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 Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:03 am Post subject: Pet Bets |
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Pet Bets:
The Tent
Hardcover
By Margaret Atwood
| Quote: | Our cat was raptured up to heaven. He'd never liked heights, so he tried to sink his claws into whatever invisible snake, giant hand, or eagle was causing him to rise in this manner, but he had no luck.
When he got to heaven, it was a large field. There were a lot of little pink things running around that he thought were field mice. Thane he saw God sitting in a tree. Angels were flying here and there with their fluttering white wings; they were making sounds like doves. Every once in a while God would reach out with its large furry paw and snatch one of them out of the air and crunch it up. The ground under the tree was littered with bitten-off angel wings. (From Our Cat Enters Heaven, p. 63) |
More on the sorrows of a Losing Streak.
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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A Pocket Full of Rye
Hardcover
By Agatha Christie
| Quote: | "And the cause of death?"
"There will have to be an autopsy, naturally. Very interesting case. Very interesting indeed. Glad I was able to be in on it."
The professional gusto in Bernsadorff's rich tones told Inspector Neele one thing at least.
"I gather you don't think it was natural death," he said dryly.
"Not a dog's chance of it," said Dr. Bernsdorff robustly. "I'm speaking unofficially, of course," he added with belated caution.
"Of course. Of course. That's understood. He was poisoned?"
"Definitely. And what's more - this is quite unofficial, you understand - just between you and me - I'd be prepared to lay a bet on what the poison was."
"In-deed?"
"Taxine, my boy. Taxine."
"Taxine? Never heard of it."
"I know. Most unusual. Really delightfully unusual! I don't say I'd have spotted it myself if I hadn't had a case only three or four weeks ago. Couple of kids playing dolls' tea-parties - pulled berries off a yew tree and used them for tea."
"Is that what it is? Yew berries?"
"Berries or leaves. Highly poisonous. Taxine, of course, is the alkaloid. Don't think I've heard of a case where it was used deliberately. Really most interesting and unusual ... You've no idea, Neele, how tired one gets of the inevitable weed-killer. Taxine is a real treat. Of course, I may be wrong - don't quote me, for Heaven's sake - but I don't think so. Interesting for you, too, I should think. Varies the routine!" (-- p. 8) |
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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Love Among the Chickens
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | We had been travelling down hill all this time, but at this point we crossed a road and the ground began to rise. I was in that painful condition which occurs when one has lost one's first wind and has not yet got one's second. I was hotter than I had ever been in my life.
Whether *Aunt Elizabeth, too, was beginning to feel the effects of her run, or whether she did it out of the pure effrontery of her warped and unpleasant nature, I do not know; but she now slowed down to walk, and even began to peck in a tentative manner at the grass. Her behaviour infuriated me. I felt that I was being treated as a cipher. I vowed that this bird should realise yet, even if, as seemed probable, I burst in the process, that it was no light matter to be pursued by J. Garnet, author of "The Manoeuvres of Arthur", etc., a man of whose work so capable a judge as the Peebles Advertiser had said "Shows promise."
A judicious increase of pace brought me within a yard or two of my quarry. But Aunt Elizabeth, apparently distrait, had the situation well in hand. She darted from me with an amused chuckle, and moved off rapidly again up the hill.
I followed, but there was that within me that told me I had shot my bolt. The sun blazed down, concentrating its rays on my back to the exclusion of the surrounding scenery. It seemed to follow me about like a limelight.
We had reached level ground. Aunt Elizabeth had again slowed to a walk, and I was capable of no better pace. Very gradually I closed in. There was a high boxwood hedge in front of us; and, just as I came close enough once more to stake my all on a single grab, Aunt Elizabeth, with another of her sardonic chuckles, dived in head-foremost and struggled through in the mysterious way in which birds do get through hedges. The sound of her faint spinster-like snigger came to me as I stood panting, and roused me like a bugle. The next moment I too had plunged into the hedge. (From Mr. Garnet's Narrative, pgs. 42-43) |
| Quote: | *Note: A word about Aunt Elizabeth:
I had wandered into the paddock at the moment. I looked up. Coming towards me at her best pace was a small hen. I recognised her immediately. It was the disagreeable, sardonic-looking bird which Ukridge, on the strength of an alleged similarity of profile to his wife's nearest relative, had christened Aunt Elizabeth. A Bolshevist hen, always at the bottom of any disturbance in the fowl-run, a bird which ate its head off daily at our expense and bit the hands which fed it by resolutely declining to lay a single egg. (-- p. 41) |
Love Among the Chickens
Audio CD
Narrated just so by Jonathan Cecil
Perhaps not the great wheeze it was before recent outbreaks of avian flu, but nevertheless sound comedy with a deceptively simple vocabulary.
