Favourite Chuck fact
As I'm sure we all know, Chuck has a certain propensity for casually slipping in random facts and information about everyday life into his novels that seem to suggest that absolutely everything has a creepy, evil secret behind it. The little bits of trivia, I call "Chuck facts".
Like Fight Club's, "Did you know collagen is made from cow fat? And locals routinely urinate on the Blarney Stone?" or Invisible Monsters', "By the way, dermabrasion spills out blood like a tomato to a belt sander", or Choke's "FYI, pool filters generate enough pressure to suck out a person's intensines from their rectum". Granted, some of these fast-facts may not be true all the time (the concept of painting probably wasn't invented because some woman drew a silhouette of her boyfriend, and apparently those dots in the corner of film reels aren't called "cigarette butts"), and some of them are pretty clearly fabrications (I somehow doubt that "I need this like teeth in my asshole" is actually a saying in Russia). But nevertheless, these dementedly cynical tidbits are one of the reasons we all love Chuck, be they as dramatic as "Car companies only recall dangerous vehicles if it's cheaper than paying off the victims!" or it can be as simple as "Redheads aren't in pornos because their hair is hard to light". Because only Chuck Palahniuk would have characters randomly say things like, "There's a certain kind of lip balm that gives you cancer", or "Most ballpoint pens are made from the hair of Chinese factory workers"...okay, well, those ones I just made up, but you get the idea.
So...what's your favourite Chuck fact, real or fictional? Are there any Chuck facts you know of that aren't actually in his books, but feel like they should be? For the latter, mine is the fact that the concept of push-bar doors was invented because a jammed door handle in a theatre in Victorian England caused several hundred pre-teen children, some as young as three years old, to be trampled to death. It's called the Victoria Hall disaster; look it up, it sounds very much to me like something Chuck would mention in a book, to me at least.
"Reality is what I make of it."
—God
Cigarette burns, of course. Forgive me. Either way, they're not called that, they're just called "cue marks".
"Reality is what I make of it."
—God
Yeah, because, no one uses slang, at all, in the film industry.
I wish I'd have gotten second post in here. I would have turned it into a Chuck Norris-Style list about Palahniuk.
1) Yes, the Cigarette Burns thing is true. I have a friend who does that job and that's how he refers to it (now, whether or not it's true BECAUSE of the story, I dunno. Nevertheless...)
The pool thing was in Haunted.
4) "I need this like I need teeth in my asshole" is most certainly a Russian saying.
Now, I'm not trying to be a dick, but I've just never seen so much wrong spoken with such bravado, especially from someone who seems like a pretty legit human being. So I had to correct you. I hope we can still be friends. <3
Wikipedia says industry people only started referring to cue marks as cigarette burns after the Fight Club movie came out. Obviously it could be wrong, but...I don't know, I feel like that one particular thing was made up.
Ah, right, Haunted! Not Choke! I always get those two books mixed up! Of course I know the pool thing was in Haunted! Haunted Haunted Haunted Haunted, not Choke...sorry. I don't know why I do that but I constantly refer to those books by the other's name, I guess because I read them kind of close together and they're both single-word titles and my mind makes that weird mental connection.
And finally, "teeth in my asshole"? That's actually a Russian saying? Like, actually? I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong, obviously many Chuck facts seem impossible but are in fact true, but...wow, that's a pretty amazing saying, almost makes you wonder if the entirety of "Guts" was just built around Chuck's hearing an interesting phrase and wanting to write something about it.
"Reality is what I make of it."
—God
I don't know about russia, but I remember when my dad asked his uncle the meaning of a yiddish phrase he always used, he roughly translated it as "go shit in the ocean." So "teeth in my asshole" from the russians wouldn't really surprise me.
Or am I just making obscure connections that only make sense to me?
I do that sometimes.
my favorite is definitely the one from choke (i think) about the fake doctors and nurses they page at hospital to alert the authorities of emergency situations while keeping the public completely oblivious. no idea if its true.
conditioned to self interest with emotions locked away...if thats what they call normal then i'd rather be insane...
a good friend as well as my sister worked at a movie theater when i was in highschool - cigarette burns is a common thing to call them, but everybody calls them different shit, there are lots of names. it's like dick - see also wanker, weiner, polish sausage, etc.... there are a thousand slang terms for each and every thing under the sun. well, i thought so, until someone told me about this evil place called urbandictionary.com. now i know there are TEN thousand slang terms for everything under the sun.
Getting blood out of your bedwash (What is "Bettwäsche" actually called in English?) with Aspirin and stuff...
Since I read this book, i assume I would have made a good factotum.
I love the little factoids in Palahniuk's work. I don't care if they are true or not, I mean these are works of fiction. They cause me to look at things differently. So I actually think it would be pretty cool if those dots on the film reels weren't called cigarette burns until after the book came out. I like all of the different crazy slang terms that exist for things in different professions.
Snopes.com is always fun to read for more stuff like this. I recently found this one http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/maggots.asp about a guy who got an infestation of maggots in his brain from eating too much raw fish. *shudder*
AthenaV
www.myspace.com/athenavillaverde
Submucosal Hemotoma. Can't find it on WebMD, but I love the idea of screaming so hard you start to scream blood.
Step back. Evaluate. Recognize.
It's not Lupus.
This is why we can't have nice things.
It's NEVER Lupus... except for that one episode where it actually WAS Lupus.
They actually did one with lupus? I thought for sure they'd save that for the series finale.
Anyone ever read the short story "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel. If you really like these "Chuck Facts" I strongly suggest you check out this story. Aside from being a beautifully written, brilliant, and touching story it is well stocked with these "non-factual-facts". It really is awesome there must be over 50 of them in the 8 or 9 pages of the story. My absolute favorite of the bunch is "I remember only the useless things I hear—that Bob Dylan's mother invented Wite-Out, that twenty-three people must be in a room before there is a fifty-fifty chance two will have the same birthday." I know it is not a "Chuck Fact" but you can definitely see where Chuck gets his inspiration for his awesome "Chuck Facts" (which are seriously bad-ass in their own right)
Bleach and ammonia, even though it's mostly the other gases produced and not the chlorine that kills you.
That or bread and broken glass.
That or Messalina.
I'd say the bit about the brainwaves from Rant, but I already knew that. It made me smile to see a Chuck fact I recognized, but it didn't blow my mind or anything.
nope. he says theyre called "cigarette burns", not butts.
yeah, i do love chuck's facts. i know the word "fletching"--from IM--had me fooled for a while: i thought it was a made up word because it wasnt in any dictionary that i could find. but you can wiki the word just fine.
my fav was how to cover bullet holes in survivor, because the little dude cleaned the house and i thought, Damn, how does the character know that shit. basically, it gave me a dread impression all at once, like dude wasnt what he seemed.
but he always brings wit and humor into his books and that's what i like most.
-kabol
..
__________________________________
play hard, like it's work to be done.