1. A piece of paper cannot be folded more than seven times over, no matter how large, or how thin it is. Go ahead! Try it!

2. It is impossible to jump while bending over and holding your toes with your hands. This fact makes a great party trick. Ask a friend to grab her toes and try to jump over a broom-stick that you have laid flat on the floor. Speaking of party tricks…

3. Take two shot glasses and two matches. Challenge your friends to lift the shot glasses off the table and hold them on their bodies without using any of their appendages in any way except to light the matches. When everybody at the party is stumped, wow them with the demonstration. Here’s how…

(Before I tell you, I want you to know that I am breaking a promise to my dear Dad, never to reveal the secret. So please know that you are about to be told a time-honoured Kosanyi mystery. You must also promise to keep this secret because if you don‘t, well, do you remember Jimmy Hoffa?)

A. light a match. B. Drop it in the shot glass (Which must be firmly resting on a flat surface.) C. Quickly bend over and firmly cover the shot glass with your clean-shaven cheek.* This will result in the sudden oxygen starvation of the match, causing the flame to extinguish itself while it sucks the oxygen away, creating a vacuum, thereby creating a suction force which will firmly attach the shot glass to your cheek, allowing you to lift it from the table, sucked to your face. D. Repeat steps A through C with the other match and glass (and opposite cheek.) You will now be the star of the party. But be warned…You will also look like a fool and if you have to go to work the next day, note that you may still have red, circular rings on your cheeks. This note is very important if you are a therapist.

4. One last trick. Secretly write down “3,” “Red,” and “Carrot.” Ask a friend to quickly, without thinking, name a number from 1 to 4. Then ask them to name a colour, and finally, a vegetable. Then show your friend what you wrote down. 90% of people in North America will say “3,” “Red,” and “Carrot.” Please note however, that this trick is not guaranteed and is less likely to work on artsy, left-brain, people. I suggest that if it doesn’t work, don’t show your friend what you wrote. Instead, let her ask why you asked and come up with some mysterious response like “Oh…I’ve just been asked to conduct a standard CIA recruitment test. Unfortunately you failed, so I can’t discuss it further.”

5. A human head can maintain consciousness for up to thirty seconds after it has been decapitated. This was discovered by French scientists way back during the heady, beheading days of the revolution who proved it by asking lucky volunteers to try to respond to the scientists’ questions after they became separated from the rest of themselves. In at least one instance, the scientist called out the head’s name three times, and all three times the head opened and closed its eyes. By the fourth try however, the respondent had shuffled off his mortal coil.

6. A government approved gas can, filled to the cap with 5 gallons of 87 octane gas, will float if you drop it in water.

7. Speaking of water, the scene in the movie Jaws, where the shark blows to bits when Chief Brody fires a rifle round into the oxygen tank wedged in its mouth, couldn’t happen. The tank might have acted like a rocket, shooting away some place, or racing down the shark’s throat, but it would not have exploded.

8. Speaking of Jaws. In the original novel by Peter Benchley, the above mentioned scene does not happen. In the book, Chief Brody locks eyes with the shark, momentarily causing the beast to be transfixed, whereby it stops moving, causing it to sink to the depths and drown. Which also could not have happened in real life because…

9. The long held belief that Sharks must always stay in motion or they will die has turned out not to be true. Just as…

10. The myth of how The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from outer space, is also not true. In fact, NO man made object is visible to the naked human eye from an orbital spacecraft.

11. A cat will not resurrect itself, even if it has only lived one of its nine lives, if it is run over by a truck. (Okay, some of you might have figured that one out already.)

12. Clarke Gable NEVER says “Frankly Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.” In the movie Gone With the Wind. Just as…

13. Humphrey Bogart never says “Play it again, Sam.” In Casablanca. In fact, the actual lines of dialogue, though very close, go…(Oh I can’t remember and I’m to lazy to look them up. If you know, please let me know so I can update this very important thing you need to know.)

14. According to a recent study, men are, in fact, more intelligent than women.

15. Some of the world’s intelligentsia believe that the world’s greatest literature comes from Russia, from writers like the great Fyodor Dostoevsky. But in fact, the greatest writer ever to have breathed this planet’s air calls Canada his home. And in fact, you are reading his words right now.

That’s all for now. But come back again as I plan to update this column periodically. And if you want to share any “very important things” that you know, feel free to let me know. I will add your info to the list and credit it with your name. And then we’ll all know!

1. I don’t remember, but probably an eighties issue of Omni Magazine.

2.ibid

3. George Kosanyi

4. I don’t remember.

5. CBC Radio Show, “As it Happens” from November 3^rd, 2005

6. Personal experience, verified by witness, Rick Kennedy

7. T.V. show “Mythbusters”

8. Read the book (Readers Digest “Condensed” version, sometime in the early ‘70’s before the movie came out)

9. If memory serves, CBC Radio Show “As it Happens” or maybe some Discovery Channel T.V. show.

10. Ibid.

11. That was a joke, Dummy!

12. Don’t remember

13.ibid.

14. CBC Radio Show, “As it Happens.” Check it out at

www.cbc.ca/aih/

15. My ego

Copyright information: This document is copyrighted by Ernest J. Kosanyi, November 4^th 2005. The text of this electronic data document may not be sold for any form of profit by any person, company or organization aside from its author, Ernie Kosanyi. If it is shared by any means whatsoever, it must include this internet address: https://www.angelfire.com/psy/ernie-k/