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| Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 10:54 am Post subject: |
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Endless Universe
Beyond the Big Bang
Hardcover
By Paul J. Steinhardt
and Neil Turok
| Quote: | At a small town in the Midwest, a gentleman about seventy years old got on the bus. Soon he started excitedly telling everyone he was going to Las Vegas. He had withdrawn his life savings and was going to gamble it all in a last-ditch attempt to make it rich. The two of us laughed at how naive he was, but in retrospect, we weren't so very different. We were pinning our hopes on new and incredibly ambitious lines of research.
The Aspen Center for Physics is specifically designed to promote innovative research and collaborations. A chic little town nestled high up in the Rocky Mountains, Aspen also has a strong hippie streak. Once during the workshop, I answered the phone at the center only to find the caller earnestly asking, "Is this the Aspen Center for Psychics?" The question seemed oddly appropriate. The workshop I was attending was attempting to divine some of nature's deepest mysteries, albeit using mathematics and physics rather than a Ouija board. (From Inflation and the Tale of Two Cosmologists, p. 111) |
| Quote: | | In 2008, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Planck satellite experiment; it will begin to report results a year or so afterward. This satellite is designed to improve measurements of the temperature variations of the cosmic background radiation to obtain a map with even higher resolution than the WMAP image. The satellite will also measure the polarization of the cosmic background radiation and could significantly improve on the WMAP limit. In 2001, shortly after the first paper on colliding branes appeared, we both spoke about the ekpyrotic model at a major conference in Cambridge called M Theory Cosmology. Stephen Hawking, the preeminent theorist who had pioneered studies of the initial singularity and made important contributions to inflationary theory, is a close colleague of Neil's and was in the audience. At the end of Neil's talk, Hawking made a public bet that the Planck satellite would detect the gravitational waves from inflation and rule out the ekpyrotic model. Neil readily accepted the wager, at even odds, for any amount Stephen would care to mention. Perhaps out of a gracious unwillingness to bankrupt Neil, Stephen has resisted naming financial terms. But he stands by the bet, and a suitable prize will be negotiated by the time the Planck satellite flies. (From the chapter entitled, Seeing Is Believing, p. 213) |
| Quote: | | But in the interim - even now- a schism may be emerging. Many outstanding leaders in cosmology, astrophysics, and string theory, including Andrei Linde, Martin Rees, and Leonard Susskind, have come to believe that the uncontrollable features are essential, to be celebrated rather than tamed. Others, like David Gross, hold firm to the conviction that the current situation is unacceptable and that a better theory must be possible. There is a real conflict developing between the two points of view. For example, after Gross, quoting Winston Churchill, exhorted his colleagues, "Never, never, never, never give up!," Susskind retorted, "But the field of physics is littered with the corpses of stubborn old men who didn't know when to give up." In his opening address at a meeting entitled Expectations of a Final Theory, Weinberg offered an intermediate perspective: "I noticed for sale the October issue of a magazine called Astronomy, having on the cover the headline 'Why You Live in Multiple Universes.' Inside I found a report of a discussion at Stanford at which Martin Rees said that he was sufficiently confident about the multiverse to bet his dog's life on it, while Andrei Linde said he would bet his own life. As for me, I have just enough confidence about the multiverse to bet the lives of both Andrei Linde and Martin Rees's dog." The repartee is chosen to amuse, but behind it lies a serious statement about differing visions of what is and is not valid science and how close scientists are to a final theory today. (From Inflationary Multiverse or Cyclic Universe, p. 241) |
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:53 am Post subject: |
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All Creatures Great and Small
The first Herriot omnibus
Hardcover
By James Herriot
| Quote: | There didn't seem much point in a millionaire filling up football pools coupons but it was one of the motive forces in old Harold Denham's life. It made a tremendous bond between us because, despite his devotion to the pools, Harold knew nothing about football, had never seen a match and was unable to name a single player in league football; and when he found that I could discourse knowledgeably not only about Everton and Preston North End but even about Arbroath and Cowdenbeath the respect with which he had always treated me deepened into a wide-eyed deference.
