Connections - Non-fiction

In response to a prompt on Theme Thursday. This week's theme:

CONNECTIONS

I just completed reading “The Know-It-All” by A.J. Jacobs, his account of his time spent reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z. That sounds duller than tarnished brass, but it is an interesting and amusing read. Jacobs lists oddball facts about things he’s read. Throughout, he sprinkles anecdotes about his childhood and current situation, including his hilarious insights on life gleaned from the 65,000 Britannica entries and many failed attempts at proving to himself & others that he has become smarter during his 33-volume journey. 

Shaw posing as The Thinker for
photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn

During an interview with the host of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek told him, “I’m curious about everything ---even things that don’t interest me.” Wow! I think. Alex and I are kindred spirits.

Once Jacobs completed his quest, one of his conclusions was that “everything is connected.” 

I’m sure that is obvious to many, yet the way we are taught history in Social Studies class, biology in Science class, one has a tendency to compartmentalize knowledge and fail to see how everything is indeed linked.

However, when I studied art in college, I needed to know chemistry and geology to develop ceramic glazes and I used geometry to calculate materials needed for art projects. I noticed connections between the creative insights of artists, writers, musicians, and scientists. 

Six degrees of separation has never seemed like an off-the-wall concept to me.  Many times I discover that there are only one or two degrees of separation.

Twain posing in the cap and gown he
received when awarded an honorary
degree from Oxford. The photo was
taken at Stormfield, Twain's Redding CT
home. Coburn's autochromes were among
the first colored photos.

I especially notice such connections in my reading. During the time I read “The Know It All” I also listened to the audio version of “Mark Twain, Man in White,” covering Twain’s final four years.  On two occasions, on the same day, I read entries that touched on the same incident or person in both books.

In the Twain book, the author touched on the famous trial of Harry Thaw who killed Stanford White in 1906.  Twain was on the list of potential jurors, but was excused because he was acquainted with several people involved in the case, including one lawyer.  When the author mentioned that Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity, I wondered if that were the first instance of that plea being a successful legal strategy.  Later that day I read that Jacob’s wife had been quizzing him on his knowledge and asked who was the first person to successfully use an insanity plea.  Jacobs guessed Thaw.  He was wrong.  But there was Thaw and the Stanford White murder trial, twice in one day.

A few days later, Jacob mentioned a Britannica entry about George Bernard Shaw's nude photograph taken in England by art photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn. The same day, when listening to the Twain book, I learned that Coburn had arrived, unannounced, at Twain’s home to request that the author pose for him, albeit fully clothed. Shaw's naked photo was mentioned there, too. Other odd connections were that Shaw and Twain were friends and that Coburn’s middle name, Langdon, was Twain’s wife’s maiden name.

There is one final obscure connection between A.J. Jacobs and my own father. One of my father's pleasures was grabbing any volume of our home Collier's encyclopedia, opening it to a random page and reading. I believe he thought of it as the college education he never had the opportunity to pursue. 

I hear TV detectives repeatedly say they don’t believe in coincidences, but they happen to me all the time. Or, perhaps, I just pay attention when I notice links between two seemingly unrelated events.

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“Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.” -Sargent Shriver