Do Fish Drink Water?

by Bill McLain

  Before the introduction of the printing press, books were made of vellum (calf or lambskin) because it was extremely durable. In William Randolph Hearst’s castle at San Simeon, California, there are lampshades made from fifteenth-century vellum prayer books. Even today the vellum is in excellent condition.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  It is difficult to speak of books or libraries without mentioning the U.S. Library of Congress, established in 1800. The Library has over 100 million items in its collection and a staff of almost 5,000 people. It is the largest library in the world. It offers unparalleled research services, including materials in more than 450 languages, and is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions.

  Thomas Jefferson is often called the founder of the Library of Congress. He believed that there was “no subject to which Congress may not have occasion to refer.”

  In 1815 Thomas Jefferson’s library was purchased by Congress and became the core of the Library of Congress. Because of Jefferson’s wide range of interests, the Library’s collection took on a universal and diverse nature. In fact, even today the Library uses his method of classification rather than the Dewey decimal system.

  Today the Library of Congress is experimenting with new electronic technology that will allow its collections to be used by schools and research institutions throughout the United States and, eventually, throughout the world.

  Thomas Jefferson believed that the citizens of our country must be informed and involved if democracy is to survive. He laid the foundation for one of the greatest repositories of knowledge in the world so that we can be informed.

  Whether we also become involved or not is entirely up to us.

  What was the first typewritten manuscript of a novel submitted to a publisher? (Mark this one down.)

  In 1874 Mark Twain purchased a Remington typewriter and was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher. The novel was Tom Sawyer.

  Mark Twain came from a poor family. When he was 11 years old, his father died, and Mark Twain quit school and became a printer, working for his brother Orion for a few years. In 1856 Mark Twain boarded a riverboat headed for New Orleans because he wanted to move to South America to collect cocoa. However, once on the river he changed his mind and persuaded the boat’s pilot, Horace Bixby, to train him as a pilot. In 1859 he obtained his pilot’s license.

  Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. When he started writing, he decided to use a pseudonym. He recalled his happy days on the river and how a crew member would drop a weighted rope into the water to see if it was deep enough for safe travel. Each “mark” was a fathom, or six feet. When the crew member shouted “Mark twain” it meant that there were two marks, or fathoms, and the water was deep enough to prevent the boat from running aground. So Samuel Langhorne Clemens adopted the pseudonym of Mark Twain.

  The story that started Mark Twain on the road to fame was “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which appeared in a New York periodical, The Saturday Press, on November 18, 1865. The story took place in Angels Camp, one of the richest mining areas of the California gold rush. Today, Angels Camp is often called “Frogtown.” Each year, during the month of May, the town hosts the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee.

  In addition to Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain wrote many popular books including The Innocents Abroad, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Prince and the Pauper, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

  Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley’s comet came into view. He died 75 years later when Halley’s comet returned.

  FACTOIDS

  Many typewriter manufacturers started out as companies making arms and munitions, including Remington, Smith-Corona, and Underwood.

  Some typewriter patents date back to 1713. The first typewriter that actually worked was built by Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his friend the Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono.

  In 1867, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, inventor, Christopher Latham Sholes, built the first practical typewriter. Over the years he continually improved the machine and in 1873 signed a contract with gunsmiths E. Remington and Sons to manufacture his machine. The typewriter was soon renamed the “Remington.”

  The first typewriters had no shift mechanism and could only produce capital letters. A foot pedal was used for a carriage return.

  Typewriters in the twenties and thirties came in many colors, including red, green, gold, and even pink. They also came in marble-textured and wood-grained finishes.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  The arrangement of keys on a typewriter is called “QWERTY” for the first six letters in the top alphabet row (sometimes people use all 10 letters and call it the “QWERTYUIOP” keyboard). For over 125 years people have been saying that the layout of letters on the typewriter keyboard is awkward, inefficient, confusing to learn, and makes no sense. Yet in spite of the complaints, even sophisticated computers and word processors use the same keyboard layout. Why?

  Some writers have accused Sholes (the inventor of the typewriter) of arranging the keyboard so it would slow down fast typists and prevent jamming of his slow machine. The truth is just the opposite. The problem was that if two typebars were close to each other, they would jam if typed in succession. Sholes rearranged the letters so that common combinations, such as “TH,” would be far away from each other. This arrangement greatly reduced the jamming problem and eventually led to faster typing speeds.

  In the years following the invention of the typewriter, many different keyboards were adopted and quietly died. The most famous was the “Dvorak” keyboard created by Professor August Dvorak of Washington State University. Although developed in 1932, it is still not widely accepted today.

  In 1953 a study by the U.S. General Services Administration proved that it doesn’t matter what keyboard is used. Good typists type fast while bad typists do not.

