Most people have strange quirks and habits, usually harmless, at times completely hidden from others. Here's some strange behavior from historical figures, from a list at mentalfloss.com, edited by yours truly, my comments in parentheses: Pythagoras refused to eat beans and even forbade his followers from ingesting or touching them. While it is unknown whether the aversion stemmed from health or religious reasons, it may have led to his death. According to legend, attackers ambushed him, and he refused to escape by running through a bean field. (And you thought the Pythagorean theorem was full of beans.)... Beethoven’s process was almost as dramatic as his compositions. He would pace around a bit, then pour water all over himself—and his floorboards. (He was all wet - sorry, couldn't resist - rimshot.)... Demosthenes rehearsed speeches in an underground hideout for extended periods of time. He would run through them with stones in his mouth, and would occasionally shave half his head to discourage himself from facing an audience before he was ready... Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee per day. It came with a price: stomach cramps, headaches, and high blood pressure.(Starbucks would have loved him.)... For a man who wrote only three hours a day, Anthony Trollope was quite productive. He churned out 250 words every 15 minutes, 3000 words per sitting. If he finished a book before his daily time allotment was up, he immediately began another. (And I thought I was anal.)... Russian-American composer Igor Stravinsky stood on his head for 15 minutes each morning to “clear his brain.” (Force Congress to do this before each session.)... Edgar Allan Poe often wrote on thin strips of paper, which he glued together and rolled into scrolls for easier storage... Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla adhered to alternative sleep schedules. da Vinci took multiple short naps every 24 hours (tried by Cosmo Kramer to near disastrous effect). Tesla rested only two hours a day... Speaking of Tesla, the inventor had another strange habit: He’d curl his toes 100 times per foot every evening before going to bed. He thought the practice boosted his brain cells. (Given his track record, maybe we should all be doing it.)... Before he began the day’s work, Benjamin Franklin would spend up to an hour taking naked “air baths” at an open window. (I hope this doesn't become a trend today. Imagine millions of fat guys in their birthday suits letting it all hang out for everyone to see.)... Søren Kierkegaard, Lewis Carroll, and Virginia Woolf all wrote standing up. (I'm sitting on my butt.)
A middle age woman donated a cache of romance novels in Russian and, to my surprise, not one sold. My thanks, madam, and also to the elderly woman who purchased a thriller in Russian; to the young man who bought
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom; to the gentleman who long ago read
Rich Man, Poor Man in Russian, which attracted him to
Bread Upon the Waters by Irwin Shaw; to the woman who overpaid for five paperbacks by the late and still popular Sidney Sheldon; and to Mike, who bought
I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish and Marek Glezerman, which sounds like something a lot of Americans should be reading. Mike told me a couple of jokes. Unlike
Seinfeld's Tim Whatley, who converted in order to be free to tell Jewish jokes, Mike was born a Jew. He asked: "Why do Jewish women make great parole officers? Because they never let you finish a sentence." And: "Why are Jews terrible prisoners? Because they eat locks." In the interest of equal time, here are two jokes about Italians from laffgaff.com: "
What do you call an Italian suppository? An innuendo." And: "How does an Italian get into an honest business? Through the skylight." If those offend you, too bad. And here's the world's most famous convert at work:
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