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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you missed in history class from dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy Well, I'm Holly Frying.

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Speaker 1: You pay attention to our Facebook or our Twitter. You

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Speaker 1: may have noticed a goofy picture. It was a very

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Speaker 1: goofy picture, and Holly and I put up there, uh

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Speaker 1: last winter from our office holiday party, in which Polly

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Speaker 1: is like Googley exclaiming over my engagement ring. I like,

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Speaker 1: how silly. I like how you think I was purposely

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Speaker 1: being goofy when in fact I was being delighted and genuine. Okay, good, Well,

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Speaker 1: I felt I felt goofy because we were taking this

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Speaker 1: picture in front of a in front of a Christmas tree,

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Speaker 1: and like you had actually already seen my ring and

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Speaker 1: we were it was all. The whole setup was kind

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Speaker 1: but anyways, a little stage, but my reaction remained genuine.

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Speaker 1: I feel okay, okay good. Um So, people basically immediately

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Speaker 1: started asking whether we would do some wedding episodes. Not

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Speaker 1: as a please, they keep that away from me, but hey,

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Speaker 1: you should do this. Uh So here we go. Here's

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Speaker 1: our first episode that pertains in some way to to

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Speaker 1: my wedding, and it's not about flowers or diamonds, or

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Speaker 1: cake or Queen Victoria, which are all things that people suggested.

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Speaker 1: It is about dancing. Specifically, it is about Lyndi hop

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Speaker 1: and the most famous of all the Lindie Hoppers, who

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Speaker 1: was Frankie Manning. Uh frank Benjamin Manning was born in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Speaker 1: On His parents were Jerry and Lucille Hadley Manning, and

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Speaker 1: his only sibling was an older sister who died when

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Speaker 1: Frankie was only two. The family lived in the segregated

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Speaker 1: neighborhood of Campbell Hill until he was three, at which

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Speaker 1: point his mother left his father and they moved to

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Speaker 1: New York. A whole series of his childhood experiences directly

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Speaker 1: influenced his later work and dance. When they moved to

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Speaker 1: New York, he and his mother made the trip by boat,

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Speaker 1: and Frankie was just fascinated with the motion of the

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Speaker 1: waves as they rolled over one another, and he said

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Speaker 1: he wanted to figure out what kind of game they

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Speaker 1: were playing. His earliest musical memories were in Aiken, South Carolina,

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Speaker 1: where his father moved. After Frankie and his mother had

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Speaker 1: gone to New York. Frankie would spend some time on

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Speaker 1: his uncle's farm. There in the summers and in the evenings,

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Speaker 1: once all of the work was done, the family would

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Speaker 1: sit on the porch and friends and farm hands would

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Speaker 1: play harmonica and washtub bass and other instruments while other

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Speaker 1: people danced. And when he was young, Frankie really had

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Speaker 1: to be kind of encouraged to get out there and

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Speaker 1: and dance. But as soon as his grandmother got him

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Speaker 1: into the circle with the other dancers, that was a

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Speaker 1: done deal. He did not want to stop. Front Yard

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Speaker 1: and church music continue to be a really big part

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Speaker 1: of his summer life until he was about ten years old,

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Speaker 1: and at that point his father moved to New York

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Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, once his father was in New York,

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Speaker 1: there wasn't nearly as much of an impetus for him

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Speaker 1: to go visit South Carolina anymore. Uh. But you know,

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Speaker 1: during the school year, Frankie was an extremely good student,

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Speaker 1: and since his mother worked, after he got out of

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Speaker 1: school every day, a friend of hers would let him

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Speaker 1: fit in a vaudeville theater that was across the street

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Speaker 1: from his school. He sat in the back and he

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Speaker 1: did his homework, but he also watched the films and

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Speaker 1: the comedy and dance performances that went on in the

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Speaker 1: theater every afternoon for pretty much all of his school years.

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Speaker 1: That sounds sort of dreamy, I have to say. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Frankie Manning style of dance was really quite physically demanding,

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Speaker 1: so it's no surprise that he was also pretty athletic.