  Is there a place called Transylvania and was there a real Count Dracula? (There are vamps hut are there vampires?)

  Transylvania is a region in present-day Northwestern Romania. The boundaries of this region are the Carpathian Mountains to the north and east, the Transylvanian Alps to the south, and the Bihor Mountains to the west. This region was once part of Hungary but became part of Romania in 1918.

  Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was based on a real person, Vlad III Dracula, who was the Prince of Wallachia (the present-day Romania). His father was Vlad Dracul. Dracul is the Romanian word for “devil,” and the prince was called Dracula, which means “the son of Dracul,” or “the son of the devil.”

  The “son of the devil” probably suits Dracula because he was ruthless, brutal, and cruel. To punish his enemies or those who opposed him, he would often order them skinned, beheaded, boiled, blinded, burned, or buried alive. However, his favorite method was to impale his victims on stakes, hence he was also known as “Vlad the Impaler.” Once he impaled 20,000 Turkish prisoners, and the horrible spectacle became known as “the Forest of the Impaled.”

  Dracula also believed that the poor were worthless vagrants and thieves. One day he ordered all the poor and sick people in his domain to a great feast. At the end of the feast Dracula had the hall boarded up and set on fire. Not a single person survived.

  Dracula was killed in battle and his head was presented as a trophy to the Sultan of Constantinople.

  In spite of the horrible acts of torture and murder committed by Vlad the Impaler, there is not a single record or mention of his being a vampire.

  No one knows for sure why Bram Stoker patterned the Dracula character after Vlad the Impaler. Some think it was because of the author’s friendship with a professor at the University of Budapest who gave him information about Vlad the Impaler. Others believe that Bram Stoker simply used folktales, historical facts, and his own experiences to create the complex fictional Dracula.

  FACTOIDS

  Film star Bela Lugosi is well known for his portrayal of Dracula but few people k
now that he was also an accomplished sculptor.

  The word “vampire” was first used in 1734 to describe dead people who left their graves at night and sucked the blood of the living. By 1862 it meant a person who was a bore and by 1911 it meant a woman who intentionally attracts men in order to exploit them. From this came the word “vamp” for a temptress.

  The myth that garlic wards off vampires came from the time of the black plague that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages. Doctors believed the plague was caused by corrupted air and that the pungent garlic would cleanse the air.

  There is a scarcity of information about Dracula’s creator, Bram Stoker. As his nephew Daniel Farson said, “He is one of the least known authors of one of the best known books ever written.”

  Today there are many Dracula tours available for people touring Romania. These tours visit such places as Vlad’s birthplace, the village of Arefu where Dracula legends still abound, and Curtea Domneasca, Dracula’s palace in Bucharest.

  When Bram Stoker started working on his novel, he initially called the main character Count Wampyr.

  The first World Dracula Congress was organized by the Transylvania Society of Dracula and opened in Bucharest in 1995. The society is a scholarly historical-cultural organization.

  Reports of vampires proliferated in Hungary during the first half of the eighteenth century.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Although vampires are legendary creatures, there is always a possibility that one could exist. To be on the safe side, it might not hurt to know how to protect yourself in case you run into a vampire. Here are some tips:

  Sprinkle mustard or poppy seeds around your house. Vampires have an obsession about counting seeds and will become so involved in the task that they’ll lose interest in you or will keep counting until the sun comes up. Sprinkling grain, such as oats or millet, will have the same effect.

  Constant bell ringing will drive away vampires. A wind chime is quite effective.

  Garlic is a well-known defense. Hang garlic cloves around your neck or mix crushed garlic with water and spray it throughout your house.

  Holding a cross or crucifix in front of a vampire will keep it at bay.

  Who wrote the first “detective” novel? (Elementary, my dear Watson.)

  Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be the father of the detective novel. In 1841 he introduced the first fictional detective, Auguste C. Dupin, in his novel The Murders of the Rue Morgue. This novel started one of the most popular and enduring forms of fiction ever created.

  However, the man typically called “the father of English crime fiction” was English writer Wilkie Collins, even though his first crime novel, The Woman in White, was published almost twenty years after Poe’s The Murders of the Rue Morgue. Eight years later, Collins wrote The Moonstone, which prompted writer T. S. Eliot to comment, “The Moonstone was the first and greatest of all English detective novels.” Collins was greatly admired and greatly imitated. The fundamental plot of The Moonstone has been copied numerous times and innumerable villains have been patterned after Count Fosco of The Woman in White.

  In the late 1800s, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes. In 1920, one of the greatest mystery writers of all time, Agatha Christie, published her first mystery novel.

