Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (57 page)

Lights on, nobody home: Only 55% of Americans know that the sun is a star.

GPS (GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM)

Not long after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, a team of American scientists monitoring the satellite’s radio transmissions noticed that the frequency of its signal increased as it approached and decreased as it travelled away from them—a classic example of the “Doppler” effect. They realized they could use this information to pinpoint Sputnik’s precise location in space; conversely, if they knew the satellite’s location, they could use it to determine their own location on Earth. This principle served as the basis for the U.S. military’s NAVSTAR GPS system, which became operational in 1993. The U.S. intended to restrict the system to military use, but when the Soviets shot down a Korean Airlines flight in 1983 after it wandered into Soviet airspace, President Ronald Reagan announced that the system would be made available for public use.

DETECTIVE STORIES

In 1841 Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story titled “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the first of three tales featuring the exploits of a French detective named Auguste Dupin. Why a Frenchman? Because detective work as a profession was barely 30 years old, and France, where it was invented, was still the only country that had detectives. “Each of [Poe’s stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed,”
Sherlock Holmes
author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle later acknowledged. “Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?”

*        *        *

YUM…OR YUCK?

Ever feel like having dessert for dinner? Try something from the
Twinkies Cookbook
. Among the 50 “creative” uses for the cream-filled Hostess sponge cake are Twinkie Sushi, a Twinkie Burrito, Pigs in a Twinkie, Chicken-Raspberry Twinkie Salad, Twinkie Lasagna, and a red, white, and blue Patriotic Twinkie Pie.

Sports commentator Halsey Hall was the first to say “holy cow” during a baseball broadcast.

MAKE YOUR OWN (ORIGAMI) TOILET

Okay, technically, this isn’t origami. But when paper engineer Gary Martin came to us with his “garygami” toilet, we just couldn’t resist. In addition to paper, you’ll need glue and scissors. Happy folding!

F
irst, photocopy the patterns below and on
page 364
onto white paper (glossy, if you can get it). Enlarging the patterns 200% will fit them onto two 8½ × 11" sheets. Now cut around the patterns along the solid lines. (Dashed lines are folds, solid lines are cut.) Now follow the steps on
pages 365
and
366
.

THE TANK: Steps 1–2:
Fold along the dashed lines as shown.
Step 3:
Fold sides so the tabs meet in the back.
Steps 4–6:
Twist slightly to interlock the two slots (tabs should join on the
inside
). Slide them together so they align at the top.
Steps 7–8:
Fold down the larger flap first and tuck it inside, then do the same with the smaller flap.

THE BOWL: Step 9:
Fold along the dashed lines.
Steps 10–11:
Overlap and lock toilet lid tab into slot as shown, keeping the toilet “seat” on the inside.
Step 12:
Now lock toilet seat tab in place with tab facing the outside.
Step 13:
Push bottom oval into toilet base.
Step 14:
Glue the tank to the toilet where marked so the bottom of tank aligns with the bottom of the outside tab on the toilet.
Voilà!
You’re done! Your origami toilet can stand up on its own, or you can put a string through the hole in the “lid” to hang it as an ornament.

The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the entire state of Rhode Island. (Size: 825,000 acres.)

Dash lines are folded—Solid lines are cut.

George Harrison owned a musical toilet. It played “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”

Scared of going to jail? In the 1800s, you could be imprisoned for being nervous.

How about you? Two in every three car buyers pays the sticker price without haggling.

MORE DUMB JOCKS

More goofy gaffes by players, coaches, and announcers.

“Sure. I’m proud to be an American.”

—
Steve Foster, Cincinnati Reds player, asked by Canadian customs if he had anything to declare

“We kind of looked at each other and said, ‘That was fun.’ It was a couple guys beating on each other. Good times.”

—
Scott Parker, San Jose Sharks hockey player, after fighting Columbus’s Jody Shelley

“It’s permanent, for now.”

—
Roberto Kelly, San Diego Padres player, announcing he was changing his name to Bobby

“It is beyond my apprehension.”

—
Danny Ozark, Philadelphia Phillies manager, on his team’s losing streak

Louise Goodman:
“Jonny, it’s started to rain. How will that affect the track?”

