Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Booter! Baaaad!
  

    
Actually, they show the sheep *photographs."  Head shots.  I am not
making this up.
  

    
Damn.
  

    
One of the things I got out of your book, Susan, was the constant reminder
that humans are
  

    
Are what?  Go ahead, we can take it.
  

    
maybe her bird unplugged the machine so she wouldn't give away the 
secret.
  

    
Love that story about the French explorer.
  

    
I want to ask a writerly question. You had a co-author for your previous
book; this one was all yours. How did that change the way you worked?
  

    
Since I didn't have to produce things for my co-author to look at, I
was more erratic on this book.  But I didn't have to write in a
compromise voice, so that was lovely.
  

    
And your voice is one of the best things about Becoming a Tiger! Reading the
book is like listening to you tell odd and intriguing animal tales. I love
your dry humor and wry take on things, like the fact that humans regard tool
use as "classy."
  

    
Oh and footnotes!  I got to have footnotes with jokes in them.
  

    
OK, I already knew I was going to have to get this book, but now that
I know you have funny footnotes... we're going to a bookstore tomorrow.
  

    
My favorite footnote so far:

  *I would never do this.

But there's a lot of competition.
  

    
Really!
  

    
There aren't that many footnotes, really.  I think my editor allowed me
to keep them in because she is Terry Pratchett's American editor.
  

    
I *love* your footnotes, Susan. Your editor was wise to leave them in.
I also love the section headers, so understated, so droll. Like in the
section where you talk about baby otters discovering that [edible]
baby octopus lurk inside empty soda cans that litter the bottom of
Monterey Bay, you've titled it "The refreshing beverage with tentacles."

And sorry about drifting off there in my previous post. I thought I'd
bailed on that unformed query. ack! Let me see if I can gather my
thoughts again...

It seems to me that your book reinforces the commonalities we have with the
animal world. Or rather, it reminds us that human beings are part of the
animal world, not separate from it. 

In your previous book, the coauthored "When Elephants Weep," you explore
animals' emotional landscape. In "Becoming a Tiger" you use humor to
attribute human-like thought processes to animals --  attributing feelings
like pride of parenthood (with the penguins who "adopted" the egg as their
own) and machismo (in the case of prey animals who stare down potential
predators, "I see you, you creep."). 

Emotions like "fear" are easy to accept as being part of the emotional
landscape of most animals. But pride? Machismo? You make a good case for
all of that though. 

So how complex do you think the emotions of a penguin are? A gorilla? A
whale? Do you think a fish can feel affection? Can a snail get depressed?


 
  

    
r
I am not sure how complex my own emotions are, but I suspect a gorilla
has a fairly similar array.  I don't think we know enough about the lives
of whales to guess much about them.

I do suspect that some fish feel affection---but I'm thinking of fish
with families, fish that pair off and/or raise and protect their
young.  I dunno about sardines.

Again, I have so little insight into snail lives that I cant guess if
they get depressed.  I don't say that they don't, I just don't know if
they do.
  

    
What about embarrassment? Seems to me most cat owners have attributed
feelings of embarrassment -- quickly covered up with a "I *meant* to
do that!" flounce -- to their beloved felines. Can you think of any
studies those seem to indicate that some animals feel embarrassed? 
Shy, maybe? 
  

    
Studies, no.  Frequently observed behaviors, yes.

My view is that in the wild, it's good to look good.  If you don't
look good, predators are extremely likely to target you for their next
prey candidate.  Or in a social species, your competitors are likely
to think they should try to push you around.  (I mean, competitors of
your own species.)  And so forth.  So it's worth trying to look good
even when you don't feel good.  And pretending that you meant to fall
off the table or knock over the vase is part of trying to look good.
And what motivates you?  Not rational calculation, but the feeling of
embarrassment.

But there's nothing about this is Becoming A Tiger.  For focus on
emotions, you need to go to When Elephants Weep.
  

    
I think many of the animal studies and observed behaviors you detail in
"Becoming a Tiger" at least hint at the emotional component, though. You
describe big cats who grow frustrated with their babies' excessive
playfulness when that playfulness scares away the prey they've been
stalking. You talk about chimps' delight at solving a puzzle that will
help bring them food. 

Cats and chimps have fairly complex brains, I presume. What about birds?
Do you think birds experience a sense of self awareness strong enough to
cause them to behave in certain ways that would help them avoid being
seen as awkward, clumsy?
  

    
You're absolutely right.  It is impossible to completely disentangle
emotions and cognition.

As for the big cats, they're suprisingly patient (=more patient than
I imagine I would be) with obstreperously "helpful" cubs.  When the
cubs get too impossible, the mother will often just sneak away to hunt
on her own.  As with humans, a big part of the chimpanzee delight in
solving a puzzle is the intellectual pleasure of it.

And you remind me that young birds practicing song sing very very
quietly, so quietly that you may only know they're singing by the
fact that their beak is open a crack and their throat is vibrating.
It could be argued that they do this to avoid antagonizing skilled
adult birds, but it could also be argued that they don't like to be
overheard until they're good at it.  And of course that both are true.

Supporting the idea that the young birds are embarrassed to be
overheard singing inexpertly are observations from a gray parrot, a
bonobo, and human children.  The gray parrot Alex practices difficult
words and phrases late at night when the lab is empty and people have
gone home.  The bonobo Kanzi, who has been taught to use plastic
symbols called lexigrams affixed to a board, takes his board aside and
composes sentences to himself---and when people come over to see what
sentences he's made, he folds up the board so they can't read it and
hastens away.  And it turns out that if you leave a tape recorder in
the crib of a child who's been put to bed, a child who is still
masteroing language, she or he will typically use much more complex
grammar and linguistic forms in talking to her- or himself before
falling asleep than she or he does earlier in the day when talking
to parents.  Are these yougn beings afraid of being attacked by adult
birds?  It hardly seems likely.  It seems that we all like to put our
best foot forward when we have an audience, so if we can practice in
private, we will.
  

    
I can barely remember being a child of about four, alone outside on the
swing, singing quietly so no one could hear me.  The thing with the young
birds struck a chord.
  

    
A lovely image.
  

    
By the way, if anyone is in New York or DC and would like to go to a
reading of this book, I'm reading at the Borders at Columbus Circle
this Wednesday at 7pm, and at the National Museum of Natural History
this Friday at noon.
  

    
Run, don't walk, to hear Sumac read!

I've just begun the book, and am glad that my sweetie is away for a few 
days, so he can't hear me cackling out loud at some of Sumac's 
descriptions.  I love the idea of a bear asking me out on a date...