a remedy for my blogging funk: interspecies love

I had a wildly busy -- and interesting and fun -- October, and no time to blog. Now I have time, and plenty to write about, and can't seem to string together words in any coherent order. This is typical for me when I haven't written anything in a while. I believe -- quite literally -- that I have forgotten how to write.

Luckily, some pretend blogging tends to re-boot my writing brain. Interspecies love to the rescue!

Here's a very unusual friendship: a man plays fetch with a beautiful beluga whale.

Beluga whale playing fetch near the north pole pic.twitter.com/ZjVBmaJtDU

— B&S (@____B_S____) October 28, 2022

I'm not sure if this is love, but the puppy clearly thinks they're a rabbit, too.

this puppy thinks he's a rabbit too ..... pic.twitter.com/glKYvhQYMH

— B&S (@____B_S____) October 28, 2022

Why would a butterfly want to play with a puppy?

Puppy playing with a butterfly

📽 shoyubr pic.twitter.com/eYNrpmzgzz

— B&S (@____B_S____) October 27, 2022

This tiny kitten isn't sure about her pittie brother -- at first.

This Golden Retriever and deer have been best friends for 11 years. Here's a time lapse view of their friendship.

And finally, a dog with too much energy and his bestie, a rescued raccoon.

You're welcome!

the post of orphaned notes

Like many writers, especially those of us who grew up before the digital age, I keep a notebook. I use it to capture ideas, capture thoughts about I'm reading, take notes on experiences, and take notes on various activist or community meetings I attend. 

I've learned that I have to make notes while I'm thinking of something, because I am unlikely to remember the thought at another time, out of context. Before the digital age, I carried a small spiral memo pad with me almost all the time. 

These days, however, I don't always have a notebook with me, so I do whatever is quickest -- type a note on my phone, scribble it on a scrap of paper, save an email in drafts, or email myself from one address to another.

Later on, when I'm blogging, I check my notebook to see my notes. But I don't look at the notes on my phone or the scraps of paper sitting in a neat pile on my desk or any other form of notetaking. My note-capturing process has changed, but my writing process has not. (And apparently cannot.)

Then I write something and post it.

Then sometime later, I find the other notes, the ones not in a notebook. And these notes bother me. I don't throw them away, and I don't delete them. And every time I see them, they remind me of my sloppy, haphazard, non-methodical writing methods.

And so, in what is sure to be an ongoing but occasional series, I bring you: a post of orphaned notes.

what i'm reading

I wrote about David Blight's huge and brilliant biography of Frederick Douglass here: what i'm reading: frederick douglass, prophet of freedom. In my phone, a note called "frederick douglass susan b anthony" says:

All racist
Stanton especially
Huge rift btn Douglass and Anthony/Stanton re suffrage
Racist and white supremacist speeches
Douglass and drunken Irishman speech
Anti Indian in many speeches
Ignorance of what was happening to native americans
Also Douglass imperialist re annexing DR, Cuba, Haiti, what his reasons were
What does the moral purity crowd make of this? All it means is no one is perfect. Not even the best.
xref: extend more compassion to others' imperfections and our own.

A note called "frederick douglass" says:

lincoln re emancipation / JFK re civil rights
JFK was no lincoln but good parallel
both making political decisions, delaying moral decisions
both: standard history credits white men for movement they were dragged into, support only when there was no other option

A note called "running the books" (book reviewed here) says:

compassion as most defiant/radical act
complexities of rules - broken bent adhered to - conseqs
kites
books are not mailboxes
"havens for all variety of loners and outcasts" = daytime library

what i'm watching

A note called "shameless uk" says:

redemption
learning the source of pain that drives bad behaviour eg monica's mum

A note called "bob newhart show guest stars" says:

sharon gless
henry winkler
len lesser (seinfeld uncle leo) (also get smart)
terry garr
ron rifkin
terry garr
howard hesseman (early gay character)
john ritter
fred willard
S3 change in open, now shows emily  

A note called "intellectual superheroes" says:

sherlock
bletchley - fantastic four - superfriends - ea. w super powers
murdoch
gets around pre-computer age 

A note with no title says:

red dwarf waiting for film to be developed - limited imagination!

star trek TOS ep 15 "in accordance w/ our laws and our many beliefs"

malcolm dumb irritating people are often bigots

shows used to be 50 mins now 42 shows used to be 22 mins now 18

An ominous note with no title says:

where do their husbands and kids disappear to? 

