The "Why Would Anyone Write About THAT?" Thread

[shereads]

Browsing the "New Arrivals" section of Amazon, I feel compelled to order this book. If for no other reason, I want to know WTF would possess someone to choose this as his topic? Particularly when he could have spent his time writing dirty stories, with spankings and fellatio and such.

If you come across a film or book whose subject matter gives you a case of the WTF?'s, post it here.

Rats
Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
by Robert Sullivan

(WTF? ~SR)

An excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review offers this tidbit as bait:

"In this excellent narrative, Sullivan uses the brown rat as the vehicle for a labyrinthine history of the Big Apple. After pointing out a host of facts about rats that are sure to make you start itching ('if you are in New York... you are within close proximity to one or more rats having sex'), Sullivan quickly focuses in on the rat's seemingly inexhaustible number of connections to mankind.

<snip>

Like any true New Yorker, Sullivan is able to convey simultaneously the feelings of disgust and awe that most city dwellers have for the scurrying masses that live among them. These feelings, coupled with his ability to literally and figuratively insert himself into the company of his hairy neighbors, help to personalize the myriad of topics - urban renewal, labor strikes, congressional bills, disease control, September 11 - that rats have nosed their way into over the years. This book is a must pickup for every city dweller, even if you'll feel like you need to wash your hands when you put it down.

 

[Marsipanne]

The reason these things are written to give unpublished authors hope in the form of 'if THAT managed to get published, my book should easily get published too' (am fervently repeating this to self as I write down list of agents)

 

[Guest]

Frankly, I think that's a brilliant persepctive from which to write about NYC. I remember the rats on Wall Street that scurried past me as I walked, about a foot long most of them. But I still NY.

Perdita

 

[dr_mabeuse]

"Rats" is actually a big hit and might even be on the best seller list.

I heard the guy on the radio, and it was pretty fascinating, in a shuddery, creepy kind of way.

I was thinking of pitching the Discovery channel on a show about shit. Human feces. The final taboo.

Fact: did you know that half the mass of stool is dead intestinal bacteria?

See, you're drooling already.

---dr.M.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I was thinking of pitching the Discovery channel on a show about shit. Human feces. The final taboo.

Fact: did you know that half the mass of stool is dead intestinal bacteria?

See, you're drooling already.

---dr.M.

""Scat Facts", Saturday night at 9pm eastern, only on the Discovery Chanel."

I think I'm gonna go yack, excuse me...

 

[cloudy]

"Rats" is actually a big hit and might even be on the best seller list.

I heard the guy on the radio, and it was pretty fascinating, in a shuddery, creepy kind of way.

I was thinking of pitching the Discovery channel on a show about shit. Human feces. The final taboo.

Fact: did you know that half the mass of stool is dead intestinal bacteria?

See, you're drooling already.

---dr.M.

Ewwww! Too much information!!!

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

I have a fairly good imagination, so I feel I had better supply the URLs to prove that I am not making this shit up.

Regional cattle mutilation book available online

By KATIE OYAN
Tribune Staff Writer
Monday, November 18, 2002


An out-of-print book by a pair of Montanans about a wave of cattle mutilations in the Great Falls area in the 1970s is available online and free of charge.

About 12,000 copies of Keith Wolverton and Roberta Donovan's "Mystery Stalks the Prairie" were printed in 1976 and have sold out.

A privately funded Nevada institute that pays scientists and retired police officers to investigate bizarre phenomena such as mutilations and UFO sightings has published the book on its Web site.

A single copy of "Mystery Stalks the Prairie" also is available in the Montana Room of the Great Falls Public Library, where it can be read but not checked out.

The library at one time had copies of the book in circulation, but they all landed on its "lost" list.

"It's one of the most stolen books we have," said John Finn, head of the library's information services. "We tried to order more, but it's out of print."

If you try to download the e-book that is now available online . . . .

To read "Mystery Stalks the Prairie" online, visit the National Institute of Discovery Science Web site, at www.nidsci.org/whatsnew.html.

The book also is available in the Montana Room of the Great Falls Public Library.

You will discover that it is . . .

Not Found

The requested URL /whatsnew.html was not found on this server.

Apache/1.3.27 Server at www.nidsci.org Port 80

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Warning: The following post is rated N and might induce nausea or a case of the shuddering glahs.

Hey, cattle mutilations were the Crop Circles of twenty years ago. Suddenly everyone was finding cattle with their tongues and eyes and/or udders removed with 'surgical' precision. It looked like it was the aliens this time for sure. Now it looks like it was a certain type of fly larva.

