Also by A.J. Jacobs
THE TWO KINGS: JESUS AND ELVIS
AMERICA OFF-LINE
ESQUIRE PRESENTS: WHAT IT FEELS LIKE (EDITOR)
SIMON & SCHUSTER
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Copyright (c) 2004 by A.J. Jacobs
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
This book is an account of the author's experience reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Some events appear out of sequence, and some names and identifying details of individuals mentioned have been changed.
Book design by Helene Berinsky Index by Sydney Wolfe Cohen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jacobs, A. J., 1968-
The know-it-all : one man's humble quest to become the smartest person in the world / A.J. Jacobs
p. cm.
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2. Learning and scholarship. 3. Jacobs, A. J., 1968- 4. United States--Intellectual life--20th century. 5. United States--Intellectual life--21st century. I. Title.
AE5.E44J33 2004
031--dc22 2004048233
ISBN 0-7432-7260-9
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
To my wife, Julie
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Rob Weisbach, who is not only the smartest editor in the world, but a great, kind, and absurdly supportive friend. Thanks also to Peter Breslow and Scott Simon and all the big brains at NPR. I'm grateful to Ted Allen, Shannon Barr, Ginia Bellafonte, Steve Bender, Brian Frazer, Stephen Kory Friedman, David Granger, Andrew Lund, Rick Marin, Victor Ozols, Tom Panelas, Brendan Vaughan, and Andy Ward. I'm indebted to my family and my wife's family who, instead of objecting to this massive invasion of their privacy, were nothing but encouraging. And of course, thanks to my wife Julie, who, when she agreed to marry me, made me the luckiest man in the world.
Introduction
I know the name of Turkey's leading avant-garde publication. I know that John Quincy Adams married for money. I know that Bud Abbott was a double-crosser, that absentee ballots are very popular in Ireland, and that dwarves have prominent buttocks.
I know that the British tried to tax clocks in 1797 (huge mistake). I know that Hank Aaron played for a team called the Indianapolis Clowns. I know that Adam, of Bible fame, lived longer than the combined ages of the correspondents of 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II (930 years, to be exact). I know that South America's Achagua tribe worshiped lakes, that the man who introduced baseball to Japan was a communist, and that Ulysses S. Grant thought Venice would be a nice city "if it were drained."
I know all this because I have just read the first hundred pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I feel as giddy as famed balloonist Ben Abruzzo on a high-altitude flight--but also alarmed at the absurd amount of information in the world. I feel as if I've just stuffed my brain till there are facts dribbling out of my ears. But mostly, I am determined. I'm going to read this book from A to Z--or more precisely, a-ak to zywiec. I'm not even out of the early As, but I'm going to keep turning those pages till I'm done. I'm on my way. Just 32,900 pages to go!
How did this happen? How did I find myself plopped on my couch, squinting at tiny font about dwarf buttocks and South American lakes? Let me back up a little.
I used to be smart. Back in high school and college, I was actually considered somewhat cerebral. I brought D. H. Lawrence novels on vacations, earnestly debated the fundamentals of Marxism, peppered my conversation with words like "albeit." I knew my stuff. Then, in the years since graduating college, I began a long, slow slide into dumbness. At age thirty-five, I've become embarrassingly ignorant. If things continue at this rate, by my fortieth birthday, I'll be spending my days watching Wheel of Fortune and drooling into a bucket.
Like many in my generation, I've watched my expensive college education recede into a haze. Sure, I remember a couple things from my four years at Brown University. For instance, I remember that a burrito left on the dorm room floor is still somewhat edible after five days, as long as you chew really hard. But as for bona fide book learning? Off the top of my head, I recall exactly three things from my classes:
1. When my comp lit professor outed Walt Whitman.
2. When the radical feminist in my Spanish class infuriated the teacher by refusing to use masculine pronouns. "La pollo." "No, el pollo." "La pollo." "No, no, no, el pollo." Et cetera.
3. When the guy in my Nietzsche seminar raised his hand and said, "If I listen to one more minute of this, I'm going to go crazy," then promptly stood up, walked to the back of the class, and jumped out the window. It was a ground-floor window. But still. It was memorable.
My career choices are partly to blame for my intellectual swan dive. After college, I got a job as a writer at Entertainment Weekly, a magazine devoted to the minutiae of movies, TV, and music. I crammed my cranium with pop culture jetsam. I learned the names of 'N Sync's singers--as well as their choreographer. I could tell you which stars have toupees, which have fake breasts, and which have both. But this meant anything profound got pushed out. I could talk confidently about the doughnut-eating Homer, but I'd forgotten all about the blind guy who wrote long poems. I stopped reading anything except for tabloid gossip columns and books with pictures of attractive celebrities on the cover. In my library, I actually have a well-thumbed copy of Marilu Henner's autobiography. Things improved slightly when I got a job as an editor at Esquire magazine (I now know that Syrah and Shiraz are the same wine grape), but still, my current knowledge base is pathetically patchy, filled with gaps the size of Marlon Brando--whose autobiography I've read, by the way.
I've been toying with the idea of reading the Britannica for years. Since I haven't accomplished anything particularly impressive in my life, unless you count my childhood collection of airsickness bags from every major airline, I've always thought of this as a good crucible. The tallest mountain of knowledge. My Everest. And happily, this Everest won't cause icicles to form on my ears or deprive me of oxygen, one of my favorite gases. I'll get a crash course in everything. I'll leave no gap in my learning unfilled. In this age of extreme specialization, I will be the last guy in America to have all general knowledge. I'll be, quite possibly, the smartest man in the world.
I've actually dabbled in reference books before. After college, I spent a couple of days poring over Webster's dictionary--but mostly I was looking for two-letter words that I could use in Scrabble to make annoyingly clever moves. (I was kind of unemployed at the time.) And that turned out to be a very successful experience. You can bet your bottom xu (Vietnamese monetary unit) that I kicked the butt of my jo (Scottish slang for girlfriend) without even putting on a gi (karate outfit).
But the encyclopedia idea I stole from my father. When I was a freshman in high school, my dad, a New York lawyer, decided he was going to read the Britannica. My father is a man who loves learning. He went to engineering grad school, then to business grad school, then to law school. He was about to enroll in medical school when my mom told him that maybe it'd be a good idea to get a job, since jobs earn money, which is kind of helpful when trying to buy food. But even with a day job, he continued his book addiction and scholarly writing. Back in 1982, he decided the Britannica was a good way to become an instant expert on all subjects. He made it up to the mid-Bs--I think it was right around Borneo--before giving up, blaming his busy schedule. Now I'm going to take up the cause. I'm going to redeem the family honor.
I called up my dad to tell him the good news.
"I'm going to finish what you started."
"I'm not sure I follow," he said.
"I'm going to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica."
A pause. "I hear that the Ps are excellent."
I figured he'd have a wisecrack. That's his way. He's got a universe of information and wisdom in his head, but with my sister and me, he'd rather tell jokes and play silly games, like filling our water glasses to the very top, making it impossible to drink without spilling. He saves his serious talks for work--or for the other lawyers in the family, of whom there are a good dozen. Maybe that'll change soon. Maybe when I start telling him about the intricacies of the Phoenician legal system, he'll include me in the adult circle.
I tried the idea out on my wife, Julie, that night as we started scrubbing a mound of dishes.
"I think I need to get smarter," I said.
"Why? You're plenty smart." Julie motioned for me to hand her the sponge.
"I think I need to cut down on reality TV," I said.
"We could probably limit ourselves to two or three hours a day."
"And I think I'm going to read the encyclopedia." No response. "The Encyclopaedia Britannica, from A to Z."
I could tell Julie was skeptical, and with good reason. I met her when we were both working at Entertainment Weekly. She was on the business side, selling ads and chatting up clients, as comfortable in social settings as I am awkward, as practical as I am unrealistic. The romance was slow to start--mostly because she thought I was gay--but she's stuck with me for five years now. In that time, she's heard me announce plenty of other grand schemes--like the time I tried to start a magazine-wide Ping-Pong league, or my plan to write a screenplay about a president with Tourette's syndrome (working title: Hail to the Freakin' Chief)--only to see them fizzle.
"I don't know, honey," she said finally. "Sounds like kind of a waste of time."
Make that skeptical and slightly concerned. Julie has enough trouble dragging me out of the apartment to interact with actual, three-dimensional human beings. The encyclopedia, she no doubt surmised, would give me one more excuse to stay pinned to our comfortable couch. "What about eating dinner at every restaurant in New York?" Julie suggested. "You can start with the restaurants with A names, and work your way to the Zs. Wouldn't that be fun?"
A valiant try. But I'm dead serious about Operation Encyclopedia.
I got no more enthusiasm when I told my friends. "Can't you just read the Cliffs Notes?" was a popular response. One friend suggested that I read every volume of the children's book Encyclopedia Brown instead. Some wondered if maybe the World Book wasn't more my speed. At least that one has lots of pictures. No, it has to be the Britannica, I told them.
And it does. Last night, I did some preliminary research on encyclopedias. The Britannica is still the gold standard, the Tiffany of encyclopedias. Founded in 1768, it's the longest continually published reference book in history. Over the years, the Britannica's contributors have included Einstein, Freud, and Harry Houdini. Its current roster includes dozens of academics with Nobels, Pulitzers, and other awards with ceremonies that don't feature commentary from Melissa Rivers. The Britannica passed through some tough times during the dot-com craze, and it long ago phased out the door-to-door salesman, but it keeps chugging along. The legendary eleventh edition from 1911 is thought by many to be the best--it has inspired a fervent, if mild-mannered, cult--but the current editions are still the greatest single source of knowledge.
Yes, there's the Internet. I could try to read Google from A to Z. But the Internet's about as reliable as publications sold next to Trident and Duracell at the supermarket checkout line. Want a quick check on the trustworthiness of the Internet? Do a search on the words "perfectionnist" and "perfestionist." No, I prefer my old-school books. There's something appealingly stable about the Britannica. I don't even want that newfangled CD-ROM for $49, or the monthly Britannica online service. I'll take the leatherette volumes for $1,400--which is not cheap, but it's certainly less expensive than grad school. And anyway, at the end of this, maybe I can go on Jeopardy! and win enough to buy a dozen sets.
A couple of days after I placed my order, my boxes arrive. There are three of them, and they're each big enough to hold an air conditioner. I rip open the cardboard and get a look at my new purchase. It's a handsome set of books--sleek and black, with gold embossing on the spine that spells out the first and last entries in that volume. An actual example: Excretion/Geometry. Another: Menage/Ottawa, which somehow confirms what we've all heard about those wanton Canadians.
Seeing the Britannica in three dimensions not only causes Julie to panic that it'll eat up most of our apartment's shelf space, it also drives home the magnitude of my quest. I'm looking at 33,000 pages, 65,000 articles, 9,500 contributors, 24,000 images. I'm looking at thirty-two volumes, each one weighing in at a solid four pounds, each packed with those giant, tissue-thin pages. The total: 44 million words.
As a clever procrastination device, I pile all the volumes on the floor in one big stack. It reaches past my nipples. Four foot two! Practically a Danny DeVito of knowledge. I do a little shadowbox with my new adversary, feint a right jab, then step back and look at it again. It's a disturbing sight. Is this whole endeavor really a bright idea? Is this the best use of my time? Maybe I should try to accomplish something easier, like taking a course at Columbia University or buying a new bathing suit. But no, I've made a commitment.
I plunk the first volume on my lap. It feels weighty. It feels learned. It feels good. When I crack it open, the sturdy spine gives me a pleasant amount of resistance. And then I start to read.
A
a-ak
That's the first word in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. "A-ak." Followed by this write-up: "Ancient East Asian music. See gagaku."
That's the entire article. Four words and then: "See gagaku."
What a tease! Right at the start, the crafty Britannica has presented me with a dilemma. Should I flip ahead to volume 6 and find out what's up with this gagaku, or should I stick with the plan, and move on to the second word in the AA section? I decide to plow ahead with the AAs. Why ruin the suspense? If anyone brings up "a-ak" in conversation, I'll just bluff. I'll say, "Oh, I love gagaku!" or, "Did you hear that Madonna's going to record an a-ak track on her next CD?"
a cappella
A lovely surprise. I know exactly what this is--an ex-girlfriend of mine belonged to an a cappella group in college. They sang songs from Def Leppard and called it Rockapella. One for two. Not bad.
Aachen
The next few entries destroy my average. I don't recognize the names of any Chinese generals or Buddhist compendiums. And I've never heard of Aachen, the German city that's home to Schwertbad-Quelle, the hottest sulfur spring in the country. I try to memorize the information. If my goal is to know everything, I can't discriminate, even against obscure Teutonic landmarks.
Aaron
I move on to Aaron, the brother of Moses. Seems he was sort of the Frank Stallone of ancient Judaism. The loser brother, the one Mom didn't talk about too much. "Oh, Aaron? He's doing okay. Still finding his way. But back to Moses. Did you hear about the Red Sea?"
This is good stuff. I'm Jewish, but I never got any religious training, never got a bar mitzvah. I know most of my Jewish lore from Charlton Heston movies, and I wouldn't call myself observant, though I do have a light lunch on Yom Kippur. So the Britannica will be my savior, my belated Hebrew school.
Abbott, Bud, and Costello, Lou
After a bunch of Persian rulers named Abbas, I get to these two familiar faces. But any sense of relief fades when I learn about their sketchy past. Turns out that the famed partnership began when Costello's regular straight man fell ill during a gig at the Empire Theater in New York, and Abbott--who was working the theater's box office--offered to substitute. It went so well, Abbott became Costello's permanent partner. This is not a heartwarming story; it's a cautionary tale. I'm never calling in sick again. I don't want to come back after a twenty-four-hour flu and find Robbie from the mail room volunteered to be the senior editor. It's a tough world.
ABO blood group
Stomach cancer is 20 percent more common in people with type A blood than those with type B or type O. That's me, type A. This is even more disturbing than the tale of the backstabbing Costello. Clearly, I have to be prepared to learn some things I don't like.
Absalom
Absalom, a biblical hero, has the oddest death so far in the encyclopedia. During a battle in the forest, Absalom got his flowing hair caught in the branches of an oak tree, which allowed his enemy, Joab, to catch him and slay him. This, I figure, is exactly why the army requires crew cuts.
Acoemeti
A group of monks who provided nonstop choral singing in the 5th century. They did it with a relay system--every few hours, a fresh monk would replace the exhausted monk. I love this image, though I am glad I wasn't their neighbor. We're talking twenty-four-hour entertainment long before MTV went on the air. Quite possibly before Mick Jagger was born.
Addled Brain Syndrome
Okay, I made that up. There's no such thing as addled brain syndrome. But I'm definitely suffering from something. As I vacuum up this information hour after hour, I find myself so overwhelmed that I have to take frequent breaks to walk around the office. Walk it off, as my gym teachers used to say. You only sprained that brain. It's not a fracture. Walk it off, son.
The reading is much, much harder than I expected. But at the same time, in some ways, it's strangely easier. In some ways, it's the perfect book for someone like me, who grew up with Peter Gabriel videos, who has the attention span of a gnat on methamphetamines. Each essay is a bite-sized nugget. Bored with Abilene, Texas? Here comes abolitionism. Tired of that? Not to worry, the Abominable Snowman's lurking right around the corner (by the way, the mythical Snowman's footprints are actually produced by running bears). Reading the Britannica is like channel surfing on a very highbrow cable system, one with no shortage of shows about Sumerian cities.
The changes are so abrupt and relentless, you can't help but get mental whiplash. You go from depressing to uplifting, from tiny to cosmic, from ancient to modern. There's no segue, no local news anchor to tell you, "And now, on the lighter side." Just a little white space, and boom, you've switched from theology to worm behavior. But I don't mind. Bring on the whiplash--the odder the juxtapositions, the better. That's the way reality is--a bizarre, jumbled-up Cobb salad. I love seeing the prophet Abraham rub elbows with Karl Abraham, a German shrink who theorized about the anal expulsive and phallic stages.
Oh yes, that's another thing. Sex. This came as a pleasant surprise to me. The Britannica may not be Cinemax, but it's got its fair share of randiness. I've learned, for instance, that Eskimos swap wives. Plus, the Achagua men have three to four spouses and flowers in the Acanthaceae family are bisexual. Yowza! That's some racy stuff. Hot. Hotter than the Schwertbad-Quelle sulfur spring. I expected the Britannica to be prudish, but it seems quite happy to acknowledge the seamy world below the belt.
And speaking of titillating R-rated material, my God--the violence! It's extraordinary how blood-soaked our history is. One Persian politician was strangled by servants, another suffocated in a steam bath. Or consider poor Peter Abelard, an 11th-century Christian theologian who, judging from his miniature portrait, looks a bit like Steve Buscemi. Abelard came up with some interesting ideas--namely that deeds don't matter, only intentions; in other words, the road to heaven is paved with good intentions. But how can I give much deep thought to that idea when the entry also discusses Abelard's love affair with his student Heloise, which ended rather badly: Abelard suffered castration at the order of Heloise's outraged uncle. Sweet Jesus! I'm guessing Heloise didn't get asked on a whole lot of dates after that one.
Sex, violence, MTV pacing--all this makes my quest much more palatable. But I don't mean to give the wrong idea. As I said, it's hard. Excruciatingly hard. First, the vastness of it. I knew there was an ocean of information out there. But I didn't really comprehend what I was up against until I started trying to drink that ocean cup by cup. I'll be reading about Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and I'll get a list of the seven different ethnicities that comprise that city: Gallas, Gurages, Hareris, Tigres, Walamos, Somalis, and Dorses. Should I even try to memorize those? Six ethnicities I could handle, but seven? That's daunting.
The Britannica is not a book you can skim. This is a book you have to hunch over and pay full attention to, like needlepoint or splinter removal. It hurts my poor little head. Until now, I didn't realize quite how out of shape my brain had become. It's just not accustomed to this kind of thinking. I feel like I'm making it run a triathlon in ninety-degree heat when it's used to sitting in a hammock drinking mojitos. The math and science parts of my brain have gone particularly flabby since college. At most, I have to calculate the number of subway rides I have remaining on my little electronic Metrocard. That rarely requires quadratic equations. At my job, the toughest science I've encountered was the time I had to edit a few sentences about Botox for men. So when I read about acid-base reactions with conjugate bases and nonaqueous solvents, I'm mystified. I generally read this type of stuff again and again and just hope it'll sink in. It's the same strategy that American tourists in Europe employ when confronted with a non-English-speaking store owner. Umbrella. Um-brella! Um-BREL-la! Say it often and loud enough, and it'll click. But I forge on.
Alcott, Bronson
The father of novelist Louisa May Alcott was famous in his own right. A radical reformer full of unorthodox ideas, he opened several schools for children. The schools had a particularly unusual discipline system: teachers received punishment at the hands of the offending pupil. The idea was that this would instill a sense of shame in the mind of the errant child. Now, this is a brilliant concept. I have a long list of teachers I wish I could have spanked, among them my fifth-grade instructor, Ms. Barker, who forced us to have a sugar-free bake sale, which earned us a humiliating $1.53.
Alger, Horatio
I knew he was the 19th-century author of the famous rags-to-riches novels. I didn't know he turned to writing after being kicked out of a Massachusetts church for allegations of sexual misconduct with local boys. I told you--the Britannica can be a gossip rag.
amethyst
One of my biggest challenges is figuring out how to shoehorn my newfound knowledge into conversations. Naturally, I want to show off, but I can't just start reeling off facts or I'll be as annoying as an Acarina, a type of mite that, incidentally, copulates by transferring little packets of sperm called spermatophores.
And since I've read only entries in the very early As, my new topics of expertise don't come up that often. You'd be surprised at how many days can go by without one of my friends mentioning aardvarks, much less aardwolves--an African carnivore that the Britannica generously describes as "harmless and shy."
