Dead, not dead

The sun has been up for ten minutes, and my dog is resting comfortably next to my feet. My wife took him out for morning duties half an hour ago. His name is Stafford, and he’s a cocker spaniel of nine months. Stafford is making cute “bluf” noises as he chases imaginary squirrels in his dreams.

Really, though, Stafford should be chasing squirrel angels in that great dog park in the sky. Under slightly different circumstances, he would be dead.

Yesterday evening, Stafford got out the front door. He has been in the unfenced front yard many times and, being a dog of calm disposition, has never bolted from us. But yesterday I chased him back and forth between the front door and the garage door one too many times. My frustration was mounting, and he could hear it in my voice. The kids joined the chase, tittering and laughing. In a panic, Stafford ran down the street, and right onto County Road 16.

County Road 16 is a four-lane road that connects a couple of other county roads. Busy at almost all hours, it is particularly crowded during rush hour, and even somewhat later than that in the evening. Stafford went on his panic-stricken jaunt at about 6:20, prime time for many of the travellers with longer commutes to be arriving home. The dog was sure to meet his doom.

There were no cars there. None. From the intersection near our home, we can see east on 16 for about half a mile, and west for about a quarter mile. No cars were coming from either direction. Stafford’s comically large paws hit a pavement strangely free of danger. After a few steps on the deadly road, he decided that was enough. He darted left, and ran back to the house, where our visibly upset children let him in. Stafford ran right upstairs and into his kennel.

Walking back along our property, the dog out of danger, my body was filled with adrenalyne and my mind was racing. Was this really happening? Or was this unlikely walk back, without a dead or injured dog in my arms, a figment of my wishful thinking? Surely I had broken into an alternate reality where the impossible was commonplace. I expected to see commuters in jetpacks.

I spent the rest of the evening on important administrative tasks like homework, teethbrushing, and locating prized blankets. Once the kids were in bed, all I could think about was Stafford’s near death. I still couldn’t believe my luck.  I was still assuming that I had the facts wrong. When my wife arrived home from evening class, it was all I could talk about. We discussed his further training and new house rules to keep him safe. She listened patiently, and before finally falling asleep said “looks like we all learned something, and we all have work to do.”

After she said that, I couldn’t sleep. I felt like I had been retrieved from an inevitable outcome, one that I had accepted as fact and couldn’t release. All I could think about were the times in my life where something bad actually had happened, and I wished with all of my might that it hadn’t.

27 years ago, in a chaotic battle in the Falkland Islands, a British soldier named Philip Williams was struck by an explosion, and he couldn’t be retrieved by his fellow soldiers. His body wasn’t found after the battle. His family was notified, and went through the gruelling process of holding a memorial service without their son’s body. He had died a hero’s death.

What did his family wish that they had said to him before he died? What unfinished business was filed away, never to be completed, forever to be regretted?

Seven weeks later, he emerged from the mountains and pastures of the Falklands alive. He had been knocked out, left by his company in the skirmish, and unable to find civilization for some time.

How must his family have felt? The worst that could possibly happen had occured, and the long process of closure had started. Then, all of the sudden, surprise! Those wishes, muttered into the pillow in countless sleepless nights, came to pass.

(Philip Williams’ troubles were far from over. He was accused by his fellow soldiers of desertion and pilloried by the press. But hey, he was alive.)

There isn’t a direct parallel between the unlikely survival of a soldier left for dead and a panicked dog saved from death by an unlikely occurance of light traffic. But as I lay in bed last night, I felt my other self in an alternate reality very closely. He was mourning his actions, and wishing for another chance to save his dog. His wife was sobbing in bed next to him, and downstairs, his children struggled to sleep against the memory of what they had seen that evening.

