pass its physical”) that many GIs swore they’d never eat the stuff again. Even General Dwight Eisenhower complained about too much SPAM in army messes.
The melody of “Love Me Tender” was taken from the Civil War-era song “Aura Lee.”
THEIR SECRET SHAME
American G.I.s said they hated SPAM, but evidence suggests otherwise. Forced to eat canned pork over a period of several years, millions of soldiers developed a taste for it, and when they returned home they brought it with them. SPAM sales shot up in supermarkets after the war.
Laugh if you want (even Hormel calls it “the Rodney Dangerfield of luncheon meat—it don’t get no respect”), but SPAM is still immensely popular: Americans consume 3.8 cans of it every second, or 122 million cans a year. That gives SPAM a 75% share of the canned-meat market.
SPAM FACTS
• More than five billion cans of SPAM have been sold around the world since the product was invented in 1937. “Nowhere,” says Carolyn Wyman in her book I’m a SPAM Fan, “is SPAM more prized than in South Korea, where black-market SPAM regularly flows from U.S. military bases and locally produced knockoffs, such as Lospam, abound. In fact, young Korean men are just as likely to show up at the house of a woman they are courting with a nine-can gift pack of SPAM as wine or chocolate.”
• SPAM may have helped defeat Hitler. Nikita Khrushchev, himself a war veteran, credited a U.S. Army shipment of SPAM with keeping Russian troops alive during World War II. “We had lost our most fertile, food-bearing lands,” he wrote in Khruschev Remembers, “Without SPAM, we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army.”
• SPAM isn’t as gross as legend would have you believe. There aren’t any lips, eyes, or other pig nasties in it—just pork shoulder, ham, salt, sugar, and the preservative sodium nitrate.
Cleopatra’s palace in modern-day Alexandria, Egypt, is now underwater.
PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR 2000
For a century, people speculated about what life would be like way off in the future—in the year 2000. Now that it’s come and gone, we can see just how bizarre some of those predictions were.
THE DREAM HOUSE OF 2000
“[Using] wonderful new materials far stronger than steel, but lighter than aluminum…houses [in the year 2000] will be able to fly….The time may come when whole communities may migrate south in the winter, or move to new lands whenever they feel the need for a change of scenery.”
—Arthur C. Clarke,
Vogue, 1966
“Keeping house will be a breeze by the year 2000. Sonic cleaning devices and air-filtering systems will just about eliminate dusting, scrubbing and vacuuming. There may be vibrating floor grills by doors to clean shoes, and electrostatic filters will be installed in entrances to remove dust from clothes with ultrasonic waves.”
—Staff of the Wall Street Journal,
Here Comes Tomorrow! (1966)
“When [the housewife of 2000] cleans house she simply turns the hose on everything. Why not? Furniture—(upholstery included), rugs, draperies, unscratchable floors—all are made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor (later concealed by a rug of synthetic fiber), [she] turns on a blast of hot air and dries everything.”
—Waldemarr Kaempfert,
Popular Mechanics, 1950
The first TV news helicopter was used by KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles, in 1958.
COMMUTING
“[In 2000], commuters will go to the city, a hundred miles away, in huge aerial buses that hold 200 passengers. Hundreds of thousands more will make such journeys twice a day in their own helicopters.”
—Wa
ldemar Kaempfert,
Popular Mechanics, 1950
“[Commuters will] rent small four-seater capsules such as we find on a ski lift. These capsules will be linked together into little trains that come into the city. As the train goes out towards the perimeter of the city, the capsule will become an individual unit. One can then drive to wherever he may want to go.”
—Ulrich Frantzen,
Prophecy for the Year 2000 (1967)
“A Seattle executive might board his reserved-seat air-cushion coach at 8:15 A.M. It would lift off the roadbed, whirl around an ‘acceleration loop’ and plunge into the main tube running from Seattle to San Diego. Little more than half an hour later, the car would peel off onto the ‘deceleration loop’ in downtown Los Angeles. By 9 a.m. the executive would be at his desk.”
—Mitchell Gordon,
Here Comes Tomorrow! (1966)
THE WORLD OF WORK
“By 2000 the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy. With government benefits, even nonworking families will have, by one estimate, an annual income of $30,000–$40,000 (in 1966 dollars). How to use leisure meaningfully will be a major problem.”
—Time, February 25, 1966
“By the year 2000, people will work no more than four days a week and less than eight hours a day. With legal holidays and long vacations, this could result in an annual working period of 147 days [on] and 218 days off.”
—The New York Times,
October 19, 1967
The rough, bumpy surface of certain types of glass (such as your shower door) is called crizzle.
THE OTHER SOPRANOS
If you’re a man, perhaps you need a little reminder that your life is pretty good. Well, just be glad you weren’t born in Italy in the 1700s. (Now cross your legs and read this story.)
THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
Who were the castrati? They were boys who were castrated in an effort to fill the Catholic Church’s need for singing talent. The practice appeared in Europe as early as the 1500s, but historians estimate that between 1720 and 1730 (the height of the craze), 4,000 boys between the ages of nine and twelve who showed even vague musical promise were castrated each year. By that time, the practice was limited almost entirely to Italy, but its seeds had been planted years earlier when the Church, having banned women from singing in choirs (religious officials thought women’s voices were too seductive for the church) turned to young boys, whose sweet tones were preferable to the shrill soprano falsettists.
Castration prevented puberty, and without the male hormone testosterone, a castrato’s vocal cords remained small and immature throughout his lifetime, which kept his voice high. And because his bone joints didn’t harden, he also grew unusually tall and developed a large chest cavity, which gave him extra lung capacity. With rigorous training, the combined effect was tremendous vocal flexibility, a high range, pure tone, and extraordinary endurance. The very best could hold a note for up to a minute without taking a breath.
