You're Kidding

Alan Jay Lerner took two weeks to write the last line of Wouldn't It Be Loverly? The concluding words are, "Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly."

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By choosing the right starting points, it is possible to go due south from Arkansas into each of the six adjoining states.

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If an inconsiderate neighbor has his radio turned on too loud, you can retaliate. Find the frequency of the AM station he's listening to, subtract 460 and dial your own radio to this new number. Yours doesn't even have to be turned up; his radio will start to squeal intolerably and he'll probably turn it off.

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When Tolstoy was a boy, he formed a club with his brother. To be initiated, a member had to stand in a corner for a half hour and not think of a white bear.

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Upon being crowned Queen of England, Victoria's first act was to give her dog a bath. She once owned 83 dogs and knew all their names.

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A Spanish explorer was once lost in the jungles of South America, according to legend. Rather than die a slow death of starvation and fever, he decided to kill himself quickly by eating the roots of the bitter and poisonous cassava plant. He boiled the roots in water, then drank the concoction and said a last farewell. But nothing happened. In fact, the soup was quite tasty. The explorer was the first to discover that boiling destroys the poisonous property of the cassava's milky sap. He survived on his creamy creation and the new food was given a South American Indian name: tapioca.

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Artists who depicted the creation once aroused a heated theological debate about whether (continued on page 184)You're Kidding?(continued from page 137) or not Adam had a navel. Some--Michelangelo and Raphael, for example--said he did. But this outraged many of the devout, for it implied either that Adam had a mortal mother or, as Sir Thomas Browne said, that "the Creator affected superfluities or ordained parts without use." Other artists decided to picture Adam and Eve without navels, but a large number intentionally avoided the issue with foliage or strategically placed locks of long, flowing hair. The controversy is still unresolved.

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"There is as much chance of repealing the 18th [Prohibition] Amendment as there is for a hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail."

--Senator Morris Sheppard (Texas), author of the 18th Amendment

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Hegel published his proof that there could be no more than seven planets just a week before the discovery of the eighth.

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In his request for sick leave, Nguyen Van Teo, an employee of the United States Army in Saigon, explained:

(1) When I arrived at building T-1640 to fix it, I found that the rains had dislodged a large number (continued from page 137) of tiles on the roof. So I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building and hoisted up a couple of barrels of tile.

(2) When I fixed the building, there was a lot of tile left over. I hoisted the barrel back up again and secured the line at the bottom and then went up and filled the barrel with the extra tile. Then I went down to the bottom and cast off the line.

(3) Unfortunately, the barrel of tile was heavier than I was and before I knew what was happening, the barrel started down and I started up. I decided to hang on, and halfway up I met the barrel coming down and received a severe blow on the shoulder.

(4) I then continued to the top, banging my head on the beam and getting my fingers jammed in the pulley. When the barrel hit the ground, it burst its bottom, allowing all the tile to spill out. I was now heavier than the barrel and started down again at a high speed.

(5) Halfway down I met the barrel coming up and received severe injuries on my shin. When I hit the ground, I landed on the tile, getting several painful cuts from the sharp edges.

(6) At this point, I must have lost my presence of mind, because I let go of the line. The barrel then came down, giving me another heavy blow on the head and putting me in the hospital.

I respectfully ask for sick leave.

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In Norfolk, Virginia, a lawyer defending a client charged with sending an obscene publication through the mail called the Justice Department and asked to view a copy of the document in question. The offending material arrived a few days later--by mail.

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A raisin, dropped into a glass of champagne, will rise and fall continuously in the glass.

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The three body segments of an insect do not depend on one another for survival. An insect whose head has been cut off may live as long as a year--continuing to react to light, temperature, humidity and various chemical stimuli--until it starves to death. The abdomen of a female moth, with no head or thorax, is capable of being fertilized and laying eggs.

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It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

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The reason sardines are crammed so tightly into their cans is that the oil used to pack them is more expensive by volume than the fish themselves. Thus, the more sardines a manufacturer can squeeze into a can, the greater his profit.

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Under his powdered wig, George Washington had sandy-brown hair.

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Researchers in Denmark found that beer tastes best when drunk to the accompaniment of a certain musical tone. The optimal frequency is different for each beer. The correct harmonious tone for Carlsberg Lager, for example, is 510-520 cycles per second.

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The word cleave has two definitions: "to split or cut apart" and "to adhere, cling or hold together."

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In May 1918, President Woodrow Wilson and Government officials gathered near the Washington Monument to witness the historic take-off of the world's first airmail flight. The sky was clear blue as the plane passed over Washington on its way to Philadelphia. But, due to some navigational error, it ended up in Waldorf, Maryland, farther away from Philadelphia than when it started. The mail was finally delivered by train.

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Aimee Semple McPherson was buried with a live telephone in her coffin.