But today I had my first successful reference. Well, I don't know if it was actually successful. Okay, it was spectacularly unsuccessful. A total failure. But it was a start.
I'm in my office with a writer, and I need to give him a deadline for his piece.
"Can you get it to me Tuesday?"
"How about Wednesday?" he says.
"Okay. But Wednesday is the latest. Otherwise, I'll be angry. I'll have to rip you more assholes than an abalone."
Puzzled look.
"Abalones are a type of snail with five assholes."
Silence.
"They've got a row of holes in their shells, and five of them serve as outlets for waste."
Silence. Annoyed look.
I thought it was an amusing little tidbit, a nice twist on the cliche, a clever way to make it clear that I really needed the article. Instead, I came off like a colossal outlet for waste.
I figure it'll be easier to show off my increasing intelligence in a relaxed social environment. So when Julie and I go to her friends' house for dinner that night, I am prepared to dazzle. We arrive at Shannon and David's apartment, exchange cheek kisses and "Great to see you's."
"Brrrrr," says Julie as she unbundles her several layers of winter wear.
"A little nippy out there, huh?" says Shannon.
"Not quite as cold as Antarctica's Vostok Station, which reached a record 128 degrees below zero," I reply. "But still cold."
Shannon chuckles politely.
We sit down in the living room and Shannon starts telling Julie about her upcoming vacation in Saint Bart's.
"I'm so jealous," says Julie.
"Yeah, I can't wait to get some sun," Shannon says. "Look how white I am."
"Albinism affects one in twenty thousand Americans," I say.
Shannon doesn't quite know how to respond to that one.
"Anyhoo," says Julie, "where are you staying?"
I probably shouldn't have said my albinism fact, but I can't help it. I'm so loaded up with information that when I see a hole--even if it's a small hole, even a microscopic hole, the size of an abalone's butt hole--I have to dive right in.
David returns from the kitchen with a bottle of wine.
"Anyone want some cabernet?"
"I'll have a glass," says Julie.
"I'll have some too," I say. "And an amethyst if you've got one."
David cocks his head.
"Amethysts protect against drunkenness, according to the ancients," I say.
"Is that so?" says David.
"Yes. I don't want to end up like Alexander the Great, who died after getting ill from a drinking bout."
"No, I suppose not," says David. He laughs. Nervously, I think.
Julie turns back to Shannon, hoping to resume the vacation talk. "So, which hotel?"
"We've got reservations at this place I found in Conde Nast Traveler--"
"Also, speaking of alcohol consumption," I say, "what country do you think has the highest per capita rate? I'll give you a hint: it's not Ireland."
"Hmm. Is it France?" asks Shannon. She's very polite.
"Nope. Not France. The residents of Luxembourg are the biggest boozers in the world."
"Huh."
"Who woulda thunk?" I ask. "Luxembourg! But seriously, do not get between a Luxembourgian and a bottle of whiskey!" I say, shaking my head and laughing.
Part of me is hoping Shannon and David won't notice that all my facts start with A. But at the same time, I'm also kind of longing to be exposed. I've already logged thirty hours reading my encyclopedia, and I want them to ooh and aaah at my accomplishment. Maybe Julie senses this, or maybe she just wants to avoid further embarrassment, but she decides to spill my secret.
"A.J.'s decided to read the encyclopedia," she tells Shannon. "And he's only in the As, so you'll be hearing a lot of A facts."
"The encyclopedia?" says David. "That's some light reading."
"Yeah, it'll be good on the beach," I say.
"Seriously, why are you reading the encyclopedia?" says Shannon.
I had prepared for this. I had my answer.
"Well, there's an African folktale I think is relevant here. Once upon a time, there's this tortoise who steals a gourd that contains all the knowledge of the world. He hangs it around his neck. When he comes to a tree trunk lying across road, he can't climb over it because the gourd is in his way. He's in such a hurry to get home, he smashes the gourd. And ever since, wisdom has been scattered across the world in tiny pieces. So, I want to try to gather all that wisdom and put it together."
"I guess you're not up to P, for 'Please shut up,' " says Julie.
They all laugh at that one.
Arabian horses
Next morning, it's back to my daily dose of Britannica. Arabian horses have twenty-three vertebrae instead of the twenty-four found in most horses. I spend a moment trying to think of a situation in which this information might be useful. Maybe I could write a mystery story where the identification of an Arabian horse skeleton is a major plot point. Maybe I could win a bar bet with a moderately--but not overly--knowledgeable equestrian. Who knows?
Asimov, Isaac
I was aware that Asimov was a major figure in American literature, the author of numerous science fiction and science books. I didn't know just how many books: about five hundred. The man wrote five hundred books. I don't think I've written five hundred Post-it notes. He wrote so many books, even his biographers are reduced to the vague "about five hundred." The Britannica can be depressing that way. As you read accomplishment after accomplishment, Nobel after Nobel, you are reminded just how little you've done with your life. My entry--if written today--would look something like this:
Jacobs, Arnold "A.J." (b. March 20, 1968, New York, N.Y.)A minor figure in 20th-century American journalism. Jacobs attended Brown University, where he studied philosophy, attracted to the discipline because it required the lowest number of course credits necessary to graduate. Upon receiving his degree, he began his career writing articles for Dental Economics, the leading publication covering financial matters for dentists and orthodontists. He later established his reputation with a prescient sidebar in the pop culture magazine Entertainment Weekly comparing O. J. Simpson and Homer Simpson, which received great acclaim across America, or at least within the home of his parents. He met many of the midlevel show business figures of his day, including Bill Maher and Sarah Michelle Gellar, neither of whom knew his name.In 2000, Jacobs married Julie Schoenberg, a vivacious advertising sales representative also working at Entertainment Weekly. The marriage was apparently a happy one, despite the fact that Jacobs whined whenever Schoenberg suggested maybe he should put on pants because they were going to a nice restaurant.Jacobs's other achievements include folding napkins into such shapes as a rabbit and a hat. See also: hypochondria and germaphobe.
I think the Asimov entry stings all the more because I have a quasi Asimov in my own family. My dad--in his spare time, just for fun--writes legal books, and has so far published twenty-four of them. These are serious volumes, books with titles like The Impact of Rule 10b-5 and Disclosures and Remedies Under the Securities Law. He specializes in laws on insider trading, the kind that Martha Stewart was investigated for breaking, launching a thousand riffs on ways she might redecorate her jail cell.
The other day, I was over at my parents' house for lunch, and I figured, since I am trying to finish my dad's quest, I should take a look at his books. So after the meal, I wandered into his study and was confronted with those twenty-four tomes. A big, sagging shelf of them.
I haven't picked one up in years, not since I was fourteen. Back then, I used to enjoy the first volume of The Impact of Rule 10b-5, mainly because my dad had inserted a Playboy centerfold into a half dozen copies to send to friends as a joke. He had kept one of these customized copies for himself. So that was probably the closest I came to going to law school--studying the case of Miss January's missing ballet tutu.
This time, I figure I should read words other than "Turn-ons: champagne, walks on the beach, and men who can help my acting career." I pick up The Impact of Rule 10b-5 and read a sentence thick with words like "fiduciary" and "annuity plan" and "corpus." No comprehension; it could be random ink splatters on the page and I would have had the same level of understanding.
I flip to the middle of the book. As expected, the pages are heavy with footnotes. Really heavy. Some pages have just a couple of lines of regular text floating at the top, then a sea of footnotes all the way down. I guess footnotes isn't the right word when they get this abundant--more like shouldernotes or foreheadnotes.
My father is proud of his footnotes. A few years ago, he broke the world's record for most footnotes in a legal article, coming in at an impressive 1,247. Soon after that, a California legal professor topped my dad's record with 1,611 footnotes. My dad didn't stand for that. He wrote another legal article and just crushed his opponent. Squashed him with 4,824 footnotes, ensuring his status as the Wayne Gretsky of footnotes. My dad tried to get the Guinness Book of World Records interested, but legal footnotes apparently don't get the same respect as fingernails the size of adult rattlesnakes. So he had to settle for a mention in Harper's Index.
I flip to Dad's own index to see if I recognize any words. More dense Latinate legalese. And then I spot this entry: "Birds, for the, 1-894." My mother had once told me about that joke of Dad's, but I had forgotten about it. One of his better ones. But my Lord, 894 pages of text in just one volume--that's no joke. No wonder he gave up reading the Britannica--he was writing his own encyclopedia.
This investigation into my dad's oeuvre wasn't particularly good for my self-esteem. The scope and denseness of his work--those were both envy inducing. But that's not to mention that my dad has made himself the expert on insider trading. Not an expert. The expert. What had I made myself an expert on? The plot lines of the various Police Academy movies? Not even that. Though I haven't read the Britannica's write-up of psychoanalysis, I figure my dad's accomplishments have something to do with my quest to finish the encyclopedia. If I can't beat my dad on depth, at least I can get him on breadth.
assault and battery
They're always lumped together, but there is a difference. Assault is the attempt to apply force, battery is the actual application. Look at that--I'm already getting a legal education. Almost ready for the bar exam.
atrophy
A very troubling entry--all the ways my body is crumbling. The bones are becoming lighter and more porous. Muscles are shriveling. And worst of all, age leads to a striking decrease in the number of living cells in my cerebral cortex. Every day, my brain's surface ridges shrink and the skull fluid swells to fill the space.
The Britannica's passages on evaporating cortexes would disturb most people, but I'm particularly rattled; oddly enough, I've had a long history of grappling with a fear of brain damage. I might as well get this out on the table now. I mentioned earlier on that, growing up, I thought I was smart. Well, that wasn't exactly the whole story. I didn't just think that I was smart. I thought that I was really smart. I thought that I was, in fact, the smartest boy in the world.
I'm honestly not sure how this notion popped into my head. My mom probably had something to do with it, seeing as she was only slightly less enamored of me than I was of myself. And it's true, I did pretty well on tests, sometimes notching up the highest score in the class. As my mom likes to remind me, on one geography quiz, I got so cocky, I wrote "New Joizy" instead of "New Jersey." Ha! In any case, with my handful of good fourth-grade test scores as evidence, I somehow made the logical deduction that no other ten-year-old on planet Earth was my intellectual equal. It's a leap, yes. But in my defense, I hadn't taken any high-level statistics courses. At the time, it just somehow made sense. I could just feel that I was unique in some way (again, my mom told me so). And since I wasn't the best-looking boy or the best hockey player or the best glee club singer, that left intelligence. So what if I didn't always get the highest score? Or even very often? That could be explained away. Maybe I wasn't trying, or maybe the other kids cheated. Deep down, I knew I was top intellectual dog.
Let me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasn't easy. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obsessed with brain damage.
Danger lurked everywhere. If my skull was touched, that might jostle the brain and squash a few valuable dendrites. So no one was allowed contact with anything above my neck--that was the holy of holies. No friendly pats on the head. No soccer, with its insane practice on bonking the ball on your pate. And if Grandma came in for a kiss on the forehead, I would dart my head like Sugar Ray Leonard. If I'd known then about the annelid worm--which can turn its skin cells into brain cells--I would have been extremely jealous.
Even seeing other people get brain damage flustered me. When I was eleven, I went to the movie Hair with my mother at New York's Ziegfeld Theater, and was horrified to watch Treat Williams and his unshowered cohorts smoking pot in a Central Park tunnel. I could almost hear their poor brain cells scream for mercy. "Can we go?" I asked my mom before the first "Aquarius" refrain. "I don't feel so good."
Drug-addled musicals aside, the thing that really unhinged me was car rides. My fourth-grade biology teacher told us that the carbon monoxide produced by cars can cause brain damage. That was it, just a throwaway line inserted into a lecture on mammalian bloodstreams. But to me, carbon monoxide became the number one enemy, my white whale, the Joab to my Absalom.
I became a window Nazi. A window had to be cracked at all times so that my brain could get fresh oxygen to dilute that nefarious carbon monoxide. It could be forty below zero and we could be driving through Vostok Station; I'd still roll down the glass in the backseat of the Plymouth Valiant.
"Can you please shut that? It's really cold," said Mom.
"Just a little fresh air, Mom," I'd say.
"That fresh air is freezing my eyelids together."
"Roll up the window, A.J.," my dad said.
I'd roll it up. I'd wait about two minutes, till the conversation had drifted to some other topic, like which fast food chain most deserved our patronage, then I'd slowly--in barely noticeable spurts--lower the window again.
"Dammit, A.J.!" my mom would say, as her lower lip turned cobalt blue. "Please put up the window."
I was smart enough to know that I shouldn't tell anyone the reason I needed that icy air. No need to spill the secret that I was the genius of all geniuses, the Leonardo da Vinci of the 1980s. That would just inspire envy and skepticism. So I'd just stare at the closed window and stew. If ten minutes went by without my lungs getting fresh air, I panicked. I needed to make sure the monoxide hadn't eaten my cranium. For some reason, and this continues to baffle me, I thought the best way to test whether my mind was still in peak form was to create new and bizarre racquet sports. That was my homespun IQ test. So I made up racquet sports involving big racquets, tiny racquets, balls the size of refrigerators, balls the size of pencil erasers. There were racquet sports involving garage doors, bathroom sinks, and telecommunications satellites. Strange, I know. But it made me feel better.
Not counting my vigilance against brain damage, there were plenty of other strains associated with being the smartest boy in the world. It was a huge responsibility, nurturing this amazing organ of mine. I knew someday soon I'd have to invent something, cure something, or write something of grand significance. I knew I should be feeding my mind the highest-quality nourishment, like physics textbooks or Dostoyevsky, but instead I was keeping it on a starvation diet by watching Gilligan's Island reruns. Even back then, I had trouble resisting pop culture's pull. I felt guilty every time I watched those hapless castaways. Not that it stopped me, but I just couldn't enjoy Thurston Howell's lockjaw one-liners like my lucky bastard classmates with their slightly above-average intelligence.
I remember the day I decided I wasn't the smartest boy in the world. I was watching TV--not sitcom reruns, for once, but a documentary on Hasidic Jews. The footage showed a room of young Hasidic boys about the same age as I was, at their desks, their noses buried in books. The narrator intoned that these boys studied for sixteen hours a day. I was blown away. Sixteen hours a day! My God. Even though I knew I had the initial advantage of the highest-quality brain, these boys studied so much, they must have pulled several lengths ahead of me in the intelligence horse race. I just couldn't compete with sixteen hours a day. This was an immense relief. A whole new day. I started watching Gilligan and Ginger and all the rest with impunity.
In the years that followed, I became increasingly less impressed with my own intelligence. My perceived place on the bell curve drifted farther and farther to the left. I went from being, in my mind, much smarter than my dad to a little smarter, to just as smart, and then, finally--if I had to guess when, it'd be somewhere in my freshman or sophomore year at college--less smart than my dad, the author of those imposing twenty-four books.
In retrospect, the revelation about my intelligence--the one inspired by the studious Hasidic boys--wasn't exactly the product of flawless logic. There's not a perfect correlation between hours of reading and intelligence. Perhaps there's very little correlation at all. Of course, I do realize I'm committing the same fallacy right now, twenty-three years later. Deep down, I know that reading the encyclopedia and jamming my brain full of facts won't necessarily allow me to reclaim my title as the smartest person alive. I know my quest is a bit of a lark. I know it's got a whiff--or maybe more than a whiff--of the absurd.
And just in case I didn't know, I'm constantly being told this by friends and family. My aunt Marti, who lives in Berkeley and is always ready to voice her skepticism, whether it's about our phallocentric government or our reliance on oppressive Western medicine, confronted me in a phone call the other day.
"Now, why are you reading the encyclopedia again?"
"I'm trying to become the smartest man in the world."
"And how are you defining intelligence? Just the amount of information you have?"
"Yup."
"Well, that's not very intelligent."
"Well, I haven't gotten to the letter I."
It's an easy response, but there's something to it. I'm not so deluded that I think I'll gain one IQ point for every thousand pages. I don't honestly think that the folks from the MacArthur genius grant will be kicking down my door. But I also believe that there is some link between knowledge and intelligence. Maybe knowledge is the fuel and intelligence is the car? Maybe facts are the flying buttresses and intelligence is the cathedral? I don't know the exact relation. But I'm sure the Britannica, somewhere in those 44 million words, will help me figure it out.
augury
You can predict the future based on dice (cleromancy), dots on paper (geomancy), fire and smoke (pyromancy), entrails of sacrificed animals (haruspicy), animal livers (hepatoscopy), or shoulder blades of animals (scapulimancy). They had me up until the crazy shoulder blades part.
Aztec
The A's have been lousy with Aztecs. They popped up under all sorts of headings, including American Peoples, Arts of Native and Alcohol and Drug Consumption (they called magic mushrooms "God's flesh"). And here they are again, under plain old Aztec. Thanks to the Britannica, I now know the Aztecs prophesied the destruction of the earth followed by an age when humans become monkeys. Hey, that's the plot of Planet of the Apes! Damn you, Hollywood! You stole the idea from the Aztecs. Damn you to hell!
I polish off the monkey-fixated Aztecs, and just like that, I'm done with the A's. It's been two weeks, and I am now one twenty-sixth of my way to the summit. I have absorbed 3.8 percent of all the knowledge in the world. I slam my Britannica shut and do a little touchdown dance. Yes! I am the alpha male.
And yet, do I feel smarter? Have I proved my skeptical aunt Marti wrong yet? Well, I do know a lot more information, but in a way, I'm feeling more insecure than ever. I'm worried I'm not intelligent enough to process all my data into some coherent conclusion or worldview. I'm worried I'm not focusing on the right things. Take Aristotle. Here's one of the great philosophers of all time. I should be drinking in his theories on morality and epistemology. Instead, I'm fascinated by Aristotle's obscure maxim about marriage: that men should be thirty-seven and women should be eighteen when they take their vows. Aristotle came up with that theory because--now here's an odd coincidence--when he was thirty-seven he married an eighteen-year-old woman. I like that he rationalized his dirty-old-man behavior with a grand philosophical statement. There are a lot of Aristotelians in Hollywood, I chuckle to myself. So that's the profound conclusion I draw from the essay on Aristotle. That he likes young ladies.
Maybe by the end of the Bs I'll be smart enough to concentrate on the Big Picture.
B
Bacon, Francis
I am making sacrifices in my quest for knowledge. No one can argue with that. I wake up early, about 7 A.M., which is the middle of the night for most journalists. I read in the morning, I read at night. I'm on the verge of losing a half dozen friends because I've got no time to call them back. And worst of all, I've missed several hours of crucial television, including what Julie tells me was a particularly riveting Real World episode in which an enraged girl throws a fork at another cast member.
So it's tough, this pursuit of intelligence. But I feel humbled by Sir Francis Bacon, who made the ultimate sacrifice. He died in the quest for knowledge, a martyr to the cause.
I hadn't remembered much about Bacon from school, except that he's suspected by some to be the real Shakespeare. Also, he wore a huge ruffled collar. So, as you can see, it was nice to get a refresher course.
I learned Bacon--a 17th-century intellectual and politician--had a troubled public life. He was convicted of taking bribes in 1621 and thrown in the Tower of London. His defense: yes, he took the bribes, but they didn't affect his judgment (not his best moment). As a scholar, he wrote cleverly about language and the philosophy of science.
But my favorite fact about Bacon, the one that will stick with me, is how he died. It happened in March of 1626, north of London. Bacon was riding along in his horse and carriage when he suddenly decided he needed to know whether snow delays putrefaction. So he abruptly stopped his carriage, hopped out to buy a hen, and stuffed it with snow. Unfortunately, this caused him to be seized with a sudden chill, which brought on bronchitis, and he died soon after at a friend's house.