Of course we had first met over his animals. He had an assortment of dogs, cats, rabbits, budgies and goldfish which made me a frequent visitor to the dusty mansion whose Victorian turrets peeping above their sheltering woods could be seen for miles around Darrowby. When I first knew him, the circumstances of my visits were entirely normal - his fox terrier had cut its pad or the old grey tabby was having trouble with its sinusitis, but later on I began to wonder. He called me out so often on a Wednesday and the excuse was at times so trivial that I began seriously to suspect that there was nothing wrong with the animal but that Harold was in difficulties with his Nine Results or the Easy Six.
I could never be quite sure, but it was funny how he always received me with the same words. 'Ah, Mr Herriot, how are your pools?' He used to say the word in a long-drawn, loving way - pooools. This enquiry had been unvarying ever since I had won sixteen shillings one week on the Three Draws. I can never forget the awe with which he fingered the little slip from Littlewoods, looking unbelievingly from it to the postal order. That was the only time I was a winner but it made no difference - I was still the oracle, unchallenged, supreme. Harold never won anything, ever. (From Chapter 50, pgs. 317-318) |
| Quote: | All Creatures Great and Small
DVD
Series 1
ESL students might have a tough time at first as indeed Herriot did with the broad Yorkshire accent but perseverence is easy enough with this light-hearted comedy of dumb chums. |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack
Hardcover
By deceased Frostback literary noise,
Robertson Davies
| Quote: | YOUR PET BETRAYS YOU / A man I know who is very fond of dogs called my attention to a newspaper article today, which said that a dog grows to be like its owner. Nervous people have nervous dogs; savage people have savage dogs; stupid people have stupid dogs. Well, it may be so, though I have never seen any dog-owners among my acquaintance nosing their pets away from a garbage can, or chasing each other amorously over a newly-seeded garden. But it is a fact that married people grow alike from living together, and no true dog-owner would admit that his dumb chum was less sensitive to atmosphere than his married partner. It may be that this theory about dogs throws new light on some of my friends: Professor A, the celebrated economist, has a dog which always forgets where it has buried its bones: Madame B, the fortune-teller, has a dog which cannot foresee what will happen when it goes to sleep with its tail under the rockers of Madame's chair; modest little Miss C owns a pooch of notorious wantonness and infidelity. Can it be that these beasts reveal the truth about their owners? Beware of the Dog!
(-- p. 43) |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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Summer Lightning
Paperback
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | 'He (pink Ronnie Fish) bounced tennis-balls on my pig!'
'Do you mean to tell me,' he said sternly, 'that all this fuss, ruining my morning's work, was simply about that blasted pig of yours?'
'I refuse to allow you to call the Empress a blasted pig! Good heavens!' cried Lord Emsworth passionately. Can none of my family appreciate the fact that she is the most remarkable animal in Great Britain? No pig in the whole annals of the Shropshire Agricultural Show has ever won the silver medal two years in succession. And that, if only people will leave her alone and refrain from incessantly pelting her with tennis balls, is what the Empress is quite certain to do. It is an unheard of feat.'
The Hon. Gallahad frwoned. He shook his head reprovingly. It was all very well, he felt, a stable being optimistic about its nominee, but he was a man who could face facts. In a long and chequered life he had seen so many good things unstuck. Besides, he had his superstitions, and one of them was that counting your chickens in advance brought bad luck.
'Don't you be too cocksure, my boy,' he said gravely. 'I looked in at the Emsworth Arms the other day for a glass of beer, and there was a fellow in there offering three to one on an animal called Pride of Matchingham. Offering it freely. Tall, red-haired fellow with a squint. Slightly bottled.'
'Pride of Matchingham belongs to Sir Gregory Parsloe,' he said, 'and I have no doubt that the man offering such ridiculous odds was his pig-man, Wellbeloved. As you know, the fellow used to be in my employment, but Parsloe lured him away from me by the promise of higher wages.' Lord Emsworth's expression had now become positively ferocious. 'The thought of George Cyril Wellbeloved, that perjured pig-man, always made the iron enter into his soul. 'It was a most abominable thing to do.'
The Hon. Galahad whistled.
'So that's it, is it? Parsloe's pig man going about offering three to one- against the form-book, I take it?'
'Most decidedly. Pride of Matchingham was awarded second prize last year, but it is quite an inferior animal to the Empress.'