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Natives on the Pacific island of Nauru traditionally drank a strong home-brew made from fermented palm leaves. But after World War One, Nauru was mandated to Australia and prohibition was imposed. Infant mortality rose to the 50 percent level within six months. The reason? The people's natural diet was so low in vitamin B1 that infants being nursed got the required amount of it only when the mother was drunk. When the natives were allowed to drink again, infant mortality fell at once to seven percent.

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The state of Iowa recently decided to classify the sunflower as "a noxious weed." The sunflower is Kansas' state flower, and the citizens there were understandably offended. Shortly thereafter, the Kansas legislature officially declared the Eastern goldfinch--the state bird of Iowa--"a public nuisance."

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Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair.

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Quiz: Its light production has been called the most efficient form known to man. It gives the coldest light of any in the world--only about one percent of its energy is lost as heat. What is it?

Answer: the glowworm

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Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn, wore gloves to hide a physical deformity: She had six fingers on one hand.

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Romarchite and hydroromarchite are two very rare minerals recently discovered. They have been found only in the form of corrosion on some small tin pans that fell into the Winnipeg River when a canoe overturned sometime in the 19th Century.

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Because Robert Stroud, whose life story is told in The Birdman of Alcatraz, was in prison at the time of the movie's release he was refused permission to see it.

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Ray Chapman, former star shortstop of the Cleveland Indians, batted second in Cleveland's line-up. In one game, during the 1920 season, he went to bat twice and got two hits, each a double. He stole two bases and scored two runs. In the field, he made two put-outs, two assists and two errors. In two unofficial times at bat he was struck by pitched balls--twice. The second of these killed him.

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"No sane person in the country likes the war in Vietnam, and neither does President Johnson."

--Hubert H. Humphrey, 1968

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Feeling a temptation to neglect his scholarly pursuits, Demosthenes shaved one side of his head so that he'd feel too humiliated to be seen in public.

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During the mayoral election in Picoaza, Ecuador, a foot powder known as Pulvapies ran an advertising campaign with the slogan, "Vote for Any Candidate, but if You Want Well-being and Hygiene, Vote for Pulvapies." When the returns were in, Pulvapies had been elected mayor of Picoaza.

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The fact that you hold a pair in a poker game increases the probability that your opponent also holds a pair.

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In 1897, while serving a term in the Ohio State Penitentiary, a prisoner helped design, build and install its first electric chair. Years later, he returned to the prison after being convicted of first-degree murder. In 1911, he was executed in the same electric chair. The man's name was Charles Justice.

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There's nothing difficult about selling a refrigerator to an Eskimo. Many Eskimos use them--to keep food from freezing.

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It has been confirmed by the American Heart Association that among persons on a low saturated-fat diet, the death rate from heart disease is 20 percent lower than that of the rest of the population. On the other hand, the death rate from cancer among these dieters is 30 percent higher than in the remaining population.

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Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball as is commonly believed. But he did play a special part in American history: He aimed the first Union shot at Fort Sumter.

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The longest sentence ever published appears in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables; it is 823 words long and takes up three pages.

Hugo, among others, also wrote the shortest letter. While on a vacation, he was curious to find out how Les Misérables was selling. To his New York publisher, he wrote, "?" The reply was, "!"

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The fear of quicksand is unfounded. You'll get wet and sandy in quicksand, but that's all. If you can swim in water, you can swim in quicksand, and even if you can't, there's still no worry. Quicksand is just sand and water, and its specific gravity is so high that at least a quarter of you will remain above the surface.

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While a member of the House of Representatives in 1969, Barry Goldwater, Jr., visited the floor of the Senate during some free time one day. He fell asleep during a speech by Barry Goldwater, Sr.

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Magnesium picks up weight in the process of burning; its ashes weigh more than the metal.

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Brazil used to print a bank note worth one cruzeiro. It was discontinued in 1960, when it was found that it cost 1.2 cruzeiros to print.

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An American soldier was relaxing in a Vietnamese "massage parlor" when the "masseuse" inflicted a painful love bite on a very tender spot. The girl turned out to be a Viet Cong agent, so her oral assault was classified as a "hostile action by the enemy." As a result of this "enemy engagement," the soldier received the Purple Heart.

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Benjamin Franklin invented the rocking chair.

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"Property must not be taken without compensation, but ... some property may be taken or destroyed for public use without paying for it, if you do not take too much."

--Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his dissenting opinion, Springer vs. the Government of the Philippine Islands, 1928

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Franklin D. Roosevelt named the United Nations. He thought of it while taking a shower one day in the White House, and called it out to Winston Churchill in the next room.

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The elephant is the only animal that cannot jump. But it is also the only animal that has been taught to stand on its head.

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When Karl Marx was living in London, according to the Russian magazine Sputnik, he received the following letter from his Leipzig publisher: "Dear Herr Doctor: You are already 18 months behind time with the manuscript of Das Kapital, which you have agreed to write for us. If we do not receive the manuscript within six months, we shall be obliged to commission another author to do this work."