Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 168
June 6, 2013
Seal Pup Jumps On Boat For Snuggles
This is unbelievable.
True related story: (BRI Thom here.) I was staying with friends on the Oregon Coast in the mid-1990s. They ran a bird and marine mammal rescue center, and lived right there on the property. One morning I was awoken to a shhhhhhhh-flop, shhhhhhhh-flop, shhhhhhhh-flop sound coming down the hallway. It kinda creeped me out as I groggily listened to it get closer and closer….and watched in shock as the baby seal my friends were nursing back to health came shlopping into the room – and jumped straight up onto my bed—as I exited from the other side.
That seal was just a baby – but they have sharp teeth! Watching this video I wish I had just stayed put. Darn it.
June 5, 2013
E-Book Sale: Time to Expand Your Digital Library
Our celebration of “June is Bathroom Reading Month” continues with amazing deals on some of our favorite Uncle John’s e-books. It is time to finally expand your digital throne room and take your favorite titles on the go, anywhere you go. For the entire month of June, each of the titles listed below are 50% off in their digital format. Don’t forget, if you prefer the printed books, head over to our Father’s Day Sale (30% off our entire store until June 16).
Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges into History
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Tees Off on Golf
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges into Music
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The World’s Gone Crazy
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Briefs
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores: Updated & Expanded Edition
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Great Big Bathroom Reader
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Vroom!
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Book of Fun Bathroom Reader for Kids Only!
Kindle
Nook
Uncle John’s Top Secret Bathroom Reader for Kids Only!
Kindle
Nook
June 4, 2013
Uncle John’s Wins a Gold Award at The IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards
This year, Uncle John celebrates 25 years of sitting on the throne as the “King of Bathroom Reading” while also winning a GOLD award for Uncle John’s Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader and a SILVER award in for its kid’s book, Uncle John’s KID-TOPIA Bathroom Reader For Kids Only! at the 2013 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.
KID-TOPIA was honored for non-fiction books for young readers, while the super-sized Fully Loaded was honored in the humor category. The IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards recognizes excellence in both editorial and design and is regarded as one of the highest national honors in small and independent publishing.
“Twenty-five years ago we thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone publishing books for people who like to read in the bathroom?’” said Gordon Javna, Editor-in-Chief, and Publisher of Portable Press which publishes Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. “We are just thrilled that this book – our 25th anniversary edition – won Gold in humor at this year’s Benjamin Franklin Awards.”
Named in honor of America’s most cherished publisher/printer, the Benjamin Franklin Awards™ recognizes excellence in independent publishing. Publications are grouped by genre and are judged on editorial and design merit by top practitioners in each field. The trophies are awarded to the best books in several categories and were presented to the publishers during a gala awards ceremony on May 30, 2013. Since 1983, Independent Book Publishers Association, the largest not-for-profit trade association of independent publishers, has been the leader for member benefits, education, and advocacy.
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In true BRI style, we would now like to share a story from Uncle John’s Plunges into History Again about Benjamin Franklin.
DON’T BE A SOAR LOSER, BEN
Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey, not the eagle, to be America’s national symbol. In a letter to his daughter, he wrote, “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree near the river, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him…The turkey is a much more respectable bird and withal a true original native of America.”
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Looking for a Father’s Day gift? Look no further. Our Father’s Day Sale is in full swing. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more. Go directly to our store.
Also, don’t forget to enter our “mother-of-all” giveaways for a chance to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.
June 3, 2013
Note From a Fan: Jack Tales
From our FaceBook page two days ago, from a recent contest winner:
I want to thank you guys for stirring an old memory, very precious and nearly forgotten. I was reading one of the free books you sent me not long ago (thanks again!), and found the story of the “Jack Tales”, the traditional southern storytelling folklore. My great-grandfather, who was born and raised in Georgia before the *other* turn of the century, used to tell me these stories around 40 years ago, and I might not have thought of them again if not for your book. As I read the article, I was able to read it in his voice mentally. I only wish I could remember all the different stories he told (I know there was one about an island). It really took me back and helped to keep his memory alive. Thank you so much!
