Page 11 - Palm City Spotlight - April '23

Palm City Spotlight, Page 11

book reView

Stuff You Should Know: An Here, for example, are just a few of the topics

Incomplete Compendium Of discussed in these pages, accompanied by two-color
drawings, charts and graphs:
Mostly Interesting Things • The History of Facial Hair: The Long and Short of It
• Mr. Potato Head: America’s Toy
By Nils A. Shapiro • Murphy Beds: The Bed That Tucks Itself In
The first thing you need • The History of Income Tax: Honest Abe’s Other
to know is that I am not Legacy
a podcast person. In fact, • Trillionaires: Are They Possible and Who Will It Be?
I have never listened to a • The Scotland Yard Crime Museum: Nothing to See
podcast, nor do I even know Here
how to tune into one. I much • The First Gun(s): The Legacy of an Alchemical
prefer to get my information Accident
about the world from books • Dog Smells: Canine Scents and Sense Ability
– hence my preference for • Keeping Up with the Joneses: The Unwinnable
works of nonfiction – and as Human Race
for current events (as much • Aging: Do We Gotta?
of it as I can bear), they are The following brief excerpt from the opening
well covered by television of another of the essays – Trichotillomania and the
news. BFRBS: The Tics That Have Psychologists Scratching
So when the front Their Heads – will give you a good idea of the authors’
cover of this month’s book style (or, rather, that of Nils Parker, who is credited as
selection listed the names of the ghost writer who worked with the authors on the
its authors, Josh Clark and final manuscript).
Chuck Bryant, who have “….Not all tics are created equal. Some are
been the cohosts of a very (innocuous: toe tapping, excessive blinking, hair
popular podcast since 2008 twirling, nose scrunching. Some, like knuckle cracking,
with the same title – Stuff grunting, or sniffing, can be mildly annoying to those
You Should Know – their within earshot. And yet others, like knee bouncing, are
names didn’t ring a bell with extremely annoying to the entire world, without exception, biting), dermatillomania (skin picking), rhinotillexomania
me at all. and must be stopped forthwith and posthaste under every (nose picking), trichophagia (hair eating), and what appears
But the catchy title and subtitle did the trick. I was hooked. circumstance. to be the queen of them all, trichotillomania, or hair pulling.
And that turned out to be a fortuitous discovery. “But there is another group of repetitive behaviors that “Trichotillomania, or TTM, or “trich” as it is sometimes
For this is a collection of 27 illustrated essays averaging transcends this petty spectrum of annoyance and instead called within the community, causes people to pluck their own
about 10 pages, each devoted to a subject having little or no directs their worst onto the very people who engage in them. hair, often one at a time, often in a methodical or ritualistic
relationship to any of the others except that they are all kind Collectively they’re called body-focused repetitive behaviors, way. It’s a unique disorder with power over its victims that
of offbeat, interesting and informative in a “weird” sort of or BFRBs to those who are pressed for time, and they can is hard to convey in normal terms. So we’ll try to do it in
way, and are treated in a writing style that apparently matches produce actual physical and emotional damage, not in abnormal terms instead…”
the playful sense of humor approach their large audience has bystanders and observers, but in the people who suffer from If I can be accused of having an excessive habit, it might
come to expect from Clark’s and Bryant’s podcasts. Indeed, as them. Individually they all have names you might hear in well be that of a bibliophile. If you share that with me, Stuff
stated in the book’s introduction, a number of these entries were the quarterfinal round of a spelling bee: enychophagia (nail You Should Know would be a good choice as the next way
originally the subject of past podcasts. biting), onychotillomania (nail picking), dermatophagia (skin for you to exercise that trait.

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