The love dart (or, how to cure the common anthropomorphism)

I chose nature writing for my English degree emphasis. At St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, where the back doors of many buildings open to a view of the Mississippi river, there weren’t a lot of other interesting emphases for English majors. That said, nature writing was a good and worthwhile focus, and just as unlikely to prepare the student for gainful employment as any English emphasis not called “teacher training.” St. Cloud was surrounded by some wonderful, vibrant habitats, and the opportunities for natural study, writing, and reflection are close and numerous.

The most challenging aspect of nature writing is to describe the natural world without overtly anthropomorphizing it. That prairie is motionless; it is not calm. That tree is old, but it is not wise. That mule deer that passed by you? It did not commune with your soul as you looked in its eyes. It actually didn’t even wonder if you were going to eat it. It can’t wonder. It’s a mule deer.

(The other really hard part about nature writing is accurately identifying plants and animals, but that’s a topic for another day. I merely wanted to point out that it wasn’t a mule deer at all. It was a regular old whitetail. Be more careful next time.)

I wish, in my struggle to conquer anthropomorphism, that I had known about the love dart.

The love dart is a mating tool used by some snails and slugs. In word alone, the love dart suggests at least one obvious parallel with humans, but it cannot be stressed enough that we don’t have anything like this. For one thing, the love dart is only found in some hermaphroditic snails. Feeling the distance already?

It’s a small, sharp projectile made of calcium or chitin (depending on the species of snail) that grows near the head of the snail after the first time it mates. Most darts are about 5 mm long. The love dart is not, I repeat not, a penis. It is not even necessary for successful mating.

But assuming that the snail has mated before, and the love dart is developed, here’s what happens. During the (predictably slow) mating ritual, pressure builds up behind the dart. The snails jockey for position, trying to get their sperm in the other’s genital pore. Sexy, right? Once one snail touches the other in just the right way, blammo, the love dart fires.

And brother, can it fire! Sometimes the force drives the dart into the internal organs, or even through the body and right out the other side. How much luckier can a girl/guy get? Apparently, even if there’s a love dart to be fired, there’s still luck involved; a third of all love darts either miss the body or fail to penetrate the skin. Sorry, dear. I thought I was ready.

After that, the snails mate.

So what’s the point of the love dart? Well, isn’t it obvious? Yeah, I didn’t get it either.

Apparently it wasn’t at all obvious until recently. Scientists now know that the love dart contains hormones which increase the likelihood of sperm survival within the target snail, and therefore improve the chances of successful mating. So in spite of appearances, it’s actually a good thing to be shot through the neck with an enormous spike of calcium while you’re doing the nasty. It means you’re twice as likely to become a daddy/mommy.

My previous point about the love dart being a good cure for anthropomorphism is hampered, of course, by the fact that love darts are only found in snails and slugs. Snails and slugs are some of the least relatable surface animals on earth. No one who isn’t a hardcore biologist has ever thought, “hey, this snail and I share similar struggles in this existence.” I knew a kid in school who always had mucus on his upper lip. He might have been able to relate, I guess. But I bet he didn’t.

Anthropomorphism isn’t about identifying similarities. It’s about assigning human attributes that don’t have parallels outside of humanity to non-human entities. Why is that dangerous? Why is it not better to think “Hey, that snail has feelings too?” Because then we only value the natural world we can relate to.

When we see elephants holding a funeral, we can relate, find value, and empathize. But the natural world that is counter to our empathy—and even some of our own goals—can hold less value for us. That’s reckless. Simply because the snail is slimy, hard to relate to, and fires a missile into its mate when it gets excited doesn’t mean it is less deserving of our consideration.

And what do we do when our assumed stewardship of the earth conflicts with our empathy for these animals? Those elephants who capture our hearts by displaying grief for their dead are also depleting the vegetation of the African bush at an unsustainable rate. As the author of the above article asks, how do you cull an animal that grieves?

There are no easy answers. But as mankind takes more of the world for itself while trying to manage its protection, it would be good to consider the mechanisms we use to dole out respect, affection, and salvation to the natural world.

