Everybody wants to be the life of the party, the quick wit who seems to know everything about anything under the sun.
But few want to put in the work that’s needed to truly be “in the know.” And once that knowledge is gained, how do the conversationally challenged use the cool stuff they’ve learned?
A new trivia book, “Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets,” will give even the most boring wallflower a shot at being interesting at the next backyard barbecue, corporate function or kegger.
The book was written as part of a mission to educate Americans about the stuff they should have learned in school but didn’t, says co-author Will Pearson.
It’s learning made fun because the information and facts are so hysterical that they’ll stick longer than anything gleaned from Civics 101.
Take these conversational crudites:
“Half of the Americans who won the Nobel Prize for Literature were alcoholics. Literary lushes include Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.”
“Aside from its 64 sexual positions, the Kama Sutra devotes an entire chapter on how to best seduce other men’s wives.”
“Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin didn’t spend all his time converting the country to communism. One of his favorite hobbies was sharpening pencils, which his brother noted was done with a ‘sort of special tenderness, so the letters came out like delicate threads.”
Pearson says the book blurs the line between education and entertainment. “Most people want to be learned, but they don’t enjoy reading text books. They enjoy laughing and other forms of entertainment, whether it’s watching movies, TV or reading. We try to blend those needs,”
Knowledge junkies are on their own if mundane topics like celebrity breakups, the weather or recent movies are the talk of the party, says co-author John Green.
But should Joan of Arc come up in conversation, folks can wax wise about her crazy antics thanks to features in the book that include handy conversation starters and helpful pronunciation guides such as this tip that appears in the book:
“W.E.B. Du Bois is pronounced “due-BOYZ – don’t feel bad if you couldn’t pronounce his name; it was so common a problem that Du Bois sent a letter to a newspaper explaining how to pronounce it correctly.”
There’s even advice on when it’s appropriate to name drop.
We asked Pearson a few questions about our society’s collective need to be intelligent, or at least appear to be:
Q: What does this book say about our culture?
A: I think it’s indicative that we live in a fast-paced culture. We find ourselves in different social situations where topics may come up. We know we are supposed to be knowledgeable on these topics, but we don’t have the time to slow down and learn all the things we feel we should.
The world seems to only become more complex with time. Many of us are spending hours a day in front of the computer, and people are suffering from information overload. We are going to take some of those big topics and break it down so you can understand the basics in just a few pages per topic. We want to bring people back to having interesting things to talk and learn about.
Q: Does this desire for knowledge have anything to do with us being competitive and always trying to one-up on the next guy?
A: In some ways, I think a competitive element is there. I’m sure there are lots of people who want to seem like the smartest guy in the room. But in our research, we’ve also found that people genuinely want to know more about art, history and the sciences so they can share interesting information. The book speaks to the human need to share a good story, to have positive and meaningful human interaction.
What we highlight in our book and our magazine are interesting stories, and one of the book’s sections is called conversation topics. If something comes up and someone just mentioned something about Beethoven, I can throw out a fact about him regarding “The Curse of the Ninth Symphony.” (FYI: Beethoven’s Ninth was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London, which deemed it beautiful but impossible to play. For decades, many orchestras just skipped the hard parts.)
Q: Is it hip to be smart in America?
A: In our society, we value and respect an educated mind. We don’t know why that is, but we know that desire is there to be feel smart, or at least in some ways, to not look stupid. You don’t ever want to be put on the spot and not know something about a subject. We started mental floss during the middle of the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” craze because we realized that everybody wants to be the person in the hot seat with all the answers, not just because a million dollars is on the line. We are trying to satisfy the desire of feeling well educated, but make it a little more entertaining. People don’t want to sit down and read 10 textbooks to get the knowledge. But there are topics out there that people feel like they should understand.
Q: What are your five favorite most talked-about topics?
A: I just recently used the Dead Sea Scrolls because the topic has been coming up in the news lately. I like the story about the poor antiquities dealer who decided to sell an ancient manuscript of the Book of Deuteronomy, but when he sent it to biblical scholars, they told him it was a fake. He was so humiliated that he ended up committing suicide. But a year later, the manuscript was sold at auction and is believed to be now worth untold millions.
Attila the Hun is always a good one because people make references to him all the time as being barbaric. We don’t realize Attila is a national hero in eastern Europe and central Asia. And Attila is a very popular name for boys in Hungary and Turkey.
Very few people can remember that the Hundred Years’ War actually went on for 116 years. This particular war also the saw the first widespread use of firearms and artillery.
We drink martinis all the time, but few people know about its origins. When you see someone drinking one, you can knowledge drop about the birth of the martini. It all started with the martinez, a popular 19th-century drink featuring a shot of gin and two shots of dry vermouth, cherry juice and a lemon slice. Somewhere around 1900, someone decided to tweak the original recipe, thinking that if they added more gin than vermouth and got rid of the cherry juice, revelers would get drunk faster. Go figure. Add an olive and the martini was born! Adding tongue-in-cheek humor to the presentation is always good.
I’ve always liked the Seven Wonders of the World and the Greek gods and goddesses, as well, because we make references to these things in conversation even though we really know very little about them.
The goal here is not to become an expert on any of these topics. It’s to satisfy that desire to have a basic understanding of what these things are.
Staff writer Sheba R. Wheeler can be reached at 303-820-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com.
