Finding local ties in mag's '10 Issue'

 

I though spring was Mister Rogers Time in the magazines I read after first seeing the image of Seth MacFarlane in his own Neighborhood of Make-Believe in Details and then, in the May-June mental_floss — the magazine’s "The 10 Issue’ — a reader named Michael Geier sent in his "best photo taken with a celebrity": Mister Rogers.

 

But this issue of mental_floss has more of a regional flavor than just Fred Rogers.

 

* A brief profile of "The Legendary Soundman Behind Hollywood’s Most Famous Noises," Ben Burtt, who studied physics at Allegheny College before creating the "voices" of R2D2, Chewbacca and WALL-E — as well as the crackling sound of Indiana Jones’ whip.

 

* The quiz "Where’d They Go to College" includes Mt. Lebanon’s Mark Cuban, "billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks." (He went to Indiana University, Bloomington.)

 

* The mag’s "World’s 10 Messiest Food Festivals" includes the West Virginia Roadkill Cook-Off. BBQ buzzard, anyone?

 

* In "Technologies We Stole From the Animal Kingdom," there’s Carnegie Mellon prof. Metin Sitti using the basilisk lizard — also called the Jesus Christ Lizard because it appears to walk on water — as inspiration for a robot to perform the same trick.

 

* And what’s a list without an Andy Warhol reference?: metal_floss’ "10 Most Important Kisses in the Universe" included Warhol’s film series of his pals kissing in four-minute increments. Titled "Kiss," it "took the art world by storm" and became a kiss-by-kiss weekly series at New York’s Gramercy Arts Theater.

 

That’s not quite 10, but I bet it us in the top 10 of regions mentioned in the issue.