'Then you look after that pig of yours, Clarence.' The Hon. Galahad spoke earnestly. 'I see what this means. Parsloe's up to his old games, and intends to queer the Empress somehow.'
'Queer her?'
'Nobble her. Or, if he can't do that, steal her.'
'You don't mean it.'
'I do mean it. The man's as slippery as a greased eel. He would nobble his grandmother if it suited his book. Let me tell you I've known young Parsloe for thirty years and I solemnly state that if his grandmother was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her branmash and acorns without a moment's hesitation.'
'God bless my soul!' said Lord Emsworth, deeply impressed.
'Let me tell you a little story about young Parsloe. One or two of us used to meet at the Black Footman in Gossiter Street in the old days - they've pulled it down now - and match our dogs against rats in the room behind the bar. Well, I put my Towser, and admirable beast, up against young Parsloe's Banjo on one occasion for a hundred pounds a side. And when the night came and he was shown the rats, I'm dashed if he didn't just give a long yawn and roll over and go to sleep. I whistled him...called him...Towser, Towser...No good...Fast asleep. And my firm belief has always been that young Parsloe took him aside just before the contest was to start and gave him about six pounds of steak and onions. Couldn't prove anything, of course, but I sniffed the dog's breath and it was like opening the kitchen door of a Soho chophouse on a summer night. That's the sort of man young Parsloe is.'
'Galahad!'
'Fact. You'll find the story in *my book.' (From Chapter 3, The Sensational Theft of a Pig, at pgs. 65-67) |
| Quote: | Summer Lightning
Complete and Unabridged
Audio Cassette ONLY!
By P.G. Wodehouse
Narrated by British satirist John Wells
Again, a perfectly wonderful piece of fiction probably brilliantly narrated but available only on cassette. Fire the bloody publisher! Unfortunately, we were unable to locate any samples of the narrator's work online but we'll search our local libraries. His resume certainly recommends him. Please check back soon for a fuller review. |
Our indignant e-mail to that fathead, Chivers:
| Quote: | Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 13:52:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: legal@pokerpulse.com
Subject: Hatred and bitterness! P.G. Wodehouse out of PRINT?!
To: nick.forster@bbc.co.uk
Nick -
Are you MAD?! What is the meaning of this outrage?
How can Summer Lightning be out of print?
And why, why, WHY are so many of the audio books available only in useless, breakable, outrageously expensive audio cassette? I am trying to run an ESL guide and you are not cooperating! Harumph! And furthermore, faugh!
Never mind rubbery rationales - please just fix it.
I'd like to hear a sample of narrator Wells but I must say Jonathan Cecil is the best I've heard so far. If Chivers was going to do the thing again - hint, hint! - I'd vote for him.
Please include me in Chivers e-mail alerts, catalogue - all of that stuff:
legal@pokerpulse.com.
Thanks very much.
Please let me know if/WHEN! Summer Lightning is again available. |
... and the not unexpectedly charming reply:
| Quote: | Subject: RE: Hatred and bitterness! P.G. Wodehouse out of PRINT?!
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 10:12:14 +0100
From: "Nick Forster" <nick>
To: legal@pokerpulse.com
Quite mad, as it happens.
Alas I cannot say whether it's a prerequisite for the job, or simply a consequence of it.
Many of our Wodehouse titles are out of print, but this is merely a hiatus while shiny new CD editions are prepared for release; we have some 1,500 titles in the catalogue that need to be reissued in CD form and it's taking a little while to work through them.
Meantime let me stress that there are no,
as in none at all,
not any,
no, not even that many
plans to drop any of the Wodehouse books: all of them will reappear on CD in due course.
As for those cassettes, which stay stopped where they are when you switch off and which are so readily portable from the player in the drawing room to the one in the potting shed and from that to the one in the car without the need to fiddle about skipping tracks to find your place? They, astonishingly enough, remain the format of choice for many of our listeners, although this is slowly changing, hence the programme to reissue on CD as quickly as we can.
Summer Lightning is the only book John Wells ever read for us, so regrettably I cannot help with a sample of his narration - he was, however, an accomplished actor - and writer - http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/69101?_fromAuth=1 and would, no doubt, have done much more with us were it not for his untimely demise in 1998.
Sacking the publisher? That's just not my bag, I'm afraid.
I remain yours, etc.