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Speaker 1: When he was a kid, he and the neighborhood children

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Speaker 1: would play stickball and race around, and they also climbed

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Speaker 1: all around construction sites and roofs, and they would leap

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Speaker 1: back and forth along the building's basement doors and their stoops,

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Speaker 1: and he was extremely versatile. He participated in a lot

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Speaker 1: of different sports all the way through both junior high

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Speaker 1: and high school. His mother really loved to dance, and

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Speaker 1: starting when he was about eight years old, she would

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Speaker 1: take him with her to social dances, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of these dances were at rent parties. These were parties

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Speaker 1: where people would charge a quarter or so for people

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Speaker 1: to be admitted, and this would help them raise the

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Speaker 1: money to pay the rent. So at rent parties, people

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Speaker 1: eight drank and danced, usually accompanied by somebody playing the piano.

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Speaker 1: At first, Frankie's mother would leave him in a bedroom

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Speaker 1: to just sleep while she was at the party, but

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Speaker 1: usually he would instead get up and watch the grown

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Speaker 1: ups through the door. And although he wasn't quite at

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Speaker 1: the point where he was really interested in dancing himself, uh,

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Speaker 1: these early experiences really affected how he thought about dance.

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Speaker 1: These people were clearly having a great time in great company,

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Speaker 1: and different dance styles came out for different moods and

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Speaker 1: different styles of music, and when someone was really good,

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Speaker 1: the rest of the crowd would just sort of clear

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Speaker 1: the space and watch so that that person could really

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Speaker 1: just show off and let loose. A couple of years later,

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Speaker 1: once he was old enough to spend a little more

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Speaker 1: time with the grown ups instead of in a room

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Speaker 1: where people were leaving their coats, Frankie really started to

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Speaker 1: pay attention to how people moved and what steps they did,

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Speaker 1: and he started trying to remember how these dances worked

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Speaker 1: with the rhythms of the music. So by the time

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Speaker 1: he was about ten, he was practicing steps at home.

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Speaker 1: In October of n Frankie was twelve years old. At

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Speaker 1: this time, his mother was going to help decorate a

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Speaker 1: Halloween dance, and she told them that if he helped

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Speaker 1: to he could go to the dance with her, and

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Speaker 1: he was a wildly excited about this. In his own recounting,

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Speaker 1: he was the youngest person on the dance floor that night,

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Speaker 1: but when he finally danced with his mother, she told him, Frankie,

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Speaker 1: you'll never be a dancer. You're too stiff. And his

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Speaker 1: own words, after my mother told me I was too

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Speaker 1: stiff to be a dancer, I felt pretty sad. I

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Speaker 1: honestly thought that I was dancing like everybody else at

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Speaker 1: the Renaissance ballroom that night. I was really dragging on

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Speaker 1: the way back home. But the next day what she

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Speaker 1: said kind of lit me up. That comment from his

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Speaker 1: mother is when he really got seriously interested in dancing.

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Speaker 1: He started practicing at home to the couple of records

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Speaker 1: that he owned, and doing anything he could do he

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Speaker 1: could think of to keep his body from being stiff

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Speaker 1: and straight. When his mother walked in on him dancing

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Speaker 1: with a broom or a chair as his partner, he

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Speaker 1: would tell her that he was quote trying to get unstiff.

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Speaker 1: He also kept watching dancers as much as he could,

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Speaker 1: both at ballrooms and private parties, and he noticed the

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Speaker 1: differences at how people danced in these different environments. Ballroom

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Speaker 1: dances were social events, and everyone danced there in a

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Speaker 1: more formal way, with kind of an upright posture, usually

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Speaker 1: wearing their Sunday best. Private parties, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: were a lot looser and freer and wilder, and for

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Speaker 1: the most part, the exact same people were dancing in

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Speaker 1: both places, although to look at them in either setting

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Speaker 1: you would not so much expect that. And he also

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Speaker 1: practiced in the basement with his friend, Herman Jackson, and

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Speaker 1: they would trade off who was leading and who was

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Speaker 1: following because they didn't have a girl to practice with.

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Speaker 1: And when Frankie was thirteen, the two of them skipped

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Speaker 1: out on their Baptist Young People's Union events to instead

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Speaker 1: go to a dance for young people at the Alhambra Theater.

