The Know-It-All

by A. J. Jacobs

“My first is a Tartar / My second a letter / My all is a country / No Christmas dish better.”

  You get it? Turk-E. Turkey! That’s the answer. Ha!

  And now, I’ve reached a thirteen-page section devoted exclusively to number games, like this curious pattern, which affords a “pleasant pastime”:

  3 × 37 = 111

  6 × 37 = 222

  9 × 37 = 333

  And so on. Believe me, after reading about the Permo-Triassic rock strata of the Karoo system, this is fun stuff. Unfortunately, after number games, number theory is looming, which I don’t expect to be quite the orgy of fun.

  numismatics

  Back when coins were made of metals like gold and silver, petty thieves would shave off the edges and melt down the valuable slivers. To stop this, mints began putting serrated edges on coins. So that’s the real story behind the cool ridges on quarters. Good to know that security measures can also be aesthetically pleasing.

  nursery rhyme

  My favorite Mother Goose fact thus far: “Jack and Jill” is actually an extended allegory about taxes. The jack and jill were two forms of measurement in early England. When Charles I scaled down the jack (originally two ounces) so as to collect higher sales tax, the jill, which was by definition twice the size of the jack, was automatically reduced, hence “came tumbling after.” Kids love tax stories. I can’t wait to hear the nursery rhyme about Bush’s abolishment of the estate tax.

  Nyx

  She’s the female personification of night. It’s about 5 P.M., with Nyx approaching fast, and here I am in an unremarkable hotel room in Venice, perhaps the single most beautiful city in the world, full of gliding boats and striped-shirted men and quaintness around every corner. Instead of taking a predinner walk with Julie and Sharon and Peter to admire the surroundings, I’ve opted to stay and finish the Ns. Julie feared this when I started Operation Britannica, and she turns out to have a point: I’ve got a whole new and compelling reason to stay inside. I’m addicted to this thing. But like most addicts, I feel simultaneously drawn to it and repelled by it.

  O

  oath

  OUR STAY IN Venice over, we say good-bye to Sharon and Peter and take a water taxi to the train station. It’s a quick trip, five minutes tops, and it should cost the equivalent of $10.

  Instead, we get there, and the water taxi driver demands we pay him something approaching the gross national product of Bolivia ($8.2 billion). I shouldn’t pay him, but we’re late and he’s a big Italian man. According to psychologist W. H. Sheldon’s classification system, he is an endomorph (with a round head and bulky torso) and I am a wimpy ectomorph (narrow chest, high forehead, long arms). So I give him his ransom and Julie and I climb off.

  I wait till the taxi driver pulls away from the pier—until there’s a safe patch of murky Venetian water between us—and then I shout at him: “Hey!” He looks up. If there’s any time to be an ugly American, this is the time—when dealing with an ugly Italian man who just took most of your savings. It’s time to insult him.

  Question is, after reading more than half the Britannica, are my insults of a higher quality? I’ve saved up a good one for just these situations. It’s called the “bell, book, and candle,” an oath formerly used by the early Roman Catholic church to excommunicate a Christian who had committed some unpardonable sin.

  It goes like this: “We declare him excommunicate and anathema; we judge him damned with the devil and his angels and all the reprobate to eternal fire until he shall recover himself from the toils of the devil and return to amendment and to penitence. So be it!”

  Now that’s an insult.

  Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, as I was being ripped off, I had a little trouble remembering the entire bell, book, and candle curse. I knew the word “reprobate” was in there, maybe the devil, but I couldn’t summon the rest of it. And sadly, I couldn’t even come up with the less elaborate backups: “You’ve got cryptorchidism!” (undescended testicles) or even “You’ve got dumdum fever.”

  No, in the thick of battle, there’s no time for elaborate insults. So I rely on a standby, and one that probably translates better across the language barrier. I give him the finger.

  obscenity

  Julie and I checked into the hotel today in Portofino, the site of Rick and Ilene’s wedding. We spend the day hanging out by the pool eating our greasy Italian finger food. We’re sharing an umbrella with another wedding guest, a blond-haired Minnesota native named Trent. He’s a writer for Newsweek, and has just spent eight weeks embedded in Iraq.