Party like it’s 1199

Here’s another story I like. It has revenge in it and, like yesterday’s entry, more flaying. I don’t have any particular interest in flaying. It just keeps coming up.

Richard I (you may know him as Richard the Lionhearted) only lived to be 41 years old. If he really did everything they say he did—and by ‘they’ I mean Wikipedia—then he had a busy 41 years. He managed to put down revolts against his father, King Henry II. He had a major role in the third crusade, engineered by his father and Philip II of France. Somewhere in all this, Robin Hood was running around making mischief in Sherwood Forest, and pioneering the use of green tights.

But that’s not the fun part. No, the fun part comes in 1199, after he returns to Europe. Richard I is running around and fighting with the French (who, by his later years, weren’t getting along anymore with the English). Laying siege to one castle in particular, he notices a boy defending the walls of the castle with a frying pan and a crossbow. This amuses Richard. Wouldn’t it amuse you? Some kid skulking around the castle walls, batting down arrows with a griddle while taking potshots at an army who, presumably, is either about to kill him or take him prisoner?

Little does Richard know that this kid blames the king for the death of his father and two brothers. This is a kid with nothing to lose. The best possible outcome, with death or capture inevitable, is to kill the king.

So the king stands below the castle, amused and without his armor, and applauds the kid’s clownish bravery. In the medieval equivalent of the full-court basketball shot, the kid shoots Richard the Lionhearted in the shoulder with a crossbow as he’s standing there, hooting and hollering at the boy.

Richard doesn’t die right away. The gangrene gets him (presumably horribly and painfully) a couple of weeks later. In a moment of appreciation for the circumstances, Richard is said to have actually pardoned the boy, sending him on his way with 100 shillings. Nice shot, kid. Here’s a pouch of booty. Go buy your widowed mother something nice.

I don’t know if I buy that, but it’s kind of immaterial. The boy was flayed and hanged upon the death of the king by a mercenary named Mercadier. Mercadier was probably roguish and good-looking, by the cut of his name. He stormed the castle again after Richard died and killed everybody left standing after the last siege.

Having had his father and brothers killed already by the same army, I expect that none of this came as a surprise to the kid.

Why do I like stories like this? Incredibly grim? Horrible deaths? Flaying and hanging? I attribute part of it to my father, who spent my formative years singing folk songs which ended badly for their protagonists. At best, there was some revenge involved, but everybody died at the end—especially the just and the undeserving of death.

One story in particular stuck with me, and that was the song of “The Golden Vanity.” It’s the Peter, Paul, and Mary version of “The Sweet Trinity,” a nasty ballad of bravery and false promises. There are a few variants, so I’ll stick to the one I know. A ship is in danger of being taken by a Spanish galley. The cabin boy, the lowliest member of the crew, says “Hey, Captain! What will you give me if I swim over to the enemy ship, bore a hole in its side, and sink it?”

“Why, silver and gold!” says the captain, twirling his moustache. “And my fairest daughter’s hand in marriage! That would be awesome!”

The cabin boy does as he has promised but, not having the kind of upbringing I had, is surprised to find that the captain won’t let him back on the ship. The authority figure reneges on his promise. The boy is hoisted up by his shipmates, but dies on the deck, his heart broken and his view of the world seriously (but temporarily) broadened.

If the cabin boy were a little more like the French king-slayer, he would have gotten the agreement in writing first. Why? Because he already knows that happy endings are for chumps, and the best you can do is to wing the king in a Hail Mary crossbow shot.

Marsyas, the martyred satyr (or, why I don’t like Tuesdays)

This morning, as I sit by the window and watch the sun come up, I can’t help but think of Marsyas. Marsyas was a satyr, one of the male companions of Pan and Dionysus in Greek mythology. If you’re waiting for me to call him “goat-like” because he was a satyr, then good for you. You paid attention in school. Apparently, the “goat” aspect came with later Roman influence.

