Bunny Tutorial

At first glance I thought this child was reading to the furred crowd. Then I saw the pointing finger.

Do you think he’s giving the cottontails last-minute instructions about Easter?

[Artist unknown.]

BOOKreMARKS: Camels in Cars, Dogs in Zoos

You couldn’t turn to a media outlet this past week without hearing about the anniversary. The tenth anniversary, that is, of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Why did we do it? What did we accomplish? Was it worth it?

To mark this milestone, I have a book recommendation for you.

War is a topic I typically avoid when choosing books and films. But last month, a friend shoved a library book into my hands and said, “Here—I want you to read this. I loved it! Didn’t do anything for two days but read it.”

“Oh-kay…thanks,” was all I could muster. I didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm. Yet I also didn’t a) want to be responsible for her library book; b) read about a war zone; and c) follow animals kept in a zoo. Reasons B and C promised gloom and doom.

I read it anyway, and I’m thankful I did.

Babylon’s Ark is a memoir of one man’s mission in the early days of the Iraq War to save the animals of the Baghdad Zoo. Lawrence Anthony left his home in South Africa, where he ran a wildlife preserve, armed only with knowledge about and compassion for large, wild animals—plus experience in negotiating on the fly.

This is not a sweet animal rescue tale. It’s full of adventure and darkness and provides some insights into the culture of Iraqis and their relationships with animals. Here are a handful of things I learned:
• Until Lawrence Anthony created one, an agency overseeing animal welfare didn’t exist in Iraq. There was no ASPCA equivalent.
• To much of the population, dogs were curiosities, hence their inclusion in zoos.
• Black market trade in exotic animals thrives in Iraq.
• Like royal families of millennia past, the Husseins had numerous private zoos on their palace grounds.
• Improvisation is critical to rescue operations—which is how a camel ended up a passenger in an open-topped vehicle.

If I were the publisher of Babylon’s Ark, I’d also market it to a secondary audience: business professionals and leaders. It would be a great book to discuss in a corporate book club or leadership seminar because every step forward (and five steps backward) taken during the mission was the result of a negotiation or barter. Diplomacy, communication expertise, and psychological/cultural considerations were always in play. Nearly every obstacle recounted in Babylon’s Ark demanded careful communications and collaboration with someone whose goals and perspective were at odds with the animal rescuers. Even the animal rescuers were at times at odds with one another. Plenty of these scenarios could easily be applied to a business environment. Of course, the additional benefit of marketing to this audience is attracting new animal advocates and more people committed to becoming better stewards of our planet—which would have pleased the author no end.

Had he lived to see this tenth anniversary, I’m sure Lawrence Anthony would have plenty to say about it. I’ll leave you with this excerpt from Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo.

“This was to be our stand. This was more than just a zoo in a war zone. It was about making an intrinsically ethical and moral statement, saying: Enough is enough. You just can’t say to hell with the consequences to the animal kingdom. It’s all very well getting rid of a monster like Saddam, but that doesn’t mean we can forget what we are doing to the rest of our planet. It doesn’t excuse a zoo getting trashed just because nobody had the foresight to put a basic survival plan in place for hundreds of animals utterly dependent on humans.”

Leaving Your Mark

As much as it hurts me to trip over typos in literature, I heal quickly. Not so for the previous reader of the library book I just finished.

For some reason, the reader felt compelled to pencil in “correct” spellings for some of the homophones Barbara Kingsolver used in her latest novel, Flight Behavior. (Why would anyone write in a library book?) What’s more, the reader was WRONG! (I hope s/he isn’t a professional wordsmith.)

Had the corrections been right, or written in ink, I would have let them be. But they weren’t, and I felt equally compelled to right the wrongs. With my trusty Happiness eraser, I restored the library book to its previolated state and prevented future readers from unnecessary confusion.

Sometimes, the best mark left behind is no mark.

Booze and Books

“I am simply a ‘book drunkard.’ Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.”
—L. M. Montgomery

Pictured is NoMad Hotel’s Library Bar. A place where real people go to read real books and drink (and be seen doing it). A place I would have loved back in the day.

I once lived on the same block as the Commodore Hotel in St. Paul—of F. Scott Fitzgerald fame. I was a nanny at the time, and hanging out in the rundown deco bar reinserted me in a grown-up world. I wasn’t much of a drinker, could nurse a Smith and Kearns for an entire evening, but like Ms. Montgomery, I was crazy for books. I didn’t think it strange then to read while I drank. And people-watch. It seemed a perfect way to unwind.

BOOKreMARKS: The Workout that Wouldn’t End

I opened my new reading year with Grayson—a sweet, short memoir by competitive open-water swimmer Lynne Cox. In it, she details a single morning of her daily three-hour training in the Pacific Ocean—a morning that began like any other until…the water shuddered. This occurs in the sixth paragraph; then the morning (and every subsequent graf) gets stranger.

