I'm still feeling like hell - but I wanted to post something that's not as "woe is me" angsty as my previous entry. :-)
There is a book called
Father Knows Less - or "Can I Cook My Sister?" by Wendell Jamieson, which is quite funny and fascinating.
Wendell's 7-year old son, Dean, inspired the book with his constant questions - "Is hummus like dinosaur poop?"; "Why do chefs wear those big white hats?"; "Are killer whales mean?". In addition to Dean's questions, there are questions from other kids - "Will cats ever get extinct?"; "Is a rainbow hot or cold?"; "How come if you forget what you were going to say, you don't forget that you were going to say something?", and "How many hours of TV will turn your brain to mush?"
The best part? The questions are answered by experts in the fields pertaining to the questions - museum curators; scientists; anthropologists; a dominatrix and even Yoko Ono (the last two will be explained shortly)!
Some of the (edited) highlights - from the 24 September 2007 issue of
People magazine:
Why does a dollar sign have an 'S' in it?"Most likely from Spanish notation - it's shorthand, basically, for pesos." - Richard Doty, National Museum of American History.
Why do you never see baby pigeons?"Because they can't fly, and you'll never see them unless you go where they are nesting ... under bridges, eaves of houses and buildings."- James F. Avery, National Pigeon Association
How many hairs do I have on my head?"The average adult has about 100,000. Redheads have fewer because their individual strands are thicker."- Sy Sperling, Founder, Hair Club For Men
If you don't hit anything with it, how does a whip make that noise?"That satisfying and dismaying crack is actually a miniature version of a sonic boom as the very tip of the whip moves faster than the speed of sound."- Jennifer Hunter, Dominatrix
Why did The Beatles break up?"Because they all grew up, wanted to do things their own way, and they did."- Yoko Ono