  Trent has plenty of war stories. Like the danger of eating anything other than the food provided by the U.S. military. If you decide to be adventurous in the culinary department—say, by sampling a little local goat meat—you will pay for your bravery for days. That’s not to mention another risk to journalists: writing anything that could be seen as anti-American. Trent wrote an article implying that his division was a tad trigger happy. For that, not only was he physically threatened, but he was subjected to a xeroxed anti-Trent newsletter created by the soldiers, a publication that included the witty word jumble “E-A-T S-H-T-I T-R-E-N-T.” But the most surprising thing that Trent had to say involved the customs of the American soldiers. The troops, he said, can be a little crude.

  “Such as?”

  We didn’t want to know, he says. We begged to differ. “Well, there’s mushrooming.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Mushrooming, explains Trent, occurs when one of our soldiers is asleep, and his buddy wants to wake him up in a creative way. The buddy unzips his pants, takes out his penis, dips it in ketchup, then thwacks the sleeping guy on the forehead, leaving a mushroom-shaped imprint. Hence mushrooming.

  Huh.

  Julie and I spend a few moments processing this bit of military reconnaissance.

  “Now that’s something that you don’t read in the encyclopedia,” says Julie.

  “It’ll probably be in the 2003 edition,” I say.

  But it’s true. Mushrooming is not in the Britannica. I’m jealous of Trent. Well, I’m not jealous of the fact that he ate goat meat or showered less often than I go to the opera. I’m jealous because he was out there in the sandy trenches getting firsthand knowledge. He wasn’t reading it secondhand in a wussy book. And the knowledge he picked up was weird, crude, and to my still-adolescent mind, pretty fascinating.

  I can console myself, though. At least the Britannica does have plenty of its own weird and crude facts. I’ve learned almost every other bizarre thing men enjoy inflicting on their private parts. They’ve practiced ritualized bleeding to mimic menstruation. A shocking number have been castrated. An equally shocking number have been partially castrated—the 50 percent deal, officially called “monorchidism.” They’ve inserted pebbles, stuck it with a pin, subincised it (cut the underside) and plain old circumcised it. They’ve splattered blood from their pierced penises and offered it to the gods. And the men of the Cobeua tribe of Brazil dance around with large artificial phalli, doing violent coitus motions accompanied by loud groans to spread fertility to every corner of the house, jumping among the women, who disperse shrieking and laughing as they knock phalli together.

  So at least I have a little sociological context for the practice of mushrooming. Now, instead of just snickering at mushrooming, I can ponder its place in other penis rituals the world over, then snicker at it.

  “Does General Tommy Franks mushroom?” I ask Trent.

  “I don’t think so.”

  occupational disease

  In the past, hatters often became ill because they used mercury salts to make felt out of rabbit fur. The mercury poisoning led to a mental deterioration known as erethism. Hence the phrase “mad as a hatter.” Good to know. If I ever have kids, I’ll make a little note in the margin of their Alice in Wonderland.

  olive oil

  The wedding itself was gorgeous. A nice traditional Jewish ceremony. Well, traditional except that it was held at
a 12th-century Italian monastery. Since I’m pretty well versed in medieval Christianity these days, I can say with 90 percent certainty that monks did not wear yarmulkes, especially not monogrammed ones. But I’m guessing they did love a good hora. Who wouldn’t?

  After the vows, I go on the receiving line to congratulate the happy couple. I shake Rick’s hand, then give him a little marital advice I’d picked up from the encyclopedia: Attila the Hun died on his wedding night, perhaps from exhaustion. “So take it easy tonight,” I say. “No need to prove anything your first night.”

  “Great tip,” he says. “Thanks.”

  I tell Ilene that she looks radiant. Then add: “Just so you know, if you ever need an out, the easiest method of divorce comes from the Pueblo Indians. Just leave Rick’s moccasins on the doorstep. Simple as that.” Ilene says she’ll keep that in mind.