Cultural appropriation

A note called "cultural appropriation?" has a brief intro from me, then copy/pasted text from letters to the New York Times Book Review.

letters to nyt book review about the ridiculousness of applying cultural appropriation to fiction

Letters to the Editor

‘American Dirt’

To the Editor:

I wish your reviewers would keep to the business at hand of reviewing books. I am not interested in Lauren Groff’s anxiety and fear about reviewing “American Dirt” (Jan. 26), or her lack of Mexican heritage or migrant experience. Or the author’s lack of Mexican heritage or migrant experience, for that matter. We are all human beings, regardless of racial or ethnic background. Human beings love to tell and listen to stories. It’s in our makeup. It’s as simple as that, no matter who’s telling it. Writers have the great pleasure and privilege of creating worlds for us to enter, whatever color they are, or where they were born.

Please urge your reviewers to actually critique and/or praise books, not give us all their feelings about doing so, the controversy behind the book, or questioning the author’s right to tell the story. Save the hand-wringing and the virtue-signaling for the opinion pages.

Gina Ortiz
Claremont, Calif.

To the Editor:

In her review of Jeanine Cummins’s “American Dirt,” Lauren Groff wondered whether she was the right person to review the novel, being neither a Mexican nor a migrant. If this were the case, then only an African-American should have reviewed DuBose Heyward’s novel “Porgy,” a Holocaust survivor William Styron’s “Sophie’s Choice,” and a classicist Mary Renault’s novels about ancient Greece. If the critic represents the reader at his or her highest level, then Groff has succeeded admirably. She realizes she is not reviewing an art novel but a work of commercial fiction and judges it accordingly. She admits her ambivalence about it but cannot deny its emotional impact. Groff should be commended for navigating the troubled waters of cultural appropriation without hitting a reef.

Bernard F. Dick
Teaneck, N.J.

To the Editor:

I haven’t read “American Dirt,” but the whole debate about cultural appropriation strikes me as ridiculous and dangerous. What’s next: telling a female author she doesn’t have the right to write from a male point of view, or vice versa? Was John Steinbeck an Okie? Was Harriet Beecher Stowe an African-American? And yet, “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” were powerful works that helped shape public opinion.

In the end, the only thing that really matters is: Is the work of fiction effective or not? Beyond that, it shouldn’t matter in the least who tells it.

Dale Boyer
Chicago

To the Editor:

I have read about all the controversy associated with “American Dirt” and whether it is an appropriation of “Others’” stories. This is my question: I have read all of Tony Hillerman’s novels about the Southwest and the Navajo in particular. They gave me insight into the area and peoples that I never received from my undergraduate and graduate history education. Has anyone ever questioned Hillerman’s appropriation? Was he given a pass because he is a man? And recently male writers have been praised for their novels that featured female main characters.

There needs to be more discussion of these issues.

Dee Pregliasco
Louisville, Ky.

To the Editor:

The idea that certain groups have an exclusive right to certain stories is a critical fallacy; Shakespeare was not a woman, not a Moor, not a Jew, not a medieval — or ancient — English king. Nor was he unable, as a white Christian male of his time, to write sympathetically about them. Let’s get back to judging works on their merits, not by our personal politics.

Gregory Loselle
Southgate, Mich.

A note from antiquity

I have a note to myself from when I read The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead's first novel, in 1999! Yes, not only did I save this note from 19 years ago, I actually know where to find it! I may have sloppy writing habits, but I am very organized!

When she goes to see Coombs (Natchez) he tells the receptionist to her pass.

Vol I and II as old and new testament. Vol III "truly understands human need". shanti?

"It is important to let the citizens know it is coming. to let them prepare themselves for the second elevation."

Fulton as god or prophet, christlike figure. Lila Mae as prophet p 255

listening to joni

mingus, blasted for thinking she could play jazz and "be black"

1 mingus approached her

2 jazz has always been multicultural, first culture in US to be integrated

3 shut up you idiots

and

review her love life or her personality (which they imagined they knew based on songs) or criticized her for not doing ... ? 

and

did critics hate her because they didn't understand her and she made them feel stupid?

and

anthology supposed 2 b walkthru of joni chronology but no revw of blue or c&s?

 Orphaned blog ideas

These are notes for posts I've never written, and since I never see these notes, probably never will.

dr said choose habits that involve movement
why this is not practical or good advice

and

coltrane
giant steps
in btn 2 miles davis albums

incredibly fertile periods of great musicians: joni, dylan, coltrane
what years for each?

and

to find out which one deserves it most, a series of tests
everyone deserves it!
love, meaningful work, decent life, 2nd chance or 3rd or 4th chance
individual/anecdotal stories determining policies
one @ time - luck - policies for better
individuals vs better society

and

when could you get quality food at a decent price?
when could one earner support a family?
is this only true for white people?
role of unions

and

who is the news for?
price of oil
layoffs vs stock market
"growth" - shareholders
who produces the news

These have been sitting in Blogger drafts for ages. I don't write them, but I don't delete them.

thoughts on listening to bob dylan while driving through the [ends there]

what i'm reading: galileo: watcher of the skies by david wootton

seeing the night sky

five assumptions urbans make about rurals and vice versa

the trudeau government should create green jobs, not bail out the fossil-fuel industry

the strange and circular concept of electability

athena is organizing against amazon, and you can help -- even if you use amazon. especially if you use amazon.

mass demos are ineffective and have been for more than two decades

interspecies love: it's been too long

I've been stashing these in a folder, but it's been years since I've posted any! I don't know about you, but I could sure use a break.

you can never have too much interspecies love

I'm working on a few actual posts, where I actually write something and you might actually read it. Until those materialize, please enjoy these fine examples of interspecies love.