This, to me, is a noble anecdote. Okay, it's a little embarrassing that his death involved frozen poultry. And maybe he displayed a touch of sadism--I'm just hoping the poor hen wasn't alive when he rammed snow into its gullet. But there's also something great about it. Bacon had such an itch for knowledge, he was so giddy about an idea, that he just went bonkers and bolted out of his carriage. The man couldn't wait another second to find out more about antiputrefaction techniques. I find this inspiring. If you're going to give your life for a cause, furtherance of knowledge has got to be in the top two or three. In Bacon's honor, I put down the Britannica and go defrost a frozen bagel in the microwave.
baculum
This is the official name for a penis bone. The baculum can be found in hedgehogs, shrews, and bats. Interesting. I had no idea. The only time I'd ever even encountered the concept of a penis bone was during conversations with my college friend Ileana. Ileana had a very casual relationship with the truth. She liked to tell me stories about the pet llamas in her New York apartment, and her father's love affair with singer Robert Goulet. And once, she told me a detailed story about how her brother had broken his penis bone. He had been standing naked in front of an open window admiring the view from his hotel room, when--whoom--the window slid down and snapped his penis bone right in half.
"It's been three months, and he still has to wear the penis cast," she told me. "I was the first one to sign it."
"But Ileana," I said, "the penis doesn't have a bone."
"Oh," she said. That was it--no apology, no attempt at backtracking, just an "oh." Now, after reading about the baculum, I realize that Ileana's brother was probably a hedgehog.
baldness
My newfound knowledge bubbles up in my brain at strange times. In the elevator up to work, I stood behind an Asian man who happened to be bald. That's odd, I thought to myself. According to the encyclopedia, baldness in Asians is rare. It's rare in Asians and Native Americans. I guess what we have here is one of the unlucky few Asians who couldn't hold on to his follicles. I feel like giving him my condolences.
Barnum, P. T.
When he was eighty-one, Barnum fell gravely ill. At his request, a New York newspaper printed his obituary in advance so that he might enjoy it. That's brilliant. In fact, that could be a nice new revenue stream for newspapers--they could sell obits to people on their deathbeds. The encyclopedia is giving me lots of good ideas.
bearbaiting
A popular form of entertainment in 16th-century England. A bear was tied to a stake, and trained dogs were set upon it. Other variations included a bull tied to a stake and a pony with an ape tied to his back. Sounds like Fox has itself a new TV show!
bedlam
My growing collection of facts keeps overlapping with my life. I knew it would happen, but I'm surprised at the frequency. Several times an hour, a little internal "ding" goes off in my mind. I step into the bathtub for a shower, and I flash to the 17th-century health clinics where people stayed in baths for days at a time. I have my cereal, and I'm reminded of the world's longest breakfast table, in Battle Creek, Michigan. I read about a Boy Scouts controversy in the newspaper and I think of the scout movement's founder, Robert Baden-Powell, who also, incidentally, pioneered the use of hot-air balloons in military spying.
These little sparks happen so often that I couldn't possibly work them all into conversation. Which, I'm sure, is a great relief to those around me. But I can mention some of them--and I do. Like today at the office.
I wander in to chat with my fellow editor Mark. Mark is the office intellectual--a tall, brilliant Texan with a floppy Hugh Grant haircut. He's been working at Esquire an astounding fourteen years, a fact that causes plenty of amusement among the rest of the staff. "Mark, weren't you Hemingway's editor?" "Mark, were you at the Rita Hayworth photo shoot?" That kind of thing.
So I make my way into Mark's office, which is difficult, since he hasn't thrown away a book in his fourteen years. The floor is covered with waist-high piles of volumes by Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. It's bedlam in there (a word, by the way, that comes from Bethlehem Royal Hospital, a notorious London insane asylum).
"So that was a great event last night," I say.
"A really great event," agrees Mark.
The previous night we had been to an Esquire function that featured a speech by a budding politician named Cory Booker. Cory spoke passionately about the inner city, and ended his speech with a long, inspiring quote from James Baldwin.
"God, you have to love that James Baldwin quote."
"One of Esquire's own, that James Baldwin," says Mark. Having been at Esquire since the quill pen era, Mark has also become the office historian.
"Really?" I say. "I didn't know that."
"Yes, Esquire published 'The Fire Next Time.' "
Huh? I had just read the Baldwin essay in the encyclopedia, and I happen to remember that "The Fire Next Time"--Baldwin's groundbreaking article on civil rights--first appeared in The New Yorker. Usually, I keep my mouth clamped and listen in awe to Mark. He's a great talker--he often speaks in full paragraphs--and he knows his stuff, especially about magazine history. But this particular fact he did not know. And this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
"Actually, I think that appeared in The New Yorker," I say.
"No, it was Esquire."
"No, I'm pretty sure it's The New Yorker."
"It wasn't The New Yorker," says Mark. Then he wavers: "Well, maybe it was The Progressive. But it certainly wasn't The New Yorker."
I scurry back to my office and look up Baldwin on the Internet. Yup. "The Fire Next Time" appeared in The New Yorker. I e-mail Mark the news, concluding my note with some helpful advice: "Also, if you have any questions for Bavarian cream pie or beavers, just let me know."
So I had done it. I had made my first correction, and I corrected a brilliant man, to boot. I felt great. Well, actually I felt like kind of a dick. But also great.
bell
Back to the books. The world's largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang--it was broken by fire before it could be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations--then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure. I have a moment of silence for the silent bell.
Bentham, Jeremy
The British ethical philosopher--who advocated the greatest good for the greatest number of people--died in 1834. "After Bentham's death, in accordance with his directions, his body was dissected in the presence of his friends. The skeleton was then reconstructed, supplied with a wax head to replace the original (which had been mummified), dressed in Bentham's own clothes, and set upright in a glass-fronted case. Both this effigy and the head are preserved in University College, London." Not sure how that contributes to the greater good of mankind. The greater creepiness, yes.
Berserkers
Savage Norse soldiers from the middle ages who, it is said, went into battle naked. Hence "going berserk." So to truly go berserk, you should take off your pants. Noted.
Beuys, Joseph
A German avant-garde performance artist whose most famous piece was entitled How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. For the piece, "Beuys covered his head with honey and gold leaf, wore one shoe soled with felt and one with iron, and walked through an art gallery for about two hours, quietly explaining the art therein to a dead hare he carried."
Huh. And for this he gets himself written up in the encyclopedia. Maybe I'm a philistine, but I don't see the brilliance of this. If he explained pictures to a dead hamster or a dead iguana--yes, that would be ingenious. But a dead hare? Eh. Feels lazy.
birth control
The condom, according to legend, was invented by a British physician named Dr. Condom, who was alarmed by Charles II's growing flock of illegitimate offspring. That's the legend, anyway. The sober Britannica instead endorses the theory that the condom is named for the Latin word condus, which means a receptacle. The condom, the pill, the IUD, the vasectomy--they all get their proper due in this section. But I prefer the creativity of the earlier birth control techniques, which ranged from the delicious (using honey as a spermicide) to the aerobic (jumping backward seven times after coitus).
Those are good to know. Very relevant. I tell Julie not to jump backward seven times after sex and to keep honey safely above her belt. We can't afford any mishaps. For the past year, Julie and I have been trying to have a baby. We're getting a bit desperate. It doesn't help that all of Julie's friends are breeding like the female octopus, which lays and cares for 150,000 eggs. They're frighteningly fertile, her friends. They seem to get pregnant if they brush up against their husbands in the hallway. Which means there's a growing platoon of diaper-wearing creatures stomping through our lives, and an accompanying fleet of fold-up strollers and car seats. Meanwhile, Julie and I have nothing. Zilch. It's infuriating.
And it's not for want of effort. We follow her ovulations like a day trader follows the Nasdaq. She takes her temperature every morning, she makes charts and notes and annotations. Spreadsheets are involved. Still, bubkes. The Britannica points out that despite the widespread myth, women don't need orgasms to conceive. Which is a very good thing for us, because at this point, our sex life has become about as erotic as artificial respiration (which, by the way, should be given at a rate of twelve breaths per minute).
I suppose the world isn't screaming out for another child. Each week, the Britannica says, 1.4 million more people are born into this world than leave it. But I can't help it--I really want one of those little drooling, burping eight-pound creatures. I didn't expect to want a kid this badly, but I do. I yearn to be a dad.
Not that I'm ready. I'm pretty sure I'm way too self-absorbed and immature--and ignorant. When I was growing up, my father knew the answers to all the Frequently Asked Children's Questions: How far down does dirt go? Why don't the Chinese fall off the earth? Why do the leaves change color? He knew how things worked--why the fridge was cold, how the water got to our sink. I've forgotten all that knowledge. Maybe I'll feel better at Z.
bobsledding
The name comes from the early--and probably mistaken--belief that if the sledders bobbed their heads back and forth, it would increase the speed. Okay, ready for the sports bar.
book
The United Nations defines a book as a text that is at least forty-nine pages long. By that definition, the Britannica equals 673 books. Unsettling.
Braille, Louis
Just as unsettling: the number of prodigies in the Britannica. Braille developed his writing system for the blind at age fifteen. Bentham--the one who later had himself mummified--was studying Latin at the age of four. (When I was four, I was studying the effects of shoving bananas up my nose.) At age five, Aleksandr Blok was writing memorable Russian poetry. If I had known about these whiz kids back when I thought I was the smartest boy in the world, I wonder if I would have seen them as compadres, or if it would have snapped me out of my dream.
brain
Here, the ovoid tangle of neurons that, I hope, will be encoding every mountain range and vice president and 15th-century Icelandic bishop. The Britannica's brain-related highlights so far: the Greeks believed that it produced mucus, which gives new meaning to blowing your brains out. Also, if I ever take up boxing, I should do the old bare-knuckle style, which ironically causes less devastation to the neurons. (Bare-knuckle boxers rarely hit on the head for fear of breaking their hands.) With my mortal fear of brain damage, this is important information.
brandy
This liquor was allegedly invented when a Dutch shipmaster concentrated wine, planning to add water to it when he arrived on shore. He never got a chance. Everyone started dipping into the concentrate. Impatience has its advantages.
broccoli
Julie and I arrive at my parents' apartment for the holiday gift exchange. It's sort of Hanukkah-related, but since we're not so religious, we throw a nod to New Year's for good measure.
Mom greets us at the door.
"Happy Holidays!" she says, giving us each a kiss on the cheek. "And Happy 2003."
"Actually, technically, it's probably 'Happy 2007,' " I say.
"Really?" says Mom. "Why is that?"
"Well, because scientists believe Jesus was actually born between 4 and 6 B.C."
By this time, Julie has long since departed for the safety of the living room. But Mom, being my mom, is stuck listening. She's supportive of everything I do, not counting the time my sister and I took hang gliding lessons from a Deadhead or all those open car windows in arctic temperatures.
I explain to Mom that the Bible talks about Jesus' birth coinciding with the Star of Bethlehem, which wasn't a star at all, but an astronomical phenomenon. It was either a nova that occurred in 5 B.C. or the combined light of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, which all nearly lined up in 6 B.C.
"Well, then, Happy 2007," she says.
God bless Mom. I have to remember to hang out with her more often.
As for the gift exchange, I get a sweater and some pants. My sister Beryl and her husband, Willy, give me a couple books that I can't even imagine reading until 2008 or so.
Julie--a master gift buyer--had scoured catalogues and stores to get my family exceedingly appropriate presents. I was happy to take partial credit. In my defense, I did help write the cards, including my masterpiece, the one to Beryl, which started: "Dear Be3Al2(SiO3)6."
"This is for me, right?" Beryl asks.
"Yep. That's the chemical symbol for the beryl mineral."
"I thought that might be it."
"One of the largest beryls was found in Brazil--two hundred tons. So compared to that, you're very skinny."
That came out wrong. I had somehow just called my sister fat, which she isn't, and which I would like to take back, but it's too late.
After the gift exchange, we all clean up the mess of wrapping paper and ribbons that has accumulated on the floor.
"So I've officially passed you," I say to my dad, as we take out the holiday detritus. "I'm in late B's."
"Anything interesting?" he asks.
"I was just reading about broccoli. You know, it's officially classed as a type of cabbage."
My dad nods his head. "I've got a good fact for you," says my dad. "You know the speed of light, right?"
"Yes. 186,000 miles per second."
"Yes, but do you know it in fathoms per fortnight?"
"What?"
"Do you know the speed of light in fathoms per fortnight?"
"Uh, don't think I do."
My dad tells me that he has calculated the speed of light in fathoms per fortnight so that he can be the only person in the world who knows that particular piece of information. That, as my mother would say, is "very Arnie."
"It's 1.98 x 1014" he says.
"Wow. Really fascinating." My tone is definitely snappish, aggressive. My dad looks a little hurt. I'm not sure why I said it the way I did--I guess I felt he'd one-upped me--but it wasn't in the holiday spirit, that's for sure.
bruise
My left eye has turned a bright lobster shell red. I'm not positive it's tied to my exhausting marathon reading sessions, but I like to think it is. I consider it my first Britannica-related injury, and I wear it proudly. Though I don't want to go blind like your average early blues singer (Blind Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Lemon Jefferson), a little manly eyestrain seems appropriate.
Julie got concerned and has bought me several bags of baby carrots to help my rods and cones. Carrots, by the way, are a close cousin of hemlock (both in the Apiaceae family), so I'm hoping Julie didn't mix the two up.
Brutus
I was familiar with Brutus, the one featured in Shakespeare's classic line "Et tu, Brute." But what I didn't know was that there were two Brutuses who took part in Caesar's assassination, Brutus Albinus and Brutus Marcus. But only one Brutus--Marcus--gets all the headlines. That poor sap Brutus Albinus--also a protege of Caesar's--needed a better publicist. "Et tu, Brute. Et tu, Brute, too?" I can't be certain, but the forgotten Brutus seems to have been the more powerful one at the time. After the assassination, this Brutus led an army against Antony; he lost, and was killed by a Gallic chieftain on Antony's orders. Ignored by history or killed by a Frenchman--I'm not sure which is sadder.
burial
Here's something I'm learning: what a shockingly conventional thinker I am. Despite my liberal cross-cultural education at Brown, despite my delusion that I can think creatively, I'm realizing that I've been trained to look at life in a very particular way.
Consider burial. I always figured, when you are buried, your body is lying down on its back in the sleeping position. It just seemed natural. It never occurred to me that there were other options on this particular menu. But there are.
The Britannica reveals that some early cultures buried their dead in a crouching or squatting position. Also, North American Indians buried their dead in a fetal position, with the knees tucked under the chin and the body neatly tied in a bundle. Other cultures have opted for upright burial, especially for warriors.
This was startling to me. Without even realizing it, I'd always bought into the metaphor that death was the long sleep. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's the long gestation, so you should be in the fetal position. Or maybe it's the long bus ride, so you should be standing.
I like uncovering the cultural prejudices that I didn't even know I had. Maybe these revelations will have a practical application someday. Maybe I'll opt to be buried in the sitting position, remote control in hand. But for now, I feel that I've widened my perspective. And frankly, I feel ever so slightly superior, not only to my former self but to all those losers who think of burial as a horizontal affair. A small but important victory as I finish letter number two.
C
cappuccino
Every once in a while I'll know something more about a topic than the Britannica does. Such was the case with with cappuccino. I happen to know that cappuccino got its name from the Capuchin monks, whose robes were light brown, the same color as coffee with steamed milk. Hence cappuccino. This fact was not in the Britannica; I learned this from an Italian cab driver when Julie and I went on vacation to the Amalfi coast last year. It's a little thrill to feel like I've got the edge on the Britannica--a feeling that vanishes quickly in the ensuing pages, as I'm reminded of my epic ignorance.
Caravaggio
A great, groundbreaking, prolific 17th-century painter--and also a complete jackass. Caravaggio had a terrible temper, sort of the Sean Penn of his day. He got in trouble for tossing a plate of artichokes at a waiter's face. He was arrested for throwing stones at the Roman Guards. And during a brawl over the score of a tennis match, he killed a man. After the murder, Caravaggio fled Rome, hopped from city to city, was arrested, escaped jail, was attacked at the door to an inn, pleaded for clemency from the pope--all the while continuing to paint his great, dark religious paintings. Finally, Caravaggio died of pneumonia--just three days before a document granting him clemency arrived from Rome.
I hate the cliche of the tortured genius, of the tempermental artist--but unfortunately, maybe there's something to it. Is that why I'm not a great artist? I'm not tempermental enough? I don't throw enough plates of vegetables at waitstaff? There's another mystery I hope to crack in the next 31,000 pages.
Casanova
The famous 18th-century lothario ended his life as a librarian. Librarians could use that to sex up their image.
chalk
Chalk used in classrooms is not actually made of chalk, but a manufactured substance. More reason to distrust my teachers, those weasels.
Chang and Eng
The original Siamese twins share a write-up, which is only appropriate. Just as appropriate: the write-up is twice as bizarre as the average Britannica fare. I learn that Chang and Eng were born in Siam in 1811 of a Chinese father and a half-Chinese mother. They were joined at the waist by a tubular band about three inches long and one inch in diameter, approximately the size of a D battery. Even as kids, that tube turned them into celebrities, winning them an audience with the king of Siam. In 1829, Chang and Eng went on tour, hitting the United States, Canada, Cuba, and Europe with a British merchant who kept their earnings, as you'd expect of a British merchant who would take anatomically deformed children on tour. After Chang and Eng turned twenty-one, says the Britannica, they took charge of their own tours and made themselves a small fortune.
So far, so good--pretty much what I expected. But the next part I wouldn't have guessed: with their money, Chang and Eng settled in Mount Airy, North Carolina, bought some land, adopted the surname Bunker, and took up farming. I like that image--just two farmers named Bunker who happen to share a liver. Their assimilation continued. In April 1843, Chang and Eng married a pair of sisters, Adelaide and Sarah Yates. They had a nice, functional system going. Chang and Eng maintained separate households 1.5 miles apart and alternated three-day visits with their respective spouses. The Britannica doesn't explore the bedroom logistics--did Chang pretend to read the sports pages while Eng and Sarah were getting busy? Or did he get to peek if he stayed real quiet? Whatever the routine, it worked--each twin fathered several children. And that wasn't the only physical activity they did--Chang and Eng were expert marksmen, could run quickly and swim well. There was talk when they first arrived in the States about getting surgically separated. Chang and Eng decided against it, not just because of the dangers, but because they adapted so remarkably well to their condition.
During the American Civil War Chang and Eng lost much of their money, and in 1869 they once more went on tour in Europe. Chang, who was moodier than Eng, had begun boozing heavily. And then "in 1870, while returning to the United States from their successful tour, Chang had a paralytic stroke. Some four years later, during the night, Chang and Eng died, Chang preceding Eng by about three hours."
This is all very humbling. My sister and I used to complain about having to share the backseat of my parents' Plymouth Valiant. The territorial squabbling got so intense that we had to mark off our respective sides with masking tape. (Inevitably, I'd try to provoke her by inching my pinky over to her side.) We whined about having to share motel rooms, a TV, a phone. And here are these two siblings who had to share a body, no less, and yet they made it work pretty well. The photo in the encyclopedia shows them wearing dapper waistcoats, leaning against Victorian furniture, their arms around each other's shoulders, looking relaxed, content, and mildly aristocratic. It's a touching photo. When I have kids--God willing--and they complain about having to share an Xbox, I'll show them this photo. I've got three words for you two, I'll say: Chang and Eng.
character writer
In 17th-century England, writers such as Sir Thomas Overbury and Joseph Hall drew up character sketches to exemplify a quality such as vanity or stinginess. I'm no Tom Overbury, but there's someone in my life who calls out for a little character sketch. It's Julie's brother Eric, and the quality he exemplifies is brilliance. Or cockiness. Or smart-aleckness. Or some combination of the above. He's a big part of the reason why I felt I needed to get smarter, so here goes...
