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But He Also Wrote ...

"To the Royal Academy of Farting" (also known as "Fart Proudly"), a 1,000-word academic essay about why farts are awesome. In it, the Founding Father argues that scientific resources should be used to come up with a way to make farts smell more like perfume so that civilized people could then compare the odors coming out of their buttholes instead of shunning them. He also claims that not farting can cause disastrous consequences.

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Pulling off a convincing "'Twasn't me" face wasn't among his many talents.

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Franklin's motivation for writing the essay was not entirely scientific. In 1781, he was serving as the American ambassador in France when he decided to go to a conference at the Academy of Brussels in Belgium. There, he was confronted with dozens of academic books about scientific, political, and other "educational topics." Franklin's reaction to such a wealth of accumulated knowledge was "What a load of wank." Appalled at what he considered a bunch of pretentious assholes jerking each other off about the most trivial topics imaginable, he decided to get in on that action, but with the most obnoxious topic possible. Namely farts.

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Understandably, all the serious academics who read it reacted as if a wet ass-blast had been released directly in their faces. Franklin simply kicked his feet back and watched as people debated the 1700s equivalent of the Onion. He had already summed up his opinion about those academics at the end of the article when he said that all other scientific discussions were "scarcely worth a FART-HING." OK, he might have been drunk when he wrote it.

Dustin Koski is also the author of stuff like this and is very sorry about this. SURPRISE! Evan V. Symon can be found on Facebook, and be sure to bookshelf and vote for his new book, The End of the Line. Richie Ryan has also been known to work the wood. See his things and follow him on Twitter.

Related Reading: For more famous authors doing things you wouldn't expect, give this article a read. You'll learn that Louisa May Alcott's love for money and drugs was the fuel to her writing. And while you're being surprised about authors, you might as well learn about the erotic lesbian novel written by Dick Cheney's wife. Finish off your literary binge with some authors who were more badass than the characters they created.