Cox is only 17 and has already broken numerous long-distance swimming records at this point in her life. She’s schooled in visualization techniques, resilience, and discipline. Where others cower from fear (like me, whom you’d never find in a dark, 55-degree ocean at 5 a.m.), Cox confronts and controls. Better still, especially for those of us who are armchair travelers, she remains aware and in awe of the marine life she encounters. She introduces readers to aloof sea turtles, chatty dolphins, a manic stingray colony, and flying tuna. We learn tidbits about each of these creatures and how oddly they’re behaving that morning. We get drawn in to Cox’s fear-induced urge to finish her workout ASAP and high-tail it home until…we meet “old” Steve near shore.

Steve owns a bait shop and has long been a source of wisdom and friendship to Cox. Today he’s not in his usual spot and Cox worries. She heads closer inland yet he waves her away. He explains that a baby gray whale has been following her like a puppy for about a mile. She can’t go closer to shore—it’ll beach the little guy—and she can’t stop swimming now. She must help the infant find his mother, his only food source at his tender age (baby grays drink about 50 gallons of milk per day), or he’ll die.

An already exhausted Cox rallies to save the 18-foot youngster. She takes her mission quite selflessly and compassionately, in spite of how the cold is affecting her, in spite of having no idea how to find one particular female whale in the Pacific. Though the baby—whom she dubs Grayson (a gray’s son)—acts healthy and playful, Cox knows every minute counts to reunite him with his mother. Especially considering the 5,000+-mile migration to the Arctic the whales have ahead of them.

As Grayson’s rescue grows longer and more complicated, Cox takes the advice of another old seaman who keeps an eye on her during her morning workouts. “Sometimes answers come out of time and struggle, and learning. Sometimes you just have to try again in a different way.”

Cox experiments with new dives, new ways of holding her breath longer, new ideas about what little Grayson is thinking and how he might have slipped away from his mother. And in all of this, Cox continues sending positive thoughts/energy into the Universe, hoping it will help the cause, and Grayson continues following her around the Pacific.

Don’t let Grayson’s slim dimensions fool you. At first glance, it’s a stirring rescue tale. But at closer read, it’s a love song to the ocean—and an instruction manual on what’s possible when we open our hearts and minds to the unknown.

[Gray whale mother and calf: photographer unknown.]

Understanding My Place: A Letter and Neil Gaiman

Stranger in a Strange Land – No. 26

The other day my husband brought home a glossy, four-color, eight-paged publication he’d found on the sidewalk in our neighborhood. He intended to toss it into a recycling bin, but when he realized what it was, he knew he had to share it with me first.

I pawed through it—picture after captioned picture of one senior couple’s 2012 activities: celebrating milestones with grandchildren and former exchange students; vacationing with friends and family in Italy, Monaco, and China; learning to surf in Hawaii; hosting Union Rags and the Wyeths at the Kentucky Derby; acting as professional photographers for a wedding, building custom furniture, and so on. And so on…

Was it a self-published booklet to commemorate these events?

NO! It was their Christmas Letter to friends and extended family!

It’s exactly why people have come to hate such correspondence. It was so over-the-top it could have been a parody of the genre. But it wasn’t. It was a chirpy report of all the stellar 2012 moments one family experienced. And they sent it to someone in MY neighborhood, which can only mean (or I HOPE it means) that the recipients lead similar lives and didn’t take said Christmas Letter as the disturbing show of pretentiousness I did. Once again, I felt quite removed from my neighbors.

I had just been reading about Cabal, a dog rescued from a roadside by author Neil Gaiman. I learned that Cabal suffered from the same condition my pooch did (degenerative myelopathy), that British-born Gaiman now lives in the Midwest, that his relationship with Cabal was of the unexpected and nonpareil variety… Heck! I have more in common with Neil Gaiman than I do with these Christmas Letter–sending neighbors.

Hmmm. Maybe I can work Gaiman into my own Christmas Letter this year. Maybe I, too, can incite envy and head-shaking during the holidays.


This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, just select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”

[Photo of Cabal and Neil Gaiman by Kimberly Butler and titled Unconditional Love.]

83 Is the Answer, but Who’s Counting?

I received an e-mail earlier this month from GoodReads, a social network for book enthusiasts. (I became a member merely to access an interview with a favorite author.) How many books do I aim to read in 2013? GoodReads wanted to know. Don’t I want to read more? GoodReads would help me do that with a kind of Weight-Watchers community approach.

