Cool Things In Random Places

If you smoke jimsonweed, you will see leprechauns. Then you will die.

Your best chance for survival, as a matter of fact, is if a passing ambulance knows an obscure nursery rhyme: “Red as a beet, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, mad as a hatter, hotter than hell.” These are the symptoms for anticholinergic toxidrome, which is a fancy way of saying that your nervous system hates you, and it quits. Because this is what happens when you smoke, as some people inevitably do, Datura stramonium, also known as jimsonweed.

British soldiers sent in to put down Bacon’s Rebellion in 1680s Virginia once used this plant to make a salad: for the next eleven days, these soldiers chased feathers and pretended to be monkeys. Smoking it is much, much worse. The singular, standout symptom is called micropsia – also known as Lilliputian hallucinations, as in Lilliputians from Gulliver’s Travels. Even more clearly: Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. You see tiny, tiny people all around you.

This is very, very terrifying. It also does not help that you pulse is probably topping 150, like if you were on coke. But if you are very, very lucky, a smart doctor will shoot you full of a bloody awful concoction called physostigmine, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, physostigmine during a cocaine overdose would just make things worse. So, chances are, it won’t happen.

Tanuki – or ‘raccoon dogs,’ which are related to dogs but not raccoons – are beloved creatures of Japanese folklore. Statues of these animals sit outside Japanese temples, with large bellies (denoting luck) and holding a cup of sake, for which they’ll never pay.

Tanukis are notorious shapeshifters: they have fooled monks by transforming into tea-kettles. They are mostly harmless, although in at least one story clubbed an old woman to make ‘old lady soup.’ Tankuki-jiru – raccoon dog soup – is still occasionally found throughout Japan.

They also have magic testicles.

Tan-tan-tanuki’s
Raccoon-raccoon-raccoon dog’s testicles
There isn’t even any wind but still go swing-swing-swing

This song is sung by children all over Japan, to the tune of the American Baptist hymn, ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’ Japanese woodcuts show, very clearly, that these testicles can be used as knapsacks, fishing nets, umbrellas, and offensive weapons. In Japanese anime, they have been featured parachuting in like Army troopers, with testicles the size of Volvos.

A border dispute has become a daily party.

India and Pakistan share a single border that cuts straight through the town of Wagah: the eastern half sits in India, and the other half in Pakistan. Border conflicts killed countless people in both countries back in 1947 – and decades later, skirmishes still kill thousands.

At the sound of a bugle call, the representatives of both countries – the Pakistani Rangers, and the Indian Border Security Force – march quickly to the gates. Upon stopping, these guards throw forward one leg, as high as their own heads, and stomp it down to the ground. This is done while glowering fiercely at the opposite side. They than announce their contempt for each other with strong, emphatic displays of thumbs-down.

This is all done to the cheers of thousands, while quieter spectators sit nearby munching popcorn. Thousands folk to this gate every evening, to cheer on their respective teams on either side of the border. Tourists and locals alike relish the stylized dispute which, at least for a few moments, vents national tensions without the usual hail of bullets.

Equal amounts of rope are measured off on the flagpoles of both countries, so that both flags lower in tandem. Upon the lowering of the flags, the guards must give a few final stomps. Representatives of both countries then complete the ceremony with a quick, cursory handshake. The gates are then closed, sealing the border for the evening.

Geeks do a lot of things: compile code, watch cartoons, and occasionally become billionaires by inventing, say, YouTube. They also read webcomics with near fanatical dedication, to the point that some authors have been able to quit their day job through reader donations alone.

The comic XKCD is a flagship of geek humor. Formerly a robot scientist at NASA, the author creates touching vignettes of stick figures who fall in love, battle velociraptors, and do calculus. So when one XKCD episode described a character’s dream, in which he was given a set of coordinates and a date to meet an otherworldly girl, readers were quick to decide (independently! and without direction!) that they would be in just that place, at just that time.

One afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts, geeks took over.

Hundreds of readers converged simultaneously on a school park, and unleashed in-joke havoc. Mock battles ensued between young men in cardboard jousting outfits. Red spiders made of pipe cleaners were suspended from lamp posts. At one point, dozens of dorks climbed a jungle gym, and for no particular reason passed a mattress, hand over hand, to the very top. Nearby, a man in a dinosaur mask, with suit and boom box, read a newspaper quietly.

This went on for hours. By the time the sun set, the park had been renamed Randall Munroe Sweet-ass Park, after the author. Everyone agreed to come back next year. No one knows if they will.

If you sail the seven seas long enough, you may be invited to King Neptune’s Court.

The line-crossing ceremony occurs every time a ship crosses the equator. The ship’s passengers and crew are divided into pollywogs (the uninitiated who have never crossed the equator before, and are thus the lowest form of sea life), and the shellbacks (the veterans of previous equator-crossing). Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself had a certificate testifying to his having crossed the equator back in November, 1936.

As they cross the equator, the pollywogs are summoned – sometimes at the behest of “Davy Jones’ – to the court of King Neptune, who occasionally has maidens. The pollywogs are then initiated into the ranks of the shellbacks, by way of various embarrassing tasks: being doused in sea water, getting locked in stocks and pillories, etc. The pollywogs sometimes have to “kiss the baby,’ which just so happens to be the belly of the ship’s most obese man.