Wes R.
Wes, we are so pleased to be able to light that wonderful memory for you, and thank you for thinking to tell us about it. Very nice of you!
The “Jack Tales” story Wes is talking about comes from our very latest annual - Uncle John’s Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (page 388). Here’s the whole story. (Click on images, then click again for big, sharp versions):
Jack Tales
You probably know him best for climbing a beanstalk and killing a giant, but were you aware that Jack—the hero of English folklore—also showed up in the the U.S. South?
Down Home
Following in the footsteps of renowned English folklorist Cecil Sharp, who traveled the back roads of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916 in search of traditional British ballads, a young man named Richard Chase went to southern Virginia to hunt down some folk songs of his own. One day in 1935, after a folk music festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, Chase’s quest took an unexpected turn when a local man named Marshall Ward told him that there were more than just songs being passed from generation to generation—there were tales, too. “Mostly,” explained Ward, “about a boy named Jack.”
Chase realized he’d struck gold—a living oral tradition of storytelling, much as Sharp had discovered the tradition of folk songs two decades earlier. He spent the next several years with Ward and his extended family, listening to Jack tales that they’d been telling for at least three generations, and writing down every word in his notebook as quickly and as faithfully as he could, dialect and all. He collected dozens of stories, including “Jack and the Giant’s Newground,”Jack and the Robbers,” “Hardy Hardhead,” “Jack and King Marock,” and “Soldier Jack.” In 1943 Chase published them in a book called The Jack Tales.
Jack of All Trades
Before arriving in the New World, the legendary Jack was an English folk hero, usually depicted as a brave and honorable young squire. Variations of the character showed up in “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Jack the Giant-Killer,” as well as in fairy tales and nursery rhymes—”Jack and Jill,” “Jack Be Nimble Jack Be Quick,” “The House That Jack Built,” “Little Jack Horner,” “Jack Frost,” “Jack Sprat,” “Jack in the Box,” and many more. One of the earliest is a 15th-century British tale called “Jack and His Stepdame,” in which the hero is beaten by his stepmother, but shares his food with an old beggar who grants him three magic gifts that help him bring his stepmother her comeuppance.
Fueled by cheaply printed chapbooks, stories of Jack abounded in England in the 1700s. So it’s not surprising that British settlers brought Jack with them to America, mostly relegated to the pages of children’s storybooks. In the isolated hills of Appalachia, Jack thrived as an oral tradition for nearly two centuries—until Chase shared the stories with the rest of the world.
You Don’t Know Jack
The same basic plots showed up in the Jack tales of Appalachia—the biggest difference was Jack himself. Unlike his “proper” British cousin, the American Jack is more like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. He is an easygoing, overalls-wearing farm boy who aims to make his fortune by relying on wits and luck. Rather than a noble squire who rescues princesses, this Jack, as one tale goes, “tricks farmers out of their barefoot daughters.” He’s not above using unscrupulous means to get what he wants, but his manner is so breezy and likable, it’s hard not to forgive him his escapades.
The American Jack tales are a fascinating blend of two very distinct cultures: Many of the plots, names, and settings are English, but the dialect and attitude are indisputably American. That blend can be heard in this excerpt from “Jack and the Bean Tree,” when the giant totes a shotgun and roars:
FEE! FAW! FUM!
I smell the blood of an Englishmun.
Bein’ he dead or bein’ he alive,
I’ll grind his bones
To eat with my pones!
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Here’s a link to the modern version of Richard Chase’s “Jack Tales” at Amazon.
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Looking for a Father’s Day gift? Look no further. Our Father’s Day Sale is in full swing. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more. Go directly to our store.
Bathroom Reading Month: On Top of the Throne
Every week during Bathroom Reading Month, we will host a giveaway for a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader collection. Just to spice it up, we will ask you to answer a question on the blog. At the end of the week, we will pick a random winner from the answers and post it on the blog along with our favorite answers. Remember that this is in addition to our “mother-of-all” contest: enter to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.