  Supernatural tales of mystery date back to ancient times and are part of the folklore in every culture. The Gothic novel appeared in the eighteenth century, and by the early nineteenth century horror stories had evolved, such as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. However, it was Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins who laid the foundation of today’s detective novel.

  FACTOIDS

  Charles Dickens began writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 1870 but died before completing it. Ever since that time many people have tried to solve the story’s main mystery.

  The first woman to write a mystery was Katherine Anne Greene, who wrote The Leavenworth Case in 1878.

  When asked how it felt to be married to a famous archeologist, Agatha Christie replied, “It’s wonderful. The older I get, the better he likes me.”

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Many people want to know what distinguishes a mystery novel from a suspense novel or thriller.

  A mystery novel is puzzle-oriented and provides clues so the reader can solve the mystery at the same time as the fictional detective. In a suspense novel the reader usually knows who the guilty person is but is anxious to see if the villain will be caught before committing another crime. Thrillers are typically action novels and often deal with larger issues such as espionage, conspiracy, and terrorism.

  Mystery novels themselves fall into different categories. One is the famed “locked-room puzzle,” in which the murder occurs in a sealed room with no apparent way for the killer to enter or escape. Another is the “cozy,” which occurs in a country house or village and is centered around a group of people who are all suspects.

  In the 1920s a magazine called Black Mask carried crime and detective stories. Unlike the quaint “cozy” or “puzzle” mysteries, these stories reflected the harsh realities of life. The main characters were often “tough guys” or “hard-boiled” private eyes. This style of raw and violent realism was used by novelists Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler to create a new genre of private-eye novels. Mickey Spillane’s fictional hero Mike Hammer is a more recent example of this genre.

  Mysteries, both old and new, are becoming increasingly popular in the United States and writers are continually coming up with new ideas. There are mysteries solved by a medieval monk, mysteries that occur in ancient Rome, female detectives, elderly detectives, and one author who has even managed to have a Siamese cat participate in solving the crime.

  Whether you prefer to identify with tough loners, be entertained with a group of peculiar suspects in a country manor, solve a seemingly insoluble puzzle, or enjoy mysteries in other lands or other times, you’ll probably find just what you want at your local bookstore or public library.

  More questions? Try these websites.

  BARTLETT’S QUOTATIONS

  http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/

  You can find famous quotations in one of two ways. You can click on the name of an author to display a number of quotations by that author. Or you can enter a word, such as “heart,” and click on Submit. You will then see a number of quotations that contain the word “heart.”

  PROJECT GUTENBERG

  http://www.promo.net/pg/pgframed_index.html

  The purpose of Project Gutenberg is to provide complete texts of books on the Internet so people can read them. All works provided on-line are in the public domain. Simply click on a letter of the alphabet corresponding to the first letter in the title of the book. For instance, click on “c” to find “A Christmas Carol.” When you see the title of the book you want, click on it. Then click on TXT to display a copy of the book on your computer screen.

  CLASSIC FICTION, NONFICTION, AND POETRY

  http://www.bibliomania.com/

  Bibliomania is another site that provides books on the Internet. It features over 50 fictional works by such authors as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain, as well as nonfiction books and poetry. Once you click on the title of the book, you will notice that a number of “files” are listed such as: File 1, File 2, File 3, and so on. Click on File 1 to read the first part of the book. Click on File 2 to continue reading the book, and so on until you’ve finished reading the book.

  ANECDOTE: CAN YOU FIX MY KOTO, KATO?

  I’ve answered many questions about music but, to be honest, I had never heard of a koto until Arthur Belefant asked if I could find someone who could repair his koto. Arthur explained that it was a Japanese stringed musical instrument and his had been damaged by water. He had not been able to find anyone who could help him.

  Arthur said that he had spoken with a research librarian who was unable to help him but suggested that he get in touch with me. It seems that the lib
rarian once had a question from a patron, couldn’t answer it, and asked if I could help. I was able to find the answer for her and she remembered me.

  I told Arthur that there was an excellent shop in San Jose, California, that would be able to repair his koto with no problem. He then told me that, unfortunately, he lived in Florida. However, he would be willing to ship the instrument to California if that was the only place where he could have it repaired.

  At that point I did some further research and eventually found a store in Florida not far from where Arthur lived. I told Arthur I had called the store in Florida and they had said they could probably repair the damage but they’d need to see the instrument first.

  Arthur’s last message to me said: “I want to thank you for your fantastic response to my query. I’ve just come from the store and they said that they can fix my koto. I don’t know how you in California managed to find what I was looking for only twenty miles from me, maybe I don’t want to know. No one here was able to supply me with the information.”

  They did fix Arthur’s koto. I suspect that even today someone in Florida is listening to soft melodies played by Arthur on a once damaged but now repaired koto.

  The Human Body