First of all, as my mother would attest, no one needs to encourage me to read more. (As a child, I was encouraged to play more.) Second, if you’re a member of GoodReads, aren’t you already an avid reader? This goal-setting activity seems a sham to me—seems participants are really just showing off the number of books they’ve read. Third, and most important, quantity shouldn’t matter to people who read with ease (reminds me of Adler’s observation about reading). As long as your nose is stuck in some kind of printed/digital matter, why be concerned about the tally?

In reviewing my blog list, I counted 83 books read last year plus magazine articles, short works, and blogs. The number means nothing. Some books were slim and full of poetry; a few were written for a young audience, while others were of a how-to nature. Most were animal- or nature-related.

Why do I keep the list?
1. It helps me choose the next read and prevents me from rereading books.
2. It’s a kind of diary for me. I can gauge from the list my emotional temperature and mindset over the course of the year. And you can, too, if you’ve read any of these books.
3. If I want to direct someone to specific animal-welfare information, the list helps jog my memory as to which book to recommend.

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
—Oscar Wilde

It’s not a contest. I’m not trying to read more books than some other schmo. I can’t/won’t compete: The field is FULL of folks who read at least a book a day. I need more time to ponder what I read. Sometimes one book prompts me to read another book at the same time because they complement one another or they reference one another. I once read an article profiling different kinds of readers based on…well, I can’t remember now. All I recall is being hopping mad that I fell into the “Promiscuous” category simply because I read several books at the same time. Promiscuous readers apparently are unable or unwilling to commit.

At any rate, I will continue my list-keeping—without the aid of GoodReads—of books I’ve read and books I want to read and think about next. (I maintain this second, much longer list in a journal.)

Call me promiscuous if you want, but I’m opening my mind, learning new things, considering and developing new ideas, shaping and solidifying my beliefs, and seeing the world differently. That’s what books do for me—what I wish they could do for everyone.

[Art by Albert Joseph Moore.]

Eat. Sleep. Read.

Pictured is my neighbor’s cat, who fervently follows the first two commands of the slogan on the bag. “Eat Sleep Read” is pretty much what I’m doing today, though not necessarily in that order. I’m thinking of making Eat Sleep Read my goals list for 2013. Doable, right? Like breathing…

Eastward Ho I Go?

“Well, I guess we have to move to Iceland,” my husband lamented this week.

“Excuse me?” My husband has been talking about visiting Iceland for some time now, but moving there seemed extreme—especially considering his aversion to wintry climes.

“According to this NPR story, Icelanders love books,” he explained, his trusty iPad in hand. “Books are the gift of choice at Christmas—everybody reads there.”

An entire population of readers? Hmmm. Sounded like science fiction to me. However, I was touched that my husband would move closer to the Arctic Circle so I could be with other bibliophiles. So sweet.

A friend of mine apparently isn’t as positive about my reading obsession. For Christmas she gave me a canvas bag (with which to carry my library books, she said) with this quote on it:

“She is too fond of books, and it has addled* her brain.”
—Louisa May Alcott

This may be true, but it doesn’t stop me from reading more. After all, books are more than the information and imagination they contain. Books have a life (rarely viewed) of their own:

 

* Actual quote is from Alcott’s Work: A Story of Experience and reads: “She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”

[Pictured are tiny Icelandic horses. Photo by Marketa Kalvachova. Video is from Type Books of Toronto.]

Riding High on Christmas Spirit

Need a little help with your holiday spirit? Here are links to FREE Christmas e-books, courtesy of Project Gutenberg and mediabistro:

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
2. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
3. The Children’s Book of Christmas Stories
4. The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children
5. The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke
6. Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
7. Christmas Stories And Legends
8. The Christmas Angel by Abbie Farwell Brown
9. The Chimes by Charles Dickens
10. A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
11. The Abbot’s Ghost, or Maurice Treherne’s Temptation: A Christmas Story by Louisa May Alcott
12. The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain by Charles Dickens
13. A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others
14. The First Christmas Tree by Henry Van Dyke
15. Betty’s Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin’s Farm; and the First Christmas of New England by Harriet Beecher Stowe
16. In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I
17. A Little Book for Christmas by Cyrus Townsend Brady
18. Christmas Comes but Once A Year by John Leighton
19. Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
20. The Romance of a Christmas Card by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
21. Christmas Tales and Christmas Verse by Eugene Field
22. The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
23. A Christmas Mystery by William John Locke
24. A Little Book of Christmas by John Kendrick Bangs
25. On Christmas Day in the Morning by Grace S. Richmond

BOOKreMARKS: “Cat lovers will adore this book”

I’ve just finished reading the awkwardly titled The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas: How a Cat Brought a Family the Gift of Love by Julia Romp. It’s the perfect feel-good, breezy read most of could use to lift our spirits.

