The know it all one mans humble quest a j jacobs

Also by A.J Jacobs THE TWO KINGS: JESUS AND ELVIS AMERICA OFF-LINE ESQUIRE PRESENTS: WHAT IT FEELS LIKE (EDITOR) SIMON & SCHUSTER Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright (c) 2004 by A.J Jacobs All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc This book is an account of the author's experience reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica Some events appear out of sequence, and some names and identifying details of individuals mentioned have been changed Book design by Helene Berinsky Index by Sydney Wolfe Cohen Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jacobs, A J., 1968The know-it-all : one man's humble quest to become the smartest person in the world / A.J Jacobs p cm Encyclopaedia Britannica Learning and scholarship Jacobs, A J., 1968- United States-Intellectual life 20th century United States Intellectual life 21st century I Title AE5.E44J33 2004 031 dc22 2004048233 ISBN 0-7432-7260-9 Visit us on the World Wide Web: http://www.SimonSays.com To my wife, Julie Acknowledgments I want to thank Rob Weisbach, who is not only the smartest editor in the world, but a great, kind, and absurdly supportive friend Thanks also to Peter Breslow and Scott Simon and all the big brains at NPR I'm grateful to Ted Allen, Shannon Barr, Ginia Bellafonte, Steve Bender, Brian Frazer, Stephen Kory Friedman, David Granger, Andrew Lund, Rick Marin, Victor Ozols, Tom Panelas, Brendan Vaughan, and Andy Ward I'm indebted to my family and my wife's family who, instead of objecting to this massive invasion of their privacy, were nothing but encouraging And of course, thanks to my wife Julie, who, when she agreed to marry me, made me the luckiest man in the world Introduction I know the name of Turkey's leading avant-garde publication I know that John Quincy Adams married for money I know that Bud Abbott was a double-crosser, that absentee ballots are very popular in Ireland, and that dwarves have prominent buttocks I know that the British tried to tax clocks in 1797 (huge mistake) I know that Hank Aaron played for a team called the Indianapolis Clowns I know that Adam, of Bible fame, lived longer than the combined ages of the correspondents of 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II (930 years, to be exact) I know that South America's Achagua tribe worshiped lakes, that the man who introduced baseball to Japan was a communist, and that Ulysses S Grant thought Venice would be a nice city "if it were drained." I know all this because I have just read the first hundred pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica I feel as giddy as famed balloonist Ben Abruzzo on a high-altitude flight but also alarmed at the absurd amount of information in the world I feel as if I've just stuffed my brain till there are facts dribbling out of my ears But mostly, I am determined I'm going to read this book from A to Z or more precisely, a-ak to zywiec I'm not even out of the early As, but I'm going to keep turning those pages till I'm done I'm on my way Just 32,900 pages to go! How did this happen? How did I find myself plopped on my couch, squinting at tiny font about dwarf buttocks and South American lakes? Let me back up a little I used to be smart Back in high school and college, I was actually considered somewhat cerebral I brought D H Lawrence novels on vacations, earnestly debated the fundamentals of Marxism, peppered my conversation with words like "albeit." I knew my stuff Then, in the years since graduating college, I began a long, slow slide into dumbness At age thirty-five, I've become embarrassingly ignorant If things continue at this rate, by my fortieth birthday, I'll be spending my days watching Wheel of Fortune and drooling into a bucket Like many in my generation, I've watched my expensive college education recede into a haze Sure, I remember a couple things from my four years at Brown University For instance, I remember that a burrito left on the dorm room floor is still somewhat edible after five days, as long as you chew really hard But as for bona fide book learning? Off the top of my head, I recall exactly three things from my classes: When my comp lit professor outed Walt Whitman When the radical feminist in my Spanish class infuriated the teacher by refusing to use masculine pronouns "La pollo." "No, el pollo." "La pollo." "No, no, no, el pollo." Et