  The food is delicious and deeply Italian—lots of pasta, lots of bread, lots of olive oil (which, by the way, the ancient Egyptians used as a lubricant for moving heavy building materials; so without olive oil, no pyramids). The only part of the wedding that is not a complete success—at least for me—is the after-dinner dancing. Julie is looking particularly elegant, with a wide-brimmed hat and black gloves.

  “Would you care for a dance, milady?” I ask.

  “Why, yes sir,” she says.

  So far, so good. But when we get out on the dance floor, I decide to test out some new dance moves. I leap in the air wildly and move my limbs in a convulsive, jerky fashion.

  “What’s going on here?” Julie demands.

  “Saint Vitus’s dance!” I say. “Come on, join in!.”

  I jump up and wave my arms frantically. Julie doesn’t ask for an explanation, which is too bad, because I had one at the ready: Saint Vitus’s dance was an ecstatic dance that spread throughout Europe in the middle ages. It was, says the Britannica, a kind of mass hysteria, affecting hundreds of people and becoming a public menace. Those afflicted would shout and foam at the mouth. I figured: when in a 12th-century monastery, do as 12th-century Christians would do.

  Julie turns her back to me and starts dancing with Rick’s friend Ted, who apparently is not afflicted with a medieval seizure. My plan was to spread Saint Vitus’s dance through the entire wedding party. Perhaps I should have gone with the tarantella, a medieval dance used to combat venomous spider bites by sweating the poison out.

  Olympus Mons

  I think I partially redeem myself when we get back to the hotel in Portofino. Our hotel is a fancy affair with a pool boy and wooden hangers—and really crappy air-conditioning. The thing wheezes like a bypass patient in recovery. The room is far too hot to sleep in. It’s hot as Al-Aziziyah in Libya (136 degrees). Hot as the interior of Olympus Mons (the largest volcano in the solar system, located on Mars). If the room had any sweat bees—insects that are attracted to perspiration—they’d be all over us. I order up an oscillating fan. No help. I complain to the concierge, who sends up a bellboy to inspect the air conditioner. Oh, it’s on, he assures us, and then leaves us.

  “You’ve got to do something,” says Julie.

  “What am I supposed to do? Fix the air conditioner?”

  “Something.”

  “Sorry, I forgot to bring my power drill.”

  But she’s right. Something has to be done.

  A quick but relevant digression: Before we left for Italy, Julie and I rented an old black-and-white movie called Ball of Fire. A friend had recommended it to us because it’s a romantic comedy about encyclopedias—a genre that doesn’t yet have its own aisle at Blockbuster. We loved it. The film—cowritten by Billy Wilder—is about eight professors who live in a brownstone and scribble away day and night on an encyclopedia. These professors, as you might expect, have wire-rim glasses and bow ties and are very adept at bumbling. The only semicool professor is the young one, played by Gary Cooper, who specializes in language. He’s writing the entry on slang, but realizes he’s been locked in this brownstone for so many years, he’s totally ignorant of modern-day slang. So Gary Cooper ventures out into the world, and encounters a hotsy-totsy burlesque singer—played by Barbara Stanwyck—and despite her atrocious grammar and her unfortunate connections to the mob, they fall in love.

  The movie is a weird mix, at once deeply anti-intellectual and pro-education. The movie’s anti-intellectual part is smack-you-on-the-face obvious—these professors have filled their heads with information but neglected their hearts, so they know nothing about life. On the other hand, there are some scenes where learning triumphs—specifically a climactic scene (warning: I’m giving away a key plot twist here) wherein the professors are being held at gunpoint by a bunch of thugs.

  The desperate professors think back to the story of the Greek scientist Archimedes, who burned the entire Roman fleet by training a big magnifying lens on the ships. So these dweeby men use the lens from their microscope to burn the wire holding up a painting, which then falls and clunks the villain on the head, knocking him out and allowing the professors to escape.