Yet I’m not sure Temple Grandin, who endorsed the book with “Cat lovers will adore this book,” got it right. Cat lovers may squirm with impatience through the first 64 pages, wondering whether the cat will ever enter the story. If all you’re looking for in Romp’s memoir is an animal story, then you may be disappointed—for it is so much more than that.

Romp, who is not a professional writer, gives us a temporary view into her world of unexpected single motherhood. We share her distress when doctors fail for years to properly diagnose her baby’s odd behaviors, we suffer her embarrassment when she’s in public with her unusual boy, and we nod knowingly as her absolute and unshakeable love for her son George motivates her to constantly seek a connection with him.

George is autistic (hence the reason Temple Grandin was asked to comment on the book). As much as the general public is aware of autism through the mainstream media, there remains a grave disconnect between our knowledge and our understanding. Romp magnifies for her readers how other people—children, teachers, strangers—respond to George and how George perceives the world he shares with them. We learn quickly that they may as well be two different planets.

If you know someone who is dealing with autism in any capacity, I encourage you to read The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas (also published as A Friend Like Ben). On second thought, you should probably read it regardless, for if recent statistics are accurate, you WILL cross paths with autism at some point in your life. And if you’re informed about autism’s effects on families, you may enhance your understanding and compassion for those families. When an autistic child starts screaming in a mall, you may refrain from tsk-tsking over his bad behavior and realize instead that he may well be in pain from the lights and blaring music or that he feels threatened by the scores of people around him. In this respect, the book deserves a wider audience.

 As for animal lovers, the book provides a terrific role model (Romp herself) of animal advocacy. Cat and animal lovers should read it if only to learn how to find a lost pet. Romp’s search for her son’s beloved Baboo (aka Ben) is a showdown of determination and desperation. As her net widens, so does her stewardship: False leads (cats mistakenly identified as Ben) get new guardians or are returned home through Romp’s efforts. She helps others along the way because it’s the right thing to do—even when her hopes of recovering her own feline are fading.

Romp writes of the cruelty that percolates during a search—the people who cursed her out for putting a leaflet on their cars, the people who simply meowed into her answering machine, the person who claimed to have Ben and said, “We’ve got him and you won’t get him back.” She writes of the loss of the small, furry family member: how it devastated her son—“I can’t breathe. I can’t swallow. My heart is coming out,” he said over and over—and how it unraveled her relationship with him.

The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas probably won’t win any literary awards, but don’t let that stop you from reading it. It’s engaging and instructive nonetheless. It’s a story of loss and fierce love—for a child, for a cat, and for the family unit made whole by each.

Advance Reading Copies and My Big Fat Brain Freeze

Earlier this month I warned you about Advance Reading Copies—what they are, where you might see them, and where you shouldn’t. I ended the post in a snit because I’d accidentally purchased an ARC at a used bookstore. And I’d paid a good amount for the book to boot.

Well. May I just say

DUH!

Of COURSE used bookstores sell ARCs whenever they can. Here’s why:
1. Collectors and fanatics – You never know who they are nor which author they lust after. ARCs are delicacies for them.
2. Author signatures – Many writers sign their ARCs before sending them off to reviewers and friends. This is gold for some readers and worth whatever price tag the bookstore sticks on the cover.
3. The Process Revealed – Fledgling writers and editors enjoy comparing ARC versions to the final ones, for kicks and for education.

So there you have it. The price is whatever the market will bear.

In the case of the ARC that started all this, I was just miffed that I’d paid so much for it—even though it’s signed, even though it’s in mint condition. I bought it simply for information, and I hope the copy is at a late stage in the editorial process (i.e., has few corrections to be made). The problem was not that the store was selling the ARC; the problem was that I wasn’t paying attention!

[Photo from Chompsky.]

Advance Reading Copy: Not For Sale

This is a cautionary post for Lull readers who aren’t part of the publishing industry.

The title of this post—Advance Reading Copy: Not For Sale—may be found on book covers inconspicuously printed as pictured or set in a mark or sticker (see below, left). It means what it says, too. These books aren’t for sale. They’re sent to early reviewers and promoters to initiate buzz on the book. Advance copies are almost always soft cover and distributed with a warning: Don’t quote or excerpt anything from this version. Corrections are still being made.

“What kind of corrections?” you may ask.

Well, it varies. Advance copies may contain erroneous facts, typos, misattributed or misquoted quotations; they may include information that’s later cut from the book or not include information that’s later added; they may be sequenced differently than the final publication. You never know. In the case of a book I read recently, I hope to goodness the final version is devoid of the plague of typos I found on EVERY SPREAD (a spread in this context is two facing pages). It read like raw manuscript rather than a nearly finished book. And it’s the reason I’m writing about advance copies today.

