STRANGE HISTORY (2016)
Jay Newman, editor
Portable Press, 416 pages
★★ ½
Have you ever seen Chuck Shepherd's quirky "New of the
Weird" columns? If so, you can imagine the content of Strange History. In editor Jay Newman's words, it's a
"smorgasbord of oddities: kings, queens, commoners, criminals, gladiators,
aliens, ghosts, monsters…." You can add to that list: anecdotes, bloopers,
origin stories, fads, riddles, and descriptions of made-up languages. Newman
marshals a bevy of writers collectively known as the Bathroom Readers'
Institute. Give credit for truth in advertising; this is indeed the sort of
book one might find residing in the loo nestled amidst the extra TP–a
collection of breezy selections meant to be read in short, non-taxing snippets.
So is there any reason to pay attention to it? Maybe.
Like all such projects, this one is less than the sum of its
parts, but the bits and pieces are individually delightful. I used to mine books
like this when I was a public school teacher for bizarre little curiosities to
spring upon students to give their minds a break and enhance my reputation for
being unpredictable. Alas, they were often the things students remembered long
after they brain dumped the important stuff. Well, at least I taught them
something!
There is no rhyme or reason to the structure of Strange History and that's part of its
charm. Did you know that Mao Zedong was a librarian before he was a
revolutionary, or that Idi Amin cooked for the British army before he terrorized
Uganda? You can learn this from Strange
History, as well as the first jobs of other famous and infamous people. The
book makes no pretense of being anything other than random facts and factoids.
I made my way through this book with an eye toward categorizing detail into
categories of potentially useful versus mere trivia.
For example, a sociology or popular culture instructor might
find it useful to note that elders have been complaining about youth since at
least 427 B.C., or that fads have always been edgy. How about crotchless tunics
in medieval England, phrenology, Gerber's attempt to sell baby food for adults,
16th century tooth dyeing, or hiring professional
"hermits" to reside upon one's estate? Students might find it
reassuring to consider that the present has no monopoly over bad
decision-making. Did you know that the first person to add sugar to chewing gum
(1869) was a dentist? Or, more poignantly, that Adolph Hitler told the first
Polish jokes? There are loads of intriguing things for computer scientists discussing
computers before computing, including a mechanical wooden robot that dates to
fourth century B.C. Greece. Theater and literature lessons can be spiced by all
manner of anecdotes, such as a long list of the misfortunes that befell those
directing or acting in Macbeth, a
list of one-legged actors, the possible origins of werewolf tales, or the
inspiration for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
(Either the 17th century German alchemist Jonathan Dippel, or the 18th
century Italian naturalist Spallanzani are good suspects for the latter.) The
book also contains tons of origin theories, including theories about unicorns,
the evolution of King Arthur tales, how zoos emerged from the private
menageries of aristocrats, and how Druids gave us the phrase "tying the
knot" for newlyweds.
On the other hand, when would we ever need a recipe for
making shrunken heads? Why should we care that TripAdvisor.com travelers
consider Brussels the world's most boring city? (Did any of them drink the beer there?) What can we learn
from Joey Mellen, who drilled a hole in his own head in an attempt to achieve a
perpetual high, other than the fact that he was an idiot? Do we need a list of
lame insults gleaned from the Internet?
In short, Strange
History is a book containing gems and garbage. Maybe the bathroom is where
it ought to reside, but I suspect teachers, barroom orators, and trivia
aficionados will find plenty of useful things. A personal favorite came from a
list of alleged presidential deathbed utterances. James Buchanan supposedly
proclaimed, "History will vindicate my memory." When you consider
that many scholars consider Buchanan the worst president in U. S. history, you
could use that remark to teach the concept of hubris.
Rob Weir
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