THE GOOD LIFE
Many poor parents willingly sacrificed their sons to this cause in the hope that they’d find fame and fortune. Cardinals, church fathers, choir directors, and composers signed up the castrati for shows and performances. The boys dedicated their youth to a rigorous musical and vocal training regime. But only a few went on to stardom. The rest made careers in cathedrals, church choirs, and the theater.
Many historians consider the castrati who did make it “the original pop stars.” Women swooned for them onstage and off; one young castrato was welcomed to the city of Florence by the town’s wealthiest and most influential citizens. And though their voices were as high as a soprano’s, they rarely played women’s roles in operas—they were cast instead as the brave young heroes. (Male sopranos played the female roles until women were allowed on the stage in the late 18th century.)
Christmas trees were introduced to the U.S. by Hessian troops during the Revolutionary War.
BEST OF THE BEST
At their peak the castrati were employed by all of Europe’s opera houses and church choirs, and the century’s biggest composers, such as George Frideric Handel and Christoph Willibald von Gluck, wrote operas and vocal music specifically with castrato voices in mind. And the singers demanded enormous annual salaries: Records show some being paid as much as £1,500 (the equivalent of about $245,000 today).
The most famous castrati of them all: Carlo Maria Broschi (1705–82)—known on the stage as Farinelli. He was hired by the king of Spain, Ferdinand VI, for an undisclosed (but assumed to be very large) sum of money to serenade the king every night beneath his bedroom window. Ferdinand credited the youthful-sounding singer with single-handedly lifting his depressed spirits and helping him find the mental strength to attend to his affairs of state. Farinelli worked for the royal family for the next 25 years.
DOWNFALL OF THE DRAMA QUEENS
The reign of the castrati waned in Italy by the mid-1800s. The Catholic Church had long condemned the practice (and threatened to excommunicate participants), and, bowing to public opinion, the Italian government made castration illegal in 1870.
But historians say that it was largely the conceit of the castrati themselves that brought about their demise. Most of the performers became spoiled and egotistical; they often changed the scores to highlight their voices. Leading composers Rossini, Wagner, and Verdi all grew frustrated with their tampering and simply stopped writing for them. At the same time, the devoted but temperamental opera-loving public lost interest in the castrati, turning instead to the female soprano, whose timbre had become fashionable. Alessandro Moreschi, the world’s last professional castrato and director of papal music for the Vatican, died in 1922. (Recordings of him are still widely available.)
Technically, you can drown without dying. “Drowning” refers to taking water into the lungs.
OL’ JAY’S BRAINTEASERS
Supersleuth and BRI stalwart Jay Newman has come up with another batch of his simple yet compelling puzzles. Answers are on page 284.
1. BRIGHT THINKING
Uncle John gave Amy this challenge: “In the hallway there are three light switches,” he said. “And in the library there are three lamps. Each switch corresponds to one of the lamps. You may enter the library only once—the lamps must be turned off when you do. At no time until you enter can you open the door to see into the library. Your job is to figure out which switch corresponds to which lamp.”
“Easy,” said Amy.
How did she do it?
2. MYSTERY JOB
Brian works at a place with thousands of products, some of them very expensive. People take his products without paying for them—as many as they can carry—and then just walk out. All that Brian requests of his customers is that they keep their mouths shut.
Where does Brian work?
3. SIDE TO SIDE
Uncle John stood on one side of a river; his dog, Porter, stood on the opposite side. “Come here, Porter!” said Uncle John. Although there were no boats or bridges, Porter crossed the river without getting wet. How?
4. SPECIAL NUMBER
Math usually stumps Thom, but when Uncle John showed him this number, he knew right away what makes it unique. Do you?
8,549,176,320
5. TIME PIECES
“Everyone knows that the sundial is the timepiece with the fewest moving parts,” Jay told Julia. “Do you know what timepiece has the most moving parts?” She did. Do you?
6. WORD PLAY
“Weird Nate sent me this list of words,” said Uncle John. “He says there’s something unusual about them. But what?” Ol’ Jay figured it out. Can you?
revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven
In some parts of England, rum is used to wash a baby’s head for good luck.
DEATH CUSTOMS
The treatment and disposal of a dead body is a sacred ritual
in every culture, but each one
does it a little bit differently.
IN INDIA, custom calls for a body to be burned on a funeral pyre near a riverbank and a temple; the ashes are thrown into the river. Some adherents to Zoroastrianism place bodies atop towers; after the flesh is eaten by vultures, the bones are thrown into a pit at the center of the tower.
IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS of the South Pacific, a body was traditionally placed on a reef where it would be eaten by sharks.
INUIT PEOPLE constructed small igloos around a corpse (like an “ice tomb”). The cold protected and preserved the body (unless a polar bear found its way in).
THE NAVAJO feared being haunted by the dead, so the body was burned and the deceased’s house was destroyed. On the way back from the funeral, relatives took a long, circuitous route to confuse the spirit into not following them.
A VIKING FUNERAL: At sunset, the dead man was placed on a small boat. As it drifted out to sea, it was lit on fire. If the color of the sunset was the same as that of the fire, it meant the deceased was bound for Valhalla (Viking heaven).
MUSLIMS do not use caskets (unless required by law). The body is washed three times, wrapped in a white shroud, and placed directly in the ground with the head pointed toward Mecca.
THE IROQUOIS buried corpses in shallow graves, but exhumed them after a few months. Relatives then placed the bones in a community burial plot.
IN MODERN JAPAN, bodies are washed in a Buddhist temple, dressed (men in suits, women in kimonos), and put in a casket with a white kimono, sandals, and six coins, all for the spirit’s crossing into the afterlife. After a funeral, the body is cremated. Relatives pick bones out of the ash, put them in an urn, and bury it.