This summer I stumbled upon a detox, and I’ve been so fascinated with it that I’m keeping it up. It’s like finally handing your body the microphone! It just has so much to say, and I want to give it the floor as long as I can stand it. And once it starts talking, the toxins keep coming. It’s our biggest internal organ, so I suppose that makes sense.
I had no idea it took so long to detox, or that your liver was in much worse shape right after you stop drinking than it ever was while regulating normal function in the face of any dinner party libation you might tilt its way. I haven’t had a hepatic function panel, but my acupuncturist confirmed that my liver started working overtime as soon as I stopped drinking–as if it were scrambling incase I might start soaking it with toxins again! So it’s back to the reishi tea, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll try anything just short of Prometheus’ “treatment” via-punitive-bird-of-prey.
Even if I didn’t want to invest in my lovely, three pound, football-shaped wonder organ, it’s possible it would still attract interest in the black market–especially if I were to be an executed prisoner, as the BBC found (organ trafficking bans aren’t exactly flourishing). Though I’d prefer to just be able to use it as collateral. I’m not going to ask you if you’ve received quotes on any of your organs, but I would be interested in hearing about any detoxes you’ve survived.

Following up on Monday’s Square America post, _floss staffer Kara Kovalchik pointed me to The Kriegsmann Files, an archive of old publicity photos on Flickr.

The story goes that the photos were found in a Venice (California?) alleyway, discarded as trash, then picked up and cataloged online. Judging from the selection of 178 photos that found their way online, there’s a lot of material here. The photos are primarily the work of James J. Kriegsmann, who started out as the Cotton Club’s house photographer, taking publicity photos of many jazz greats. In his later work, Kriegsmann photographed the less famous among us — for example, he was the photographer for New York’s Miss Subways contest. Most (okay, maybe all) of the photographs in the Kriegsmann Files are of unknowns, many of which display a heartfelt earnestness that apparently didn’t translate into commercial success. Check out, for example: Moonfast, Silverlight, Nbuda Funkshun, Fairchild, Amerasia, and Lee Noble.

Read more about the photos or just sit back for a sweet slideshow.

Yes, there are big differences between the two. For instance, if you described a postal worker on a murderous rampage as “going berserk,” you’d likely be wrong: “going postal” is actually a classic example of running amok. OK, so what about those opiate-induced rampages we see in Vietnam flicks, in which doped-up soldiers run screaming into the jungle, engaging the enemy with little regard for their own safety? Definitely not running amok: that’s some classic berserking right there. Let’s break it down.

Running amok
To get to the bottom of this one, we’ve got to go on an etymological carpet ride, all the way back to the probably ancient Malay word “mengamuk,” meaning “to go mad with rage.” But mengamuk was a peculiar form of going mad with rage that was — at the time Western observers began to record such things in the 19th century, in any case — native to Southeast Asia. Here’s how it went down, according to the Britannica:

“A Malay will suddenly and apparently without reason rush into the street armed with a kris or other weapons, and slash and cut at everybody he meets till he is killed. These frenzies were formerly regarded as due to sudden insanity. It is now, however, certain that the typical amok is the result of circumstances, such as domestic jealousy or gambling losses, which render a Malay desperate and weary of his life. It is, in fact, the Malay equivalent of suicide. The act of running amuck is probably due to causes over which the culprit has some amount of control, as the custom has now died out in the British possessions in the peninsula, the offenders probably objecting to being caught and tried in cold blood.”

There seems to be a direct link between such behavior — the end result of which is usually the death of the amok-runner — and massacres like Columbine and the murder-suicide rampages of postal workers. Which puts all this squarely in its own category, and distinctly apart from

Going berserk
Most closely associated with the Norse Berserkers, gangs of warriors who fought in an uncontrollable rage. The difference between their uncontrollable rage and that of Malay amok-runners is that the Berserkers — prized by the Scandinavian kings who commanded them for their ferocity — generally loosed their inner beasts only in battle, and directed it toward the enemy rather than indiscriminately. They are depicted in Icelandic sagas as wearing bear pelts on their heads (”berserker” loosely translates to “bear skin”) and wielding throwing axes with deadly precision.

Yet many modern theories attribute their ferocity to the ingestion of everything from the psychoactive fly agaric mushroom to wolf’s blood — though how you throw an axe precisely while being hopped up on ancient goofballs is beyond me (and many experts). Another (hilarious) theory posits that the Berserkers were manic-depressives, and their deadly rages were actually manic episodes. (I have some manic friends, and none of them have thrown an axe at my head … yet.)

Anyone got a better explanation — or better yet, a deep indwelling of insatiable rage they’d like to share?

This page (found at Cynical-C) is from the 1979 book Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century. It described “the electronic household.” Click the picture to see it full-size. It said in the 21st century, we would enjoy huge flat-screen TVs, discs for recording and playing back TV shows, videocameras (with rerecordable tape instead of film!), electronic mail, videophones, and robots to serve drinks. Four of the six predictions are now common in the living rooms (and bedrooms) of people who can afford them.

The robot who serves our drinks is still a novelty in development. Someone somewhere figured out it was much simpler just to store cold drinks in the living room, or in my case, put a coffeemaker in the bedroom. Besides, a child or a spouse is less likely to trip over the carpet while delivering your Red Bull.

The videophone is available, but never caught on for good reasons. When you are in the comfort of your home, you don’t want to put on makeup, or even clothing, just to answer the phone. For those of us who are domestically-challenged, it’s not worth cleaning up the room, either. The guy in the picture probably wouldn’t even answer the phone, considering that awful tracksuit-and-boots combination he’s wearing!

