Encyclopaedia of Tiny Facts

The name of the steamship featured prominently in Werner Herzog’s 1982 film, “Fitzcarraldo”; starring Klaus Kinski as the titular Brian “Fitzcarraldo” Fitzgerald, the film’s story revolves around a Caruso-loving Irishman in the jungles of South America who floats a steamer down a river, then engages a tribe of natives to pull the boat over a diminutive mountain; while Fitzgerald seeks rubber tree wealth, his true love is opera; a minor civil war emerged during the filming of “Fitzcarraldo”; Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski collaborated on five films; these films are more punk than Krautrock, though “Fitzcarraldo” possesses a fine, hypnotic motorik that could be compared to, if one chose, the Kraftwerk song, “Autobahn”; obviously, the Amazon river acts as a surrogate for the autobahn; Klaus Kinski, an infamous satyromaniac, chose to spend the years before his death in 1991 authoring an autobiography (“Kinski Uncut”) which detailed his appreciation of women, particularly nuns; a popular rock n’ roll myth maintains that during a 1982 concert in Des Moines, Iowa, Ozzy Osbourne, formerly of Black Sabbath, bit the head off a bat; in outtakes (not included in the theatrical or DVD version) of “My Best Fiend,” a 1999 documentary by Werner Herzog, detailing his relationship with Klaus Kinski, Herzog states that it was Kinski, not Ozzy Osbourne, who bit the head off the bat in Iowa; the Ghost Bat and the False Vampire Bat are the only species of bats known to eat other bats; between 1879 and 1883, the War of the Pacific was fought with allied Bolivia and Peru against Chile; the War of the Pacific, also known as the Saltpeter War, was fought largely over massive deposits of bat guano; in certain circles, Werner Herzog is known as a notorious fabulist; in other circles—with smaller vocabularies—Herzog is known as a big fat liar; Aida means “reward” in Arabic; I have never been to the opera, but when asked, I say that Puccini is my favorite opera composer; off the top of my head, I could not name one opera by Puccini.