Mental Floss?

I picked up a copy of the magazine called Mental Floss while flying from Houston to Seattle last week. I had not heard of this publication before.  The tag line caught my eye, "Where knowledge junkies get their fix."

That said, I found the magazine a bit infantile, fake, and pretentious. Their feature article was about how to drop the most interesting historical tidbits at cocktail parties. Yuck.

I don't know, if you want to be considered an intellectual, shouldn't your intellect go a bit deeper than three fascinating facts about X?

I did find the following sidebar interesting:

Drop the Right Name

Machiavellian: Named for Niccolo, the word means "characterized by cunning and treachery."

Draconian: Meaning "extremely or unnecessarily harsh." From the 7th century B.C.E. Athenian politician Draco, whose codification of Athens' legal system was considered too severe.

Luddite: Meaning "one who stubbornly opposes technological advancement." From Ned Ludd, a British workman who supposedly destroyed mechanical weaving equipment around 1779.

Bowdlerize: Meaning "to censor or prudishly edit." From Thomas Bowdler, who in keeping with his contemporaries excessive prudishness, published a heavily edited version of Shakespeare in 1818.

What kind of cocktail parties do Mental Floss target readers attend? I can't ever recall having conversations at a party like the ones they suggest. I guess that means I am not an intellectual. :-)

Comments

[Johnnie Moore]

I think you're right Lisa. It sounds more like what you produce WHEN you floss, rather than the floss itself :)

I rather think if you want a simple tactic for cocktail parties it is to be interestED rather than trying (in this case very lamely) to be interstING.

[Wally Bock]

Articles like that one always make me ask, "How do you know in advance which tidbits are best?" Seems like the folks who read these things and memorize the juicy tidbits suggested also spend time waitng for the opportunity to drop them, rather than participating in the conversation.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Yes, I am sure the article is meant to be somewhat educational, but the suggestion that one should memorize and then deliver obtuse zingers seems very out of place in today's transparent and intimate world of communication.

[Barry Zweibel's leadership blog]

Hi Lisa ~ Yeah, I subsribed to Mental Floss for a while - like the Utne Reader and The Onion newspaper, it offers "a whole nother" view on things. But then so does my subscription to Bark magazine and those ubiquitous Sharper Image catalogs I keep receiving!

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