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Speaker 1: The dance, which was for kids age twelve to fifteen,

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Speaker 1: had a big band playing and it cost a nickel

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Speaker 1: to get in. They had a really good time. They

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Speaker 1: did not dance with anybody uh. They did, however, decide

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Speaker 1: to go back, and they went for the next four

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Speaker 1: weeks before Frankie finally asked someone to dance with him,

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Speaker 1: and he was hoping to show off the swing moves

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Speaker 1: that he had been practicing at home. However, as soon

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Speaker 1: as he asked someone to dance, the band struck up

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Speaker 1: a waltz, and he didn't know how to waltz, so

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Speaker 1: he basically uh imitated what the male partner was doing

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Speaker 1: in a dancing couple nearby, and kind of watched that

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Speaker 1: guy the whole time and imitated what he was doing

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Speaker 1: without looking at his partner at all. It was kind

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Speaker 1: of a disaster. For several months after that, Frankie and

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Speaker 1: Herman brought their own partner to the social dances. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This was a neighbor named Virginia, and they brought her

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Speaker 1: until they were confident enough to start asking other people again,

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Speaker 1: and they went to these dances every week with very

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Speaker 1: few interruptions. Once after Frankie's mother heard him mention a

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Speaker 1: dance and she at that point found out that he

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Speaker 1: had not been going to the b YPU meetings anymore.

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Speaker 1: He actually got grounded for a week. After a while,

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Speaker 1: Frankie and Herman started attending the Alhambra Theaters dances for

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Speaker 1: adults and also dances for older teams at the Renaissance

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Speaker 1: ball Room, because these were for people who were a

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Speaker 1: little older than the ones for the younger teenagers. That

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Speaker 1: they had been attending before. The dancers that they were

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Speaker 1: seeing and dancing with were better, which meant that consequently

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Speaker 1: Frankie and herman themselves got better too. And it was

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Speaker 1: actually at the Renaissance that Frankie first saw people doing

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Speaker 1: the Lindy hop. And we're going to talk a lot

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Speaker 1: about that, but first we are going to have a

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Speaker 1: quick word from a sponsor before we continue with Frankie's story,

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Speaker 1: we need to talk a little bit about what lindy

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Speaker 1: hop actually is. Along with swing, the Charleston and the

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Speaker 1: Jitterbug and many many other dances, Lindy hop is a

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Speaker 1: dance that falls into the umbrella of African American vernacular dance.

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Speaker 1: These are dances that have African roots and have been

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Speaker 1: created and popularized in social settings during the time period.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about. These settings where juke joints, ballrooms, and

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Speaker 1: the rent parties that Frankie's mother would take him to.

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Speaker 1: There's often some level of competition inherent in invernacular dances

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Speaker 1: in the form of dance contests and dance offs. African

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Speaker 1: American vernacular dances have been passed down from one generation

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Speaker 1: to the next within Black communities. Morphing and kind of

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Speaker 1: evolving along the way, and many of them are quite

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Speaker 1: highly improvisational. Linda Hop itself actually evolved from the Charleston Uh,

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Speaker 1: the collegiate, and the breakaway kind of combining. It reportedly

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Speaker 1: got its name when a reporter asked a dancer what

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Speaker 1: dance he was doing, shortly after Charles Lindbergh's famous flight

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Speaker 1: across the Atlantic. Social dances have played a huge role

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Speaker 1: in community building and creative expression in African American communities

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Speaker 1: for more than a century. So Lindy Hop and other

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Speaker 1: vernacular dances created in popularized during the Swing Era were

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Speaker 1: a really important part of the social fabric and black

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Speaker 1: and black communities from the nine twenties all the way

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Speaker 1: through the end of World War Two. This is especially

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Speaker 1: true during the Great Depression, when people didn't have much

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Speaker 1: money and social dancing was both an inexpensive form of

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Speaker 1: entertainment and a much needed social outlet. Frankie Manning learned

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Speaker 1: the Lindy Hop exactly the same way he had learned

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Speaker 1: other dances, by watching other dancers and dancing with them,

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Speaker 1: and it was with the Lindy Hop that he really

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Speaker 1: started to improvise steps of his own. He was dancing

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Speaker 1: as often as he could. At the same time, he

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Speaker 1: was also finishing school, and he was playing on multiple

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Speaker 1: team sports at school, and he was actually working multiple

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Speaker 1: jobs to try to keep himself and his mother afloat,

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Speaker 1: And he finally dropped out of school in the twelfth

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Speaker 1: grade in part because the teachers, who were all white,

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Speaker 1: we're encouraging the black students not to go to college. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were in being encouraged to basically take up laboring

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Speaker 1: jobs instead. The popularity of Lindy Hop was spreading by

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Speaker 1: and Frankie's friends, who knew how much he liked the

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Speaker 1: dance and thought he was pretty good at it, encouraged

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Speaker 1: him to enter a contest at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem.