Though advance reading copies find their way into the general public, you should never see one on the shelf at your local bookseller. If you do, bring it to the attention of the manager—and the publisher if you’re so inclined. Typically, you’ll find advance reading copies at rummage sales or in charitable organizations (like the Salvation Army or a church), but unless the advance reading copy is vintage, I don’t like forking money over to an individual for it. I see it as breaching contract with the publisher. It especially peeves me when the seller is a used bookstore. But that’s just me. I’m not sure what commercial publishers think about such shenanigans.

Sometimes, the path an advance reading copy takes from desk to sale is accidental. When you’re culling books, it can be easy to miss that “NOT FOR SALE” status on the cover and put the book in the wrong pile.

HOWEVER. I unknowingly purchased an advance reading copy from a library sale last month. (I simply wasn’t paying attention.) For my purposes, I didn’t mind. I would be reading that particular book for pleasure—not for research purposes—and I would be donating to an organization whose funding was shrinking.

HOWEVER. This particular book hadn’t been donated to the library for the sale. It had been decommissioned by the library and put into the sale. Meaning it had once been in circulation at the library and was now removed from circulation. This was no mistake. Not only was it a flagrant disregard of the publisher’s intent, but it showed a lack of respect for library members. This was the book I mentioned earlier with typos on every spread. For someone with typo sensitivities like me, it makes for arduous and irritating reading. For someone with lower-level reading capabilities, the book can become challenging or impossible to complete—which, considering the subject matter, would be a shame because the content is otherwise entertaining and insightful. What’s more, though, because an advance reading copy may contain factual errors, it shouldn’t be trusted. And because the general public—especially children—trusts what’s on library shelves, an advance reading copy has no place there. It’s a tremendous disservice to mix advance reading copies with final printings.

If you see an advance reading copy on your local library’s shelf, please do everyone a favor and hand it over to a reference librarian. The folks in your community who suffer from typo sensitivities will appreciate it.

* Addendum: Since writing the post above, I stopped at a national used-and-overstock bookstore four days ago. I quickly scanned titles in the animal section and chose a few I’d been wanting. I didn’t inspect the books—just the title and the price, which was decent but not the library-sale low of 50 cents and a dollar.

This morning I chose one of the books to begin reading. It’s about animal rescue work and ties in nicely with the book I just finished. As I usually do before beginning new content, I began studying the cover of the book, after which I normally read all the front matter, sometimes even the back acknowledgments and testimonials before finally reading the first page. But what do you suppose I saw that raised my blood pressure? Yes, small type at the bottom of the cover that reads:
ADVANCE READING COPY • NOT FOR SALE • ADVANCE READING COPY

The “NOT FOR SALE” phrase was blacked out, as it also was on the back cover. Twice.

My fault for not bothering to look at the cover before purchasing, but I never imagined that a large for-profit organization would stoop to selling advance copies.

On the other hand, maybe they didn’t stoop. Maybe someone there made the same mistake I did and hadn’t looked closely enough at the book before pricing it. I’ll find out, though, because I’d like to know where this particular bookstore stands on the ethics spectrum. I’ll let you know in a follow-up.

[Top pic from Light-skinned-ed Girl; next pic from The Oddness of Moving Things; bottom pic is the book I’m returning to the bookstore.]

BOOKreMarks: What the Dog Said

I scooped up an unexpected treasure last week at a library sale. It’s one of those “gift” books: small and easy to handle, photographs on every spread, lean on text. It’s Dylan Schaffer’s Dog Stories with black-and-white, sepia-washed photographs by Jon Weber. The stories are told by dogs from dogs’ perspectives.

I don’t often fall for such stuff. Heaven only knows how many blogs and books exist in this category. And the ones written by critters who have speech impediments or spelling challenges grate on me. (I know, I know: The I Can Has Cheezburger? captions fit squarely into this description. It took me a long time to come round to them.)

But Schaffer’s dogs are different. They’re wise and poignant and engaging. They’re a perfect holiday gift for the dog lovers in your life. Here’s an excerpt—a dialogue between a couple of Greyhounds, Merlin and Palermo:

M: What makes us dogs?

P: Why do you ask?

M: I sometimes think the things that make me easily identifiable as a dog—my bark, my smell—are the least important things about me, about us. We are unique among the species, but for reasons seldom articulated.

P: That is because we live in a borrowed world. Like all domesticated creatures we exist as a subset of the experiences of our masters. And like all slaves we are valued exclusively for those traits which make us useful: we are obedient, we are protective. But our trials, loves, hopes, and dreams, these are obscured by our owners’ need for us to be dog-like.

M: So what is the one thing that most makes you a dog?

P: I can serve without being servile. And you?

