Host: NOAH ADAMS
Time: 9:00-10:00 PM

NOAH ADAMS, host:

The 2002 edition of the Guinness World Records is now out. The giant book was first published back in 1955 by the Guinness Brewing Company to settle bar bets. But for years, the book has served equally well at grossing out and impressing many a 13-year-old reader. Writer Bob Parks has spent time going through the new edition. In his opinion, the new book has none of the bite of the old editions. He says we're all in danger of losing a legacy of unique facts and oddities.

BOB PARKS:

You always had to check for pictures of the McGuire twins. Benny and Billy were the world's fattest twins and always on minibikes. Some years it was from the front view, some years from the back. The Guinness Book was like a yearbook full of people who could never graduate. They just lost their records and they moved on. One year, Benny and Billy were pictured circling each other around a prize-fighting ring. Then sadly, the 1979 edition reported that Benny died on his minibike at Niagara Falls. He was just 700 pounds.

I would sneak looks at Guinness when I was supposed to be researching plant life or the Congo in junior high school. It was a way to check in with familiar faces: the five-pound lady, the man in Brooklyn who bit through chains. We all cheered when the American Sandy Allen won the title for tallest woman. In junior high, you're not quite sure how your body's gonna change next. At least you could look at this book and say, `Hey, these people are making good.'

The text itself was very serious. There was an air of academic authority and removed from everyday life. `These are facts,' said Guinness, `strange as they may be.'

That's all changed. The 2002 hardcover is climbing up The New York Times Best Sellers List out in time for Christmas. But it's full of celebrities and brand names. The emphasis is on a dozen huge, half-paged glamour shots of the world's blandest faces: Bruce Willis, Michael Jackson, Britney, Whitney, Cher. And the categories seem jiggered to include the recognizable. Why is Kournikova, ranked 73rd in the tennis world, spread across the page? Well, she's the youngest to win the Federation Cup. Whatever. Then there's Destiny's Child, who spent the most weeks atop the singles chart. Tell that to the guy who spent the afternoon on a bed of nails.

Now to be fair, there is a gnarly close-up of leprosy in the new book. This gives pause for hope. But the editorial mission is slipping. Guinness recently announced that Microsoft XP software and a pop band together won the award for fastest-produced music video. Whoo-hoo. And weren't you dying to know who has the world's biggest inflatable parade? It's Macy's. Is there a record for biggest sellout?

The old promise of Guinness was its egalitarianism. As a kid, you always had the sense that you were a hairbreadth away from breaking some record. And some guy in blue blazer, probably half in the bag, would come to your house, climb out of his Morris Minor and certify your achievement. But now there's less space for the unfamiliar. In other words, it's no longer clear that a seven-pound onion has as much pull as Britney, or that a 13-pound gallstone is on equal footing with Bruce Willis. I guess these world records are drawn from a different world.

ADAMS: Bob Parks is a writer in San Francisco.