One feature of the early Greek satyr really stands out; they had perpetual erections. Permanent stiffies. They might have been like those Viagra victims who suffer erections for more than four hours, whose first call is supposed to be their doctor. You and I both know that isn’t the first call they make, however.

But I digress. Marsyas was walking around one day as he always did, enjoying some wine and his undying boner, when he found a double flute, an aulos. Sick of screwing and getting drunk, he decided to master a musical instrument. You have to admire the fortitude of a man who takes up a vocation when he has an inexhaustible supply of alcohol (from his buddy Dionysus) and can fornicate at will. Marsyas was a satyr with vision.

He did not know, however, that Athena herself had cast aside this aulos in a fit of pique, having been told by her buddies that the flute made her cheeks puff out in an unflattering manner. Nobody likes to be told they look fat. She had cursed the aulos, dooming its future owner to a horrible end. As Marsyas danced through the forest, prick and flutes akimbo, he was heading for a showdown of mythological proportions.

Marsyas was getting pretty good at the aulos, so he decided to challenge Apollo to a riff-off. Apollo played the lyre, a three-stringed instrument invented by his buddy Hermes. Having mastered the lyre, Apollo then modded it out with an fourth string, a sunburst finish, and a Seymour-Duncan pickup, further adding to his renown. Apollo could shred.

“So what should the stakes be?” said Apollo.

“I say, whoever wins gets to do whatever he wishes to the other,” said Marsyas, no doubt planning on hitting the vanquished Apollo with a pie in the face.

“Okay,” said Apollo, who was known for starting plagues when he was cranky.

The aulos vs. lyre battle was epic. Marsyas actually won the contest, but as he was departing—and the books really say this—Apollo turned his lyre upside down and played the same song again perfectly. That’s right. He went all ZZ Top on Marsyas’ ass.

“I can’t do that with my flute!” exclaimed Marsyas, referring to the musical instrument and not his perpetually pert penis.

“Too bad,” said Apollo, who then flayed the poor bastard alive for his hubris. I kid you not. He skinned the dude, and displayed his hide for all to see.

Why can’t I help but think of Marsyas this morning? Why am I telling you this story? Moreover, why are you still reading?

I don’t really know. My wife wanted to get up early this morning and catch up on studying for her graduate-level class, so to help her out (and to capitalize on her ambition) I said “hey, let’s get up early together! I’ll do some writing, and we’ll keep each other motivated!” Monday night is full of such… hubris.

Before dawn on Tuesday morning with coffee in hand, regret in full effect, and with nothing to write about, I looked up a random Wikipedia article for inspiration. An article about the city of Arles appeared. Arles must be the most boring city in France, and was no help at all. A few years ago in Arles, they found a stone bust of Julius Caesar in the nearby Rhone river and, being French, promptly got into an argument about who put it there. This didn’t interest me either.

But they also found a statue of Marsyas there in the Rhone. And that dude had quite a story, don’t you think?

I believe that Marsyas challenged Apollo on a Monday night, and woke up Tuesday morning for the duel. I bet that come Tuesday morning, as the birds above his head woke him, he probably regretted his decision a little. By the break of dawn, I’m sure he fully realized his folly. Tuesdays are like that. We go to bed having somehow conquered Monday, which is supposed to be the hardest day of the week. And why not? It’s the beginning of a trudge to the next weekend.

But Mondays have a lot going for them, not the least of which is the restfulness from the weekend. Tuesdays don’t have that. They have all of the charm of waking up after a minor skirmish on the way to a full invasion. Even after the worst possible Monday, we spend the night having conquered the odds, thinking everything might turn out okay. By Tuesday morning,though, the hope is gone, and we’re off to a duel using instruments we think we’ve mastered but barely understand.  We do it every Tuesday. Some Tuesdays, we survive to see Wednesday, which is a different story altogether.

The moral of the story? If Apollo challenges you to a game of Guitar Hero, decline.