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Speaker 1: When it was their group's turn, they started doing their

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Speaker 1: regular social dancing like they've been doing, and it did

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Speaker 1: not go very well. The audience booed them, and a

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Speaker 1: comedian whose job it was to make fun of dancers

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Speaker 1: who did poorly, did exactly that and then hauled them

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Speaker 1: and Frankie's early dancing career. But the good news is

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Speaker 1: that Frankie Manning did not give up and maybe a

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Speaker 1: year later, on New Year's Eve, he and his girlfriend

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Speaker 1: started doing the Charleston at a dance, and at that

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Speaker 1: point they were so good that people started throwing money

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Speaker 1: and apparently amused by the sight of one of them

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Speaker 1: scrambling to pick up this money that had been thrown

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Speaker 1: uh the onlookers through more money, and Frankie called this

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Speaker 1: his first big payday as a dancer. He was about

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Speaker 1: fifteen years old at the time. About a year after

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Speaker 1: Frankie Manning left high school, he was playing a pickup

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Speaker 1: basketball game with Herbert Roper, and Herbert scored and then

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Speaker 1: did this version of a Lyndy step that Frankie had

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Speaker 1: never seen before as kind of a celebratory move. Frankie

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Speaker 1: asked Herbert where he had learned to dance like that,

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Speaker 1: and Herbert said at the Savoy. Harlem's Savoy Ballroom had

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Speaker 1: opened on March twelfth of nine and it was owned

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Speaker 1: by Mogaile, who was white, and managed by Charles Buchanan,

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Speaker 1: who was black, and it was one of the first

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Speaker 1: Racheli integrated social spaces in the United States. It was

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Speaker 1: a beautiful ballroom with two bandstands in an immense spring

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Speaker 1: loaded wooden dance floor, and it made a name for

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Speaker 1: itself as being home to the best music and the

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Speaker 1: best dancers. Many of the dances that later became really

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Speaker 1: popular were developed at the Savoy, and the Lyndy Hot

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Speaker 1: became really the signature dance that was danced there. For

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Speaker 1: many years, the best, wildest, and most inventive Lindy Hot

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Speaker 1: dancers usually got together and danced in what was known

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Speaker 1: as Cat's Corner, on the north end of the hall

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Speaker 1: and near the bandstand. The Savoy was also a performing

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Speaker 1: venue for some of the biggest names of the era,

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Speaker 1: including Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. I could just rattle

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Speaker 1: off names of people who performed there forever. If you

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Speaker 1: can think of a big jazz person who was performing

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Speaker 1: during that time, or a big band performing that time,

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Speaker 1: probably they performed at the Savoy ball Room. Frankie's first

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Speaker 1: trip to the Savoy was when he was about nineteen,

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Speaker 1: and he went with a group as moral support because

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Speaker 1: they were concerned that they wouldn't be good enough to

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Speaker 1: fit in, and since he still knew a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who were dancing at the Renaissance. He spent his

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Speaker 1: dancing time between the two ball rooms for a while,

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Speaker 1: but within a year he had really shifted to doing

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Speaker 1: most of his dancing at the Savoy. Herbert White, known

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Speaker 1: as Whitey, started a dance troup at the Savoy, and

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Speaker 1: at first it was just called the Savoy Lindy Hoppers,

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Speaker 1: but it eventually became known as white EA's Lindy Hoppers

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Speaker 1: around four so when Frankie was about twenty, White he

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Speaker 1: asked him if he wanted to join the Troope. This

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Speaker 1: meant that Frankie would be able to get into the

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Speaker 1: Savoy for free, he could practice when the ballroom was

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Speaker 1: technically closed, and he would get to dance with the

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Speaker 1: best dancers all the time. So instead of just watching

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Speaker 1: people dance and trying to pick up their steps, he

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Speaker 1: could just ask them to teach him. And he actually

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Speaker 1: learned that he could have done that the whole time.