Nick Forster
Nick Forster, Sales and Marketing Manager
BBC Audiobooks, St James House, The Square, Lower Bristol Road, Bath BA2 3BH
T: +44 (0)1225 878065 F: +44 (0)1225 448005 M: 07890 996980
mailto: nick.forster@bbc.co.uk |
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Paperback
By Nicolai Gogol
Translated by the incomparable Ronald Wilks
| Quote: | | Her little dog wasn't quite quick enough to nip in after her and had to stay out in the street. I'd seen that dog before. She's called Medji. I hadn't been there more than a minute when I heard a faint little voice: 'Hello, Medji!' Well, I never! Who was that talking? I looked around and saw two ladies walking along under an umbrella: one was old, but her companion was quite young. They'd already gone past when I heard that voice again: 'Shame on you, Medji!' What was going on, for heaven's sake? Then I saw Medji sniffing round a little dog following the two ladies. 'Aha,' I said to myself, 'It can't be true, I must be drunk.' But I hardly ever drink. 'No Fidele, I told myself, 'you're quite mistaken.' With my own eyes I actually saw Medji mouth these words: 'I've been, bow wow, very ill, bow wow.' Ah, you nasty little dog! I must confess I was staggered to hear it speak just like a human being. But afterwards, when I'd time to think about it, my amazement wore off. In fact, several similar cases have already been reported. It's said that in England a fish swam to the surface and said two worlds in such a strange language the professors have been racking their brains for three years now to discover what it was, so far without success. What's more, I read somewhere in the papers about two cows going into a shop to ask for a pound of tea. Honestly, I was much more startled when I heard Medji say: 'I did write to you, Fidele. Polkan couldn't have delivered my letter.' I'd stake a month's salary that that was what the dog said. Never in my life have I heard of a dog that could write. Only noblemen know how to write correctly. Of course, you'll always find some traders or shopkeepers, even serfs, who can scribble away: but they write like machines - no commas or full stops, and simply no idea of style. (From Diary of a Madman, October 3rd, at p. 19) |
Wonderful comedy by the Ukrainian champion of tears. Don't miss the excellent introduction by Wilks, friend to freshmen, who ransack the shelving each fall for context. Here it is, brilliantly condensed.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:58 am Post subject: |
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Art and Nature
An Illustrated Anthology of Nature Poetry
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Hardcover
Selected by Kate Farrell
| Quote: | TO A PRIZE BIRD
You suit me well, for you can make me laugh,
nor are you blinded by the chaff
that every wind sends spinning from the rick.
You know to think, and what you think you speak
with much of Samson's pride and bleak
finality, and none dare bid you stop.
Pride sits you well, so strut, colossal bird.
No barnyard makes you look absurd;
your brazen claws are staunch against defeat.
Marianne Moore, American, 1887, 1887-1972
(-- p. 111, adjacent to Woman with a Parrot. Edouard Manet, French, 1832-1883. Oil on canvas, 1866.) |
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| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:05 am Post subject: |
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From Losing Streak:
flirt, punk & loo
my dogs and I
Written and Illustrated by Emily Carr
Hardcover
| Quote: | January
Our studio reopens after Xmas vacation - All feel after-Xmassy and rotton, - Missus and I headaches, the fool parrot girls colds, and the pupils party - bedraggled and peevish.
Dont think much of Xmas:
Dont think much of anybody:
Dont think any of us will live long anyway: whats the good of anything: men are brutes, leastways C.P.R. men: putting dogs down on cold rhumatic wind-swept lower decks when they travel with their missus: holidaying - bit the post-man and feel better now.
(Opening pages of this tiny book, a chronicle of nasty Bobtail dogs and sundry pet-slaves which reveals one of Canada's greatest painters in a light not nearly as complimentary as one might have expected from the book's icky title) |
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:54 am Post subject: |
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From Omens and Lucky Charms:
The Chickens Fight Back
Pandemic Panics and Deadly Disease
that Jump from Animals to Humans
Paperback
By Dr. David Waltner-Toews
| Quote: | The Zoroastrians praised cocks for driving out the devils of night and guarding the household. From Persia, the birds invaded both northern Africa and Europe. Although the "rosy-fingered Dawn" Homer described in The Odyssey was not accompanied by cockcrows, Aeschylus (late in the fifth century BC) has Athena (in the play The Eumenides) warning the Greeks that civil war is like cockfighting, an image (fierce, small-brained, beautiful birds passionately slashing each other to death) that some of us would extend to war in general, although cockfighting itself has perhaps more to recommend it.