Most sailors were happy to break up the ocean’s monotony with good, bizarre fun. Sadly, these initiation ceremonies – especially in the armed forces – allowed ample opportunity for abuse: some crews took the opportunity to dole out full-blown beatings, which lead to the well-deserved suspension or scaling-back of the ritual. But many tourist vessels still observe it: they’re happy just to dump salt water on peoples’ heads, and dress in silly costumes.

Buzkashi is Afghanistan’s national sport: it involves whips, horses, and a dead calf.

The calf itself has been beheaded, cut off the knees, soaked in cold water for twenty-four hours to make it tough, and occasionally filled with sand. It is placed into a shallow hole, and a circle of quicklime is drawn nearby: this circle is the hallal, or ‘circle of justice.’ At the signal, players grab the calf and sprint off into the distance on horseback. Their goal is to round two posts, set on either side of the starting point, and return to toss the calf into the hallal.

For centuries, this land of steppes has been populated by men who were born and raised in the saddle. In the old days – which is to say, back when Genghis Khan walked the earth – games could last for many days, countless miles, and through the occasional death of a player. Today, modern ‘rules’ keep the goal posts about a mile or so apart, but injured players still don’t stop the game. Injury is part of the game, actually: the players continually whip each other.

You cannot tie the calf to your saddle, hit another player on the hand in order to snatch the calf, or trip the players with a rope. These rules may or may not be observed.

The northern Finnish town of Oulu has been described as ‘Just like Geelong, but colder and with more fish.’ It is home to, among other things, the World Air Guitar Championship.

It is also the birthplace of the Shouting Men’s Choir: thirty men in black suits, yelling.

Finns, by and large, are quiet people. Silence doesn’t have the awkward associations that it does in much of the Western world – if Finns are quiet, it’s because they’re comfortable that way. This choir was formed, in part, as a reaction against that tradition of silence.

The initial advert simply asked for men who wanted to scream. Hundreds of men have “sung” since then, including a lot of national anthems. This includes the Shouting Men’s Choir version of Marseillaise.

Oulu is like a lot of isolated northern towns the world over: infused with an anarchist spirit and an odd sense of humour. The choir once hopped on a bus, drove seven hundred kilometers to the ice sea between Norway and Finland, and yelled into the barren, empty wind. They then got back on the bus, and drove home.

Land mines have never been so educational.

The founder of the Cambodian Land Mine Museum, Aki Ra, was an orphan and a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge. Receiving his first rifle at the age of ten, he himself laid hundreds of mines. He joined the United Nations Transitional Authority of Cambodia in 1994, where he was trained to disarm the countless mines still spread throughout the country.

Land mines are designed more for suffering than for death. The point is to maim, not kill – a dead soldier can simply be buried and left behind, but a wounded one can slow down a whole team. There are one of the cheapest and most cost-effective instruments of war in the world – they can be made for as little as a dollar, using little more than gunpowder and some nails.

In 1997, Aki Ra bought a parcel of land outside Siam Reap, where he housed his decommissioned weaponry. The government of Cambodia didn’t care for the place, and often accused Aki Ra of running a market in illegal weaponry. At the same time, his de facto museum became a safe haven for most common Cambodian land mine victims: children, with missing limbs.

His museum’s continued survival is thanks in part to international attention, and its unexpected success as a tourist destination. The museum has recently undergone renovations, and exhibits rounded by chicken wire have made way for plexiglass. The new facilities enjoyed their grand opening in April, 2007.

The motto of Austin, Texas is ‘Keep Austin Weird.’

Part of Austin’s inspiration is the ‘Cathedral of Junk.’ Sequestered along a quaint surburban street, a whimsical side project which began in 1988 has blossomed into a gargantuan mass of circuit boards, lawnmower parts, forks and knives, car bumpers – everything, most likely including at least one kitchen sink. It contains an estimated seven hundred bicycles.

Vince Hannemann did it because he could. He has no great purpose, and no particular artistic vision. He builds it because he likes it, although the materials often come from donations. Mr. Hannemann himself is perfectly willing to show you around, although he has a day job. He often answers questions from the comfort of his ‘Throne Room.’

City engineers see no reason to tear it down (except for the ‘Pyramid of TVs,’ which they said was more of a pile). At the behest of neighbors, they occasionally stop by to poke and prod the nearly sixty tons of welded metal and scrap. They can find no weak spots.

A man wanted to trade a paperclip for a house. 

  

It took him a year, but he did it. On July 12, 2005, an unemployed Canadian by the name of Kyle MacDonald announced to the world, on Craigslist, that he had one red paperclip, and he was willing to trade.

He first traded this paperclip for a fish-shaped pen. For the next year, he would go on to trade for: a hand-sculpted doorknob; a Coleman camp stove; a Honda generator; an ‘instant party;’ a Ski-doo snowmobile; a two-person trip to Yahk, British Columbia; a recording contract; a year’s rent in Phoenix, Arizona; one afternoon with Alice Cooper; a motorized KISS snow globe; and a role in the film Donna on Demand.

The town of Kipling, Saskatchewan then traded him a two-story house. They also gave Mr. Kyle MacDonald the key to the city, declared July 7 to be One Red Paperclip Day, and elected to build the largest statue of a paperclip in the world. They also threw him a gigantic party.

 

 

At his housewarming, Mr. MacDonald proposed to his girlfriend with a wedding ring attached to one red paperclip. She said yes.



To Learn more about this inspiring story I recommend this book available through Amazon. One Red Paperclip: Or How an Ordinary Man Achieved His Dream with the Help of a Simple Office Supply