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Speaker 1: He did not need to have like an official endorsement

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Speaker 1: to ask somebody, hey, how did you do that step

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Speaker 1: whom It's one of those wonderful things. I think lots

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Speaker 1: of people, uh, lots of us do things exactly like that,

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Speaker 1: Like we assume there's some social rule that there isn't,

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Speaker 1: and we could have been helping ourselves a lot the

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Speaker 1: whole time. It's easy to identify with that. UH. As

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Speaker 1: a side note before we jump into a sponsor break,

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Speaker 1: there's an interesting point in that. UH. Some writing about

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Speaker 1: the Lindy Hop kind of suggests that dancers had almost

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Speaker 1: proprietary steps that were there's and that other dancers would

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Speaker 1: not do, and there was sort of a code of

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Speaker 1: honor around that. But in his autobiography, Frankie flatly rejects

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Speaker 1: this idea and says that people learned from one another,

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Speaker 1: they shared steps all the time, they copied each other's

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Speaker 1: work like it was a lot more collaborative and crossover

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Speaker 1: e than some writing would indicate. So to get back

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Speaker 1: to Frankie's story, about six months after joining the troop,

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Speaker 1: he really started to develop his own style of Lindi Hop.

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Speaker 1: He lowered his center of gravity way way down towards

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Speaker 1: the ground, and he started just making these big, long,

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Speaker 1: reaching movements with his legs and arms. It's a style

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Speaker 1: that he described as trying to get as far as

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Speaker 1: poss bawl from his mother's observation that he was too stiff,

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Speaker 1: and he was also really trying to interpret the music

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Speaker 1: with his body, not just to do the steps of

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Speaker 1: a dance to time with the music. Well. In nine four,

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Speaker 1: Frankie and his partner Hilda Morris actually entered a Lindy

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Speaker 1: contest at the Apollo Theater and they won. Their prize

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Speaker 1: was to appear in the review that was opening there

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Speaker 1: and that ran four shows a day for a week,

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Speaker 1: and they did that, and the musician that was performing

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Speaker 1: that week was Duke Ellington and they were also paid

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Speaker 1: for this work. So this was pretty big stuff, uh.

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Speaker 1: And soon after this Frankie and Hilda started to tour

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Speaker 1: his dancers. A little later on, Whitey arranged a dance

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Speaker 1: competition between his dance troupe and another troupe headed by

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Speaker 1: Shorty Snowdon So. Shorty's troop had started at the Savoy

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Speaker 1: and they had been performing elsewhere professionally for a while.

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Speaker 1: They were quite good. They were seasoned professional dance troupe,

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Speaker 1: but some people felt like maybe they had gotten a

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Speaker 1: little bit complacent and they're dancing. Frankie Manning started working

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Speaker 1: out one of his most famous moves for this contest.

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Speaker 1: One of Shorty's couples did a comedic bit at the

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Speaker 1: end of their routine in which the very tall female

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Speaker 1: partner carried the male partner off the floor. Frankie also

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Speaker 1: wanted to take his dance into the air, and his

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Speaker 1: partner for the contest was free to Washington, and he

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Speaker 1: wanted her to go over his head in a kind

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Speaker 1: of backward somersault and then land in front of him.

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Speaker 1: And so they wouldn't give this move away. They actually

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Speaker 1: practiced it at home on a mattress for safety, and

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Speaker 1: he called this the over the back. So when they

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Speaker 1: did this in the contest, which was kind of build

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Speaker 1: as the like fiery young upstarts against the established professional troope,

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Speaker 1: it went over amazingly. People could not believe what they

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Speaker 1: had just seen. And today aerials are a really big

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Speaker 1: part of the Lindy hop scene, especially among the most

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Speaker 1: experienced dancers and the people who dance competitively. Frankie at

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Speaker 1: the time, though, called it an air step because he

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Speaker 1: wanted to distinguish it from lifts that are common in

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Speaker 1: ballroom dancing. After this success at this contest, Frankie started

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Speaker 1: looking for more and more air steps, and this was

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Speaker 1: one of his most recognizable and famous innovations in the

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Speaker 1: world of Linda Hop. And this is really where Frankie

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Speaker 1: kind of moves into having a professional career as a dancer.

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Speaker 1: But we're gonna not talk about that today because we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about it next time. You get a two

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Speaker 1: parter on Frankie Manning. I'm so excited. I love it.

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Speaker 1: I love talking about dance. We get a lot of

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Speaker 1: requests from people to talk about dance. Yeah, lots of

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Speaker 1: people love it, myself included. Uh, do you have a

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Speaker 1: little bit of listener mail? I do, And this is

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Speaker 1: a listener mail from Elizabeth who is writing about our

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Speaker 1: episode about special education. And Elizabeth says, Hi, ladies, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to write to you about my journey through the

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Speaker 1: educational system and being an RSP student. I have mild

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Speaker 1: dyslexia and discalculia, which is essentially dyslexia with numbers, along

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Speaker 1: with some other mild information processing challenges. I must also

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Speaker 1: say that my mother is a retired special education teacher

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Speaker 1: and she greatly shaped my progress through school. My mother

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Speaker 1: knew I was dyslexic from a young age and worked

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Speaker 1: rigorously with me outside of school all through elementary and

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Speaker 1: junior high school. She feared the prejudices of educators and

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Speaker 1: therefore did not have me tested for US for special

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Speaker 1: Education until high school. At that time, I was granted

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Speaker 1: an I e P which included accommodations such as using

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Speaker 1: a computer to write in class essays and a simple

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Speaker 1: calculator on math exams for basic computation. My mom knew

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Speaker 1: that I, like many students who fall into the mild

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Speaker 1: slash moderate special education category, are quote lumpy learners her term.

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Speaker 1: As far as I knew. With my accommodations, I was

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Speaker 1: able to progress in English to Honors English my junior

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Speaker 1: year of high school and Advanced Placement English my senior

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Speaker 1: year of high school. This is because using the computer

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Speaker 1: allowed me to communicate my thoughts and ideas to my

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Speaker 1: teachers without the distractions of bad handwriting and spelling. I

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Speaker 1: did go on to college where I earned my bachelor's

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Speaker 1: degree in psychology, philosophy and theology. Currently I am an

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Speaker 1: internship and thesis away from my Masters of Science and

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Speaker 1: Educational Counseling with a three point seven to g p A.

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Speaker 1: As a side note, one of my best friends from

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Speaker 1: high school, who was an RSP with me, just finished

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Speaker 1: her master's degree in journalism from a university in London.

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Speaker 1: I have done advocacy for special education students on and

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Speaker 1: off ever since I was diagnosed, because I passionately believe

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Speaker 1: that just because our brains function differently than someone else's

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Speaker 1: does not mean that we are stupid. We can achieve

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Speaker 1: great things in life, both personally and professionally, if we

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Speaker 1: are given the accurate tools to do so. I apologize

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Speaker 1: for the link this. I tried to keep it discinct.

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Speaker 1: I could certainly say more, but anyhow, thank you for

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Speaker 1: bringing to light a topic that can be easily overlooked.

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Speaker 1: And she says, keep up the excellent work, Liz, I

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Speaker 1: said Elizabeth at the top of the letter, but she

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Speaker 1: signed it Liz, Uh, thank you so much. Liz. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to read this for two reasons. One is that

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Speaker 1: it's always awesome to hear from people who have been

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Speaker 1: directly affected by the things that we talk about UM.

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Speaker 1: And the other is that my aunt, who I mentioned

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Speaker 1: at the top of the episode about special education, who

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Speaker 1: was a special education teacher for most of her career,

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Speaker 1: UM dyslexia runs really prominently and a lot of my

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Speaker 1: family and her sons have dyslexia. She actually thinks she

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Speaker 1: probably has dyslexia as well, and was never diagnosed because

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Speaker 1: when she was because of when she was growing up,

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Speaker 1: So that's one of the reasons that led her to

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Speaker 1: be a special education teacher. If you would like to

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Speaker 1: write to us, you can. We're a history podcast at

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00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:44,840
Speaker 1: how stefpworks dot com. We're also on Facebook at facebook

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Speaker 1: dot com slash miss in history and on Twitter at

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Speaker 1: shirts and phone cases and similar things at our spread

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Speaker 1: shirts store, which is in history dot spreadshirt dot com.

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00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:07,280
Speaker 1: talked about today, come to our parent company's website. Put

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Speaker 1: the words Harlem Renaissance uh in the search bar and

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Speaker 1: you will find some articles about the Harlem Renaissance. And

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Speaker 1: that's at stuff works dot com. You can also come

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00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,879
Speaker 1: to our website, which is missed in History dot com,

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Speaker 1: and you will find lots of information about the episodes

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Speaker 1: that we've put out there, show notes for all of them.

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00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 1: We've got archive of every single episode I've ever done,

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Speaker 1: lots of cool stuff. You can do all that and

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Speaker 1: a whole lot more at how stuff works dot Com

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