The Romans used live chickens for augurs; if the birds eagerly ate food thrown to them, things would go well. If not, this was a poor omen. As might be expected, the chickens were kept underfed until omen-reading time came around. During a 249 BC battle against the Carthaginians at Drepana, in what is now western Sicily, the Roman consul P. Claudius Pulcher threw the sacred chickens overboard when they refused to east, saying, "If they will not eat, let them drink." Later the same day, the Carthaginians sank 93 of the consul's 123 ships. The consul was promptly recalled and forced to pay a large fine. One could draw a lesson from this event, but it would be premature for me to pronounce omens so early in this story. (-- p. 100) |
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| Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:16 am Post subject: |
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Red Dog
Hardcover
By Louis de Bernières
Illustrated by Alan Baker
| Quote: | Nancy sat down a little closer to Red Dog than she had yesterday, and he looked sideways at her, showing the whites of his eyes, as if he were about to bite her. Instead he got down, stuck his muzzle under her thigh and once more tried to push her off. Nancy was conscious of the sniggers of the men in the bus, and, mustering as much dignity as she could, she said, 'None of you's a gentleman, that's for sure.'
Red Dog seemed a little put out by this remark and he sat up and pretended that there was no-one else on his seat. If he couldn't move that obstinate woman, he would just have to treat her with the disdain that she deserved. He let her put a little bit more of her backside on the seat.
The next morning Red Dog realised that he was looking forward to sitting next to Nancy, and when she sat next to him he forgot to try to push her off. He thought that he might just try being a bit aloof, but when she said 'Hi, Red!' and patted him on the head, he couldn't help smiling a little in the way that dogs do. He thumped his tail on the seat, once only, and then went back to looking out of the window, not wanting to give way too much to begin with.
Nancy didn't turn round, but she could tell that the miners were impressed, and weren't mocking her any more. She knew that she had scored a victory over them at the same time as she had won over Red Dog.
From that moment onward, Red Dog and Nancy became friends. There were not many others who dared to try it, but Nancy sat next to him whenever she liked. (From Red Dog and Nancy Grey, pgs. 28-29) |
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:33 am Post subject: |
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New York Times Magazine
One of the Best but Still Hardly
Worth the Amazon Subscription Price
The Communicators
We asked them to speak their minds in our language.
By Charles Siebert
Dec. 30/07
| Quote: | There is, in the end, no telling what tales they had to tell, the two greatest nonhuman linguists of our day: Washoe, the sign-language-wielding chimpanzee with an intense footwear fetish; and Alex, the wildly outspoken parrot, an African gray known to regularly order about his human researchers and to purposely give them the wrong answers to their questions just to alleviate his boredom. After all, we only every gave our own words to work with.
... By the time of her death from natural causes in October at age 42, she managed to pass along much of what she had learned to her adoptive chimp son, Loulis. It was the first recorded instance of an animal-to-animal transference of a human language.
Alex, for his part, was picked up in a Chicago pet store in 1977 by a newly minted Harvard chemistry Ph. D. named Irene Pepperberg. She had become fascinated with the stories of Washoe, along with other studies being done at that time on highly communicative species like dolphins, humpback whales and songbirds. Alex (an acronym for Avian Learning EXperiment) would learn more than 100 words in the course of his 30-year partnership with Pepperberg. Healso learned to identify 50 different objects; to recognize their different colors, shapes and makeup; and to distinguish and pronounce phonemes (the root sounds of words). By the time of his sudden death from a heart contidition in September at the age of 31, he also mastered many compound words.
... The moment with Washoe that still resonates most is one that occurred outside the laboratory, when she happened to notice a swan adrift on a nearby lake. She turned to her caretakers and signed "water," then "bird": perhaps the first doumented incident of another creature freely assigning our words to an observed phenomenon. It was, the Harvard psychologist Roger Brown noted at the time, "like getting an SOS from outer space."