M: I can see into the hearts of those who love me.

[Photograph by Barbara Karant—professional photographer, Greyhound enthusiast, and evangelist for rescue organization Greyhounds Only.]

Endnotes: The “Really?” Department

“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”
—Baruch Spinoza

Mr. Spinoza, I’m trying really hard to follow this path but sometimes—well, too many times—I just don’t get people.

Human Thwarts Evil
In Homer’s Odyssey, Gwen Cooper recalls a first date. When he picked her up, she invited him into her apartment for drinks. She left him in the living room while she made cocktails in the kitchen. Upon her return, she found the date towering over her tiny, terrified, BLIND cat (Homer)—whom he’d trapped in a corner and was hissing at.

Yes, you read that right. The MAN, not the cat, was hissing. The man’s explanation? The animal was headed for him and everyone knows black cats are bad luck.

Thankfully, the author ended the date right there—no cocktail, no second chance.

Human Bags Dinner
In my efforts to understand both sides of some issues, I’ve been reading Stephen Bodio’s Querencia, where I found this photo of deer in a backyard. Beneath the pic, Bodio writes:

“Part of the neighborhood deer herd, a healthy population that lives well on our landscaping. My friend Tyler took a doe from this group last week by bow, shooting from a blind he set up near the swing set.”

Slaughter near the swing set. Really?

Endnotes: What Lingers from My Reading

This is the beginning of a new series I’ve been noodling on for some time. It’s a compendium of the facts, events, and ideas from my nonfiction reading that I believe deserve a larger audience. For those of you without the time or inclination to read the books from my lists, “Endnotes” will give you an inkling of what stands between the boards.

Considering my current reading theme, the posts will most likely be animal-related. There’s a wealth of information out there that the general public isn’t aware of (and in some cases, even the scientific community isn’t sharing with one another) and should be—about animal behavior, intelligence, emotions, and compassion. What we don’t know can hurt us, and our ignorance most assuredly hurts nonhuman animals.

These posts may or may not include commentary, may or may not be short, may or may not appeal to you. Even so, when you see the word Endnotes in the title, you at least know what lies ahead. And so we begin…


Bad News for Bears

Bears aren’t the only animals who become sobriety-challenged* periodically, but black bears’ benders were noted in Massachusetts one year and the hunting season was put on hiatus until they recovered. Apparently, after gorging on apples, the cider left in the bears’ stomachs fermented and caused the critters to stumble around in a stupor.
—From John McPhee’s Table of Contents

* I realized this morning after reading Sally Roth’s Attracting Songbirds to Your Backyard that I’ve come across downed birds before who had probably had a few too many berries. They looked sick, stunned, in need of help. And then suddenly, as I was anxiously thinking through what to do next, they’d fly off. Silly me: They didn’t require rescue; they just needed to wait out the hangover.


A Different Kind of Dairy Farm


When visitors to Kite’s Nest Farm are invited to try milk from the farm’s dairy cows, people get more than a mouthful. They learn firsthand that cows allowed to live freely and raise their calves naturally produce milk that even lactose-intolerant folks can tolerate, milk that varies in taste according to the breed it came from and according to each animal’s eating and drinking preferences. They learn that dairy farming doesn’t have to be cruel to be profitable.
—From Rosamund Young’s The Secret Life of Cows


A Hippo Driven by Compassion
Separated from her herd, a tiny impala escaped into a nearby African river as a pack of African wild dogs chased her. They ceased their hunt at the water’s edge, though, for they were outmatched by a formidable predator the young impala hadn’t noticed: a crocodile.

Nearby, another creature was watching as the drama unfolded, and though she was no enemy to crocs, she took action when the reptile grabbed the impala in his vise-like jaws. The hippo charged the croc, which likely astonished him more than roughed him up, and his prey flew out of his mouth.

The hippo nudged her rescue out of the water and the baby struggled to move to firmer ground. The hippo stood over the impala, slowly and repeatedly blowing air into the little one’s airways and across her body, trying to strengthen and warm her. But the croc had been too much for the babe. In spite of the hippo’s efforts, the impala perished.

Why is this anecdote important? Typically this kind of cross-species compassion in the wild is not believed or is rationalized or ignored altogether by the scientific community. However, this particular event—showing not only compassion, but swift decision-making and noninstinctive behavior—was caught on film. Similar events may happen in the wild far more frequently than we’re aware of.
—From Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s Dogs Have the Strangest Friends

[Bear photo by Jim Blackwood; cows photo by Rosamund Young; impala photo by Rebecca Conroy.]

Book Whimsy

Saw this in The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain:

A woman was once introduced to Mark Twain at a Christmas party. Feeling obliged to discuss literature, she asked him if he thought a book was the most useful gift one could give. He replied:

“Yes, but of course it depends on the book. A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat [without hitting the creature, of course! -cjj].”