cetera When the guy in my Nietzsche seminar raised his hand and said, "If I listen to one more minute of this, I'm going to go crazy," then promptly stood up, walked to the back of the class, and jumped out the window It was a ground-floor window But still It was memorable My career choices are partly to blame for my intellectual swan dive After college, I got a job as a writer at Entertainment Weekly, a magazine devoted to the minutiae of movies, TV, and music I crammed my cranium with pop culture jetsam I learned the names of 'N Sync's singers as well as their choreographer I could tell you which stars have toupees, which have fake breasts, and which have both But this meant anything profound got pushed out I could talk confidently about the doughnut-eating Homer, but I'd forgotten all about the blind guy who wrote long poems I stopped reading anything except for tabloid gossip columns and books with pictures of attractive celebrities on the cover In my library, I actually have a well-thumbed copy of Marilu Henner's autobiography Things improved slightly when I got a job as an editor at Esquire magazine (I now know that Syrah and Shiraz are the same wine grape), but still, my current knowledge base is pathetically patchy, filled with gaps the size of Marlon Brando whose autobiography I've read, by the way I've been toying with the idea of reading the Britannica for years Since I haven't accomplished anything particularly impressive in my life, unless you count my childhood collection of airsickness bags from every major airline, I've always thought of this as a good crucible The tallest mountain of knowledge My Everest And happily, this Everest won't cause icicles to form on my ears or deprive me of oxygen, one of my favorite gases I'll get a crash course in everything I'll leave no gap in my learning unfilled In this age of extreme specialization, I will be the last guy in America to have all general knowledge I'll be, quite possibly, the smartest man in the world I've actually dabbled in reference books before After college, I spent a couple of days poring over Webster's dictionary but mostly I was looking for two-letter words that I could use in Scrabble to make annoyingly clever moves (I was kind of unemployed at the time.) And that turned out to be a very successful experience You can bet your bottom xu (Vietnamese monetary unit) that I kicked the butt of my jo (Scottish slang for girlfriend) without even putting on a gi (karate outfit) But the encyclopedia idea I stole from my father When I was a freshman in high school, my dad, a New York lawyer, decided he was going to read the Britannica My father is a man who loves learning He went to engineering grad school, then to business grad school, then to law school He was about to enroll in medical school when my mom told him that maybe it'd be a good idea to get a job, since jobs earn money, which is kind of helpful when trying to buy food But even with a day job, he continued his book addiction and scholarly writing Back in 1982, he decided the Britannica was a good way to become an instant expert on all subjects He made it up to the mid-Bs I think it was right around Borneo before giving up, blaming his busy schedule Now I'm going to take up the cause I'm going to redeem the family honor I called up my dad to tell him the good news "I'm going to finish what you started." "I'm not sure I follow," he said "I'm going to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica." A pause "I hear that the Ps are excellent." I figured he'd have a wisecrack That's his way He's got a universe of information and wisdom in his head, but with my sister and me, he'd rather tell jokes and play silly games, like filling our water glasses to the very top, making it impossible to drink without spilling He saves his serious talks for work or for the other lawyers in the family, of whom there are a good dozen Maybe that'll change soon Maybe when I start telling him about the intricacies of the Phoenician legal system, he'll include me in the adult circle I tried the idea out on my wife, Julie, that night as we started scrubbing a mound of dishes "I think I need to get smarter," I said "Why? You're plenty smart." Julie motioned for me to hand her the sponge "I think I need to cut down on reality TV," I said "We could probably limit ourselves to two or three hours a day." "And I think I'm going to read the