Monday, June 20, 2011

when is trivia not trivial?


here are some animal facts: owls can't move their eyes; pigs can't look up at the sky; elephants can't jump. somehow what really interests me has to do with the wild bodies and my own. if sharks go upside down they go into a coma. wow, that could really be useful in an attack! or this one: bats always turn left when exiting a cave. next time the vampires come out, i know where i'll be standing.

focusing on myself, i find my body both incredibly complicated and absurdly simple. you can make diamonds out of dead people. hmmm, i'll ask for that instead a mundane cremation. (no question i want to be burned up.) getting to the more relevant stuff. there are more bacteria in my mouth than people in the world? isn't that a bit too much information?

blast, i didn't take down some relevant facts. one was: there's enough carbon in my body to make 900 pencils. no wonder my body led me into the dead-end of wanting to be a writer. and what about iron? i could make five nails. i'll be buggered. not only christ imagery comes to mind, but the time in montana when i was six and throwing nails under passing cars until a highway patrol stopped and shook me down. yes, i'm super-conscious of them lying in the road - i throw them off into the bushes, fearing they'll come back to haunt me.

i do remember being struck by this statistic: 66% percent of my body water. suddenly, drinking eight glasses a day a serious business. sugar is the only taste humans are born craving. no wonder my teeth utterly destroyed! a caterpillar has more muscles than you do. how do you like them apples? calls up a smidgen of humility, i hope.

certainly, other bits of trivia worth remembering. in france it's legal to marry a dead person. i'm surprised a rabid fan hasn't dug up jim morrison and performed the ceremony. lots of royalties in them there hills. even spicier: 80% of the images on the Internet are pornographic. butterflies have great hearing. isaac newton invented the cat door. i'm bewildered by the fact i discovered the trivia section in the bookstore maybe too late. will i ever catch up?

starting to run out of gas on the android images, yet you'll find more treasures: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/android