There's an exhibit in a museum near here called "CSI: Crime Scene Insects" about--get this--forensic entymology. It's curated by the country's top forensic entymologist.

Apparently they can tell a lot about the time and place of death by the bugs they find on a body. They can even analyze the bug droppings and tell you what drugs the victim had in their body when they died.

Science marches on.

---dr.M..

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I've oft wondered what cockroaches do when sleeping.

~lucky

 

[shereads]

Will I never live down those cattle mutilations? It was a joke, and the cows were in on it, dammit.

 

[shereads]

Having had the unusual (I hope) experience of seeing a rat and a squirrel sharing lunch at my bird feeder, I still prefer not to think of squirrels as just rats with cute outfits. But still...

They're as clever as rats, and there's an old BBC show on video that proves it. After battling to invent a truly bird-proof squirrel feeder, someone gave up and decided to just have fun with them. They set up an elaborate obstacle course that required the squirrels to scoot through plastic tunnels on a little sled, manipulate objects to bring pathways within reach...There's a shot of a squirrel watching the assembly of the obstacle course, and you can almost envision him running back to the hollow tree to fetch his slide rule and a notepad.

Of course, the squirrels find a way to use all the gadgets to get to the birdfood.

But the most memorable moment of the program was the sight of a New York squirrel climbing inside the outlet of a candy vending machine to steal and Almond Joy.

I would have expected him to choose the Snickers Bar. I prefer Butterfinger.

 

[Guest]

Aw, where can I get one of those little sleds for my bunny?

Perdita

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

...Hey, cattle mutilations were the Crop Circles of twenty years ago. Suddenly everyone was finding cattle .. It looked like ... aliens this time for sure. ...

I must have arrived too late to develop any real interest in the cattle mutilation phenomena. When I tripped over this article, it reminded me of an edgy second-tier noirish sci-fi film, Endangered Species by director Alan Rudolph (Choose Me, Trouble in Mind)

A retired New York cop on vacation in the West, is drawn into a mysterious series of cattle mutilations.

The movie derives most of its atmosphere through misdirecting the audience to suspect extra terrestrial involvement, only to deliver a somewhat more mundane explanation.

Although this book may well have provided inspiration to the screenwriter, it is in no real way connected.

The subject of the book, in my opinion, fulfills the requirements of this thread.

Like the movie, however, the history of the book – and such a book – mysteriously evaporating was intriguing. When I discovered that the online e-book that was to fill the place of the missing book was also unavailable, I HAD to share this story.

That kind of weird coincidence is simply too much fun to keep all to oneself.

 

[shereads]

Hey, cattle mutilations were the Crop Circles of twenty years ago.

I loved crop circles! That's as close as i came to believing the unbelievable before November 2000.

 

[shereads]

The subject of the book, in my opinion, fulfills the requirements of this thread.

You are correct.

WTF would someone write about cattle mutilations? Marketplace demand? Readers not ready for "Rats" yet?

 

[Guest]

Befitting Literotica

Sex Lives of the Great Dictators: An Irreverent Expose of Despots, Tyrants and Other Monsters by Nigel Cawthorne

from Amazon.com, Book Description:
Power corrupts. Absolute power is even more gratifying, as the world’s dictators have found, from Hitler and Lenin to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A reader's review:
Although I do not have a weak stomach, this book is one of the most disgusting books I have ever read. Especially the chapters on Mao Tse-tung and Hitler are repellent. The chapter on Mussolini is the only one that has some "funny" passages. Il Duce "rarely bothered with a bed, preferring to do it on the floor or against the edge of his desk. The act was perfunctory. He would not bother to take off his trousers or his shoes. The whole thing would be over in a minute or two." The book starts with Napoleon and ends with Saddam 'Abu Ali' Hussein.

In stead of this book, I would recommend Cawthorne's "Sex Lives of the Kings and Queens of England". Compared with the dictators, those Kings were decent men!

 

[shereads]

I've oft wondered what cockroaches do when sleeping.

~lucky

It involves your toothbrush. I read that somewhere.

 

[shereads]

Re: Befitting Literotica

Sex Lives of the Great Dictators: An Irreverent Expose of Despots, Tyrants and Other Monsters by Nigel Cawthorne

from Amazon.com, Book Description:
Power corrupts. Absolute power is even more gratifying, as the world’s dictators have found, from Hitler and Lenin to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A reader's review:
Although I do not have a weak stomach, this book is one of the most disgusting books I have ever read. Especially the chapters on Mao Tse-tung and Hitler are repellent. The chapter on Mussolini is the only one that has some "funny" passages. Il Duce "rarely bothered with a bed, preferring to do it on the floor or against the edge of his desk. The act was perfunctory. He would not bother to take off his trousers or his shoes. The whole thing would be over in a minute or two." The book starts with Napoleon and ends with Saddam 'Abu Ali' Hussein.