Week #1: On Top of the Throne
QUESTION: What reading materials do you have in your bathroom in addition to Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers?
Answer the question in the comments section of this post to be entered to win a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader library. Answers must be posted by June 5, 2013, midnight PST to be eligible to win. A winner will be announced on Friday, June 7, 2013. Open to US residents only.
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Do you like reading in the bathroom? So do we! Wow, what a coincidence! Here are some other coincidences we wrote about in Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader:
AMAZING COINCIDENCES
• On Christmas Eve 1994, two cars collided near Flitcham, England. The drivers were twin sisters who were delivering presents to each other. Their names: Lorraine and Levinia Christmas.
• On June 6, 2009, two men in China picked the same winning seven-digit lottery number. Though they were hundreds of miles away from each other, they bought their tickets at the exact same time, down to the second.
• A hot-air balloon crashed into a power line in Ruthwell, Scotland, interrupting the movie being shown on local television: Around the World in 80 Days…about a voyage in a hot-air balloon.
• American journalist Irv Kupcinet was in a London hotel room in 1953 when he found a few items that belonged to a friend of his, basketball star Harry Hannin. Two days later, Kupcinet received a letter from Hannin— he’d found a tie with Kupcinet’s name on it in a Paris hotel room.
• A blurry photo of a man stealing a wallet in a store ran on the bottom of the front page of the December 14, 2007, edition of Idaho’s Lewiston Tribune. Above it was an unrelated photo of a man painting a business. Readers noticed both men were wearing the same clothes…and could be the same man. He was, leading to his arrest.
• In 1972 a taxi driver from Bermuda accidentally struck and killed a man who was riding a moped. One year later, the taxi driver accidentally struck and killed the man’s brother—who was riding the exact same moped on the exact same stretch of road.
• In 1911 three men— named Green, Berry, and Hill—were convicted of a murder. They were hanged at London’s Greenberry Hill.
• On June 24, 2005, veteran actor Paul Winchell died at age 82. He voiced the character of Tigger in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh films. The next day, John Fiedler died at age 80. He was the voice of Piglet.
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Looking for a Father’s Day gift? Look no further. Our Father’s Day Sale is in full swing. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more. Go directory to our store.
May 31, 2013
June is Bathroom Reading Month Contest 2013
Welcome to another amazing June is Bathroom Reading Month contest. It’s true that we have a love for reading in the bathroom year-round. But, June is when we can celebrate it with all of our fans. For our grand prize this year, we are thrilled to offer an entire set of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers currently in print. That is more than 80 BOOKS!
Entering is easy. There is no need to dance with a star, survive on a deserted island, or do math problems. You simply need to sign up for our irregular email newsletter below. If you are already an email subscriber, filling out the form will still count as your contest entry. However, we promise not to send you duplicate emails to the same email address.
Grand Prize:
A complete library of in-print Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers
2nd Prize:
A complete library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader regional books
3rd Prize:
A complete library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader puzzle books
Bathroom Reading Month is when we thank our loyal fans by hosting giveaways and offering our annual Father’s Day Sale (30% off entire store!). Check back weekly for other fun giveaways of Uncle John’s books throughout the month of June. To review the complete list of rules, read the tiny print that the lawyers made up. We wish you all the best of luck!
May 30, 2013
A Weird But Great App: No More Kissin’ Cousins in Iceland
The United States is a melting pot. More than 300 million people live here, and most of us are either immigrants from another nation or the descendants of immigrants who came here within the last 200 years or so, from all over the world. The tiny European island of nation of Iceland is not quite so diverse. Distant and remote from mainland Europe, the country hasn’t expanded its genetic pool much over the last millennium. Result: All 300,000-odd residents of Iceland are related to each other.
The government of Iceland has intricately detailed its national genealogy, setting up a database that lists more than 720,000 people born in Iceland, including 95 percent of everyone born there since 1703, but going back 1,200 years. For example, everyone in Iceland—everyone—is related to a man named Jon Arason, who died in 1550.
