Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (2 page)
Read Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Seafaring Food in the
Age of Sail
The Original Dungeon
Masters, Part I
*The Original Dungeon
Masters, Part II
Law and Order:
Special Pants Unit
Spotted Dick With a
Side of Neeps
Seven (Underwater) Places
to See Before You Die
(Not) Coming to a
Theater Near You
Making a Movie, Part II:
The Producers
Making a Movie, Part III:
Preproduction
Making a Movie, Part IV:
Photography
*Making a Movie, Part V:
Postproduction
Honk if You Love
Bumper Stickers
Ashes to Ashes,
Weird to Weirder
The Best Deal
in $ports History
*“We’re Looking for People
Who Like to Draw”
44 Things You Can Do
with a Coconut
In October 2007, Jacqueline Holmes of West Palm Beach, Florida, filed a lawsuit against a local nightclub after its disco ball fell from the ceiling and hit her on the head. (She was not badly injured.) The name of the nightclub: the Coco Bongo.
W
elcome back!
Here we are again with our 21st edition,
Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader
! As I sit here writing this intro in my office—surrounded by a gallery of 1950s kitsch and a flock of rubber duckies—our incredible team of editors, writers, researchers, and designers is downstairs at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute, putting the finishing touches on yet another amazing book. And I realize just how fortunate I am (and you are) to have such a dedicated staff of kooks and assorted nuts putting their hearts and souls into this job.
And what does that mean for you, our equally dedicated readers? A book like no other on the market. Some examples:
•
History that never came to be.
A rocket powered by hundreds of atomic bombs, the Russians’ plans to land a man on the Moon, and the secret plot to overthrow the U.S. government (it failed).
•
History you didn’t know.
The car designer who was more influential than Henry Ford, the forgotten American colony, and the legendary silver mine that gave and gave…and then took it all back.
•
The answers to life’s most persistent questions:
Why are snooze buttons always set to nine minutes? Whatever happened to milkmen? And is “either” pronounced “ee-ther” or “ay-ther”?
•
Foodstuffs.
Many things have been described as “the best thing since sliced bread.” Now you’ll know who’s responsible for sliced bread! Plus, the spirited history of cocktails, famous cookbooks, and for you junk-food fanatics—a recipe for sushi Twinkies.
•
Pop Science:
All about constellations and meteors, getting to know your knuckles, self-cleaning underwear, the baby girl that was born twice, and a porky page of pig facts.
•
Wordplay, wordplay, wordplay!
Bumper stickers, idioms in other languages, flubbed headlines, and one of our weirdest pages ever: “Leave Ready Zagromyhat to Us!” (or, what happens when a bored writer has too much fun on Internet translation sites).
•
Speaking of weird
, there’s “Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Command,” Communist Smurfs, the tapeworm diet, people who drill holes in their heads, and the great sport of mullet tossing.
•
Lots of great how-to tips.
Increase the flow (of ch’i) in your bathroom and increase the flow of gas in your car’s tank. How to wash your washing machine, how to shop at (and have) a yard sale, and how to make a $200-million movie.
•
Calling all nerds!
(Or is the correct term “geeks”?) We’ve got a lot about comic books and superheros (my favorite: an Indonesian Aquaman who shoots rainbows from his belt). And you’ll find the origins of World of Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons.
It all starts on the very next page…but before we get on with the show, I’d like to give a big THANK YOU to the great BRI staff: