Guinnessport: Ashrita Furman

[jwg]

In the Dec 19 NewYorker there was an article by Alec Wilkinson about Ashrita Furman, the person who has the record for the most Guinness records. Furman, who is fifty-seven and the part owner of a health-food store in Queens, is the world’s leading practitioner of a pursuit that is known as Guinnessport—the undertaking of challenges designed to get a person into an edition of Guinness World Records.

He currently (or at the time of the article) holds 131 and has had 367. Making these records involved learning 70 discrete skills that he has learned - an example is slicing apples with a samurai sword.

Some examples:

- His first record: 27,000 jumping jacks in 6:45 was his first record.

- A mile on a hop ball on the Great Wall of China in 15 ins and 3 secs.

- Jumped underwater on a pogo stick in the Amazon for 3:40

He failed to climb Cerro Machu Picchu on stilts - at 10,009 feet would have been the highest mountain climbed that way but he was turned away by security.

Comments

[maxauburn.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

wow

But I am pretty damn sure you mean "discrete" (individually distinct), not "discreet" (unpretentious, modest; unobtrusive, unnoticeable).*

[jwg.livejournal.com]

thanks for the proofreading :) it's now corrected.