With everyone related, that makes dating a little awkward—nobody wants to date their first cousin. Your eighth cousin? Well, that might be okay, but first cousin? Gross. That’s why an Icelandic computer programmer named Arnar Freyr Aoalsteinsson developed an app called IslendingaApp. Essentially an interactive version if the Icelandic genealogical registry, two people who have the app tap their phones together, and the app will tell them how closely they’re related. The app’s slogan: “bump the app before you bump in bed.”
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Looking for a Father’s Day gift? Look no further. Our Father’s Day Sale is in full swing. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more. Go directory to our store.
May 28, 2013
Pop Culture Pizza Pies
There are approximately 50 billion pizza joints in New York City, but Vinnie’s Pizzeria in Brooklyn is arguably the coolest. For the past few years, co-owner Sean Berthiaume has created dozens of special pizzas with punny names, many “ins-pie-red” by popular TV shows. We call these pop culture pizza pies. Here are a few of our current favorites:
Mad Men
• The “Mad Mein” is topped with chicken chow mein, stir-fried noodles, teriyaki chicken, onions, broccoli, and cheddar cheese
• The “Don Caper” (a play on “Don Draper”) includes capers, tomato, garlic, “soy (Jon) Hamm,” soy cheddar, and mozzarella.
Game of Thrones
• The “Pita Linkage” (named for co-star Peter Dinklage) is an open-faced pita pizza with sliced sausage links, red onions, roasted red peppers, and feta cheese.
• The “Khal-Cheesy” (named for “The Khalesi,” portrayed by Emilia Clarke) has cheddar, provolone, mozzarella, and parmesan cheeses with sliced “pepper-thron-i.”
South Park
• The “South Pork” is topped with salami, ham, bacon, onions, and peppers.
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Looking for a Father’s Day gift? Look no further. Our Father’s Day Sale is in full swing. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more. Go directory to our store.
May 23, 2013
A Weird But Great App: No More Spoilers on Twitter!
Tired of spoilers on online? What you need is a ‘No More Spoilers on Twitter’ app! Gone are the days of watching a TV show on the channel it airs at the time it. Most American homes now have some form of “time shifting” solution when it comes to TV, from the good old VCR to digital video recorders like TiVo to watching the shows online, either a couple days later via Hulu or a couple of months (or years) later in season-long viewing binges on Netflix.
A diehard fan of a show will watch it as soon as possible—when it airs—and many of those fans like to share their thoughts online, while it airs. So if you’re not going to get around to watching Mad Men the night it first airs, you’d better not go anywhere near Twitter. Mad Men fans will discuss plot points, twists, and, to use the parlance of the Internet, “spoil it.”
Boston teenager Jennie Lamere loves to use Twitter to connect with her friends and follow celebrities, but she hated how she would often inadvertently find out the results of her favorite show before she watched—the reality program Dance Moms. So for a student-computer-programming contest, she designed a Twitter application called Twivo. The program works like this: You install it and tell it what shows you don’t want to know anything about. Twivo then blocks all references to the show on your Twitter feed—the text is blacked out—no more spoilers on Twitter. Lamere won the contest; the app may be available to the general public in just a couple of months…hopefully before Breaking Bad starts up again.
May 22, 2013
Making the Most Out of Kickstarter: How Do I Land?
The “crowd-funding” website Kickstarter can be used for a lot of things. For example, Rob Thomas, creator of the cancelled TV show Veronica Mars, raised enough money this spring (more than $3.5 million) to make a follow-up movie.
Or it could be used to fund expensive, elaborate pranks. Last January, comedian Kurt Braunohler (best known as the host of IFC’s Bunk) put up a plea on Kickstarter to raise $4,000. Goal: to“hire a man in a plane to write stupid things with clouds in the sky.” In other words, to skywrite jokes.
Braunohler successfully raised $6,820—way more than his $4,000 target. And earlier this month he hired a skywriter, who wrote this amusing message in the skies over Los Angeles: HOW DO I LAND?