Jonny Herbert:
“Well, it makes it wet, usually.”

—
British auto racing announcers

“I’ll be sad to go, and I won’t be sad to go. It wouldn’t upset me to leave St. Louis, but it would upset me to leave St. Louis. It’s hard to explain. You’ll find out one of these days, but maybe you never will.”

—
Brett Hull, St. Louis Blues player, on a possible trade

“Well, that kind of puts the damper on even a Yankee win.”

—
Phil Rizzuto, after hearing Pope Paul VI died

“Not only is he ambidextrous, but he can throw with either hand.”

—
Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State football coach

“The advantage of the rain is that if you have a quick bike, there’s no advantage.”

—
Barry Sheen, British motorcycle racing analyst

“If Rose’s streak was still intact, with that single to left, the fans would be throwing babies out of the upper deck.”

—
Jerry Coleman, San Diego Padres announcer

Hey, sports fans—if one team forfeits a baseball game, what’s the score? (It’s recorded as 9–0.)

HEY, HO, LET’S GO!

Rock critic Nick Tosches coined the term “punk” in 1970 to describe a wave of raucous bands that had just come on the music scene. Here’s the story of punk rock. Riot!

R
OCK IS DEAD
In the mid-1970s, the most popular musical acts in America were middle-of-the-road, mellow-rock artists like the Eagles, John Denver, Olivia Newton-John, ABBA, and Barry Manilow. But while that was what was happening on Top 40 radio, an emerging scene of musicians in New York City was doing something different. “We were all pretty disgusted with what was going on in rock and roll,” said Joey Ramone. “There was no excitement in music—everything was totally superficial and prefabricated.” Rock music lacked the danger and energy that it had had in the 1950s and ’60s. They also thought rock ’n’ roll was supposed to be simple: Pick up a guitar, learn a few chords, and write some songs.

In 1973 a failed country musician named Hilly Kristal opened a bar in New York’s Bowery neighborhood called CBGB and OMFUG (short for Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers). Kristal planned to feature country and bluegrass music…until Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell convinced him to let their band, Television, play a weekly gig at the bar in 1974. Over the next few years, CBGB became
the
home of punk and alternative music, featuring bands like Blondie, the Patti Smith Group, the Clash, Mink DeVille, the Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, the Damned, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Police, the Dictators, Tuff Darts, the Shirts, the Heartbreakers, and the Fleshtones.

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR

Probably the most famous—and most important—band to get their start at CBGB was the Ramones. They pared rock music down to its essentials: catchy melodies, simple lyrics, four chords, songs no more than three minutes long. Their sound was loud, fast, raw, and hard-driving, with lots of smart-aleck humor (they had songs titled “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” and “I Wanna Be Sedated”). The band members—Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy—all took the last name Ramone (from “Paul Ramone,” an alias of Paul McCartney) and dressed identically in jeans, sneakers, leather jackets, and long hair that covered their eyes. All songs started with Dee Dee counting off “one, two, three, four!”

Blech! Baskin-Robbins once made a ketchup-flavored ice cream.

But the Ramones weren’t the first band to combine musical simplicity, noise, and a bad attitude.

• In the late 1960s in New York, the Velvet Underground (fronted by Lou Reed) played slow, minimalist, creepy songs about depression and drugs.

• A Detroit band, the Stooges, would do things like play the same riff over and over, faster and faster, working frontman James Osterberg (who later took the stage name “Iggy Pop”) into a frenzy. He’d cut himself with broken glass and dive into the audience.

• The New York Dolls screeched on guitars and dressed in makeup, high heels, and gold lamé. Their music, like their look, was loud, abrasive, and confrontational.

But the Ramones, Velvet Underground, Stooges, and New York Dolls all looked back to another band for inspiration: the MC5. This Detroit band released their first album,
Kick Out the Jams
, in 1968. The music was noisy and the lyrics were political, reflecting band members’ involvement with countercultural groups like the Black Panthers (the first line of the title song contained profanity, shocking for 1968). Controversial in their day, they’re now regarded as one of the greatest bands of all time—and they set the whole “punk” movement into action.

ANARCHY IN THE U.K.