encyclopedia." No response "The Encyclopaedia Britannica, from A to Z." I could tell Julie was skeptical, and with good reason I met her when we were both working at Entertainment Weekly She was on the business side, selling ads and chatting up clients, as comfortable in social settings as I am awkward, as practical as I am unrealistic The romance was slow to start mostly because she thought I was gay but she's stuck with me for five years now In that time, she's heard me announce plenty of other grand schemes like the time I tried to start a magazine-wide Ping-Pong league, or my plan to write a screenplay about a president with Tourette's syndrome (working title: Hail to the Freakin' Chief) only to see them fizzle "I don't know, honey," she said finally "Sounds like kind of a waste of time." Make that skeptical and slightly concerned Julie has enough trouble dragging me out of the apartment to interact with actual, three-dimensional human beings The encyclopedia, she no doubt surmised, would give me one more excuse to stay pinned to our comfortable couch "What about eating dinner at every restaurant in New York?" Julie suggested "You can start with the restaurants with A names, and work your way to the Zs Wouldn't that be fun?" A valiant try But I'm dead serious about Operation Encyclopedia I got no more enthusiasm when I told my friends "Can't you just read the Cliffs Notes?" was a popular response One friend suggested that I read every volume of the children's book Encyclopedia Brown instead Some wondered if maybe the World Book wasn't more my speed At least that one has lots of pictures No, it has to be the Britannica, I told them And it does Last night, I did some preliminary research on encyclopedias The Britannica is still the gold standard, the Tiffany of encyclopedias Founded in 1768, it's the longest continually music: gagaku (a-ak) rap Mussolini, Benito, serious relationship issues of myths, of conception Nabokov, Vladimir names: apotropaic bastardization of coincidences in colorful, in sports famous, determined by chance ill-advised of Jacobs baby Julie's list of reassessment of for victims of practical jokes Napoleon I, Emperor of the French: hesitation and Waterloo loss of idiosyncratic portrait of Native Americans, warfare of nature, Woody Allen's view of negative side: of AJ, the Mensan of Jefferson of natural world of reading Neptune, English astronomer's careless loss of Newton, Isaac, unorthodox thumbing of New Yorker New York Times crosswords of nicknames: eighth-grade of politicians not to trust in sports nipples: caviar on Jodie Foster's opossum presidential "no," issues with saying nose, ignorance of what is right under nouns, in radio turn-off ritual nudity: in battle EB's surprising amount of in exercise in the greats in photo poses number(s): irrational, Pythagorean opposition to sorting philosophies by square roots of nut jobs, rationality sometimes possessed by Oglesby, Thaddeus omniscience, see specific topics Operation Britannica: as addiction AJ's decision on AJ's family on AJ's limit reached in AJ Sr on authority of doctors eroded by bedrock of confidence attributed to being "out there" vs coincidences in comfort and health in comfort from verifiable megagenius on in conflict of authorities cross-reference tolerance in crossword failure not attributed to encyclopedia-as-Bible theory of equipment for fainting envied in falling asleep in false trumpets sounded in Flaubert and Buddhists opposed to games for self-amusement in hazards in head slappers in Iraq crisis and "Ironic Facts" file in joy of learning in learning to see silver lining in in light of evolving brain as lonely mission mind toys provided by most common reading sites for nobility seen in organizing influence of philosophical justifications for power of editing pondered in proper stance for psychoanalytic view of relationship with Julie affected by relationship with world altered by retention issue in scatological puns resisted in skimming in, specialization fought in speed reading attempted in as starter accomplishment as surrogate Hebrew school three Halifaxes in time logged in trivia score aided by useful applications of what to read after wisdom gained from "Zywiec" as end of road in Oscars, AJ's firsthand knowledge of Ostrogoths, ill-advised complaint about overcomers, stories of Paine, Thomas, history's kindness to Panelas, Tom: in AJ's visit to EB HQ other "faithful readers" found by Pappas, Theodore paradoxes, liar parenthood: avoidance of catalog of fears faced in learn-as-you-go theories on parents, Marxian views on past, present as recap of past posting: instructions for with TiVo Paul (friend), earth explained to pedophilia: literary fame and in Self-Taught Man penis rituals, mushrooming and penthouses, special theory of "peon," misguided definition of Peru, New Year's undies in Peter and Sharon Petrarch, Francesco, visit to Dr Phil advised for Philbin, Regis philosophy: French, role of crossed eyes in of human ideal forms vs change in Picard, Captain, baldness of pigeons, AJ blown away by Plato, philosophy of poetry: depressing disheartening vs wisely humbling polar wandering pop culture: AJ's promise to EB coverage of EB light on holes opening in AJ's knowledge of jokes in pornography: in Carry Nation's day cross-eyed women in in domain name swipe at reproduction clinic positive side: of Attila the Hun of Black Death of frequent illnesses of Krakatoa of Max Schmeling of natural world of Sepoy Mutiny pregnancy: of Julie's friends quest for; see also Jacobs, Jasper; Jacobs, Julie Schoenberg preliterate societies, ethical relativism as guide to presidents: log cabin spotlight on speed reading ascribed to White House habits and see also specific presidents pretention, five steps to pronunciation: of Goethe of "motor" overcoming defects in public relations: in naming Greenland Seven Wonders concept in Puccini, Giacomo, operatic personal life of pulmonary diseases, noble deaths from puns: Mensan love of scatological Pythagoras quarters, serrated edges on quizzes: Mensan trivia at New-York Historical Society Museum pop in quiz show auditions, rabbinical rabbit(s): Fibonacci increases in Oswald, the Disney road not taken stuffed radio, ritualistic turning off of rap, purveyors of rap stars, Upper East Side boys dressing like Rasputin, murder of Raster Master, speed reading with Les and rational humanism, Sartre's rejection of rats, flying, pigeons as reading: to AJ's gestating boy processing vs of telephone book, name after name worries about value of real estate, probable worst deal in relativity: general theory of longevity and special theory of religious wars, fondue in Renaissance Man, specialization vs reproductive strategies of Acarina of a group including blue-footed boobies and Scottish bundlers of AJ reptiles, crocs vs alligators, how to distinguish rhetorical devices Rick and Ilene's wedding Rite of Spring, The (Stravinsky) rituals: body modifications in fertility halitza life-affirming private parts involved in rice-boiling romance and courtship: breakup strategies in in Civil War duplicity in Kama vs Cupid in Lapland kissing platonic, unrequited, and required reading short-lived see also reproductive strategies; sexual activity Romans, ancient Greeks wonderful in comparison with sex acts and executions staged by triumphal marches of Roosevelt, Theodore Sahara Desert, "haboob" in Salieri, Antonio, history's unfair take on Sampugnaro, Dave: facts collected by as Millionaire lifeline SAT scores schedules, overloaded Schmeling, Max, history's kinder view of Schoenberg, Alexandra Eric's linguistic dispute with Schoenberg, Barbara, as phone book reader Schoenberg, Doug, AJ quizzed on As by Schoenberg, Eric: beaten with Boggle character of defeat not an option for EB disputed by "erythrocyte" not known by intellectual competition from after Millionaire fiasco as Millionaire lifeline (as know-it-all's know-it-all) in mixed doubles Nabokov comeback flung at Schoenberg, Larry "street smarts" advocated by Schoenberg family cute and sweet kids in visit of Scrabble in braille luck a factor in screwups, famous semicolon, bizarre parentage of September 11 attack, historical context of 1726, Louis XV's 276 hunting days in sexual activity: in fertility office purposeful in the Zeus variations Shakespeare, William, coaching uplifted by Shanghai Knights (movie), factoid accompaniment of Shaw, George Bernard Shortz, Will, as puzzlers' coolest Siberian explosions, unexplained siblings, lessons on sharing for silver lining, see positive side sitcoms: Brady Bunch, later doings of guest stars on 64, Hawthorne's inexplicable attraction to sleep, Kamchatka vs Tajal view of snoring, in ethical case study Some Truths of History: A Vindication of the South against the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Other