In stead of this book, I would recommend Cawthorne's "Sex Lives of the Kings and Queens of England". Compared with the dictators, those Kings were decent men!

This one begs the question, "WTF would anyone looking for 'funny' passages read a book about dictators?"

 

[oggbashan]

Odd books

I sometimes acquire some unusual books in my shop.

For a long time my oddity was 'Economic prospects for cross-bred SE Asian mammals'. It went into detail about how each animal could be used commercially. A cross between a llama and a particular breed of sheep was described as useless. It couldn't carry loads; its wool wouldn't spin and its meat was inedible.

Ligers and Tigons (crosses between lions and tigers) were said to be 'curiosities' with no economic value. One, can't remember which, spent all day and all night sleeping and couldn't be bothered to hunt.

Eventually the book was sold to a customer who wanted it as a talking point.

Another one already sold was a book of tables for calculating how many loads of manure are needed to fertilise odd shaped fields measured in acres, chains, and poles.

The two current odd books are:

"The Modern Locomotive Handbook" - how to drive and maintain obsolete US railway diesels, and

"The Littoral Fauna of Great Britain: A Handbook for Collectors" 2nd edition 1950, reprinted 1952 with detailed descriptions of flatworms, molluscs etc. in impenetrable prose.

Someone will buy them, sometime.

Og

 

[shereads]

Any agricultural uses for the Southeast Asian River Otter?

There are some adorable ones at our zoo. I was there by myself once, and they were so eager to perform for somebody that one of them hopped out of the water, stood near the rail where I was leaning, looked at me for a moment as if wondering what I might like - and then she picked up a pebble and balanced it on her head.

I applauded. She seemed pleased. If that's anthropomorphising, then someone offer an alternate theory about why a small water mammal would pose in front of me with a rock on her noggin.

 

[oggbashan]

Any agricultural uses for the Southeast Asian River Otter?

There are some adorable ones at our zoo. I was there by myself once, and they were so eager to perform for somebody that one of them hopped out of the water, stood near the rail where I was leaning, looked at me for a moment as if wondering what I might like - and then she picked up a pebble and balanced it on her head.

I applauded. She seemed pleased. If that's anthropomorphising, then someone offer an alternate theory about why a small water mammal would pose in front of me with a rock on her noggin.

I think their economic benefit is that they can be sold to zoos and some people keep them as pets. The one you saw might have been an abandoned pet taken in by the zoo. The trick should be rewarded with a fresh fish. Next time take a supply...

In SE Asia otters compete with fishermen so some consider them a pest.

Og

 

[dr_mabeuse]

One of the joys of my collection is called "Microbial Seascapes", a large format softcover of microscopic photographs of the kind of junk that grows on stuff that's been floating around in the ocean for years. I can';t tell you how many woman I've enticed up into my lair by waving that baby under their noses. ("Second-growth algea and pelagic crustaceans on a polyethylene milk jug" is hot!)

One of the other books I used to keep out in the hopes of getting laid was from Dover Books and called just "Snowflakes". Inside were thousands of pictures of different snowflakes, no text. I thought maybe I could look over her shoulder as she searched for two that were the same...

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

Mab., I have "Snowflakes", found it in the mid-60s. Really wonderful book I like to give as a gift when I want to get laid.

Perdita

 

[shereads]

Sex, sex, sex. You pornographers are like a big tangled pile of minks.

What kind of library is this, anyway.

Og, as we were saying...

The Asian River Otters at our zoo are not pets, but they do seem to like showing off. There's an area where you can go downstairs and watch them from beneath the waterline in their little pool, and when there are three or four of them swimming, it's like a competition to see who can do the most spins and loops and barrel rolls.

"Glee" is the word for it. Have you ever seen a demonstration of pure glee? It also happens when the meerkats' keeper steps inside the display and tosses out a carton of live crickets.

That's entertainment.

It's the only evidence anyone ought to need for the existence of some kind of creative force in the universe. Otherwise, a dozen teenaged meerkats throwing crickets at each other like kids on a volleyball court would just be silly and pointless. Like an otter balancing pebbles on her head. Or my dog when the weather is cool, running in what I call "crazy dog circles" and wearing an idiot grin.

Glee.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Re: Odd books

... A cross between a llama and a particular breed of sheep was described as useless. It couldn't carry loads; its wool wouldn't spin and its meat was inedible....

Just the opposite, that Shllama sounds to be a most successful reproductive adaptation — for the Shllama!