Eric is shockingly bright--as he's happy to let you know. He went to Harvard, talks at a rapid clip, and quotes Latin aphorisms in his e-mails. After college, he took the Foreign Service exam because it was reputedly the hardest test in the world. He passed, but took it again because he wanted the highest score in the class. He got it.
Eric's the kind of guy who never needed braces, has rock-bottom cholesterol, and whose hair stubbornly refuses to recede. He's even moderately good-looking, along the lines of a John Cusack.
When Eric looks at me (his eyes, incidentally, are 20/20), it's the same way I might look at a golden retriever. No matter how clever the golden retriever--even if it learns to flush the toilet or bark along to "Happy Birthday"--it's still a golden retriever. A different species. And just as I get a chuckle from watching a golden retriever chase its tail, Eric has found amusement in my lack of knowledge about the Crimean War and my confusion between fission and fusion.
This is something I'd never had before--a condescending older brother. When I was growing up with my sister, I was considered the scholar. Beryl had other advantages--friends, for one thing. But I was the acknowledged bookworm. Then, at age thirty-one, I suddenly inherited this brother-in-law who not only was far more knowledgeable than I was, but who loved to emphasize that point whenever he saw me.
He's the intellectual star of the family, and he knows it. At holidays, Eric sits at the table, his arms folded across his chest, holding forth on the big issues of the day. He'll talk about the historical precedents for John Ashcroft's crusade or dissect the psychology of investing in a 401k. He says everything with such confidence, we all just nod our heads, taking mental notes for some imaginary quiz. I hate that feeling. I want to be the one giving the lecture. Or at the least, I want to be the one who knows enough to heckle Eric.
And that's not to mention another humiliation: games. My wife's family loves a good board game. So whenever they gather, Scrabble, Boggle, and Balderdash sets materialize in the room, and you can count on Eric to rack up a half dozen victories before the day is through. The most recent Thanksgiving was a particularly brutal one. It was a few weeks ago, just days before I started my encyclopedic adventure, and for reasons I still don't understand, I agreed to play Eric in a one-on-one game of Trivial Pursuit.
"You're lucky," said Eric. "In this game, you only have to roll one die. So you won't have to do that pesky addition that comes with two dice."
Eric's piece began jumping around the board, filling up alarmingly fast with those multicolored wedges. How many feet in a fathom? Six. Who wrote "Stardust"? Hoagy Carmichael. Who discovered Victoria Falls? David Livingstone. Eric occasionally had to think a bit. He'd tilt his head and look at the ceiling, as if the answer were written there. Which it apparently was. Because he'd almost always figure out that Varig Airlines is from Brazil and the like.
My piece, on the other hand, remained empty. Hollow. If you listened closely, you could hear a tiny echo in it.
"How many equal sides are there on a scalene triangle?" asked Eric. I sat there trying to remember what the hell my geometry teacher had taught me in ninth grade, but could recall only that he had a thick German accent and a comb-over.
"I'll give you a hint. It's about the same as your IQ."
"Two?" I tried.
"Zero," said Eric, snickering. He actually snickered.
My next turn, he asked, "What movie character was Elmo Lincoln the first to portray?"
I drew a blank. I was even flubbing the entertainment category, my supposed strong point. The irritating Trivial Pursuit people loved to ask about old-timey entertainment, the kind before DVDs and stalkerazzi.
"This character has the same-sized vocabulary as you do," said Eric.
I knew what he was driving at. "Frankenstein," I said.
"Nope. Tarzan."
And so it went. In the end, Eric beat me six wedges to two, but not before asking me if I wouldn't prefer a game more suited to my intellect, like Go Fish.
I know Trivial Pursuit is just that--trivial. Still, this was a disturbingly effective reminder of my patches of ignorance--which now included politics, economics, literature, history, geography, and anything else you wouldn't find on the E! channel.
That was five weeks ago. Now Eric's back in Manhattan--along with Julie's mom, her other brother, Doug, and their families--and we're at an Upper West Side restaurant for lunch. I've got two and a half letters under my belt. It's a whole new day. As we sit down, I decide to break the big news to Eric. I tell him about Operation Britannica. I want his approval--and I also want him to feel threatened. But my revelation doesn't seem to affect him either way. It's as if I'd just told him that I enjoy wearing corduroy pants.
"Yeah, I knew a guy at Harvard who did that," he says.
"Good, maybe I can compare knowledge with him."
"You could," says Eric, "except he committed suicide. But I'm sure you'll do just fine."
The conversation moves on to the choices of appetizers and entrees. Crab cakes seem particularly popular.
"Ah, crabs. The true aristocrats," I say.
"What?" asks Doug.
"Crabs have blue blood. You know, blue bloods. Aristocrats."
The laughter wasn't quite as deafening as I had hoped.
"I read it in the blood section," I said.
"Tell us something interesting you've learned," Julie's mother says.
"That doesn't count?"
"No, that wasn't interesting."
Wow. Tough crowd.
"Well, do you like a nice macabre story?" I ask.
"Sure," says Julie's mom.
"How about the story of Burke and Hare?"
"We're listening," says Doug.
"Okay, then. William Hare and William Burke," I say, putting down my menu. "These were two Irishmen who met at a hotel back in the 1820s. One day, an old pauper died in the hotel. But instead of having the corpse buried, Burke and Hare sold the body to the local surgeon for about seven pounds."
"Merchants of death, eh?" says Doug.
"But wait. It gets better. That first corpse gave them a savvy business idea. They started enticing travelers into the hotel, getting them drunk, smothering them to death, and selling the corpses to the surgeon. Killed at least fifteen people. Their neighbors finally busted them, but it took a year."
"And they went to jail?"
"Hare ratted out Burke and was released. But Burke was hanged. And Knox--that was the name of the surgeon--never got thrown in jail, but had a wee bit of a PR problem."
I sat back. It was a lively tale, and I told it well. Even Eric had to admit that, which he did.
"It's a good story," says Eric.
"Thanks."
"And of course, you know the poem about it, right?" he asks.
"Um."
"You don't know the poem about Burke and Hare?" asked Eric.
Dammit. I can't believe this. "No."
"Oh, that's the best part. It's a poem that British schoolboys used to say. It goes like this:
Burke's the butcher,Hare's the thief,Knox the one who bought the beef.
The family laughs.
"That's wonderful!" says Julie's mom.
"You're scary," says Eric's wife, Alexandra.
Eric sits back and crosses his arms on his chest, one of his favorite gestures. He looks at me and smiles. He knows he's beaten me. I'm annoyed at the Britannica for not having that poem in it. I'm annoyed at myself for picking Burke and Hare. Mostly, I'd like to smother Eric and sell his body to an anatomist for seven pounds.
I'll have to keep reading. I'll find things he doesn't know about. I'll find things so obscure he won't know how to pronounce them.
Charles
Here's a tip: if you meet a king and can't remember his name, you might as well guess Charles. You've got a pretty good shot. I've arrived at the Charles section and it's a disturbingly long one--forty-eight Charleses, to be exact, spread over twenty-four pages, hailing from just about every European country that could afford a cape with some ermine trim, including Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Holland, Hungary, and Austria.
It's sort of helpful that a lot of the Charleses have nicknames, which I consider trying to turn into some sort of Dr. Seuss-like poem as a mnemonic device:
There's Charles the Goodand Charles the Bad.There's Charles the Lameand Charles the Mad.There's Charles the Boldand Charles the Fair.Don't forget Charles the Bald.So many Charleses are there!
But I can't think of anything to rhyme with "Charles the Well-Served." So I just read carefully and hope for the best.
One thing that strikes me is that this is not an overwhelmingly inspiring group of men. In fact, these twenty-four pages seem a fine argument against monarchy as a governmental system.
There are the occasional Charleses who founded universities or made judicial reforms--the Swedish ones in particular seemed better than average. But overall, this is a sorry lot of war-loving, greedy, mentally unstable, gout-infected rulers. Not to mention randy. Consider Charles II of England--the man who regained the throne after the downfall of Cromwell. Charles is quoted as saying God would not "make a man miserable only for taking a little pleasure out of the way." Charles II took enough "pleasure out of the way" to produce fourteen illegitimate offspring (and if you recall, inspire the legend of the concerned Dr. Condom). One of the few who did remain faithful was Charles the Whipped (not his real name), who concluded a treaty in Brittany in 1693, only to be persuaded by his wife to break it, which led to his death in battle. He would have done better to sire fourteen illegitimate kids.
I'm trying like hell to remember which Charles is which, but it's a task that would make anyone as loopy as Charles VI of France, who suffered forty-four attacks of insanity in the late 1300s and early 1400s. I wish the monarchs had a little more creativity when it came to names--though my family isn't much better. My full name is Arnold Stephen Jacobs Jr., after my father, A.S.J. Sr. My father--the jokester--tried to name me Arnold Stephen Jacobs IV, skipping right over the intermediate steps, but my mom put the kibosh on that one, so Junior it is.
Chaucer, Geoffrey
The author of The Canterbury Tales was apparently fined for beating a Franciscan friar in a London street. Again with the temperamental artists.
Cheney, Dick
Our vice president dropped out of Yale--or was kicked out; it's not clear--and finished at University of Wyoming. Do the Democrats know about this? Seems like they could have made a bigger deal out of it.
chess
I wasn't very interested in chess growing up. I'm not sure why, though I think it might have had something to do with all the kings and queens. Even before I read about the barrel of reprehensible Charleses in the Britannica, I was no fan of monarchy. Maybe if the pieces had been presidents and first ladies, or Starskys and Hutches, then I'd be hooked. But as it was, I never caught chess fever.
Still, it seemed like something that smart people did. So in my quest to boost my intelligence, I made sure to pay close attention to all facts in the Britannica about the ancient black-and-white board game. In my spare time, I started playing electronic chess on my Palm Pilot. After about sixty-three games, I finally beat the computer. Granted, it was on the lowest skill level, the one reserved for first-graders in remedial math courses and Anna Nicole Smith. But that didn't bother me. I beat the damn thing.
Buoyed by my success, I thought it might be fun to take my game downtown and test it out against the big boys at the Marshall Chess Club. Now, I'm a moderate agoraphobe, so this was an uncharacteristic idea. But I had decided that--for the duration of this project, during this year of self-education--I would try to put my knowledge to the test, to see how it helped me interact with the best and the brightest, so off to the chess club it was.
The Marshall Chess Club, as I expected, has lots of chess tables and stacks of chess magazines. But I was a little surprised by the makeup of the crowd, which is an odd and varied lot. You've got a minyan of old potbellied Jewish men with their pants hiked up to their armpits; a handful of twenty-something black men; a smattering of Eastern European guys; and a dash of cocky, knapsack-toting chess prodigies in the third grade.
I introduce myself to the man in charge, Larry, who seems to fall into the old-Jewish-guy category, and inform him I'm here to prove myself. He replies that I picked the wrong night.
"Tonight is a big tournament," Larry says, shuffling through his paperwork. "You came on glamour night!" I look around. This type of glamour isn't quite the paparazzi's dream, but I know what he's saying.
"I can't play in the tournament?"
"No," Larry says. He puts down his paperwork and leads me through the tournament players and into a back room. The Club Room. "Here, you can play in here," he says. "You could play with her." He points to the Filipina nanny of one of the third-grade chess prodigies. Larry then chuckles and leaves.
Not counting the nanny, there are, in fact, a few potential rivals in the Club Room. Two of the prepubescent players are here, capturing pawns in between bites of their Subway sandwiches.
"Can I play winners?" I ask.
They nod, without looking up from the board.
In the meantime, I spot someone from the high-waisted-pants squad, a man with a Jew-fro to rival the hairdos of any member of vintage Earth, Wind & Fire.
"Care for a game?" I say.
"Why not," he says.
Before we start, I silently review what I've learned from the Britannica: develop knights before bishops, anticipate enemy threats, try to form an overall goal--like a kingside attack--that coordinates the forces. I consider a postmodern opening move--jumping the knight over my line of pawns--but settle instead for a classical opening, and move my pawn two squares. After a couple of moves, the Jew-fro man takes my pawn. I tell myself this is good. A gambit, a sacrifice. But over the next couple of moves I do a tremendous amount of sacrificing. It's not exactly clear to me what the greater purpose of my sacrificing is. But I do have a knack for sacrificing.
As I'm figuring out where I move my one remaining knight, I put my index finger on square E-4 to mark an option. My opponent looks physically pained, as if his toe had been run over by a cab.
"You shouldn't do that," he says. "You shouldn't touch the board. It's bad form."
"Oh," I say, removing my finger.
"It's not genteel. It's not sophisticated."
I promise no more board fondling. I decide to attack with my bishop, which I hope will earn his respect. That, and some chess knowledge: "You know, the bishop used to be called an elephant, and it was limited to a two-square diagonal jump."
He nods. A couple of turns later, he takes my former elephant.
Caissa, the patron goddess of chess, would be proud, I think to myself.
According to Nimzowitzsch, you should voluntarily surrender the center. I have surrendered that. I have also surrendered the sides and front. I move my queen. "This used to be called a counselor, and could only move one square in any direction."
He nods again, and puts his hand in his chin. Good, I'm making him think.
"You know, I'm considering underpromoting later in the game," I say. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought maybe he didn't know the definition of underpromoting and I could inform him. He knew. It's when your pawn gets to the other side and you choose not to queen it, but instead turn it into a knight or a rook or bishop.
And then he mates me. He mates me with authority, like the squid that uses a fourth arm to deliver its sperm cells.
He shakes my hand. The match over, Jew-fro man turns out to be very nice. He takes the time to dissect my game for me, pointing out my many errors, but managing not to be condescending. He even tells me why the hell someone might want to underpromote--if a queen will cause a stalemate, but a castle will force a checkmate, you underpromote to castle.
And for some reason, after throwing out a dozen chess facts, I finally do impress him.
"You know, medieval Muslim chessboards were monochromatic."
"Really? I knew some early boards were monochromatic, but I didn't know they were Muslim." He isn't being sarcastic. He is actually interested.
"They were Muslim," I say.
I turn to the third-graders at the board next to me. I'm ready for my match. Problem is, after having seen my lack of chess chops, they've lost interest. I'd be a waste of their time. So I pack my bag and go. I probably knew the gap between information and know-how was big, but I had gotten a firsthand lesson in just how big it can be. On the way home, I kick my Palm Pilot's butt, then explain to it all the mistakes it made.
Child, Julia
She once worked in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Sounds like a good movie: Chef by day, spy by night. I should option that now.
Children's Crusade
Here, a major contender for the saddest entry so far. About thirty thousand kids--led by a French shepherd boy--set out to conquer the Holy Land from the Muslims by love instead of force. They never made it, instead falling victim to disreputable merchants, with most being sold into slavery in North Africa. When Julie and I have kids, they will not be allowed to go to the Middle East without supervision. That's a promise.
choreography
Julie and I were watching TV--well, sort of watching. I was reading the Britannica and she was doing the New York magazine crossword, from which she looked up to ask:
"Hey, you know Fred Astaire's real name?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
It's Frederick Austerlitz, I told her. I helped my wife fill in 42-Down--which may not justify an entire year of reading the encyclopedia, but nevertheless makes me feel like spinning Julie around the room in an elegant waltz. I'm a knight with shining information coming to the rescue of my damsel in distress. Excellent.
Christmas
Tonight is the Esquire Christmas party. (By the way, Christmas in the Armenian Church is celebrated on January 6; so if you're ever late with presents, just say you're Armenian.) I'll be going to the Esquire party solo, since Julie is working late. Her new job is an interesting one--she works for a company that puts on scavenger hunts around New York City--but it requires night duty once a week. So, alone it is.
Esquire's party is for our writers and friends in the literary community. But it's not a fancy affair--it's held in our eighth-floor offices, the cubicles draped with red-and-white checkered tablecloths and a wine bar set up by the Xerox machine. I arrive late--it's a long walk from my office on the seventh floor, after all--and I spot my old friend Rick a couple of cubicles down. He's talking to a tall woman I don't recognize, but who apparently has a lot to say.
Rick motions me over. My arrival doesn't do much to stop the tall woman's monologue, which seems to be about how she prefers to read plays instead of novels. Right now, she's going through a Strindberg phase. He's much more complex than his more famous counterpart Ibsen, she explains. I can't be sure, but I think she used the words "criminally overlooked."
Rick looks less than enthralled. In fact, he looks like he might, at any moment, pull a pillow out of his pocket and curl up on the floor for a quick nap.
"A.J.'s smart," says Rick, as she pauses momentarily to inhale. "He's reading the encyclopedia."
"Really," says the woman.
"Yep, from A to Z."
"And where are you now?"
"I'm up to C."
"But how much are you retaining?"
I hate that question. Especially the way she asks it, which makes it sound more like an accusation than a question, like maybe I've violated the Mann Act or something. How much are you retaining?
I respond: "There are a couple of rivers in Bolivia that I'm a little hazy on, but everything else I've got down cold."
I figured that would shut her up. Of course, I'm retaining slightly less than that. There are also a couple of rivers in Chad that I'm hazy on. And a few other bits as well.
But honestly, my retention rate is far higher than I imagined it would be. My best gauge of this is those internal dings--the ones that happen whenever my life intersects with the encyclopedia--which have only increased. It's a constant symphony in my head. I'd say at least two per minute.
So I feel good that something's sinking in. My main concern, however, is that my retention is not evenly spread out among the facts. Instead, my new knowledge is clustered around several themes and trends--and those trends aren't always the most elevated ones in the world. Like syphilis. I'm retaining an awful lot about syphilis. I could tell you that Al Capone's and Winston Churchill's fathers both had syphilis. I could tell you that the French poet Baudelaire had syphilis--and that he caught it from a Jewish prostitute named Squint-Eyed Sarah. I could tell you that some Bedouins have a nonvenereal form of syphilis called bejel, which could be a handy excuse for those trying to explain to their spouses an unpleasant positive test result. "I'm Bedouin, you see. It's not venereal." In a way, syphilis is an appropriate example. These themes that keep popping up are like a disturbingly contagious disease. I don't feel I have control over them. They just sneak their way into my brain, and all of a sudden I'm keeping a tally on the mentions of cannibalism, or following the recurrences of men blinded in one eye.
But anyway, back to our Strindberg aficionado, who doesn't seem to be buying the rivers-in-Bolivia line. She looks quite severe.
"What do you know about Samuel Beckett?" she asks. Beckett, Beckett. I'm frantically searching my internal CD-ROM for a Samuel Beckett fact. But I'm coming up blank. "If you want to talk writers, I actually found Balzac much more interesting," I say. "Did you know he was a huge perfectionist, and he kept making changes to his books way after deadline, and the printer's bills almost ruined him? You got to let it go, you know? A good lesson for us all."
That is evasion strategy number one. If you don't know something, deflect, distract, razzle-dazzle them with another fact, and hope they forget. This time, it seems to have worked.
"Okay. What about cauliflower?" she says.
"Not up to it yet. I think it's under V for 'vegetables.' "
That's strategy number two. The old I'll-get-back-to-you trick. Of course, this tactic's got a built-in expiration date. It'll become harder and harder to rely on as I keep polishing off the letters. But for now, I've got twenty-three letters to choose from. "Speaking of which, I think I'll make my way over to the canapes," I say.
And that's strategy number three. Leave. I abandon poor Rick to what will no doubt be more searing insights on Scandinavian theater.
Civil War
Before I waded into the Britannica, I knew enough about the Civil War to make sure I wasn't a complete embarrassment to my country. I watched that Ken Burns documentary a few years ago, or at least a half hour of it, before I flipped back to something in color with a zippier sound track. Also, I knew that Denzel Washington led a black regiment to a victory at the historic Battle of the Oscars.
