Daily Dispatch

Sneak peak of our newest title: Can you spot it?

Yippee! We just received advance copies of the newest, greatest Big John. Can you spot the newest title in this shelf of books? Post your answer (title of book) on the blog/Facebook/Twitter. All correct answers will be entered in a random drawing to win your own advance copy of the book. You have till midnight tonight (9/28) to post your answer. We will reveal the cover design tomorrow.

And remember, the book will hit stores in November and it is never too early to pre-order.

Ledes We Love

Here’s another edition of “Ledes We Love,” accounts of openings to news stories that are so good you hardly have to read any further—but you’re going to. Because you must. Today’s entry:

Manitoban Janis Ollson and family are in magazine ads for the esteemed Mayo Clinic for a very good reason: she’s the first person surgeons cut in half, removed much of a cancerous midsection, then put back together with a happy ending.

Help the BRI With a Story!

Howdy, BRI fans, we’re busy working on our next book, Uncle John’s Tunes Into TV, and I’ve got a request: I’m working on an article about the history of closed captioning—the subtitle-like text that allow’s you to read, rather than listen to, a show’s dialogue. It’s a surprisingly fascinating subject. Just imagine, for example, that millions of deaf or hard-of-hearing people were not able to fully enjoy that most ubiquitous of modern life experiences—watching the television—until the 1970s, and that it didn’t become truly widely available until the 1980s.

Fish Regurgitation Banned at Sydney Circus

The Aussies just say no to Puke My Fish Up:

Circus-goers in Australia hoping to see a woman swallow and then regurgitate a live fish will be disappointed, as authorities decided it was cruel to the fish.

Now just what the heck is going on in the world when a person can’t get the kids together, put ’em in the station wagon, and take them down to the circus to watch a lady swallow a live fish and then throw it back up again, still alive? What kind of a world? Next we’ll hear you can’t throw kittens in trash bins! “It was fun,” for goodness sake!

Mens Rooms and Hens Rooms?

Mana the Magnificentand BRI fan Ken Lerner send us to The Society Pages, where we get a look at how male and female are symbolized on public restroom doors around the world:

As such, washroom signs are very telling of the way societies construct gender. They identify the male as the universal and the female as the variation.

An example we all recognize:

The most common type of washroom sign, pictured at the top of this post, is another example. Typically, these signs depict men as people, and women as people in skirts.

Or men as naked and women as dressed?

Anyway, do go give it a look. It’s a thought-provoking post, and there are a bunch of examples, many funny and some just strange. One more:

We’re Running Out of Helium

This story almost has the feel of a hoax:

“It is the second-lightest element in the Universe, has the lowest boiling-point of any gas and is commonly used through the world to inflate party balloons. But helium is also a non-renewable resource and the world’s reserves of the precious gas are about to run out, a shortage that is likely to have far-reaching repercussions.

“Field Book of Surgery. The Wounded Man.”

We’re deep on deadline here at BRI headquarters, and I’m just polishing up a page on fascinating brain facts—”Your brain is so soft it can be cut with a butter knife” is a fun one. I just came across this bit of info: The earliest known realistic depiction of a human brain was made just 500 or so years ago. Imagine that. Of all the tens of thousands of years that modern humans have been around, we didn’t, at least according to the article linked, get a good drawing of that most vital of organs—the brain—until just a few centuries ago. Almost makes you feel young, doesn’t it?

Introducing: “Uncle John’s Briefs” and giveaway!

Inside Uncle John’s Briefs are the most entertaining, myth-busting, and thought-provoking brief articles from Uncle John’s enormous Bathroom Reader library. So plunge in and see for yourself why the Bathroom Reader series has sold more than 10 million books.

Here is a bit of what awaits you…

  • Corn Crackos and other cereal flops
  • Baseball’s most bizarre injuries
  • The timeless wisdom of Mr. T
  • The origins of the warerbed, tarter sauce, and the polka
  • How to talk like a mobster
  • The anatomy of a hiccup

…and much, much more!

Now to the fun part—Giveaway!!!

J.D. Salinger’s Porcelein “Throne” For Sale

If we didn’t already have a toilet at the office, we might have all pitched in to buy J.D. Salinger’s “Throne.”

The description reads: “Here’s an item you won’t come across everyday! This is the toilet that was personally owned AND used by J.D. Salinger for many years! It sat in his home in Cornish, New Hampshire, and was installed in the ‘new wing’ of his house. When he died, his wife inherited all of his manuscripts with plans to eventually release some of them! Who knows how many of these stories were thought up and written while Salinger sat on this throne!”

But, we’re not sure $1 million is a fair price. What do you think?

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