Now I’ve an addition to Twain’s list. This morning I played the book game that’s been traversing the Internet for a few years. It works like this:

Turn to page 52 of a book near you. Scan down to the fifth sentence and write it out.

I saw some examples that were intriguing, and a collection of examples that made a surreal little story. I reasoned that because I read several books at a time, I should be able to create a nice mash-up of fifth sentences.

How wrong I was. Nearly every sentence was a bore and hardly representative of the books I’m reading.

Marilynne Robinson’s poetic first novel Housekeeping, for example, contains precious little dialogue; instead, she writes long descriptions and ruminations about loss and identity. The book deserves to be read slowly and thoughtfully. So imagine my surprise to copy this as the fifth sentence on page 52:

“Nope.”

That’s it! A one-word sentence. And the sentences from the other books weren’t any more interesting.

So I tried a workaround—the sixth sentence of page 66. This time Marilynne Robinson’s exquisite writing gave me:

“Now?”

I give up. Maybe the trick is combining sentences from a variety of readers rather than from one reader’s variety of books. Why don’t YOU try this game and share your results on Lull. Or, if you prefer, you may e-mail me your sentences and I’ll include them in a future post.

[Photographer unknown; found on Spine Facing Out.]

BOOKreMARKS: Get Rabid for Halloween

Looking for something spooky to read this month? Try Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus.

If you’d told me last year that I’d enjoy reading 200+ pages about rabies, I would have politely corrected you. Yet that’s exactly what happened a few months ago when I devoured the collaboration between Bill Wasik, a writer for Wired.com, and Monica Murphy, a veterinarian (and married to Mr. Wasik). It’s a romp through history, ever focusing on the disease and its victims, its symptoms, and its treatments—all the while weaving cultural and historical perspectives into the story. Werewolves, vampires, and zombies figure into the picture, too.

After speaking with an animal control officer earlier this year about rabies, I suspected her department acted more on myths and assumptions than on facts (long story involving a sweet fox). I promised myself I’d research the topic, but procrastinated. Then Rabid caught my attention at the library and I thought it might shed some light on the issue.

It didn’t answer my specific questions, yet the book offered so much more. It made me realize how much Louis Pasteur contributed to the world, how important rabies vaccinations are for pets, how rabies research helped scientists understand how to breach the blood-brain barrier, how and why dogs are perceived so differently in countries beyond U.S. borders, how rabies figured into literature and laws. With so much context, even zombies started making sense.

If you’re craving a little gore and horror to get you in the holiday spirit, read Rabid. It won’t disappoint.

Trailer Tales: Balancing Evil with Big-Hearted Behavior

As you may imagine, my reading is frequently filled with the unconscionable things people do to animals. Here are a few I’ve come across since Wednesday:

1. To desensitize the horse who doesn’t like having his/her ears touched, some folks twist and pull the horse’s ears, sometimes to the point of breaking the cartilage. It’s an Old West version of “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.” A blogger believed this had been done to the horse she’d recently adopted and is now rehabilitating.

2. To counter the horse who fights having a bit in her/his mouth, some folks turn the horse’s head to the side and tie the tight rein to a stirrup (the one connected to the saddle on the horse’s back). They may leave the horse immobilized in that position for hours. One blogger suggests: “Before you think of doing this to your horse, tie the top of your head to your knee with a shortened length of rope and see what you learn!”

3. To retire a breeder dog who’s no longer a top producer, one option is to dump her along a road. One such dog was discovered near San Francisco this week—thrown from a car, bloody, emaciated, still swollen from her recent (and final) litter. Thankfully, a Good Samaritan found her and took her to BadRap Barn.

My ability to sift and steel through these stories fluctuates. I don’t share many of them on Lull because I want to spare you the disgust and hopelessness and rage and sick, sick feelings these atrocities bring out in me. And yet, I believe we have to be aware of some (though not all) of these situations if we want to change the world. We need to know the details in order to prevent them from happening in the future. We need to know our enemies and how they operate.

“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.”
—from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Are you still reading? I hope so, because we’re finally getting to the good stuff—the other side of the balance sheet. The two positive stories I heard or read this week each involve a horse trailer…

Anna Blake, a horse trainer, wrote about a client of hers who was moving to a new state. The first piece of good news is that, unlike so many people who get rid of their animals before moving (or even before going on vacation), the client was taking her critters along. What’s more, the client insisted on riding in the trailer with them: three draft horses, two donkeys, and a parrot—each a rescue, each with some kind of challenge. The woman packed a cooler, a sleeping bag, and a chaise longue into the trailer and settled in for the 26-hour ride. She would spend that time calming her companions and watching for signs of discomfort or illness.

