Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (49 page)
Read Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
You know you’ve hit the big time when even your outhouse is famous. Here’s the story of a Canadian poet and the privy he put on the map
.
H
OMESTEADING
In 1957 a struggling Canadian poet named Al Purdy bought a plot of land on the shores of Roblin Lake in Ontario for $850. He and his wife Eurithe wanted to build an A-frame cabin on the property, but if you’ve ever tried to build a house using the money you’ve earned by writing poetry, you can understand why Purdy decided to start small: He built an outhouse first. Even that was built with scrap lumber; he, his wife, and two other relatives built the outhouse (and later, the cabin) using materials salvaged from a local schoolhouse that had been demolished.
BIG TIME
For a time Purdy was so broke that he and Eurithe fed their family powdered milk, canned soup, and whatever other goods they pulled from a dumpster on a nearby military base. But his years of struggle ended in 1965 when he published a collection of poems titled
The Cariboo Horses
, which won him the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, Canada’s highest poetry prize. In the years that followed, he published 33 volumes of poetry, and as his body of work grew, so did his reputation. By the end of his life, Purdy was widely considered the unofficial poet laureate of Canada and arguably the greatest English-language poet in the country’s history.
Yet despite all his fame and fortune, Purdy never tore down his simple A-frame cabin to replace it with something better. And even after he installed indoor plumbing in the A-frame, he never stopped using the outhouse. According to his wife, it remained his personal getaway, the place where he did some of his best thinking.
Eggplant seeds contain nicotine.
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Purdy invited a lot of guests to visit him, and his spot on Roblin Lake soon became a beloved summer retreat for a generation of young Canadian writers, who whiled away the long summer days drinking Purdy’s homemade wild-grape wine with him on his deck. He even let them use his cherished outhouse, but on one condition: They had to sign their names on the walls inside. Over the years those outhouse walls became covered with the signatures of scores of Canada’s best-loved writers.
When Purdy passed away in 2000, his publisher banded together with his friends and admirers to form the Al Purdy A-frame Trust, a group dedicated to preserving what had become the most famous writer’s house—and outhouse—in Canada. More than a decade later, those efforts are still under way. A regional land trust now owns the property, and the A-frame Trust raises money to support it. The house will eventually host a “writer in residence” for eight months a year.
PRIVY COUNCIL
The preservation project that probably would have been dearest to Al Purdy’s heart was put off almost until it was too late, and even then it was completed only by chance. In 2010 the Trust contacted Trenton High School, the school that Purdy attended until he dropped out at age 17, and asked them if there was anything they wanted to contribute to the preservation effort. A teacher paid a visit...and immediately laid eyes on Canada’s Most Famous Out-house, now 53 years old and very dilapidated. “The outhouse was on the verge of collapsing. It was the most urgent project,” said Eric Lorenzen, a teacher at Trenton High.
Lorenzen’s proposal: Let the shop class restore the outhouse. The “Purdy Privy Project” was approved, and in October 2010 the outhouse was hauled to the high school, where it was rebuilt in time to be hauled back and rededicated on April 21, 2011, the 11th anniversary of Al Purdy’s death. (Those signatures of famous Canadian writers? Unfortunately, they’d been painted over years earlier and couldn’t be saved.) On hand to rededicate the out-house, Eurithe Purdy said, “The students did a marvelous job on it. It’s more solid now than it ever was. It really brings back a lot of memories.” (But when asked to test it out, she declined.)
Singer Shania Twain brings her own bomb-sniffing dog to her concerts.
We tend to believe what the experts tell us about history...until a new set of experts come along to tell us that the old experts were wrong
.
T
he Event:
In 1847 half of the 87 pioneers known as the Donner Party perished on a cross-country wagon train from Independence, Missouri, to California.
What the History Books Say:
The group—which consisted of several families, including the Donners and the Reeds—left Missouri in the spring of 1846, heading west. In late July, they decided to take a little-traveled route known as Hastings Cutoff in order to shave 400 miles off their 2,500-mile journey. But the shortcut turned out to be more dangerous than expected. Bad weather and Indian attacks delayed the travelers, placing them high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in October when an early winter storm hit. The snow kept falling until there was a 30-foot base; the group was stranded. When rescuers finally arrived in February 1847, only 48 people were left, and they were barely clinging to life. How had they survived? Several of the group had resorted to cannibalism.
New Theory:
As news of the tragedy spread, the allegations of cannibalism dogged the Donner Party, but they vehemently denied it. It wasn’t until 2010 that scientific evidence backed them up. Analysis of bones excavated from a campsite near Truckee, California, revealed that they ate their horses, their cattle, and even Uno, the family dog...but not each other. According to project leader Gwen Robbins, an anthropologist at Appalachian State University, “They were boiling hides, chewing on leather, and trying desperately to survive. The bones were boiled and crushed in order to extract any kind of nutrients from them.” But none of the bones found in the fire pit were human.
Conclusion:
Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean that there was no cannibalism, just that there’s no evidence of it. What’s more likely: 19th-century press outlets spiced up the survivors’ accounts in order to sell more newspapers.
Sea anemones can live to be 80 years old.
“I’LL HAVE SOME
BAGOONG WITH
A GLASS OF PLONK”
If a stranger offered you some kreplach, would you eat it? It’s just one of many foods that may sound weird...but that’s only because you speak English
.