... Alex's cognitive abilities tested as high as those of a 4-5-year-old child. He understood concepts like presence and absence, making him very adept at the shell game. He frequently cajoled and coached the other parrots in Pepperberg's lab. And he never hesitated to express his frustrations and affections. When Pepperberg returned to the lab after a three-week absence, Alex turned his back on her and commanded, "Come here!" As she put Alex back in his cage the night he died, he signed off with: "You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you." (-- p. 42) |
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editor
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Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 9:41 am Post subject: |
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From the Will to Win:
COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Let sleeping dogs lie
May 1/08
| Quote: | | Dog owners are warned by a Government vet not to let pets sleep in the bedroom for frear of transmitting disease. Dr Fred Landeg says: 'Many new diseases are passable from animals to man, such Sars and hendra virus from bats.' Defra says 10% of Britain's 6.5 million dogs may carry MRSA. However, most owners seem unconcerned; 62% of dogs sleep in the bedroom or kitchen, according to Liverpool University. Beverley Cuddy of Dogs Today says: 'It's scaremongering. You can catch more from the person next to you in bed. With climate change, we shouls use dogs for warmth.' The Kennel Club's Caroline Kisko agrees: 'If the dog is clean and healthy, there's nothing wrong with snuggling up.' But Dogs Trust vet Chris Laurence says: 'Dogs shouldn't be allowed to share everything. Basic hygiene makes sense.' (emphasis added) (-- p. 67) |
But get this, from the same issue:
| Quote: | Labradors as assistance dogs
Disney is making a film about him, and he can use a cashpoint, but Endal was once an assistance-dog reject. Owner Allen Parton tells his tale.
'I was in the Royal Navy, when, in 1991, I sailed to the Gulf War and was involved in an incident that left me in hospital for five years. When I woke up, I couldn't recall being married, I couldn't read, write, walk or talk, and I attempted suicide twice.
'My wife had become a "puppy parent" for a charity called Canine Partners, and, one day, when I was in its waiting room, I was spotted by an 11-month-old labrador called Endal, who had joint problems and who had failed assistance-dog selection. He went across the room to a toy supermarket, took a tin off the shelf, put it in my lap and, to cut a long story short, I was disappearing under a pile of toys when, for the first time in five, I smiled. That night, I took Endal back home to Hampshire.
'Visiting Crufts one year, we were struck by a hit-and-run driver. I was left unconscious, but Endal pulled me into the recovery position and covered me with a blanket, before going to get help. For this, he became the first holder of the Animal George Cross.
'He's also learned to operate a cashpoint, mastered chip and pin, and is still the only dog in the UK that can put a letter in a letterbox. He was also the first dog to fly in the cabin of an aircraft.
'Endal is 12 now, and Disney is making a film about him. I know that, one day, I'll put my hand down and he won't be there, but he's left a great legacy behind - we're now looking to EJ (Endal Junior). I'm very proud of my boy. For more information, visit www.endal.co.uk or www.caninepartners.co.uk.
Labradors as guide dogs
Between 1931 and 1938, the only variations from German shepherd bitches that the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (GDBA) used were four German shepherd males, two golden retriever bitches and three crosses. Now, about 80% of guide dogs are labradors.
Neil Ewart of the GDBA (and a former trainer) says: 'The labrador has few complexities of temperament than the other guide-dog breeds.'
Indeed, German shepherds become frustrated with clumsy owners, can easily become stressed, and have a long, striding gait, which does not suit many people.
For a blind owner, the labrador's short coat make it easy to look after; its size means that its height and stride, plus the width of its harness, are suitable for most people; and the reputation of the breed means that it can carry out its duties without fuss - something Andrew Lane, 28, can testify to. ... (-- pgs. 82-83) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:07 am Post subject: |
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From Losing Streak:
The Door
Poems
Hardcover
By Margaret Atwood
| Quote: | MOURNING FOR CATS
We get too sentimental
over dead animals.
We turn maudlin.
But only those with fur,
only those who look like us,
at least a little.
Those with big eyes,
eyes that face front.
Those with smallish noses
or modest beaks.
No one laments a spider.
Nor a crab.
Hookworms rate no wailing.
Fish neither.
Baby seals make the grade,
and dogs, and sometimes owls.
Cats almost always.
Do we think they are like dead children?
Do we think they are a part of us,
the animal soul
stashed somewhere near the heart,
fuzzy and trusting,
and vital and on the prowl,
and brutal most of the time,
and also stupid?
(Why almost always cats? Why do dead cats
call up such ludicrous tears?
Why such deep mourning?
Because we can no longer
see in the dark without them?
Because we're cold
without their fur? Because we've lost
our hidden second skin,
the one we'd change into
when we wanted to have fun,
when we wanted to kill things
without a second thought,
when we wanted to shed the dull thick weight
of being human?)
(-- pgs. 11-12) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3913#3913 |
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