Believe It or Not - Encyclopedia of the bizarre
Ripley’s Believe It or Not is a global phenomenon. There is at least one in
every major tourist destination, it seems, including one in Pattaya in the
Royal Garden Plaza.
That being the case, it would then also seem to be true that a Ripley’s
Believe It or Not Encyclopedia of the Bizarre would also have a world-wide
appeal. A lady by the name of Julie Mooney and the editors of Ripley’s
Believe it or Not believe so, and have produced a 500 page volume with
trivial memorabilia as its central theme. In fact, the reader is promised
“more than 6,000 mind boggling oddities and more than 1,400 eye-popping
photographs, illustrations and cartoons”.
These bizarre facts are divided into 63 chapters, or sections, some of which
seem fairly bizarre in themselves. For example, Business and Advertising
seems an unlikely place for oddities, but they have found a farmer in
Pennsylvania who turned his cows into mobile road signs, since road signs in
his state were banned. And that is really ‘milking’ the situation!
In another section called The Unexplained, a man was struck on the head by a
cooked trout. This was also in Pennsylvania, so Ms. Mooney certainly trawled
deeply for bizarre items in Pennsylvania! Or perhaps it is just a bizarre
state?
In the section of Food and Drink, it is reported that a Hindu named Shalkla
cooked his dinner on his head in a charcoal brazier. A hot headed action,
but at least he wasn’t from Pennsylvania.
However, that great American state did produce Wally Parker who hit a four
inch target shooting a pistol with one hand, while balancing on the other.
Unfortunately he missed two doctors from Pennsylvania’s university who
discovered a bacterium that had been dormant inside a salt crystal for 250
million years, and the dog belonging to Pennsylvania’s Jordan family that
had a white pointed star on its chest.
I personally found the cartoons and illustrations annoying, difficult to
read some of the fonts used, and others were printed so faintly that I had
to hold the book to a strong light. Sticking to a standard font makes for a
more readable publication.
My other gripe with this publication is in the preponderance of American
entries. I am conversant with the fact that Robert Ripley was an American,
but an encyclopedia should have world coverage. The cartoons are also done
in the style that Ripley used, but rather than being attractive, to me they
just looked very dated.
There is an index at the back of the book, which is excellent, as the 6,000
oddities are difficult to otherwise find, as many of the categories seem to
overlap. However, I would have liked to have seen some references to show
the source of the information on many of the items.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Encyclopedia of the Bizarre (ISBN 1-57912-428-8)
was published last year by Black Dog and Leventhal Paperbacks and was on the
Bookazine shelves at B. 650. If you have a penchant for the preposterous or
a taste for trivia, this is your book!
