Folio Magazine, Nov. 1, 2002

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A Mag That's Gone Mental
By Whitney Joiner

So you went to an Ivy and you win every time you play along with "Jeopardy!" on TV, but you don't remember what the S in Harry S. Truman stands for* or when the guillotine was last used as a means of execution in France?** Well, who does? That's the job of trivia magazine mental_floss: to remind you of everything you forgot from college, or maybe never learned to begin with.

With articles like "Fear of All Sums: 3 Math Theories Brought to You in Plain English" and "Oh Boy, Obento: The Japanese Lunch Box," the Birmingham, Alabama-based bimonthly hopes to round out its readers' education (without making them work for it).

Originally created as a newsletter at Duke University, the 50,000-circ title launched last year under the direction of 23-year-old president Will Pearson and four other Duke alums. Chockful of information on science, history, literature, pop culture, and practically every other field of interest, mental_floss might not make you "feel smart again," as its tagline promises, but it probably will make you a better conversationalist at martini bars. "We feel like we're truly blurring the lines between great education and great entertainment," says Pearson. It's academia lite. "We're providing something to get around that roadblock for people, where they simply don't have time to learn," he says. "We're not trying to be a textbook."

* The S doesn't stand for anything, actually: His parents couldn't choose between "Shippe" and "Solomon."

** 1977

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