But I was missing just a few details. I was missing, for instance, any knowledge of a woman named Belle Boyd (who got her very own entry back in the Bs). I'm glad I filled in that particular gap because, having read about her, I've decided her tale is worthy of a summer blockbuster (Movie Idea Number Two) and much-needed proof that romance exists in the real world.
Belle Boyd was born and raised in Virgina. At the start of the Civil War, Boyd gained fame after she and her mother refused to let some Union soldiers into their house. When one of the men in blue attempted to force his way through the door, Boyd shot him dead. She was put on trial, but acquitted on justifiable homicide.
Instead of retiring quietly back to rural life, Boyd just got deeper into the war. While staying in the same house as some Union officers, she eavesdropped on their plans to destroy the bridges in the town of Fort Royal, Virginia. "She undertook a hazardous journey through the lines to inform General T. J. 'Stonewall' Jackson of the Union plans," says the Britannica. It turned out to be a key piece of intelligence. This led to her stint as a courier and scout for J. S. Mosby's guerrillas. She was arrested by Union forces, but released from prison after a bout with typhoid fever.
A pretty good yarn so far--your average tough-girl secret-agent thriller. But here's where any Hollywood agents out there should pay attention, because this is where the romance comes in--an unlikely meeting between a Confederate lady spy and a Union navy officer. In 1864, Boyd was sailing on a Confederate ship to England bearing letters from Jefferson Davis. Boyd's boat was intercepted by a Union vessel, and a Union officer named Hardinge boarded the ship. Hardinge was utterly distracted by Boyd. That's what the Britannica says, "utterly distracted." It doesn't say what that means. Did she flutter her eyes? Compliment him on his big saber?
Regardless, Hardinge was so distracted by Boyd, he allowed the Confederate ship's captain to escape. For this snafu, he was court-martialed and discharged from the Union navy. Then in August of 1864, Officer Hardinge sailed to England, where Boyd was now living and--cue music--married his former enemy. Hardinge and Boyd lived happily ever after, or at least until he died a year later.
This makes me wonder what the hell my high school history teachers were thinking. I remember my Civil War lessons being bone dry. We talked a whole lot about King Cotton and the economic rationale for the Civil War, which are important, no doubt. But couldn't they have spiced things up with a nice romantic tale between a Union fellow and a Confederate lady? What's wrong with a good old-fashioned love story? It'd certainly have skewed well with the girls in class.
clammyweed
This is a first. I fell asleep while reading the encyclopedia. Just drifted off somewhere around clam shrimp, clam worm, clambake, or clammyweed, I can't be sure which. I was reading it while lying down on the couch--a dangerous proposition, I now realize--and could only fight off shut-eye for so long. Did I mention my schedule is fucking exhausting?
Anyway, I woke up when Julie came into the room. I felt like I'd been caught doing something naughty, like masturbating or selling idealistic Christian kids into slavery.
claque, aka canned laughter
It's becoming increasingly clear that there's nothing new under the sun (a heavenly body, by the way, that some Indian ascetics stare at till they go blind). I knew that some things had a history--the Constitution, rhythm and blues, Canada--but it's the odd little things that surprise me with their storied past. This first struck me when I was reading about anesthetics and I learned that, in the early 1840s, it became fashionable to hold parties where guests would inhale nitrous oxide out of bladders. In other words, Whip-it parties! We held the exact same kind of parties in high school. We'd buy fourteen cans of Reddi-Wip and suck on them till we had successfully obliterated a couple of million neurons and face-planted on my friend Andy's couch. And we thought we were so cutting edge.
And now, I learn about claque, which is essentially a highbrow French word for canned laughter. Canned laughter was invented long before Lucille Ball stuffed chocolates in her face or Ralph Kramden threatened his wife with extreme violence. It goes back to the 4th century B.C., when Greek playwrights hired bands of helpers to laugh at their comedies in order to influence the judges. The Romans also stacked the audience, but they were apparently more interested in applause than chuckles: Nero--emperor and wannabe musician--employed a group of five thousand knights and soldiers to accompany him on his concert tours.
But the golden age of canned laughter came in 19th-century France. Almost every theater in France was forced to hire a band called a claque--from claquer, "to clap." The influential claque leaders, called the chefs de claque, got a monthly payment from the actors. And the brilliant innovation they came up with was specialization. Each claque member had his or her own important job to perform: There were the rieurs, who laughed loudly during comedies. There were the bisseurs, who shouted for encores. There were the commissaires, who would elbow their neighbors and say, "This is the good part." And my favorite of all, the pleureuses, women who were paid good francs to weep at the sad parts of tragedies. I love this idea. I'm not sure why the networks never thought of canned crying. You'd be watching an ER episode, and a softball player would come in with a bat splinter through his forehead, and you'd hear a little whimper in the background, turning into a wave of sobs. Julie already has trouble keeping her cheeks dry, seeing as she cried during the Joe Millionaire finale. If they added canned crying, she'd be a mess.
Cleveland
I had always figured the Ohio town was named for Grover Cleveland. No, the real story is that it was named for Moses Cleaveland, an employee of the Connecticut Land Company, who arrived with his surveyors in 1796. His mission was to speed up the sale of land in Ohio, and in his honor, the town was called Cleaveland.
That day must have been the proudest day in the life of this real estate salesman. No doubt he wrote a letter to his mom: "Dear Mother, the family name shall not be forgotten. There is a town in this fair state of Ohio that bears the glorious name of our family, the magnificent Cleaveland!"
Then, in 1832, the a in "Cleaveland" was dropped because "Cleveland" fit better on a newspaper masthead. That was the reason. His name was bastardized to fit a newspaper's masthead? They couldn't have reduced the font? Did they consider changing "Ohio" to "Ohi"? That would save some ink, too.
Fame is a fleet-footed hussy. It's not the most shocking lesson I've learned, but it sure gets driven home every day. I've learned of hundreds of people who were huge in their time, adored by millions, but now totally forgotten except by freaks who read the encyclopedia. And even if your name is remembered, it'll probably be spelled or pronounced incorrectly. Cleaveland can have a support group meeting with Dutch explorer Cornelius Mey, for whom Cape May is named. It's discouraging. If I ever do achieve anything and become famous, within a couple decades, I'll become R. J. Jackobz.
climate and weather
Lightning goes up. It shoots right up from the ground and into the cloud. This is what the encyclopedia says in the section on climate and weather. I reread this passage a couple of times to make sure I hadn't gone batty--but no, lightning goes up.
To be technical, it does first go down--there's an initial bolt called the "leader" that zips from the cloud to the ground. But the bright part, the part that flashes, is the "return stroke," which goes from the ground back to the cloud.
This is profoundly unnerving. When I didn't know the history of canned laughter or the existence of a sexy Confederate spy, that was mildly vexing. But this is unnerving. This is a whole new level of ignorance. I've been looking at lightning all my life, and its sky-to-ground direction seemed about as certain as the slightly asymmetrical nose on my face. To be confronted with this totally counterintuitive information--it makes me paranoid. What other incorrect ideas do I have? Is the sun actually cold? Is the sky orange? Is Keanu Reeves a brilliant actor?
coffee
I obviously need to be drinking more coffee (which was discovered, according to legend, when a goatherd noticed his flock acting strangely after eating the beans). Or maybe I need more sleep. Or something--because I'm screwing up on the job. My latest was a particularly embarrassing bungle. I was helping to edit an article in which a supermodel gives relationship advice to men. My boss had sent it back to me, pointing out that was a little bland. So I figured I should try to spice it up.
The supermodel had suggested that men, when they compliment a woman, should choose something besides the eyes. Too cliched, she said. Flatter another body part, she said. Something unexpected, like the cheeks or knees. Good advice. I simply tacked on the sentence "Men who compliment a woman's eyes should be taken out back and whipped by a Bulgarian dog trainer." Okay, maybe it wasn't worthy of Mark Twain or George Bernard Shaw, but it was something. And it worked. My boss liked it better.
The problem was, I completely forgot to send the piece back to the supermodel to make sure she was okay with my little addition. I had meant to--I know you can't just insert something without the writer's approval. But I forgot. A dunderheaded move--both bad etiquette and bad journalism.
And now my dog trainer line has bitten me in the behind. I get in today and there, in the gossip column, the supermodel is complaining that Esquire put words in her mouth, and that she's getting lots of angry e-mails from the Bulgarian community. Jesus! Who knew there was a Bulgarian community? And who knew that community had an antidefamation league! But I feel terrible. I should be whipped by a big Bulgarian man (whose average life expectancy, by the way, is sixty-eight years).
I'm hoping this little scandal will blow over, which I think it will. And I'm even more confident that my career blunder won't be written up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That makes me feel better. Because there are people whose entire place in history rests on a screwup, who are famous for nothing other than their failure.
I'm thinking, in particular, of poor James Challis. You've got to feel for this unfortunate 19th-century fellow. As the Britannica says in its very first sentence about him, Challis was a "British clergyman and astronomer, famous in the history of astronomy for his failure to discover the planet Neptune."
Here's the sad planetary tale: Challis's career was going along at a nice clip. Born in 1803, he published dozens of scientific papers in his twenties and early thirties, and got himself named director of the Cambridge Observatory. Not bad. Then came the fateful September of 1845. A fellow Cambridge astronomer had been making calculations of the perturbations of the orbit of Uranus, and asked Challis to look for an unknown planet in a specific position. Challis was apparently not impressed, and put it pretty far down on his "To Do" list.
Finally, on further urging, Challis started looking closely in July of 1846. Every night he looked, and every night he found nothing new. Then on September 23, Challis was scooped. The Berlin Observatory made international headlines by announcing the discovery of Neptune. Challis went back and checked his calculations, and realized he had actually observed the planet one night in August, but because he didn't compare his notes from that night with those of the previous night, he didn't realize it.
I pity the man. He must have gotten some serious ribbing from his astronomer buddies over that night's sherry. "Say, James old chap, I lost my pocket watch. Would you help me look for it? Oh, I just remembered. Never mind." And they'd all burst out laughing. Then another royal astronomer would pipe up, "James old sport, do tell us what happened. Where was your head? Was it perhaps...up Uranus?" Then they'd all laugh so hard they'd spit up their cucumber sandwiches.
I try not to revel in other people's failure, but this does make me feel better about my Bulgarian debacle. So I'm embarrassed for a couple of days. Who cares? Everyone makes gaffes at work, and it's not the end of the solar system. At least I'm not James Challis.
I know it's a mixed bag, this comparing your life to historical figures. Naturally, it can be incredibly dismaying--as when you realize how uneventful or unimpressive your life is. But it can also be inspiring, or energizing, or--in this case--comforting. I thank poor Mr. Challis and move on.
Cortes, Hernan
More syphilis. A lusty man "much given to women," the conquistador contracted the disease in the 1500s, which caused him to miss an ill-fated expedition to South America in 1509. Luck is a weird thing. Sometimes getting an STD can save your life.
cosmos
In the entry on cosmos, the Britannica tells us the universe will end either as a "cold, dark and virtually empty place" or as a "fiery crucible." So, which is it? Fire or ice? That's a pretty big difference. Take a stand, Britannica! I want to know what lies in store for me, assuming I exercise daily and eat low-fat muffins and live another few billion years. Information can be maddeningly imprecise. If I had to bet, I'd go with ice, since I vaguely remember some magazine article saying that's the current leading contender.
But either way, it's not an uplifting end to all of existence. Unlike a well-timed STD, there's no way those could turn out to be a lucky break. I'm only in the Cs and already I've reached the horrible end to all existence.
courtship
I can't believe what a bunch of sleazeballs these animals are. That's what strikes me whenever I read about courtship rituals in the animal kingdom. These critters--at least the male ones--are some slimy, deceitful operators. Consider the shameless debauchee known as the swordtail characin fish (whom I first encountered in the animal behavior section). The male swordtail characin, you see, has long stringy bits that dangle from his gills--bits that are designed to look exactly like the daphnia worm, the characin's favorite snack. When a hungry female characin sees this tantalizing daphnia, she naturally approaches, anticipating a nice a meal. Instead, when she's close enough, she gets an unpleasant surprise: the male shtups her. A literal bait and switch.
There are dozens of such stories. Here's just one other, for variety. The female cichlid fish are called "mouth breeders," which means they incubate eggs in their mouth. The females swallow up any stray eggs and keep them stored safely between the cheeks. The male cichlid fish knows all about this, so he's developed his fins to look exactly like an egg--same size, same mustard color. The poor lady cichlid spies one of these so-called eggs, and paddles over to try to swallow it up. But as soon as she opens her mouth, bam, the male sprays her with sperm. Just like that.
I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised about the level of deceit in courtship behavior. Humans aren't exactly 100 percent guileless when it comes to romance. If they were, Wonderbra would be out of business, and match.com ads would read, "Short, pudgy guy with no discernible income and acne scars that resemble the constellation Ursa Minor seeks beautiful woman to share his rent-controlled apartment." So I shouldn't be all high and mighty.
In fact, Julie loves to tell me that I engaged in shameless deceit when wooing her. "For the first three months, it was Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll," she says. "Then you had hooked me, and all of a sudden, here comes Mr. Hyde!" I had my own version of the tantalizing daphnia-shaped gills, says Julie. Namely, I pretended to like parties, dancing, dinners at fancy restaurants, even the occasional Broadway musical. Over one early dinner, we made ambitious plans about all the places we'd like to travel: Sweden, South Africa, Portugal. Now Julie knows my actual list of places I want to travel: kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. And as for Broadway musicals, I haven't been within five hundred yards of an orchestra pit since she accepted my engagement ring.
I, on the other hand, don't see it as deception. I tell her: "It wasn't a conscious change from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. It's just that I found the woman I love and I figured I didn't need to go out to parties anymore." That one always causes a half laugh, half scoff.
After I read about the characin, I padded out to the living room to share it with her. "Hey Julie," I say. "You know how you say I deceived you and tricked you into marrying me?"
"I sure do."
"Well, look at this."
She reads it. "Makes sense," she says. "Makes a lot of sense." She seems pleased.
I take back my Britannica and pad back into my office. I'm not sure why I just shared that with her. It certainly didn't help my cause. In fact, now I'm pretty much screwed in all future arguments. I think I have to be a little more careful with the information I share.
couvade
Couvade is a custom wherein the father goes to bed during the birth of his child and simulates the symptoms of childbirth. He pretends to undergo painful labor, just like the baby's mother. In fact, the mother sometimes gets to her feet hours after giving birth and waits on the father. Couvade's social function, says the Britannica, is to emphasize the role of the father in reproduction. It was most recently practiced in the early 20th century in the Basque country.
No offense to the Basques, but couvade seems--how do I put this?--insane. In the first few letters of the alphabet, my gender has come off like a bunch of selfish tools. First the duplicitous cichlid fish, now these Basque fathers who--it's pretty transparent--are crying out for attention. The wife is getting all the sympathy and limelight for creating a human life. Hey, look at us, we can make faces too!
Well, at least I won't be jealous of my wife's contractions anytime soon. Last night, Julie and I took yet another early pregnancy test. It was aggressively negative. For the past few weeks, Julie had been popping fertility drugs, so I was thinking I'd maybe get a litter of Jacobses, but no. Nothing. In my darker moments, I rationalize that maybe it's a good thing. This isn't the greatest world to introduce another human being into--it's got civil wars and corpse-dealing murderers and temperamental artists and carbon monoxide. So maybe it's okay not to have a kid.
Czetwertynski
I knock off the Czetwertynskis--a Polish princely family--and I'm done. Three out of twenty-six. Now I know my ABCs. Where do I stand? I'm still dazed by the amount of knowledge in the world--but I've noticed two things that make me just the tiniest bit better. First, the Britannica does tend to repeat itself. I got a lesson on the Hundred Years War in the As, then in the Bs, and then again in the Cs. So maybe half a million of those 44 million words are unnecessary. Second, I occasionally read about something that rings a bell, a very faint bell, one barely more audible than the broken two-hundred-ton Russian bell--in other words, a fact I knew when I was a kid but that has long ago faded. Once, long ago, I knew that baseball was based on the British game of rounders--a less genteel version of the game, where you could get the runner out by beaning him with the ball (a rule also employed by that depraved bully in third grade). But I hadn't thought about rounders in maybe twenty years. Still, knowing that it was buried deep in my memory--somehow, that was a little reassuring.
That's the happy news. The bad news is that I'm still having a hell of a time figuring out what all this information--old, new, half forgotten--means. I feel my mind isn't fundamentally different. I may have given it a new paint job and fixed the screen door, but it's still the same shotgun shack.
D
dance
In a tribe on the island of Santa Maria, old men used to stand by with bows and arrows and shoot every dancer who made a mistake. The perfect way to raise the stakes on American Idol.
Darwin, George
Poor George. When your dad is Charles Darwin, you might get a couple of perks--free mutton at the poshest Victorian restaurants, say--but you're pretty much screwed from birth. You'll always be a loser Darwin--unless, of course, you also happen to totally revolutionize science and shift our worldview. Well, that didn't quite happen for George. George Darwin did go into science like his father--he became an astronomer--but his Big Idea was this: the moon was formed when molten lava was pulled free from the earth by solar tides. It's an idea now considered unlikely to be true. Scientists now believe the moon was formed when a mammoth asteroid smashed into the earth, splitting off a moon-sized chunk. So George Darwin's moon idea ain't exactly the theory of evolution. Though to be fair, George Darwin did have another interesting theory--namely, that a pear-shaped rotating fluid body shows stability in space. Oh, wait. Also incorrect.
George is actually the second Darwin descendant I've read about in the encyclopedia. There was also Frances Cornford, Charles Darwin's granddaughter. Her accomplishment? She wrote a poem called "To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train," which went like this: "O fat white woman whom nobody loves, / Why do you walk through the fields in gloves?" And so on.
It's enough to make you want to lie down in front of that train. These loser relatives of history always depress me. They probably wouldn't even have made it into the encyclopedia without their pedigree, and now that they're here, they cast serious doubt on the notion that greatness is inherited. I've read about Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher's tagalong brother, and about a whole bunch of obscure Bachs who are Baroque versions of Tito and Jermaine Jackson.
It's depressing on a personal level as well, because it brings up a recurring theme in my own life--the fear that I'm a modern-day version of Frances Cornford. No one in my family has created a new scientific paradigm, but I've got my dad with his above-mentioned twenty-four books and his reputation as an expert in his field. And I've got my grandfather, who is also a genuinely great man. He's a lawyer named Ted Kheel and he spent the 1960s and 1970s solving strikes, meeting with presidents, working on civil rights. He tells stories about meals with LBJ and Martin Luther King Jr. He's eighty-eight years old, but he still goes to the office every single day, plugging away on a bunch of causes--conflict resolution, biodiversity, sustainable cuisine, Internet for the third world. He actually makes people's lives better. And then there's me, who, uh, chooses whether we should run the cleavage shot or the butt shot of the actress of the month in Esquire. Helps choose, anyway.
I'd like to say that everyone's successful in his or her own way, that you can't spend your life comparing yourself to others. But then I read about someone like Emily and Charlotte Bronte's brother, Patrick Bran-well Bronte, a drunkard and opium addict who was fired from his job as a tutor after "making love to his employer's wife."
Dasnami sannyasin
Dasnami sannyasin were naked Indian ascetics who engaged in battles with other Hindu sects. First the Berserkers, now this. I seem to have stumbled on what has got to be one of the stranger little leitmotifs in the EB: naked soldiers.