Let’s kick off the holiday weekend with a buffet edition of our Friday series. Answer only the questions you find appetizing.

• In honor of Labor Day, who was your all-time worst co-worker?

• In honor of Labor Day, but a little less negative, what was your all-time favorite job?

• What’s the strangest domain name you ever registered? I’m stealing this question from my friend Noah Brier, who has covered this topic before. Last year, the winner of our fantasy football league was given the rights to MommyWhenWillIGetMyFur.com. (I’ll let him explain.) Top that.

• What’s the best long weekend road trip you’ve ever taken?

• If you were tasked with starting a Hall of Fame for something currently lacking such a shrine, what would it be? And who/what would be your first induction?

• What’s a good nickname for Yankee phenom Joba Chamberlain? (”The Hut” will not be accepted.)

Enjoy the long weekend!

Another great quiz from our favorite intern Jason Plautz. There are some song lyrics that are so poetic, so real that they just make your heart stop and your eyes flutter. These aren’t them. Click here to play!

Adfreak is reporting today that Hawaii’s been running a very strange, pro-smoking campaign in Japan. Apparently, the U.S. state has created ads to reassure Japanese tourists that while Hawaii has adopted no-smoking laws, they aren’t as strict as people would have you believe. But why spread the mixed message? Well, for more Yen, of course. Somehow, rumors had circulated in Japan that Hawaii had banned smoking entirely, and it started seriously affecting the state’s tourism. The campaign, called “Smoking with Aloha,” is targeted at Japanese publications to let tourists know that both they, and their cancer sticks, are welcome. Of course, as Adfreak points out, “the most ironic part of it all is that ‘aloha’ literally means ‘breath of life.’” Story via the always amusing Adfreak.

Today’s Word Wrap keeps on with our tradition of bringing you the hippest, most happening new words and phrases being coined, as they’re coined… well, okay, with at least a 5-second delay.

Today’s sparkling entries, as usual, are brought to you by the good folk over at wordspy.com

• mobisode (MOH.buh.sode) n. A short program, or the edited highlights from a longer program, designed to be watched on a small, mobile screen such as a digital media player or a mobile phone. Also: mob-isode. [Blend of mobile and episode.](Citations)
• smexting pp. Sending text messages while standing outside on a smoking break. [Blend of smoking and texting.] (Citations)
• butt bra n. An undergarment that supports the buttocks. Also: buttbra. (Citations)
• Potterhead n. A person who is a big fan of the Harry Potter series of books. Also: Potter-head. (Citations)
• carbage n. The garbage that accumulates in some cars, particularly in the back seat (Citations)
• floordrobe n. A pile of discarded clothes on the floor of a person’s room. [Blend of floor and wardrobe.] (Citations)

We’re still in the era of prankdom, when people can win $100 if they go along with a stranger’s protracted back story and subsequent request for help (thank you, “Boiling Points”). It seems that ever since hitchhiking became taboo (but there’s hitchwiki!), we redirected our thirst for those encounters into a devoted voyeurism that finds relief in reality television, especially that of the “reveal”-oriented variety.

Every time I see a show that hinges on the horrified reaction of a reveal, I experience a moment of complete chagrin (at my industry) and complete empathy (for the talent). But it’s hard to turn away from shows that examine our willingness to comply with strangers in apparent need. “Boiling Points,” sure, but I’ve also seen the nightly news send reporters out to demonstrate how we’re more likely to lend assistance to attractive strangers (all of this still aftermath of Stanley Milgram and his 1974 study, “The Perils of Obedience,” proposing that attractive people were more likely to attract help and less likely to become victims).

So: what’s the most you’ve ever complied with a stranger, and have you ever been burned or perhaps even assisted by the encounter?

I’ve had my share of random freelance projects: Trying to dream up a better name for In The Houze, the Steve Martin-Queen Latifah movie eventually titled Bringing Down The House (this was not one of my suggestions); finding the email addresses for the Forbes 50 Most Powerful Women in Business (a friend’s possibly unethical project; I just helped Google); shoveling an elderly shut-in woman’s driveway, then shoveling it again when she wasn’t happy where I’d piled the snow (I was forced into this by my high school guidance counselor and paid in fruitcake, ladies mittens and PDQ Chocolate mix.)

More recently, I’ve been conducting interviews with business legends for a company called futurethink. And so, in the tradition of the Frost/Nixon interviews, Larry King Live and Borat, I sat down with founding _flosser Mangesh Hattikudur to talk about the history and future of his magazine and publishing empire. Here’s a taste.

What was your defining moment as a founder?

The first time I realized mental_floss was real was when we took the freshly printed magazine to a Kinko’s and they refused to let us make a poster of the cover. The branch we went to wasn’t exactly known for their customer service, so when I asked the woman for help, she immediately scoffed and told me she wasn’t moving unless I had written consent from the publisher. Somehow there was such joy in flipping to the masthead and pointing out our names. For the first time, it made me stop to think about what we’d accomplished. Until then, the whole process had been this giant punch line that we’d somehow pushed
further and further. When I wondered: “Does she actually think this is a real magazine?” it left me grinning wide.

To read the full futurethink Innovator’s Interview, click here, then choose Download Now for the PDF. Plus you can print out the Mangesh glamor shots for use as locker posters – perfect for back-to-school.