When I was a child my mother would try to encourage, threaten, and bribe my brother and I into reading books, which, of course, we resisted. As an adult I have come to enjoy reading; I especially enjoy non-fiction, and read the newspaper everyday, usually the Guardian Weekly and less often the Economist. So when I came across The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, I was excited. The premise is that the authors briefly cover and debunk wrongly-held common beliefs (which number to about 200, hereafter these will be referred to as Facts). Here are a few examples of the Facts;
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Freshman year in university during the mandatory writing class, we were asked to write a short story. I was reading a lot of Hunter Thompson at the time and decided to try my luck at the great writer’s gonzo style. I decided to write about a true life experience that had happened right before this assignment. My marks were dismal, and what I thought to be an entertaining story, was ridiculed by the class and the teacher (who didn’t wear shoes). I struggled, apparently, with the form and function of my writing style which was the last thing on my mind as I wrote the story. Even my good friend Pat sent me to the ground with his critique and I must admit that at this point in my life I had decided that writing was not my thing and I should stick to the nerd world. (Funny enough, as well as Pat and I get along, I still think he hates my blogs, but that is another entry.) So now, in blog form, is the story of one of the stupidest things I have ever done. There will be no pictures unfortunately, probably for the better of everyone involved. I will not use the real names of the people to protect them even though I doubt they read this blog. Continue reading One of the Stupidest Things I Have Ever Done I absolutely adore aggressive city cycling. I am not talking about the usual getting from point A to point B, although that is the main objective for me. I am talking about a heart pounding, flat out effort across town running every red light you can find
“Are you prude?” This immature, awkward, and offensive question was unfortunately the line I gave before I got my first kiss. Coming from a 7th grade boy who had never heard the word prude until about an hour ago, and didn’t really know what it meant, this might have seemed cute. My girlfriend who stood about an inch or two taller than me leaned over and planted one right on my lips. It was in the B quad of Valley View Jr High School during our 5-minute break between classes. I turned around and strutted to my next class while the Bee Gees hit song Stayin Alive played in my head. ” We’ll you can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a woman’s man no time to talk . . .” From Argentina, I went to California for two weeks thinking that was enough time to settle my life in that continent before heading off to England. The complexities of “settling my life” in that continent will be saved for another entry. Two days after arriving in England, I boarded a plane to Istanbul. In Istanbul I had enough time to buy a bottle of fine tequila and then get on another plane for Izmir where my good friend and fellow blog author is currently living. I spent two weeks in Turkey with three days on some Greek islands where I learned about the intense problem of middle eastern immigrants trying to get into Europe and the idea that certain generations of people just simply hate each other regardless of any sort of reason. But I will not pass judgement on some of the things that they had to go through. Charles was a fantastic host as always and a play by play of the trip should be given to give him full respect but instead I will go through a tattered page of my journal that I found with a bullet point list of things I needed to remember. In order as I wrote them and to the best of my memory. When I was eighteen years old I visited my brother in Madrid and travelled to several other european cities, completing the perfunctory right-of-passage European trip Americans feel obliged to do (for more on this topic see Steinbeck’s America and Americans, written mostly when he was old and crotchety). Anyway, we found ourselves in Rome on New Year’s Eve and the following entry is equally a description and an inquisitive request regarding the custom practiced at Piazza del Popolo every year. I have the second to last race of the regular season in about 3.5 hours and one of the major sponsors of our team is going to be there. I need 22 more points to move to the category 2 level and to be honest, I am pretty freaking excited. Category 2 was described to me by a friend in California as the point when the only way to do better is to start taking drugs. No drugs yet but this sponsor does load me up on protein shake which I guzzle down regularly so I feel obligated to show my respects. Pre race preparation involves me standing naked in my shower and shaving almost all of the hair off my body. I particularly enjoy this to be honest but I get a lot of people doubting my methods and habits. So here is my reply. Every friday I walk a few blocks to the local vegetable market to meet the villagers who come to sell there weekly harvest. It’s a misnomer really, because it also consists of vendors of fish, cheese, fruits, seeds, spices, breads, oils, many plastic Chinese-made household items, clothes, and delicious gözleme (a pancake-like treat with potatoes, meat, or parsley and cheese inside). The food products are fresh and delicious, I can’t rave enough, and the non-food items are, well, very cheap. Every neighborhood in Izmir has one, and in Kahramanlar, it is the place to be on fridays. While growing up, my parents (or at least my mother and her family) would always say how my mom prayed before I was born that at the very least I would get my mother’s eyes. My mom was pretty hot so I wish she had asked for more. In the end, I was my mother from the tip of the nose to the top of my head and my father for the rest. So the almighty had answered her prayers but she was not explicit enough and although my eyes look like my mother’s, they functioned like the 143 year old eye balls that my dad uses on a daily basis. I had an astygmatism and very bad short sightedness. Then I got laser surgery and it was all solved. |
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