As a journalist, I've got a dozen years of training in spotting trends. Officially, in my profession, you need three instances to qualify something as a trend. If there are two movies coming up about pet astrologers, you pray that someone, somewhere, is developing a third so it can become a trend. At Entertainment Weekly, I eventually got tired of looking for trends of three, and started a feature called "trend of two," which my bosses promptly killed. So anyway, naked soldiers is, as of now, a trend of two.
death
A Russian nobleman patented a coffin that allowed the corpse--if he regained consciousness after burial--to summon help by ringing a bell. Another good idea. Because that could really screw up your week--to wake up and find yourself in an airless coffin. I guess nowadays they could put cell phones in there.
Descartes, Rene
Rene Descartes had a fetish for women with crossed eyes. That's what it says, right there in the venerable Britannica. The French philosopher loved a lady whose pupils had migrated toward her nose.
I feel a little sorry for Descartes when I learn this, because I can't imagine there were tons of cross-eyed women in his circle of 17th-century European intellectuals. He should have been a Mayan. Or he should have been born in our era, because nowadays, I'm sure there is a plastic-wrapped magazine called Cross-Eyed Vixens and a subscription-only Web site called hotcrossedeyes.com. But back then, it must have been hard to find an outlet for his fetish. I just hope I don't learn in the Hs that Thomas Hobbes liked ladies with a harelip.
There is a reason, though, that this cross-eyed fact is in the encyclopedia. Strangely enough, it has profound philosophical implications. In his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes argues that he was attracted to cross-eyed women because, as a child, he loved a cross-eyed playmate. He says that as soon as he realized the origin of his fetish, he was freed from it and could, once again, love women with normally spaced eyeballs. This insight, says the Britannica, "was the basis for Descartes's defense of free will and of the mind's ability to control the body." Jesus. I wonder if his cross-eyed playmate knew she had such a profound effect on Western thought.
I've got to respect Descartes (who, incidentally, gets the Britannica's coveted double treatment, with writeups in both Descartes and Cartesianism). I'm sure when he made his cross-eyed confession, it caused some gentlemen at the local French philosophy club to snicker about Rene "Le Freak" Descartes. But it's a nice notion. I like that Descartes has such faith in the power of the mind that he places such high value on self-knowledge. There's Cogito ergo sum, and apparently there's also "Cogito about my kinky side, ergo sum free from it." He was doing Freudian therapy on himself 250 years before Freud bought his first couch.
It's a nice thought, but I don't really buy it. I don't think that you can flip off a passion just because you know where it comes from. If that were the case, there would be a lot fewer bullwhips and fuzzy handcuffs sold in Greenwich Village.
Regardless of whether I agree with Descartes, I'm happy to be pondering heady topics about the power of knowledge, instead of what I used to ponder, which was Wasn't it funny when that guy on Blind Date last night lost his bathing suit in the hot tub? And if that's not enough of a good thing, consider this: Descartes liked to stay in bed till 11 A.M.--good ammunition the next time anyone gives me flack about sleeping late.
Deseret News
I always thought the name of Utah's major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word "desert." But no, Deseret is the "land of the honeybee," according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.
diction
As in the correct choice of words in writing or speaking. Samuel Johnson, for one, believed that great thoughts were of a general nature. He said it is not the business of poets to "number the streaks of the tulip." I couldn't disagree more. I'm all for numbering the streaks of the tulip. Isn't that what they tell you in writing class? Write the specifics. Once you've put in some time numbering the streaks, then you can draw some grand conclusion about tulips or botany or life. Great thoughts don't just appear out of nowhere, I think. That's right. Damn, it feels good to disagree with the towering minds of the past.
Dionysus
Maybe it's time to join Mensa. This, as most people know, is the society for bona fide geniuses and also Geena Davis. So in my quest to become at least one of those two things, I decide it'd be good to start hanging around some heavyweight brains.
Of course, I'm terrified that I'll be rejected. In fact, I'm pretty sure that they'll send me a letter thanking me for my interest, then have a nice hearty laugh and go back to their algebraic topology and Heidegger texts and Battlestar Galactica reruns. But if ever I have a chance of sneaking in, it's now, when my brain is plump with information.
I log on to the Mensa Web site, and after several minutes of clicking, I discover something strange. You don't need to take the famously difficult Mensa admissions test as long as you have what is called "prior evidence." And what is prior evidence? IQ tests, GMAT scores, SAT scores, that kind of thing. I check the SAT scores. If you took the SATs in 1986 as I did, you need a 1250 or above to qualify for Mensa. Twelve-fifty? That doesn't seem so high. You get 800 just for mastering the art of inhaling and exhaling. I scored a respectable 1410 combined, seeing as I took the test way back when I was still genuinely bright. That's way over 1250. So either I'm not smart enough to decipher the Mensa Web site or I will soon be discussing Proust with Geena Davis over vodka tonics at the annual meeting. This is far too easy. I feel like I've found a huge loophole.
I order my SAT scores and send them to Mensa, and sure enough, a couple of weeks later, I get a bunch of paperwork. I'm in! Well, at least I'm in if I can figure out how to fill in these damn forms, which are about as intuitive as the blueprints for a supercollider. I was particularly careful in totaling up my membership and subscription fees--$49 plus $14 plus $21 equals $84. I did that seven or eight times. A math mistake on the Mensa form would be grounds for blackballing. I look at it one more time. Eighty-four bucks. Jesus. That could explain why they're eager to bring in new members, even if their SAT scores are 1250.
Regardless, this is huge news: A.J. Jacobs, Mensa member. I start dropping that fact at every opportunity. At work, when Sarah, the copy editor, questions my overuse of capital letters in a story, I say, "Well, you know, I am a Mensa member." At home, I trot it out during arguments with Julie, like the time we got in a squabble over the Thai food delivery. I'm on the phone with the restaurant and I've forgotten what she wants, even though she's told me three times.
"Coconut shrimp," she repeats. Then sticks out her tongue and rolls her eyes, making the universal sign for "nitwit."
"That was not constructive," I say, after clicking off the phone.
"What are you? A retard?" she asks.
"Uh, how many retards are members of Mensa?"
"Just one," she says.
Cute. Well, at least I can retreat to my surprisingly large stack of Mensa literature. I love curling up with the monthly Mensa Bulletin, especially the little announcements in the back for Mensa's special interest groups. There are Mensans who like tennis, cats, scuba diving, the parody songs of Weird Al Yankovic--any hobby you can think of. More disturbing, there's M-Prisoned, for Mensans who are incarcerated, as well as a eugenics group, for Mensans who are interested in manipulating the gene pool, if, of course, they ever have the opportunity to breed. But most unsettling of all is the naturist group, which is for geniuses who like to frolic nude. I don't have firsthand knowledge yet, but I'd say the percentage of Mensans that I'd like to see naked hovers around--let's see now, carry the seven, okay, right--zero percent. And that's counting Geena Davis.
There are plenty of other joys available in the Mensa literature. Looking for typos, for one thing. That gives me a special immature thrill, as when I found this question on the Young Mensa Web site: "In what movie does Robbin Williams star as Mensan Adrian Cronauer?" Robbin Williams? Ha! Just one b, Einstein. And it's Good Morning Vietnam. If I'm bored with that game, I can browse the Mensa catalogue, enjoying the Mensa T-shirts, Mensa baseball caps, and Mensa critter stuffed animals, which are supposed to look like Beanie Babies to everyone but Beanie Baby lawyers.
But after a month of this, I start to feel cheap. I don't feel like a real Mensa member. I feel I'm a loophole-loving fraud, that I'll always have an asterisk next to my name in the great Mensa logbook, that I'm the Roger Maris of geniuses. I decide I should take the official Mensa test.
I call up the Mensa organization and leave a message that I'm interested in knowing test times. If someone could call me back, I would be "much appreciative." Much appreciative? Jesus. They should take my membership card away for crappy grammar. But who wouldn't get nervous when calling the national headquarters?
A few weeks later, I'm in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I'm sitting next to a guy who's doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we're about to engage in a vigorous rugby match. He's neatly laid out four types of gum on his Formica desk: Juicy Fruit, Wrigley Spearmint, Big Red, and Eclipse. I hate this guy. I hope to God he's not a genius.
Our proctor--a large woman with an accent I couldn't place--checked our photo IDs to make sure we didn't hire a Stephen Hawking to take the test for us, then handed out an exam. It's seven parts, each about five minutes. I feel okay about the first three parts because they consist of looking at a bunch of cute little pictures, sort of like a very sophisticated version of something you'd see on Sesame Street. Which one of these is like the others--King Tut, or the Easter Island statues? I find myself asking questions like, what's the opposite of an Asian woman--Western woman, or an Asian man?
I do okay on the vocabulary section--I know what "propinquity" means--but the math quizzes send my score scurrying south. I have the unpleasant realization that, despite my Britannica reading, I have forgotten how to do long division. The accented proctor tells us to put our pencils down when I have finished only a third of the math section.
"That was way too easy," I say, trying to break the iciness between me and the gum fetishist.
"You found that easy?" he says.
"No, just kidding. Why--did you?"
"Well, I finished it without too much problem." At this point, I would like to wring his well-stretched neck.
I feel the Britannica failed me thus far, which is annoying. But finally, in section seven, the trusty EB gives me a little boost. This part tests the memory; the proctor reads us a story and then asks lots of questions about it. The story, luckily enough, is about Dionysian rituals and Dionysus being born from the thigh of Zeus. Since the EB loves its Greek history, I feel at home, and even know that Dionysus crawled out of Zeus's leg. I rule section seven! I hand in my test and leave as my neighbor is still packing up his gum collection. I can't tell whether I squeaked by or not.
A few days later I get a call from a very nice but confused woman at Mensa HQ. She doesn't understand why I took the test when I am already a member.
"I just wanted to see if I was still smart," I say.
"I'm sending you your test fee back."
"But how'd I do on the test? Would I have gotten in on my Mensa test score?"
She pauses. A very long and painful pause. "Be glad you got good SAT scores."
disease
I think about disease a lot. Some people--namely my wife, friends, coworkers, family, and strangers I've just met--call me a hypochondriac. And I admit, I am careful. I avoid handshakes, preferring the head nod or, if necessary, the hug (backs of shirts seem far less likely to harbor germ colonies). I wash my hands till they're chapped white. When I clink glasses for a toast, I make sure to clink the base of the glass so there's no bacteria transfer. So yes, I'm a tad more observant than your average man.
But I wouldn't call myself a hypochondriac, for one reason: I actually do get sick at least twice a month. I swear. My immune system puts up about as much of a fight as your typical French general, such as Achille Bazaine, who surrendered 140,000 troops during the Franco-Prussian War, a strategy that got him sentenced to twenty years in French prison. Viruses, bacteria, funguses--my white blood cells welcome them all. One of my proudest accomplishments at Entertainment Weekly was to catch several colds from celebrities, including one from Ellen DeGeneres and another from Ernest Borgnine. I felt just as crappy, but at least I had celebrity germs, which had no doubt lived a glamorous life, probably doing some replicating at an awards ceremony or at Jack Nicholson's pool.
The Britannica isn't necessarily very good for someone like me. Even before the disease section itself, every two or three pages I learned about some horrible new way to die. This set of books harbors enough illnesses to infest a million petri dishes.
A couple of days ago, right on schedule, I got sick. I shuffled into the living room.
"I'm sick again," I said.
"I'm sorry, honey," said Julie.
"Do I have a waxy pallor?"
"What?"
"A waxy pallor. Do I have one?"
"Not more than normal."
"Good. Because that would mean I have aplastic anemia, which I really don't need right now."
I was sort of joking. But at the same time, I have all these symptoms and diseases floating in my brain. And without really wanting to, every time I start to feel my health go south, I start on a mental checklist of the afflictions I've most recently read about.
Is my urine black? No. Then I probably don't have blackwater fever. So that's a relief.
My joints don't ache, so I don't have bursitis in any of its forms--tennis elbow, housemaid's knee, soldier's heel, or the dreaded weaver's bottom.
I look at my hands. My fingers aren't involuntarily flexing in a slow and purposeless manner, therefore I probably am not suffering from athetosis. All right.
I pinch my skin. It isn't loose about my face, so I don't have cutis laxa.
I feel good about my chances with Chediak-Higashi syndrome, an immune disorder, since only two hundred cases have ever been reported.
I also probably don't have stinking smut, since it's mostly confined to wheat and rye. But I do like it, because it's the dirtiest-sounding disease thus far. It sounds like something Tony Soprano would say to one of his wayward captains: "Don't you ever fuck with me again, you stinking smut!"
I might, on the other hand, have Andersen's disease, which causes lethargy. But I probably just have a cold.
So this is the problem. I have all this new information to worry about--including some new ones in the disease entry itself--and yet I end up doing the same thing: eating some low-fat chicken soup, swallowing some zinc pills, and getting better two days later.
Sometimes I try to look at the ocean of diseases out there in a positive light. I tell myself, sure, I get sick more often than I change my razor, but I should be proud of my immune system for all the evil organisms it does manage to keep out. At least it has denied entry to Malta fever, also known as brucellosis, which causes excessive sweating. Go, microphages! But then I start to focus on Malta fever, which does sound horrible, and I get all worried again. So many diseases, so few white blood cells.
Disney, Walt
Disney's early collaborator was Ub Iwerks--perhaps the Britannica's best name so far. Ub and Walt's first creation was Oswald the Rabbit, but they had to abandon him in a copyright dispute. Another reminder of how different life could be: Rabbiteers, thousands of kids wearing rabbit hats, Oswald-the-rabbit politics.
divorce
The easiest divorce around: Pueblo Indian women leave their husband's moccasins on the doorstep and--that's it--they're divorced. Simple as that. No lawyers, no fault, no socks, just shoes.
dogs
Dogs have a third eyelid to protect the eyeball from irritants, which seems like a damn good idea, and makes me quite jealous.
Incidentally, my own eyes and their paltry two eyelids have become a subject of much concern among my family. My bloodshot left eye has faded to its traditional white, thanks no doubt to Julie's carrots. But my mom is still worried about my extreme reading habits. She's bought me a lamp called Happy Eyes. It's an imposing device--ivory-colored, mammoth, with several moving parts, it looks like it would be right at home in an ob-gyn exam room. But I've come to love that lamp. Its rays are supposed to mimic those of the sun--hence the Happy Eyes label--though it reminds me more of the light I used to have over my pet turtle's tank when I was a kid. Regardless, if I'm going to push my pupils to the limit, if I'm going to force them to run a marathon every day, the least I can do is give them the equivalent of a good pair of Nikes. I recommend Happy Eyes to anyone undertaking this task.
While we're on the subject, I've learned some other important reading techniques. First, the proper stance. Since the Britannica's a cinder block of a book, you can't treat it like your average Patricia Cornwell novel and hold it in the air. I tried, and my wrist paid the price. You need support. After much experimentation, I've found the best method is to lay the encyclopedia on your lap and grasp the edges with both hands, sort of like a steering wheel.
As for the equipment, you'll want to wear loose, comfortable clothing, nothing that will constrain your page-turning ability. An old college sweatshirt is fine. You should drink lots of fluids, load up on protein, and--I can't stress this enough--make sure to take frequent breaks. You've got to give your brain a rest from the heavy lifting. I like to keep some Us Weeklys nearby, so that I can relax with an article discussing Julia Roberts's midriff.
I do most, maybe 90 percent, of my Britannica reading on a fluffy white couch in the extra bedroom of our apartment. But I've read it all over: in the bathroom, a car's backseat, a car's front seat, a movie theater, a restaurant, a bar, a lobby, an office, a doctor's waiting room. I've got shoulder strain from lugging the thing around New York in a black bag.
I've taken it on the Manhattan subway, and though the lighting isn't ideal, I was pleasantly surprised that I got no strange looks from my fellow passengers. When there's a homeless guy in the same car shouting that Pat Sajak is the second coming of Christ, a man reading an oversized book with some gold embossing on the spine isn't going to attract a lot of attention. New York taxicabs, on the other hand, are much less hospitable. The jouncing over potholes will make you sick. I also strongly recommend against reading the encyclopedia on the Stairmaster. You can strain your mind or you can strain your body, but it's not a good idea to do both. Plus, getting sweat drops on the Britannica is just plain wrong.
Everyone asks me, do I skim? Well, it depends on how you define skimming. This I can assure you: I have cast my eyes on every word in the encyclopedia so far. I have not comprehended every word, but I have seen every word. Sometimes, yes, I zone out and merely sweep my eyes swiftly from left to right across the lines as I think about whether we need to get some more Tropicana orange juice or that I forgot to call my sister back, only to snap to attention a few minutes later.
I'm particularly susceptible to this autopilot mode while reading the Macropaedia. For those who don't pay proper attention to encyclopedia structure, the Britannica is divided into two main sections: the Micropaedia and the Macropaedia. The Micropaedia accounts for twelve volumes, and it contains thousands of little snippet-sized articles--a couple of paragraphs, maybe a page or two maximum. The Macropaedia--which clocks in at seventeen volumes--takes a handful of the Micro's articles (accounting, China, evolution) and offers the extended dance mix. The Macro articles can be brutal, impenetrable, and they take just shy of a Cryptozoic eon (3 billion years) to read. The one on digestion and digestive systems droned on for thirty-nine pages. The one on continental land-forms had me pleading for mercy at fifty-six pages.
I rotate between the two--I'll read a few hundred pages from the Micropaedia's Bs, then a couple of hundred from the Macropaedia's Bs, after which I'll switch back to the Micropaedia for still more Bs. Of the two, I much prefer the Micro. It's more like the front section of a magazine--the section I work on at Esquire--as opposed to the daunting features in the middle. Right now, I'm in the Micro, and am going to dive into the section on the...
dragonfly
It can eat its own weight in thirty minutes. Just like Roger Ebert.
Damn. I should be beyond Ebert jokes by now--I'm in the Ds, for crying out loud--but those pop culture references die hard.
dress and adornment
One of the sad ironies of my life is that I work at Esquire, an arbiter of men's fashion, and yet I'm a shockingly bad dresser. I've got all the fashion sense of agricultural zealot Johnny Appleseed, who liked to wear an old coffee sack with holes cut out for arms.
It wasn't always this way. At one point in my mid-twenties, I paid a lot of attention to clothes. I got myself a closet full of tight trousers, some even in primary colors, and a bunch of fancy shirts with buttons made of things like mother-of-pearl. Then I got married. My only criterion now is that all my clothes should feel like pajamas, which can cause some problems at work. I wear these sneaker clogs around the office that would barely be acceptable at a beach cabana. Of course, when I go in to meet with my boss--an appropriately natty man--I make sure to change into my professional black leather shoes. One day last year, I got confused by all the trips back and forth to his office, and ended up taking a meeting with my fancy black shoe on my left foot, and my sneaker clog on the right, like a scene out of a seventies sitcom. And you wonder why I haven't gotten a promotion in three years.
All of this is to say that I took some twisted pleasure in the life of Beau Brummel, the biggest dandy in the Britannica, who gets a special shout out in the dress and adornment section. I had vaguely heard of Brummel, but knew practically nothing. Here's what I found out: Brummel became famous for his good fashion at Eton, then added "wit" to his resume at Oxford. He moved to London in 1799, befriended the Prince of Wales, set up a bachelor establishment, and was soon recognized as high society's arbiter of good taste, parading about town in his cravats and silk stockings and pantaloons. Brummel "was so concerned with style that he had his coat made by one tailor, his waistcoat by another, and his breeches by a third.... His neckcloth was so elaborate and voluminous that his valet sometimes spent a whole morning getting it to sit properly." The prince himself copied Brummel's look.
Then, in 1812, things started to unravel. Brummel quarreled with the prince (his tongue was "too sharp," says the Britannica), blew through his thirty-thousand-pound inheritance on gambling debts and those damn white cravats. And on the night of May 16, 1816, Britain's most celebrated fop fled to France to avoid his creditors. Brummel struggled on for years in France, and was briefly imprisoned there, also for debt.
