Mental floss

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This article is about the magazine. For the improv troupe, see Mental Floss (improv).
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Mental_Floss
Cover of Vol. 5, Issue 2 (March-April, 2006)

Cover of Vol. 5, Issue 2 (March-April, 2006)
Editor Neely Harris
Categories Trivia/Entertainment
Frequency Bi-Monthly
Publisher Will Pearson
First issue May, 2001
Company Mental Floss, LLC
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Website mentalfloss.com
ISSN 1543-4702

mental_floss is a bi-monthly American magazine, launched in 2001[1] in Birmingham, Alabama, that presents facts and trivia in a humorous way. It includes columns by A.J. Jacobs and Ken Jennings.

The magazine frequently publishes books and sells T-shirts with humorous sayings, such as "There's no right way to eat a Rhesus". In addition, there is a licensed trivia board game much like Trivial Pursuit. Most recently, the magazine began the In a Box series with Law School in a Box and Med School in a Box.

Contents

[edit] Origin

The magazine was co-founded by William E. Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur while they were students at Duke University. According to the mental_floss website, the idea came from conversations at the Duke cafeteria about the need for an educational magazine that was funny and entertaining [2].

Later Will Pearson met with the president of Duke University, who loved the idea, but disliked the name. The first published issue was known as the "Campus Edition" published in spring of 2000 due to the hard work of Will, Mangesh and their friends, distributing 3,000 issues.

The founders spent much of their year looking for investors and staff members. They had to pool their money to publish the first issue. Lisako Koga took the position as art director and helps improve the general design. The staff worked very hard to get the first official issue out in May 2001. Over the following summer, 8,000 copies were distributed, and 60% sold out on newsstands.[3].

The cover of the first ever issue of mental floss.
The cover of the first ever issue of mental floss.

[edit] Featured writers

  • A.J. Jacobs writes a piece in mental_floss based on what he has learned after reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, as described in his book The Know it All. The piece is called Know it All, an obvious allusion to his book. Each issue, he shares a few pieces of information that he learned during that time. Every new edition features facts about articles that begin with a certain letter of the alphabet; the letter changes each issue, in alphabetical order (A, B, C, D, etc.).
  • Ken Jennings, of Jeopardy fame, does a piece each issue called Six Degrees of Ken Jennings, in which he plays the game Six degrees of separation with two things unrelated except by the way they sound (Benedict XVI and Benedict Arnold, e.g.), or by a very general association (Isaac Newton and Apple Computer, e.g.).
  • Michael A. Stusser writes the "Interview with a Dead Guy" column for mental_floss. The concept of the "Dead Guy Interviews" came out of one living guy’s desire to "talk" with fascinating historical figures who, in addition to being dead, weren't giving out interviews during their lifetimes - sometimes due to difficult surroundings (Montezuma, Helen Keller), or just because they had lousy PR agents (Mussolini, Caligula, etc.). It's edutainment, as you may call it, but with a little theatre and pop-off pop-culture thrown in for good measure. It's how Stusser gets away with asking Alexander the Great who he’d have preferred play him in the movie, Mozart’s take on American Idol, and Van Gogh about the whole ear episode.

[edit] Sections

Each issue of mental_floss is divided up into the following sections:

  • scatter_brained. In this section, a number of trivia items (all connected to an encompassing topic through puns) are written about in short paragraphs.
  • right_brain. Articles about "right brain" topics (e.g. art and literature), such as Six Degrees of Ken Jennings, can be found here.
  • left_brain. This section deals with topics that would befit the "left brain" areas (math, logic, etc.).
  • spinning the_globe. A different part of the world is explored each issue. spinning the_globe always begins with a section describing a "50 cent tour" of whatever region that issue is focusing on.
  • The Quiz. In each issue, there is a quiz in the back of the magazine. There is also a mini quiz consisting of five questions on the mental_floss website[4] every day.

[edit] Recurring themes

  • Every year, one issue of mental_floss is known as the "Ten Issue". It will usually feature lists of ten things focusing on one subject such as: "Ten Most Forgettable Presidents", or "Ten Famous Monkeys in Science"[5]. mental_floss has currently put out seven "ten issues" to date.

[edit] Other publications

[edit] Books

  • Genius Instruction Manual
  • Scatterbrained (ISBN 9780060882501 0060882506)
  • What's the Difference?
  • Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets
  • Condensed Knowledge
  • Forbidden Knowledge
  • Instant Knowledge
  • "In the Beginning"

[edit] In A Box Series

  • Law School In A Box
  • Med School In A Box

[edit] References

  1. ^ Press Release describing magazine launch
  2. ^ mental_floss About page.
  3. ^ See mental_floss Volume 5, issue 6, page 8.
  4. ^ [1] mental_floss magazine website
  5. ^ See mental_floss volume 4, issue 3.

[edit] External links