The mental_floss newsletter

Yesterday I mentioned the "I Read Mental Floss" Facebook group, and membership shot up to 1,300*. Guess the existence of this group was a secret. We had no idea you had no idea.

So it stands to reason you might not know about our weekly e-newsletter. Each edition includes a "Beat Our Fact" contest, highlights from the blog, fascinating trivia from Sandy & Kara, and a letter from Mangesh or me. If you're interested, there's a box in the right-hand navigation that looks like this:

Greetings, Flossers!

"Should we change into the Boy Scout uniforms here, or wait 'til we get to Central Park?"

This was the hardest question I'd ever been asked.

Let me back up. mental_floss has a book coming out next year called BE AMAZING "“ a how-to guide with tips on tasks like starting your own country and traveling through time. Our publisher wants a publicity photo of founding flossers Mangesh and Will, and Mango had a few different ideas for poses to test. Since Will lives in Birmingham, I'm his stunt double.

One idea was dressing up like Boy Scouts. With our photographer waiting in Central Park, we mulled our options. We could 1) Change in our office, then journey 3.3 miles in tight-fitting Scout outfits "“ including cut-off green pants; or 2) Travel in plain clothes, find a private tree, and take turns changing behind it.

We chose the second option and struggled to find a dressing area. This I know: if you're going to change into a Boy Scout disguise in the wooded section of a public park, you don't want to get caught halfway through. Especially not with a Little League field in the background. But the sun was setting on our photo shoot. So, I hopped a fence and set a wardrobe-change speed record, which Mangesh subsequently shattered.

The pictures came out wildly embarrassing, in a wow-I'm-glad-I'm-only-the-stunt-double/I-probably-can't-run-for-office-now kind of way. But if the photos do get out, I've got a plan. And that plan starts with reading the "travel through time" chapter in BE AMAZING.

But hey, all in a day's work.

Cheers!
Jason

And here's a sample of Sandy & Kara's trivia, from another newsletter...

Peculiar Political Presents
by Kara Kovalchik & Sandy Wood

:: In 1972, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev made a vehicle exchange with U.S. President Richard Nixon. Dick got a Volga 70 Hydrofoil, while Leo was presented with a brand new Cadillac. The Soviet Premier had taken Nixon out for a ride on the Moscow River in his own Volga after a summit meeting, and the President had been impressed with the 40-knot-per-hour speed of the craft. At the premier's request (and to be fair to the other two major U.S. automakers), Nixon later gifted Brezhnev with a Lincoln and a Chrysler.

:: If you think all unusual diplomatic gifts come from foreign sources, then you don't know Monterey Jack. An interesting wedge of history comes to us courtesy of the folks from Cheddar, er, Cheshire, Massachusetts. They wanted to express their gratitude to President Thomas Jefferson for his dedication to religious freedom. So, led by Baptist minister John Leland, Cheshire citizens collected the milk from 900 cows, pressed the curds, and created a 1,235-pound, four-foot wheel of cheese. Was the President bleu? Not at all; he personally received the cheesy gift at the White House doorway on New Year's Day 1802, and invited the couriers to join him in a cheese-tasting.

:: Pasha Mehmed Ali, the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, was eager to develop a working relationship with King Charles X of France in 1824. He decided that an exotic animal might be the perfect gift, so a giraffe calf was painstakingly transferred via a series of boats to Marseilles. From Marseilles, she walked to Paris, wearing a coat and specially-made boots to protect her from the elements. (A coterie of keepers walked beside her, every step of the 550-mile trek.) When the entourage arrived in Paris, citizens lined the streets, as they had never seen such a creature before. The king was suitably impressed with his gift and ordered a special home, the Jardin des Plantes, to be built for her.

:: When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi came to Washington to meet President George W. Bush in 2006, the president presented the Elvis-mad PM with a 1954 Seeburg R100 jukebox, loaded with classic 45 records of the 1950s and 60s. He also treated Koizumi to a tour of Graceland, including the off-limits-to-the-general-public upstairs area. Did Koizumi present Bush with a suitable Japanese gift in exchange? Well, yes, but with an American flair. Bush received a large portrait of Yankee slugger Babe Ruth that had been taken during a visit to Japan in 1934.

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*Think we can hit 1,426 today? That's Mangesh's lucky number.