And here's the sentence I know I shouldn't enjoy, but I do: "He soon lost all his interest in dress; his personal appearance was slovenly and dirty, and he began to live in fantasies of the past." I feel bad for him, but it's a good fact to have in my plumed hat: even the quintessential dandy eventually gave up on fashion. This I can tell Julie next time she tells me I look like a homeless man.
duality
So far, the Britannica has been intermittently useful. It's given me perspective on my life--sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse--loaded me up with cocktail party conversation, and helped Julie solve 42-Down. But what about the stuff my old boss at the Antioch Ledger newspaper called "news you can use"? What about good, solid how-to hints?
Well, to its credit, the Britannica isn't entirely lacking in handy suggestions. For instance, there's a nice write-up on how to protect yourself from painful g-forces when in a spaceship (just turn sideways to the rocket's thrust). And there's another on how to toss a boomerang properly (throw it downward, snapping your wrist right before release). And if you ever see a snake but aren't sure whether it's the deadly coral snake, just remember this poem about its coloring ("Red touching yellow, dangerous fellow"). But so far this winter, I've had minimal contact with boomerangs, acceleration stress, and coral snakes.
Which brings me to tonight's dinner. Finally, a breakthrough I've been waiting for, the first truly practical application of my knowledge. It's a good feeling. Jolly good, even. Here's what happened: My assistant Genevieve, a proud native of Anchorage (she smiles condescendingly whenever we whine about New York winters), sent me Alaskan crab legs as a Christmas gift. Julie is delighted, and has invited her friend Anna over for some crab soup.
"You know," I say, hovering around the kitchen as Julie puts the finishing touches on the soup, "the giant crab in Japan can grow to over twelve feet long."
"Wow, twelve feet," says Julie. Her tone is that of a mother whose four-year-old has toddled in to display a particularly large strand of drool. Anna nods her head, pretending to be impressed as well.
"Okay, soup's on!" says Julie. She ladles out bowls for each of us. "Now the recipe suggests coriander on top. You want?"
"Sure, I'll take some," says Anna.
"Wait," I say. I pause dramatically. "I think 'coriander' is the British word for cilantro."
"Really?" says Julie.
"I think so," I say.
As Julie and I both know too well, Anna despises cilantro with an intensity most people reserve for war criminals or David Arquette, a fact we've learned from several unpleasant guacamole incidents at Mexican restaurants. Julie dips her finger in her bowl--which she has already sprinkled with chopped coriander leaves--and puts a little on her tongue.
"He's right. It's cilantro."
"Read about that just the other day."
"Huh. I never knew," Julie says. "I thought it looked familiar."
Julie had asked the grocery guy for fresh coriander, and he had shown her the cilantro leaves. And now, I had cleared up the confusion. I had exposed this duality.
"Thanks, A.J." says Anna.
" 'Tis a pleasure, gov'nor!" I respond.
"Good job, honey! I'm proud of you."
This is a big moment. Huge. My newly acquired knowledge has actually had a beneficial impact. It has saved a close friend from an unpleasant herb-related experience and earned the respect of my wife.
"Blimey, I need a spoon!" I say.
"Okay," says Julie, "enough with the British talk."
Dundatree
This the Britannica defines as "the mythical country where large-footed dictators come from." Huh. That's an strange concept, I think to myself. I've never even heard of it.
The reason I've never heard of Dundatree is that...I dreamed it. I read so much that it's invaded my sleep. I can't escape those endless descriptions and dates, that little ten-point Times font text, the fancy gold embossing, not even when I close my eyes. And now I'm making up my own facts, which I'm worried I'll confuse with actual facts.
Dyer, John
I'm relatively sure I didn't dream this British poet up. He was born in 1699 and he wrote the following verse:
A little rule, a little sway,A sunbeam in a winter's day,Is all the proud and mighty haveBetween the cradle and the grave.
Jesus. That's disheartening.
On the one hand, I suppose it's a wisely humbling poem. So what if Donald Trump has dozens of menservants to dust his gold-plated toilet plungers? All he really has is a little rule, a little sway, between the cradle and the grave. But on the other hand, the verse plays to my cynical side, the whatever-you-do-doesn't-
matter-because-you'll-eventually-die side, which isn't a healthy mind-set. I need better wisdom.
E
Earth
It's Friday night, and Julie and I are out to dinner with our friends Lisa and Paul. Julie met Lisa at camp, and they've remained close for a couple of decades. Lisa looks a bit like Audrey Hepburn, and Paul looks a bit like Lisa, which I guess makes him a male Audrey Hepburn with less hair.
It's always good to see them, even if we all agree the restaurant's chef needs some more focus--he's offering sushi, French food, blintzes, everything but bird's nest soup (a dish made from the saliva of tiny Chinese birds). The main thrust of our conversation is that we're all way too busy. This, I've found, is one of the absolute favorite discussions of East Coast urbanites in my age bracket, along with real estate prices, smoking laws, and the inexplicable career of bow-tied PBS satirist Mark Russell. Well, maybe that last one is my own little obsession.
In any case, my dinner companions are all complaining about their overloaded schedules. Lisa--who never leaves the house without a camera--has a dozen shoe boxes bulging with photos.
"I just don't have time to put them in photo albums."
"I'll do it for you," says Julie. She's the single most organized woman in the world. If given the choice between organizing a closet and going on vacation, she'd have to think about it.
"I might take you up on that," says Lisa. "I'd do it myself, but I just need more hours in the day."
"There really should be at least thirty hours in a day," says Paul.
And here--like a great running back who sees a hole in the offensive line--I make my move. "You know, if you just wait a bit, there will be more hours in the day."
No one responds, so I continue.
"The days are getting longer because of the drag on the earth. So just wait a few million years. I mean, you're lucky you didn't live half a billion years ago. There were only twenty hours in a day."
"You sure do know a lot," says Paul.
I have to say, he's right. I learned that fact in the entry on our planet Earth. It was a fascinating essay--but also more than a bit disconcerting.
It's not just the length of our days that is shifting. There's also a disturbing phenomenon called "polar wandering." Apparently, the North and South Poles are restless little buggers. The magnetic South Pole cruises about eight miles to the northwest each year. Give it a couple decades and it'll make its way to Baton Rouge. After that, I hear it's heading to the Jersey shore.
This I don't get. Stray cats are supposed to wander. Maybe dazed hippies in search of a Phish concert. But the poles? They're supposed to be stable and solid and frozen, like the red-and-white striped poles I used to see on Rankin-Bass Santa Claus specials.
That's not to mention what's known as the procession of equinoxes: the earth is wobbling on its axis every 26,000 years. And there's more. The earth's magnetic field reverses direction every 300,000 to a million years. There's something called azimuthal drift, which involves shifting particle streams. And many other things I barely understand.
The point is, the earth's not solid as a rock. The earth's not firm. The earth is a big wobbling, wandering, reversing, shifting sphere of Jell-O. I suppose I should have known from elementary school that my world wasn't completely stationary. I knew about the revolving and rotating and had a passing acquaintance with plate tectonics.
But the volume of instability and flux--that's what threw me. It makes me feel like I'm walking on a half-melted ice pond.
And by the way, in case you're under the impression that the earth is a sphere, you're wrong. It bulges in the middle, like Alfred Hitchcock after a couple too many helpings of kidney pie. It's a wobbling, wandering, reversing, shifting sphere of Jell-O with a weight problem. But it's all we've got.
After dinner, as we walk along the rickety West Side streets, Julie says: "Honey, I think you need to restrain yourself a little with the facts."
Damn. I was riding high from my cilantro victory. Now I've gone and blown that goodwill. "But I did restrain myself," I say. "I had a lot more facts about the earth I didn't mention."
"Well, thank you for that."
"You didn't find that interesting at all?" I ask. "That our days are getting longer?"
"I'm just saying, you seem to be losing your ability to interact with human beings."
"So you're saying I once had ability to interact with human beings?"
I got her there. Ha! But Julie does have a point. Maybe I need to control myself a little more. It's just so hard--I've crammed so much info into my brain, I feel that I need to get it out whenever I can. It's so damn cathartic (as are certain noxious members of the buttercup family when ingested).
Ecclesiastes
This is a book of the Old Testament. I don't believe I've ever read this section of the Bible--I know my Genesis pretty well and my Ten Commandments (I like lists), but I'm hazy on a lot of the other parts. Here, the Britannica provides a handy Cliffs Notes version of Ecclesiastes:
[The author's] observations on life convinced him that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all" (9:11). Man's fate, the author maintains, does not depend on righteous or wicked conduct but is an inscrutable mystery that remains hidden in God (9:1). All attempts to penetrate this mystery and thereby gain the wisdom necessary to secure one's fate are "vanity," or futile. In the face of such uncertainty, the author's counsel is to enjoy the good things that God provides while one has them to enjoy.
This is great. I've accumulated hundreds of facts in the last seven thousand pages, but I've been craving profundity and perspective. Yes, there was that Dyer poem, but that was just cynical. This is the real thing: the deepest paragraph I've read so far in the encyclopedia. Instant wisdom. It couldn't be more true: the race does not go to the swift. How else to explain the mouth-breathing cretins I knew in high school who now have multimillion-dollar salaries? How else to explain my brilliant and kind friends who are still stuck selling wheatgrass juice at health food stores? How else to explain Vin Diesel's show business career? Yes, life is desperately, insanely, absurdly unfair. But Ecclesiastes offers exactly the correct reaction to that fact. There's nothing to be done about it, so enjoy what you can. Take pleasure in the small things--like, for me, Julie's laugh, some nice onion dip, the insanely comfortable beat-up leather chair in our living room.
I keep thinking about Ecclesiastes in the days that follow. What if this is the best the encyclopedia has to offer? What if I have found the meaning of life on page 347 of the E volume? The Britannica is not a traditional book, so there's no reason why the big revelation should be at the end. Will zywiec be even more profound than Ecclesiastes? Maybe, but I doubt it.
ecstasy
I learn that ecstasy was patented as an appetite suppressant by Merck in the 1920s. Incidentally, I took Merck's appetite suppressant when I went to visit Brown University as a high school senior trying to figure out where to go to college. Damn, that was a great visit. Brown should give out ecstasy to all prospective applicants.
I couldn't believe how wonderful everything at the school was. "I love this cafeteria! This is the most beautiful cafeteria I've ever seen. And this baked ziti--this is fucking delicious! You get to live in these dorm rooms? They're palaces. And your library carrels are so well designed. What beautiful fluorescent lighting! God, look at that pile of bricks in the yard. That's the most gorgeous pile of bricks at any college I've ever seen." I think I gave out about fifteen hugs to surprised and apprehensive students who made the mistake of wandering within a twenty-foot radius of me.
Unfortunately, the ecstasy had worn off by the time I actually became a freshman at Brown and learned that the baked ziti actually tasted like Styrofoam dipped in ketchup.
eggplant
It's our apartment-warming tonight--we moved in six months ago, but never got around to throwing a party till now. It'll be our first catered affair. A real adult party with men in tuxedos passing out skewered coconut chicken and grilled eggplant roulade (eggplant's name, by the way, comes from the white egg-shaped variety, which I've never seen). We spend the day cleaning up. I, for one, make sure my Britannica volumes are neatly lined up, ready for their debut in polite society.
The party seems to go well. People love the skewered coconut chicken, and the dreaded mixing of friends seems to be going along without incident.
Midway through the party, I see Dad talking to one of Julie's former coworkers, a banker named Jeff. Jeff motions me over.
"When's your birthday?" Jeff asks.
I look at Dad. His face is poker serious, but I can see it in his eyes. The glint. I know what I'm supposed to say. I'm supposed to say February 29.
My father has been telling Jeff one of his classics, namely, an elaborate story about how the entire Jacobs family shares the same birthday: leap year day. My dad has no doubt informed Jeff that his own birthday is February 29, 1940 (he was actually born on February 26), and that he met my mom at Cornell because they were both members of a club for students born on leap year day, and that she was born exactly four years after him (she was born on February 3). In the story, they got married and timed the conception of my sister and me so that we too were born on leap year day. Well, they had to do cesareans on us, but we still qualify as February 29 birthdays. So we were, he told Jeff, the only family in the United States with all four members born on leap year day. The odds of that, my father has calculated, are 4.6 trillion to one.
Jeff is no doubt conflicted. On the one hand, my father--a man he barely knows and who has no reason to lie to him--is telling this story without a hint of a smile and in remarkably convincing detail. On the other hand, it sure seems like a crock.
"What's your birthday?" says Jeff again.
I just couldn't do it. "March 20th." I say.
I think this is my father's greatest disappointment with me--that I don't collude with him on his practical jokes. Those jokes are his favorite form of social interaction. He tells them at every opportunity in his low-decibel voice, two notches above a mumble.
Sometimes they can be simple, these jokes: he'll introduce himself to strangers at a party by saying, "Hello, I'm Sam." Or Harvey or Edgar or whatever name strikes him.
But those are just throwaways. My dad prefers the more complex ruses. When asked his occupation, my father will say, "I sell cemetery plots." And then he'll describe a nice space he can offer his conversation partner, something with a lovely view of a lake.
Then he might ask what his conversation partner does for a living. Whatever the answer, my dad will always feign ignorance about the firm.
"Time Inc.? Is that a clock company?"
"Harvard? Is that in Pennsylvania?"
No, the person will patiently explain. It's a magazine company or it's a college in Massachusetts, or what have you.
"Oh, yes," my dad will say. "I think I've heard of it."
And then there are the carefully premeditated jokes. My father is a teetotaler, but if he's at a dinner party--preferably hosted by someone who doesn't know him very well--and offered a drink, he'll inevitably order a Yellow Lightning.
"Yellow Lightning?" the host will say.
"Yes, please."
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure what a Yellow Lightning is."
"Oh, it's two parts lemon Kool-Aid and one part tequila."
My dad has concocted the Yellow Lightning on the theory that no one in America has both necessary ingredients. The apologetic host will inevitably return from the kitchen to explain that they can't find any lemon Kool-Aid in the cupboard.
"Well, nothing for me, then," my father will sigh. "Thanks anyway."
And then, at the far end, are those lies that are so byzantine, so full of twists and nuances, that I can never remember how they go, even though I've heard them recounted a dozen times. I know, for instance, he somehow convinced a fellow lawyer that her tip at a restaurant hadn't been big enough, which caused the waiter to go postal and punch out all the eatery's windows, which got him arrested and ruined his life. M&M's were somehow involved. So were wooden boards. She called the restaurant to apologize, and the maitre d', of course, was baffled.
As I said, I never play along with Dad's games. Like when he introduces me as his son-in-law Willy, I just say, "Hi, I'm A.J." He always looks a little crestfallen. I'm not sure why I do it. Maybe it's because I know that I can't compete with him in this arena. Or maybe it's a remnant of my adolescent rebelliousness--my dad puts so much energy and thought into these fabrications, I just want to throw cold water on them.
But anyway, back to Jeff, who is shaking his head and chuckling politely. He knew something was fishy.
"Your dad almost had me there," he says.
Well, I tell him, he can be always be sure of one thing: if a stranger says he was born any day between October 4 and October 15, 1582, he's lying. Why? Because there were no such dates. That's when the world switched to the Gregorian calendar, and they skipped those ten days. Never happened. Jeff makes that face that I've come to know well from other people: he purses his lips in a sort of half frown, raises his eyebrows, and nods his head. The universal symbol for "Isn't that something."
My dad and I are similar in that respect--we've each found a way to deal with our innate social awkwardness: he with his practical jokes, I with my facts. We're quite a duo. We even look alike--lanky, brown-haired, bespectacled. And our combined conversational tactics have apparently given Jeff an appetite. He excuses himself to get some more eggplant roulade.
elf
Not the cute creatures we've been spoon-fed by the media. Elves in traditional folklore sat on people's chests while they slept to give them bad dreams. They also stole human children and substituted deformed fairy children. Wonder if Santa is really a crack dealer.
embalming
I'm still worried about myself. Remember that problem I had with Aristotle? That I was more interested in how he chased young girls than in his metaphysics? I'm still suffering from that same handicap. I should be grappling with quasars or learning secrets behind the human genome, and yet, here I am, fourteen thousand entries in, and my favorite article so far is this one--the history of embalming. And yet I can't help it. I find it fascinating.
First off, the embalming article has plenty of new uses for the basic items found right in my own kitchen. For instance, Alexander the Great's body was returned from Babylon to Macedonia in a cask of honey. And when British admiral Lord Nelson's body was shipped back to England from Trafalgar, it was pickled in brandy, much like Lee Marvin's.
Second, since everyone likes easy-to-follow recipes, the Britannica offers this one, courtesy of Egyptian mummifiers: Remove the brain and intestines, wash in palm wine, and place in vases. Fill body cavity with perfumes. Stitch incisions and place body in potassium nitrate for seventy days. Remove. Wash and wrap in cotton bandages. Enjoy.
But my favorite part of the embalming entry was a man named Martin Van Butchell and his ingenious loophole. Before I get to that, a quick detour, because loopholes deserve a little attention of their own. I've been keeping track of loopholes, and have come to the conclusion that humans are a sleazy, slippery, tricky, untrustworthy species. The Bible says that men of the cloth cannot take up the sword. So what'd medieval bishops do? They took up the club. They figured, apparently, that it's perfectly okay with Jesus to bash in the head of the enemy, as long as it's not with a long metallic blade. Speaking of religious men, monks were banned from eating meat on Friday. Somehow--and there's no explanation of the logic behind this one--the monks decided that baby rabbits were fish. And in colonial America, legend has it that the authorities outlawed nine-pin bowling. So what'd bowling fans do? They added another pin and invented ten-pin bowling. Voila! That's not illegal.
So as you can see, if there's a law, rule, or order, someone's going to find the loophole. Which brings us back to Martin Van Butchell. Van Butchell was a widower in 18th-century England. His wife--a wealthy lady--had specified in her will that Van Butchell could have access to her money only as long as her body was aboveground. I suppose she didn't want him spending it on gold snuffboxes for his second wife. Problem is, when Mrs. Van Butchell died, her husband found perhaps the best loophole in the history of wills. He hired a man named John Hunter to perform one of the first arterial embalmings ever, then placed Mrs. Van Butchell's fashionably dressed body in a glass-lidded case in a sitting room and held regular visiting hours. Her body remained, technically, aboveground, and he was free to frolic in her bank account.
emotion
Despite the enjoy-life-while-you-can wisdom of Ecclesiastes, I've been mildly depressed lately. Partly it's because I'm exhausted--this early-morning schedule is a killer. I know I brought it on myself--no one's threatening to kneecap me if I don't read a hundred pages a day. Still, it's a killer. Journalists just aren't meant to wake up to the sunrise and Al Roker's relentlessly cheery voice. But the real reason I'm down is that we got slammed with another negative pregnancy test the other day. I hate it. It makes life's little annoyances--my commute, the line at the drugstore, etc.--seem especially unbearable.
I've taken the offensive against the depression--I've become annoyed at it. I've decided 98 percent of depression has long outlived its Darwinian value. You ingest a dozen pages of biology every day--the evolution of crustaceans and bacteria and blood types--and you start to see everything in a Darwinian light. Even emotion. I'm not sure what the original evolutionary value of sadness was, but I can guarantee you this: mine is not helping me survive or reproduce. My freezer will still have plenty of microwave veggie lasagnas regardless of whether or not I get upset at the fourteen-minute wait for the subway. Unfortunately, this realization--brilliant as it may be--hasn't helped me shake off the funk.