D
ONG GUA.
Also known as winter melon, it’s actually a squash that is harvested in summer. Available year-round in Chinese markets, “winter” refers to the snow-like white blotches on the mature fruit.
SHABU-SHABU.
Thinly sliced seafood, meat, or tofu swirled in a flavored broth. In Japanese it translates loosely to “swish swish.”
KREPLACH.
A Jewish dumpling filled with meat, cheese, or mashed potatoes. Similar to wontons or ravioli.
POPE’S NOSE.
Also known as “parson’s nose,” it is the stubby end of a turkey’s tail that scientists call the
pygostyle
. The term refers to the way that part of the tail is upturned, resembling someone “snooty,” i.e., with their nose in the air.
BAGOONG.
A popular Filipino condiment made from shrimp or small fish that have been salted, cured, and fermented for weeks.
SLUMGULLION.
A cheap watery meat stew, made by California Gold Rush miners out of whatever fixings they happened to have lying around.
AGAR-AGAR.
A dried, tasteless seaweed extract that acts as a setting agent to create a vegetable gelatin.
ASAFOETIDA.
A potent, garliclike spice found in Asia and India, harvested from the roots of the plant of the same name. The name comes from the Persian
aza
and the Latin
foetidus
, and translates literally to “stinking resin.”
VARAK.
Super-thin, edible sheets of pure silver and gold used as a decoration on desserts in parts of India.
How many are named Sandy? About 2.5 million people live in the Sahara Desert.
HULI HULI.
Hawaiian for “end-over-end,” this can describe a rotisserie barbecue itself, or the popular marinade used for roasting meats, made from brown sugar and soy sauce.
CLABBER.
A drink once popular in the southern U.S., made from curdled milk, which is then chilled and mixed with cream, sugar, and nutmeg.
KOPI LUWAK.
This Indonesian coffee is said to have a smooth, rich caramel and chocolate flavor with no bitterness. Sound good? Warning: The kopi beans are also eaten by a native marsupial called the luwak. After the kopi beans pass through the luwak’s digestive system, coffee-loving locals collect the “delicacy,” wash it off, grind it up, and brew it.
GLOGG.
For Christmas, Swedes traditionally spice their wine, mix it with punch, then mix that with brandy. The combination—called
glogg
—is served heated with a few almonds and raisins floating on top.
GADO-GADO.
An Indonesian vegetable salad usually consisting of chopped greens, sliced potatoes, boiled eggs, and peanut sauce. (It means “mix mix.”)
NOBLE ROT:
If poop can make coffee taste better, does mold improve the flavor of wine? Experts say yes. A naturally occurring infection called
Botrytis cinerea
, or “noble rot,” causes grapes to shrivel on the vine, which concentrates the sugar, making for a very sweet dessert wine.
SPÄTLESE.
In German the word means “late picking.” Spätleses are sweet wines made from grapes that have been left on the vine and are picked late in the season, often after they’ve been infected with the noble rot.
PLONK.
In the United States, cheap wine is sometimes called “rotgut.” In England it’s called “plonk.”
LOMI-LOMI.
A cold side-dish served in Hawaii, usually salmon “massaged” with onions, tomatoes, and peppers. It means “massage massage.”
Fall seven times, stand up eight. —
Japanese proverb
Why is peanut oil used for cooking on submarines? It’s nearly smokeless.
“Easter egg” is the term used to describe hidden messages or featues on DVDs. But the term and the idea date back to the 1970s, when they were first hidden in video games
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B
ACKGROUND
“Easter eggs” are usually associated with DVDs. If you press a certain sequence of buttons on your remote control, for example, you might find an extra deleted scene or a video introduction form the movie’s director buried in a menu somewhere. It’s a secret treasure hidden almost in plain sight...just like an Easter egg. But the idea predates home video: It originated in video games, and we have the Atari corporation, which dominated the home video game market in the late 1970s, to thank for it. The tight-fisted company made hundreds of millions of dollars off the games its $20,000-a-year programmers created, but it wouldn’t share the profits with them. And it kept their identities a secret to prevent other companies hiring them away. One such programmer was a man named Warren Robinett.
ADVENTURE
(1979)
Robinett single-handedly created the groundbreaking game
Adventure
for the Atari 2600 console. It was the first action-adventure game, the first game with a plot, and the first home cartridge to sell a million copies. But nobody knew Robinett had anything to do with it, or even that he existed, because the company would not give him credit. He got back at Atari by hiding something in the game: As players makes their way through
Adventure
’s numerous mazes, if they manage to find an “invisible” one-pixel gray dot hidden against a gray background and bring it to another part of the maze, they gain access to a secret room. Inside is a message that reads, “Created by Warren Robinett.”
Until the room was discovered by players, only Robinett knew it was there. It was an Atari executive who first called the hidden surprise an “Easter egg.” Though the company was annoyed at Robinett (who had since left the company) for pulling the prank, it decided that Easter eggs added value. They were here to stay; within a few years the practice grew to include bigger inside jokes, extra characters, even secret levels. Some examples:
In 2006 the “Got Milk” ad campaign ran ads scented like chocolate-chip cookies They were quickly withdrawn after causing allergic reactions.