I love her deep concern and care for her charges. This warm-and-fuzzy story alone was enough to buoy my emotions over the evils roiling within my reading reach. But last night I heard about a more impressive animal advocate.

A woman (a friend of a friend) attended an auction in Pennsylvania (I don’t know which one; my friend was lean on details) with trailer in tow because she fully expected to purchase a horse. She stayed for the whole auction, but by its end, she didn’t hold the winning bid for anyone. She would be going home to her 700+-acre farm with an empty trailer.

She returned to her vehicle only to find FOUR creatures packed into her trailer! Someone apparently hadn’t sold them and, not wanting to keep the horses any longer, dumped them in the least guilt-inducing way that came to mind: Leave the animals in someone else’s trailer—make the animals someone else’s problem.

Fortunately for the ponies, the friend of my friend is not the abandoning kind. She shifted her mindset from going home empty-trailered to planning how to introduce her herd at home to these four new horses—horses who might otherwise have ended up taking that long, painful journey to the abattoirs South of the Border.

Some folks simply don’t know how to be good; they need role models to emulate. Other folks? Well, they bewilder me. But I’ll keep searching for a way in to their deeply hidden reserve of emotional intelligence.

Meanwhile, let’s circulate these trailer tales. They’re spirit-lifting, plus they might prompt others to tap into their own goodness the next time an opportunity arises.

[Paintings by George Stubbs.]

A Mammoth Discovery

Earlier this month on a bike ride downtown, I turned a corner and saw …

elephants in a parking lot.

Yes, really. Elephants, who were bordered on one side by tents of white horses and on the other, cages of white tigers. How many endangered animals can you get in one parking lot?

Only Barnum & Bailey knows for sure. Yup, turns out the circus was in town.

It was heartbreaking to see these creatures on a barren lot of pavement. After watching one elephant do nothing but repeatedly rock back and forth in place, I couldn’t look anymore. I fantasized about breaking them out of there, but even my imagination was a little lean on ideas for disguising and hiding them.

Yesterday was Elephant Appreciation Day. (Remember how I said this month was full of wacky holidays?) I meant to post this yesterday, but … well … whatever. Here’s my contribution to the special day: a list of books about elephants. The least we can do for them is understand their lives so that we may better share the planet with them.

If you have a friend or relative who’s crazy for big-eared pachyderms, snag one of these books as a gift. If you’re just trying to figure out why your friend or relative is crazy for elephants, read one yourself!

Coming of Age with Elephants: A Memoir
by Joyce Poole

Elephant
by Steve Bloom
 
Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family
by Cynthia Moss

Elephant Reflections
by Dale Peterson and Karl Ammann

Elephant Song
by Barry B. Longyear

Elephantoms: Tracking the Elephant
by Lyall Watson

Elephants (Living Wild)
by Melissa Gish

Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity
by G. A. Bradshaw

Everything Elephants: A Collector’s Pictorial Encyclopedia
by Michael Knapik

Eyewitness: Elephant
by Ian Redmond

Face to Face with Elephants (Face to Face with Animals)
by Dereck Joubert and Beverly Joubert

From Elephants to Mice: Animals Who Have Touched My Soul
by James Mahoney

Ivory’s Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants
by John Frederick Walker

Jumbo: This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World
by Paul Chambers

Just for Elephants
by Carol Buckley

Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story
by Daphne Jenkins Sheldrick

Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People
by Mark James Owens and Cordelia Dykes Owens

Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants
by Katharine Payne

Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends
by Carol Buckley

The Amboseli Elephants: A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal
by Cynthia J. Moss, Harvey Croze and Phyllis C. Lee

The Cowboy and His Elephant: The Story of a Remarkable Friendship
by Malcolm MacPherson

The Elephant Whisperer: Learning about Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants
by Lawrence Anthony

The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild
by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence

The Elephant’s Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa
by Caitlin O’Connell

The Elephants and I: Pursuing a Dream in Troubled Zimbabwe
by Sharon Pincott

The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness
by Mark James Owens and Cordelia Dykes Owens

To the Elephant Graveyard
by Tarquin Hall

Travels on My Elephant
by Mark Shand

Walking Thunder: In the Footsteps of the African Elephant
by Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson

When Elephants Paint: The Quest of Two Russian Artists to Save the Elephants of Thailand
by Komar & Melamid and David Eggers

When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals
by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy
 

Note: This list of nonfiction and memoir is by no means comprehensive. I deliberately excluded books about hunting elephants, of course (you wouldn’t believe how many there are), and I did not attempt to list children’s books on this subject because, as you may already know, there are LOADS of them.

[Photo by Nick Brandt.]