As I dive into the Macropaedia article on emotion, I'm hoping to find some more helpful information. And sure enough, I do. There's a snappy section on something called "facial feedback." This is when your brain senses that your facial muscles are in a happy position, so the brain figures, Hey, I must be happy. (The brain can be remarkably stupid sometimes.) As the Britannica puts it, there is "some scientific support for the old advice 'smile when you feel blue' and 'whistle a happy tune when you're afraid.' "
For the rest of the morning, as I plow through the Es, I test out some facial feedback. I force my lips into a slightly exhausting, two-hour-long fake smile. On a bathroom break, I check out my face in the mirror. It frightens me. It looks like I have electrodes in my cheeks that are zapping my face into an unnatural approximation of happiness. I look like a de-ranged elf in a horror movie about an axe-murdering Santa. But I have to say--I think it might be working. I am feeling just the tiniest bit better.
In addition to facial feedback, I also paid close attention to the section on dealing with anger. The Britannica lists several strategies, among them:
Confrontative coping ("stood my ground and fought")
Distancing ("didn't let it get to me")
Planful problem solving ("changed or grew as a person")
Positive reappraisal
Studies show that the first two methods--confrontation and distancing--just make people more upset. The second two--planful problem solving and positive reappraisal--make them happier. I've always been a distancer, a stereotypically stoic male. This is good. I'm going try out this planful problem solving.
I decide to start with yesterday's dustup with the Verizon phone company. That pissed me off. It involved forty-seven minutes on hold, several forms that I had filled out twice before, and an extremely patronizing tone of voice from a woman with the IQ of a five-assed abalone. How could I planfully solve this problem? After less than a minute's thought, I figured it out. Get my assistant Genevieve to call next time. Nothing makes me feel better than delegating.
encyclopedia
The Britannica does not suffer from any self-esteem issues. This book is not ashamed of itself. In fact, one of the favorite topics in the Britannica is...the Britannica. Britannica editors, Britannica publishers, Britannica Chinese editions--they all get their very own entry. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy I talked to at Britannica's CD-ROM tech support gets his own write-up soon. (Yes, it's true--I buckled and got the Britannica CD-ROM, which I use occasionally for its search function).
That's not to mention the way the Britannica manages to insert itself the unlikeliest of places--as with its discussion of the hand grenade pioneer who began his hand grenade obsession after reading about the weapons in his EB. In short, if the Britannica were a teenage boy, it would be in serious danger of growing hairy palms.
But right now, I've arrived at the most onanistic moment of all--the encyclopedia essay on encyclopedias. If I'm going to be spending a year with these thirty-two clunky volumes, I might as well pay attention to where the hell they came from.
The word "encyclopedia" is derived from Greek--as you'd expect--and means a circle of learning. Plato's nephew wrote perhaps the first circle of learning, with Pliny the Elder polishing off his own version soon after. (By the way, Pliny the Elder died investigating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Another martyr to knowledge--we salute you!)
Over the millennia, humans have produced an estimated two thousand encyclopedias. The award for the longest goes to China's Yu-Hai encyclopedia, published in 1738, at a disturbing 240 volumes. The most lyrical is probably the French one from 1245, written in octosyllabic verse. The most creatively organized--I'd give that to the Spanish encyclopedia from the 15th century that was written allegorically, with a young man getting lessons from maidens named Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, and so on.
The most historic, though, is not a matter of debate. It has to be Diderot's Encyclopedie, which made its debut in Paris in August of 1751. I knew this was a controversial pile of books, but I had no idea exactly how big a ruckus it had made. Editors were jailed, the volumes themselves were locked up in the Bastille alongside murderers and madmen, and police scoured Paris in search of manuscripts to burn. The Encyclopedie--written by the intellectual rock stars of the day, including Voltaire and Rousseau--went out of its way to squash myths and needle the clergy, even featuring a quasi-flattering write-up of atheism. And it might have been censored completely if not for a chance dinner table conversation at King Louis XV's palace. The king got into a squabble with his guests about the correct composition of gunpowder. The solution: they dispatched someone to track down a copy of the illegal Encyclopedie. After that, according to Voltaire, the king grudgingly tolerated the pesky volumes.
Less than twenty years later and five hundred miles to the north--and with a lot less hullabaloo--the first edition of the mighty Britannica came off the presses in Edinburgh, Scotland. This 1768 edition had three fathers: an obscure printer named Colin Macfarquhar; an editor named William Smellie, who in his spare time was an accomplished drunk (he liked to toss back pints with poet Robert Burns); and a buffoon named Andrew Bell, who stood four foot six and had a huge nose--but liked to wear an even bigger papier-mache nose as a joke. Ha! Incidentally, he could pay for his wacky nose with the fortune earned from engraving fancy dog collars for the rich. They shared an interest in learning and, apparently Greek-inspired spelling (hence the ae in encyclopaedia).
The work they produced is an odd and fascinating cocktail. I ordered a set from Britannica--you can buy reproductions, complete with fake age spots. Dip in anywhere, and you'll get a taste of what was important to the average 18th-century Scotsman. As Herman Kogan points out in The Great EB--a remarkably detailed history of the Britannica--the first edition devotes seven lines to drama and dispenses with poetry in five hundred words. But cures for horse disease? That fills a riveting thirty-nine pages. Apparently, the Scots had some seriously unhealthy horses.
Not counting veterinary tracts, the first Britannica can be great reading--opinionated, eccentric, occasionally cranky. Suicide, the Britannica informs its readers, is "an act of cowardice disguised as heroism." For excessive gas, the Britannica prescribes almond oil and tobacco smoke blown up the anus. Cold baths should be taken for melancholy, madness, and the bites of mad dogs. And cats? My God, these Scotsmen were not cat people. The poor feline species inspires several hundred words of venomous prose. To give you an idea:
Of all domestic animals, the character of the cat is the most equivocal and suspicious. He is kept, not for any amiable qualities, but purely with a view to banish rats, mice and other noxious animals from our houses.... Constantly bent upon theft and rapine, they are full of cunning and dissimulation; they conceal all their designs; seize every opportunity of doing mischief, and then fly from punishment.... In a word, the cat is totally destitute of friendship.
Wait, there's more. The cat is overly "amorous" (that is, horny), "torments" his prey, and generally "delights in destroying all kinds of weak animals indifferently." Cats often pretend to sleep when "in reality they are meditating mischief." Oh, and cat mothers "devour their offspring."
Well. As an unabashed cat lover, I have to disagree. Cats may not have the wide-eyed unquestioning loyalty of dogs, but they're also not the feline equivalent of Josef Mengele. Plus, they won't go mad and chew on your leg, forcing you to take cold baths. (By the way, the current Britannica seems to have gotten over its cat issues; the 2002 edition says that "the cat's independent personality, grace, cleanliness and subtle displays of affection have wide appeal." Much better spin.)
The first edition of Britannica clocks in at only three volumes. Oddly, the erudite Scottish boys had an obsession with the letters A and B; those two get an entire volume all to themselves. The rest of the alphabet is crammed into the remaining two volumes. Apparently, Smellie and friends got a little bored of their project midway through and decided it would be more fun to go to the tavern with Robert Burns. The letter Z is lucky to get mentioned at all.
The first edition became a moderate hit, selling about three thousand copies, according to The Great EB. Soon after, pirated editions were printed in America, available to the colonists for $6. Among those who bought a set were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The official second edition came out in 1777. Smellie declined to edit this one, so his replacement was another hard-drinking Scotsman, named James Tytler. Tytler's other claim to fame: an early fan of hot-air ballooning, he reputedly made love to a dentist's daughter on a flight, thus earning himself what some say is the very first membership in the mile-high club.
Since then, the Britannica has climbed its way on up to the fifteenth edition--an edition being defined as a top-to-bottom rewrite--which debuted in 1974. That's the edition I have on my mustard-colored shelf right now. Sales of the fifteenth have dropped since the glory days of the eighties. And astute home owners will notice that Britannica salesmen no longer tap on their doors--they were nixed in 1994. (Incidentally, star salesmen of yore include the founder of Sharper Image and the father of comedian Mike Myers.) But sales have stabilized recently, thanks mostly to schools and libraries, which replenish their sets regularly.
As you might expect, the big growth spurt has come on the electronic side--the Internet, CD-ROM, and DVDs--which now make up about half of the Britannica's business. Yes, Microsoft's Encarta is the market leader, the Nike sneakers of the encyclopedia world. But the Britannica's business is big enough to support a staff of five hundred worldwide who diligently revise the articles. In the last couple of years, they've tweaked about a third of the 65,000 entries in ways large and small.
The shifting Britannica text is fascinating to me. The first couple of editions are works of art, but I love to read any and all vintage editions. They're always a snapshot of the age, each revealing its own delightful and disturbing prejudices. My friend Tom, a writer at Esquire, has a volumes A through Q of the 1941 Britannica. He rescued them one day when he was poking around the garbage dump at Shelter Island, but had to abandon volumes R through Z because they were too stained with burrito juice. In that edition, Herman Melville got a dismissive little write-up--some minor American writer with a weakness for turgid prose who squeezed out a couple of decent nautically-themed books. Apparently, the Melville renaissance hadn't hit the Britannica offices in 1941.
You can find good stuff even in those editions from just twenty years ago. The library at Esquire has the 1980 Britannica, which I peeked at, only to find what is probably the strangest passage ever published in Britannica's history. It's about John Adams, in the section on his retirement, and it says he spent his old age "enjoying his tankard of hard cider each morning before breakfast" and "rejoicing at the size of his manure pile." Now, it's moderately strange that the second president of the United States was sloshed before breakfast. But that he derived joy from the size of a pile of excrement? I just don't know how to interpret that. It occurs to me, though, that this might make for a nice monument to this American hero--a marble replica of his twenty-foot-high manure collection. Take that, Mount Rushmore!
And speaking of classic Britannica, we can't neglect the most classic of them all: the eleventh edition, from 1911. As any book-obsessed dweeb will tell you, this was the greatest encyclopedia ever produced. This is the edition that has not one but two Web sites devoted to it--1911encyclopedia.org and classiceb.com. Granted, Ashton Kutcher has a few more, but still, for an encyclopedia, that's not bad.
What made it so momentous? Partly, it was the contributors. This edition was written by hundreds of heavyweight experts, including scientist T. H. Huxley, philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, poet Algernon Swinburne, and revolutionary Petr Kropotkin, who wrote the anarchy entry from his London jail cell. But the impressive roster alone doesn't quite explain the cult of the eleventh--especially since many of those essays were left over from previous editions. Plus, the real blockbuster names wouldn't come until the thirteenth edition (Houdini wrote on magic, Freud on psychoanalysis, and Einstein on physics).
You could also argue that the eleventh's appeal comes from its literary style--the prose is wonderful, occasionally worthy of a novel. Consider Lord Macaulay's essay on Samuel Johnson, which contained passages like this one, about Johnson's depression: "The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a direct line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul, and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him." The man could write.
Still, the literary style doesn't quite explain the eleventh's unique appeal, either. To really understand what's going on, your best bet is to consult a 1981 New Yorker article by Hans Koning called "Onward and Upward with the Arts: The Eleventh Edition." This was when magazine articles were almost as long as the Britannica itself; if his piece appeared today, it would probably be squeezed into a three-sentence photo caption. Koning starts his opus with a primer on encyclopedias in general (part of which I referred to above). He then makes his argument: that the eleventh was the culmination of the Enlightenment, the last great work of the Age of Reason, the final instance when all human knowledge could be presented with a single point of view. Four years later, the confidence and optimism that had produced the eleventh would be, as Koning puts it, "a casualty in the slaughter at Ypres and the Argonne."
The eleventh edition was a work in which civilization would soon conquer every corner of the earth, a book that predicted the "lessening of international jealousies." This was a book, says Koning, where reason ruled and great deeds were done by great and logical men, not the result of irrational forces or luck. Having read a bit of the eleventh, I think he's right. That's where the real appeal lies--nostalgia for a world where it all made sense, where all was knowable, where one point of view was the correct one.
Of course, as Koning points out, this point of view had an ugly side: it was racist as all hell. "The negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthropoids." Haitians are "ignorant and lazy" and the natives of the Philippines are "physical weaklings...with large clumsy feet."
The EB has since weeded out racism. But having read eight thousand pages, I still notice the tone that Koning talks about. The volume has been turned down, but it's still there: the world of the EB is still one that treats everything rationally and sensibly, that still believes in the overall progress of civilization. As worldviews go, it may be deluded--but I like it. It's better than the alternative.
Engels, Friedrich
Back to my 2002 edition, and Friedrich Engels. I'd always thought of Engels as the lesser half of the Marx-Engels team, sort of a 19th-century revolutionary Garfunkel. But in a way, Engels is more interesting than his better-known compatriot.
What I love about Engels is his capacity to lead a double life. Born to a plush existence--his father owned a cotton plant in Manchester and a textile factory in Prussia--Engels spent the better part of thirty years in the family trade. During the day, he was an effective German businessman, crunching his numbers, closing his deals. But after hours, Engels wrote spittle-emitting articles against the evils of capitalism.
To outward appearances, he seemed quite well adjusted. As the Britannica says, "He joined a choral society, frequented the famed Ratskeller, became an expert swimmer and practiced fencing and riding (he outrode most Englishmen in the foxhunts)." That has got to be one of the most startling images I've encountered in Britannica, second only to John Adams's manure pile: the cofounder of modern communism astride a gelding, all decked out in a red jacket and jodhpurs, shouting "Tally ho!" with a German accent. Then, presumably, Engels would go home, take a bath, and scribble screeds urging textile factory workers to string up their evil foxhunting capitalist bosses. Eventually, Engels got promoted to partner in the Manchester cotton plant, where he continued to bring home the knockwurst, "never allowing his communist principles and criticism of capitalist ways to interfere with the profitable operations of his firm." By the way, in between his fomenting and his foxhunting, Engels found time to learn twenty-four languages.
So there's Engels for you--the ultimate limousine liberal. It reminded me of this guy I knew in college. He was an avowed manifesto-quoting communist, but his dad was some fancy Washington lobbyist. You could just tell this guy grew up in an enormous house filled with Latin American domestics and an intercom system to connect the various wings. When I first visited his dorm room, I remember complimenting him on his lovely colossal poster of Vladimir Lenin. He thanked me, then told me how proud he was of the frame he had selected--it was mahogany, if I recall correctly. A professionally framed poster of Lenin. For the same price he could have bought three tractors for a Minsk turnip farm.
In Engels's case, though, his ability to live with a surreal contradiction worked out nicely. If Engels wasn't a corporate drone by day, he wouldn't have had the cash to send to that moocher Marx. Without his allowance, Marx wouldn't have had the time to formulate his revolutionary theories, Russia might never have gone communist, and Warren Beatty would never have written the screenplay for Reds. So the Britannica has taught me that hypocrisy can be effective. Of course, it might have been better if Engels hadn't endorsed a totally flawed social system, but you can't have everything.
Enigma
"Device used by the German military command to encode strategic messages before and during World War II. The Enigma code was first broken by the Poles in the early 1930s." See? The Poles aren't so dumb. Another stereotype busted by the Britannica. (A stereotype, by the way, is a printing plate. I never knew that one).
eraser
Good thing I didn't take more ecstasy during my college years. I need all the brain cells I have. This became apparent during a conversation with Julie a couple of days after our party. She asked me how I was liking the Hanukkah present she had given me.
"Which one?" I asked.
"The one at your office."
I blanked. A Hanukkah present I brought to work? What the hell was it? My mind is so packed with bauxite formations and Cameroonian cities and 19th-century composers that it's elbowing out everything else in my life.
"I'm loving it!" I said.
But I gave myself away with that two-second delay.
"You don't know what it is, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
"What?"
"Um, a Frisbee?" I guessed.
She laughed--which was a relief.
"You got too much in your keppe."
Turned out it was an aromatherapy candle that smelled like grass. And I was liking it quite a bit--that much I remembered.
It's not just Hanukkah gifts I'm forgetting. It's my beloved facts. The new ones are pushing out the old ones. Here's a demoralizing story: Back in the early Es, I read about the scientist who pioneered the study of how humans forget information over time; he invented a curve to describe the phenomenon. When I read that entry, I said to myself, I'm going to make an effort not to forget this man's name.
Well, yesterday--about two weeks after I'd made that vow--I tried to remember his name. I couldn't come up with it. I knew it was an E name, but nothing else. Ironic, no? I looked in my notes and figured it out. It's Ebbinghaus. Hermann Ebbinghaus and his famous "forgetting curve."
I said before that I was remembering a lot more than I thought I would. That's true. But I'm also forgetting a lot more. This seems paradoxical, but you have to understand--I just didn't grasp the huge cubic volume of information I'd be ingesting. So I both remember more and forget more than I anticipated. There's that much information.
But man, what a world I've forgotten. I've forgotten more than many people have learned their whole lives. I've forgotten a small stadium of historical figures. I've forgotten a couple of zoos' worth of animals. I've forgotten a continent's worth of towns, and equations to fill a thousand blackboards.
Of course, forgetting is not a black-and-white issue. The information doesn't suddenly disappear like a pencil marks under an eraser (which, incidentally, is made of rubber, pumice, vegetable oil, and sulfur). It doesn't vaporize in a flash of gunpowder. It fades like the color of a sofa in the sun. So I'm left with hundreds of half facts, missing a correct detail here, a name there.
I remembered that the author of Peter Pan had an unconsummated marriage, but I couldn't tell you the asexual man's name. I remember the publisher of some magazine built a secret subway underneath New York sometime in the 1800s--but which magazine? I remember that there's a movie where the actor playing an Egyptian pharaoh wore sneakers, but which movie? Don't know. (It was The Ten Commandments--I just looked it up in the anachronism section.)
ethical relativism
This I knew about. I discovered ethical relativism way back in high school. I had been reading something pretentious--perhaps Roland Barthes, maybe a logical positivist of some sort--and I unearthed this amazing truth: there is no such thing as absolute morals! I've since come to believe that teenagers and profound philosophical doctrines are a bad mix, as dangerous as nitroglycerin and kieselguhr (Alfred Nobel's original recipe for dynamite). And this philosophical doctrine practically exploded in my face, leading to an absurd and humiliating moment in my career as a young know-it-all.
It was my senior year at Dalton, the New York private school I attended from kindergarten on up to graduation. You may remember Dalton from its not-so-flattering cameo in Woody Allen's Manhattan. It was the school where Mariel Hemingway's 17-year-old character studied algebra before going home to have sex with Woody's character, who was about eighty-three at the time. I don't believe that too many of the girls in my Dalton class were having sex with eighty-three-year-olds after school, though if they were, it would help explain why none of them ever had sex with me. In any case, Dalton is a very hoity-toity institution, attracting the offspring of lawyers and bankers and the occasional celebrity. (Robert Redford's daughter! Jonas Salk's niece!) And thanks to its embarrassingly large endowment, the academics were demanding.
Such was the case with my senior year physics course, which I took with my friend Nick Panetti. Since I was marginally better at physics than Nick--who admittedly wasn't going to be the next Heisenberg--I decided to let him cheat off my exam. Which wasn't smart to begin with. But then I made things much, much worse by committing a stupid error: I wrote "f = m + a" instead of the more traditional (if slightly cliched) equation "f = ma." Nick duplicated my error. As we used to say back then, we were so busted.
The head of the high school--a pudgy bearded guy who pretended to be loosey-goosey and liberal, but who was actually a total hard-ass--scheduled a meeting with me and my parents for the next day. I went home and spent several hours scribbling a three-page, single-spaced, brilliantly reasoned defense. My argument boiled down to this: all morality is relative. I have my own moral system. In my moral system, letting Nick cheat off my exam was not wrong. Therefore what I did was not wrong. Therefore the Dalton School cannot punish me. QED.
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