Maligners (Oglesby) speech making, rhetorical devices in sports: fact checking EB article on how to sound knowledgeable about IQ and tennis nicknames in records in sportshirts, Lacoste's disputed reptilian on Starlight Express (Lloyd Webber) Star Spangled Banner, The, melody of Star Trek, Mensans intrigued by stereotypes, of snails Sternberg, Robert J.: on crystallized intelligence on IQ tests on Operation Britannica stinginess scale: AJ's position in or Henry Hudson, who does not well in stories, inspiring success: of homo sapiens on Jeopardy know-it-all in overcoming hurdles suicide: literary writers drawn to syphilis: in lucky conquistador recurring theme of tachycardia, as Valentine's Day sentiment Taiping Rebellion, rational worldview challenged by taxonomy, world ordered by tears, onion-caused Teddy bear, TR linked with tennis: how to talk about Magnus effect in nice shot by Master of the Natural Laws of parabola of the lob and Coriolis effect as concern in Piss-Poor Backhand effect as determinant in terrorism, worrying about 35, author's age at this writing thirty years, life span in 1700s as thoughts, great, specific vs general ticks, patience of time: aging and acceleration of in ancient civilizations of earth's rotation expansion of less as better light speed and skipping of years, how they feel TiVo, past posting with toilet, flush, who to thank for Tolstoy, Leo Trebek, Alex knowledge showdown expected with trends, quantitative minimum for trivia: AJ quizzed on about Bird in Space (Brancusi) English-language in Millionaire greenroom Oscar in Schott's Original Miscellany tennis trivia contest, Mensan Trivial Pursuit twins: Balinese Siamese Vietnamese (fudged) twirling, dizziness prevented in two: number of letters in French crossword-favored towns swallowing in pairs of Tyler, John universe, end of Van Buren, Martin, Peggy Eaton befriended by ventriloquism, Eskimo-Zulu link in Vieira, Meredith Vietnam ploy, twin marriage in Vilna Gaon (Elijah ben Solomon) Wall Ball, non-Oedipal aspects of Wall Street, "Witch of" war, warfare: absurdist retroactive declaration of warm water, sex change caused by Washington, George, not actually first president weeping, canned weights and measures Wendy's, philosophy read daily at Western thought, fetishes in West Indies, California mistaken for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire AJ chosen for outcome of preparing for tryingout for WickedBible, adultery advocated in Willy (Beryl's husband) wine, where to send wisdom: in AJ's "sentences" Bob's sentence as to come with Ws of Ecclesiastes facts vs intelligence and intelligence vs forJasper Jacobs in Judaism necessity for from Operation Britannica Tolstoyan winning victory for humanity as Woodhull, Victoria word games Boggle at Mensa convention scoring system of Scrabble words: last longest Scrabble-bound words and phrases, origins of "bedlam" "Buffalo, N.Y." "cappuccino" "chauvinism" "dog days of summer" "essay" "going berserk" "Grateful Dead" "Greenland" group insults in "Houdini" "mad as a hatter" "mesmerize" "Oscar" "Quaker" You could also hunt around World Series game (1977) worldview: of EB, as rational focusing on right things needed for of Vilna Gaon see also wisdom World War II Londoner diet in writers, suicide of writing, in boustrophedon style writing class, AJ's advice to Yale, notable nonfinishers of Yellow Lightning, recipe for Zabar's, dating daughter of Zs, additional "Zywiec" (The End) About the Author A.J Jacobs is the editor of What It Feels Like and the author of The Two Kings: Jesus and Elvis and America Off-Line He is the senior editor of Esquire and has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, New York magazine, New York Observer, and other publications He lives in New York City with his wife, Julie ... Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jacobs, A J. , 196 8The know- it- all : one man's humble quest to become the smartest person in the world / A. J Jacobs p cm Encyclopaedia Britannica... Bring on the whiplash the odder the juxtapositions, the better That's the way reality is a bizarre, jumbled-up Cobb salad I love seeing the prophet Abraham rub elbows with Karl Abraham, a German shrink... the Britannica; I learned this from an Italian cab driver when Julie and I went on vacation to the Amalfi coast last year It' s a little thrill to feel like I've got the edge on the Britannica