  I found a couple of things about this scene interesting. First, I know from the Britannica that the Archimedes story was a myth—he didn’t actually burn the Roman fleet—so that felt good. (Likewise, the film’s narrator described these men as “knowing what tune Nero was fiddling when Rome burned.” I told Julie that actually Nero was not fiddling while Rome burned.) But more important, I was jealous. I wanted to use my knowledge like this. I wanted to use it to capture the bad guy or save the heroine. In my constant quest to put my knowledge to work, I’ve had only a handful of modest victories, the herb and crab soup incident being the most impressive.

  Which brings me back to the air-conditioning conundrum. What to do? I thought back to the history of air-conditioning. I could remember only that the Graumann’s Theater in Los Angeles was one of the first places to be air-conditioned. And also that, in the days before electricity, Indians used to hang wet grass mats in the window. If life had sound effects, there would be a loud ding right about now.

  I took two big white towels from the bathroom, sprayed them down in the shower, and hung them in the open window. I can’t say for sure they lowered the temperature of the room, but I think they did. And regardless, I felt better. I was taking action. I was putting my knowledge to work. I was a hero, just like Billy Wilder’s microscope-wielding professors.

  onion

  We’ve come back to the United States, but Julie’s mind is still in Italy. She’s yearning for some more of that pizza. She decides to make it herself, with me as her sous chef.

  I chop my eggplant and zucchini. We’re both quiet, focused on our chores. Next up, the onion chopping. I peel my onion, take it to the sink, turn on the faucet, and start slicing it under the flow.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m cutting the onion underwater.”

  “Why?”

  “It says in the Britannica it stops you from crying.”

  This was an Heloise-style hint from the Britannica—one of those rare useful ones—and I was quite excited to be putting it into practice.

  “Nope, too dangerous.”

  “But it’s in the Britannica.”

  “Nope, I’m the executive chef. You’re the sous chef.”

  Here I’m confronted with an unfortunate situation: the Britannica versus my wife. Two big sources of authority. Which do I choose? Well, the Britannica is pretty trustworthy. However, as far as I know, it can’t carry my child or ignore me for several days or throw out the T-shirts that it hates.

  So I decide Julie wins this one. The onion will be cut without water and I will cry.

  ooze

  Ooze, I learn, is sediment that contains at least 30 percent skeletal remains of microscopic floating organisms. You’ve got to marvel at the specificity of that. Thirty percent; 29 percent and you’re out of luck, buddy. You may be sediment, but you’re no ooze.

  Opium Wars

  It’s Friday night, and Julie and I have rented a
movie. We are frighteningly loyal fans of movies, and this year alone have provided some lucky Hollywood executive with enough cash for three Gucci suits and a Bikram yoga class. Tonight, we rented a movie called Shanghai Knights. It’s a buddy comedy with Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan set in 1887 England and China.

  In the first scene, the villain breaks into China’s imperial palace with a bunch of evil members of China’s Boxer gang.

  “The Boxers were nuts,” I tell Julie. “They were called Boxers because they thought their boxing training would make them impervious to bullets.”

  “Not now, honey.”

  I sort of shrug and go back to eating my Indian takeout chickpea dish.

  A few minutes later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shows up as a character. He’s working as a detective at Scotland Yard, where Jackie Chan has been thrown in jail. Conan Doyle at Scotland Yard? I don’t think so.

  “Actually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical student before he became a writer.”

  “A.J., please.”

  I’m good for the next half hour. But then, the villain reveals his plan to take advantage of China’s Opium Wars. That’s too tempting. I read about the Opium Wars a few days ago, and they were a memorable tale. One of the causes was a crusading Chinese official who dumped confiscated opium into the ocean to try to squash the drug trade. He was considerate enough to write an ode of apology to the gods of the ocean for defiling their home. I thought that was a nice touch, writing a poem apologizing to nature for polluting it. Exxon should start doing this. In any case, the opium dumping—just like the Boston Tea Party before it—really angered the Brits, who were making lots of money from the opium trade. So England started a war with China.

  This happened sometime in the 1830s. I can’t remember the exact dates, but it was in the 1830s for sure—way before 1887.

  “Hey, Julie, the Opium Wars were—”

  Julie pauses the movie. “Okay, new policy.”

  “What?”

  “Whenever you give me an irrelevant fact, it’s a fine of one dollar.”