Limelight Believe it or not! By Lubna Abdel-Aziz We are all curious creatures, believe it or not! "Curious" is a good word. It describes several of our attributes -- our interest and thirst for knowledge, our singularity, peculiarity, or unconventionality. It also describes an 'eavesdropper' and a 'gossip', a 'peeping Tom' or a 'Paul Pry'. We are inflicted by curiosity early on in various degrees and in different fields. Some of us are content with being 'peeping Toms', looking through keyholes, behind curtains, windows and doors. Others have an insatiable intellectual and cultural curiosity, as vigorous as it is intense -- enhancing, enriching and brightening our lives. One such curious creature was born in 1893 on Christmas Day, in Santa Rosa, California. His name was Robert Leroy Ripley and he made of his curiosity a fulfilling career, which continues long after his death. He was born not without some talent. He sold his first drawing to Life magazine when he was only 14. His dreams of being a baseball pitcher were shattered after he broke his arm on his first game as a professional. So he concentrated on a career as a sports cartoonist. He created his first collection of facts and feats based on the unusual athletic achievements published under the title Champs and Chumps, later changed to Believe it or Not, in 1918, creating a great following. Ripley knew he was here to do more. His restlessness sent him off to travel across Europe, then Central and South America. He wrote back home regularly about what he saw in a syndicated feature. In 1925 he visited Asia-Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines, but was particularly moved by China and the Chinese. China fascinated Ripley -- the food, the music, the culture, the customs. He regularly dressed in traditional Chinese costume at home and presided over elaborate feasts of a dozen courses. He would describe in precise culinary details the ingredients of every course. He often signed his name "Rip Li". He seemed to thrive on the strange, the unusual, the irregular and inadvertently discovered that we all do. He dedicated his life to seeking the extraordinary and writing about it in his popular column Ripley's "Believe it or Not". With a singleness of purpose, he was determined to seek and discover the eccentric and exceptional and reveal it to the world. This unfaltering consecration was his greatest gift. He achieved greatness not because of his talent or intellect, but because of his complete dedication to a single objective. He became a celebrated figure, received many honorary titles, and was the first cartoonist to become a millionaire. "Believe it or Not" became a popular expression in everyday speech. Across the United States, people filled halls, school auditoriums and vaudeville theatres to hear his lectures and see his films. The 1930s and 1940s were called the "Golden Age of Ripley". With TV he would introduce his wonders to the world. His cartoons were syndicated in 300 newspapers and translated in 17 languages, from Saudi Arabia to New Zealand. Ripley himself was a curiosity. He collected cars but he never learnt to drive. He collected boats but was afraid of the water. He dressed in bright colourful patterns, unheard of in his time. He remained a child at heart, full of wonderment at this world of ours, and left us a legacy that may surpass those of many a genius. A man consumed by his curiosity, he has lighted in millions the desire to inquire and learn. He has also introduced us to nature's lusus naturae, the universe's rara avis, the unconventional, the miraculous, the singular, the original, as well as the other curiosity, the grotesque, the monstrous, the bizarre and the aberrant. Considered the world's most eccentric biographer, he introduced us to characters that remain quaint and queer, inconsistent and unforgettable. There was "The Painless Wonder" who was able to hammer 15-centimetre nails into his nose and weave hat pins into his body without feeling any pain. The dog Bosco, a Labrador retriever, was elected mayor of Sunol, California, after receiving more votes than his human challengers. And have you heard of the Wolffia plant that produces the smallest flower in the world? A bouquet of a dozen can fit on the head of a pin, and I bet you did not know that a snail has 1,500 microscopic teeth! In Niderrau, Germany, the Wolf brothers Franz, Willie, Alois and Otto celebrated their golden anniversaries on the same day! 'Ripley's' one of the longest running comic panels in history, it continues to fascinate readers with unbelievable facts from around the world, everyday. It started 80 years ago and continued long after his death in 1949, in hundreds of newspapers, feature films, biographies, colouring books, games and television series. Today 'Ripley's' is stronger than ever due to continuous media exposure in motion pictures, live-action specials and increased newspaper syndication. Crews of writers, cartoonists, producers and authors, travel far and wide to collect more amazing facts and feats from around the world. The governor of Shansi, Lui Ch'ung in China, in 995 AD was born with two pupils in each eye. And did you know that Thoroughbred horses are so inbred that every single animal can be traced back father-to-father to one of three stallions from the 18th century! On a plain normal grain of rice the Lord's prayer 'Our Father...', was written with a regular ball-point and without the use of a microscope. Believe it or Not! Several publications have been released on a number of occasions, many commemorating the centennial of his birth in 1993. The interest for reporting on amazing feats, facts and artefacts that stretch the limit of the body and the imagination continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Last week, a new encyclopaedia Eighty Years of the Bizarre has been released, containing 5,000 absolutely real oddities, facts and records, gathered in the last 80 years, put together by Edward Meyer. It is an almost perfect blend of humour, puzzles and story telling, intricately woven together, making it a must-have-item for the curious. For over three decades the adventurous Robert Ripley, the modern Marco Polo, the real-life Indiana Jones traveled around the world, exploring its mysteries, collecting the unbelievable. His own museum, called "The Most Unusual Museum in the World" is located in Key West Florida, and houses over 1500 amazing, unbelievable and bizarre, 'believe-it-or-not' oddities, of different harrying situations and of diabolical traps, of amazing human feats and bizarre stories from exotic locales. The new encyclopaedia includes such amazing facts as a hotel constructed in a cave, and a six-storey pyramid and other stories from exotic locales of diabolical traps, different harrying situations. Ripley has always refrained from bad taste. It retains a family standard making it enjoyable for grandfather and grandchild. His collections are available in over 27 museums around the world. They challenge us all to see and wonder and learn. A slave to a single idea and a determined spirit, Ripley created a genre of information that is appealing to most of us. A shy but busy, curious man, thirsty for knowledge, he has entertained and informed us for almost a century and his influence lives on and on. After all, "the whole art of teaching is nothing but the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards". When a little child sings: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are, smile and pray this child-like wonder lasts throughout his or her lifetime. Curiosity is the lifeblood of culture. May our minds always be, forever young, forever curious!