First, the incredible story of Mr. G. and Jellybean.

Read more about it here. Bring a tissue.

Next, friendship is not just for funny little grass-eaters. Big carnivores have friends, too.

And finally, a beautiful German Shepherd and an adorable piglet are in love in BC. Slide show here.

Many thanks to Steph and Miss Essie Ash for sharing these!

(Can any code-friendly readers tell me why there is a huge space after that second embed?)

interspecies love, adorable baby elephant edition

If this doesn't tug at your heartstrings, better call 911. You might be dead.

Many thanks to Stephanie for helping me stay afloat.

interspecies love, pup and guinea pig edition

Sadly, this will not embed. So please click. You won't be sorry. Go click now!

Thanks to Stephanie!

children's books # 6: the return of interspecies love

It's been a while since I've written about children's books, and an even longer while since I've done an interspecies love post, so why not combine the two? There's a spate of children's books depicting cross-species animal friendships, some excellent, some better avoided.

Children love these stories for the same reasons we do. There is something so touching - and off-the-charts cute! - about these friendships between animals who should, by nature, be afraid of each other, or even in a very different kind of relationship - at mealtime.

For kids, some of these books have a moral overlay, teaching about difference and tolerance. That's fine, as long as its done with a light touch. Children's books don't need to be didactic to get their message across.

I've seen at least a dozen animal-friendship books, and there are probably a dozen more I haven't seen. I've chosen four good ones, and highlighted two others that are noteworthy for the wrong reasons. Don't miss the bonus tracks at the end. (Anachronism alert! You might have to be over a certain age to know what a bonus track is.)

Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom, Jennifer Holland, 2010

Jennifer Holland's Unlikely Friendships is noteworthy for the outstanding photography and perfectly concise text. A writer for National Geographic magazine, Holland avoids sentimental or cutesy language, focusing on animal behavioural explanations for how such unusual bonds may form.

Holland includes some of the more famous interspecies friendships, like Owen and Mzee (see below), and some that are total cute overload, like a horse and a fawn. But surely the most remarkable friendship stories are those between animals who normally interact as predator and prey. A leopard returns to an Indian village every night to sleep with its friend... a calf. A female lion raises a baby oryx. There is a friendship between a snake and a hamster!

This book is marketed to all ages. Although an adult could read it to a young child, and the child would undoubtedly enjoy the photos, the language and the subject matter is more appropriate to older children with strong reading skills. The very young child would not understand why these friendships are so unusual, or, for example, why a snake who eats a hamster rather than befriending it isn't mean or bad.

Holland also adapted her book for children. Unlikely Animal Friendships for Kids is a series of chapter books, each with five animal-friendship stories, retold in simplified language. Unfortunately, they read like dumbed-down versions of the original, or something that was hastily thrown together. I'd avoid them.

Friends: True Stories of Extraordinary Animal Friendships, Catherine Thimmesh, 2011

Catherine Thimmesh's book, on the other hand, is a children's book written by someone who knows how to write for children. Each animal friendship is told in a short story written in simple rhyming verse. Although the photographs are not as striking as the ones in Holland's book, they are still beautiful and engaging.

The author's website has a promotional video where you can see some of the animal pairs. Who can resist a sad-eyed monkey cuddling with a white dove? Children of almost any age would enjoy this book.




Owen and Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, Craig Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, Peter Greste, 2006

These days, the most famous interspecies love stories have their own books, or series of books, or maybe a mini-franchise. Owen and Mzee was one of the first. It tells the story of a baby hippo who was orphaned during the 2004 tsunami, and rescued by an animal rehab centre in Kenya. Rescuing a 600 pound baby is no small feat, and that story is well worth telling. But those animal workers were amazed when a giant tortoise, thought to be around 130 years old, adopted the hippo. The two became fast friends, spending all their time together, including swimming and playing together.

This story is not only happy and sweet. The baby hippo is separated from its pod (a hippo family), the fate of the mother is unknonw, and the baby is lost and alone. The choice of photographs by Greste, a photojournalist for BBC, helps prevent the sad part of the story from becoming overwhelming. Ultimately, of course, this is a story of love triumphing over pain, and friendship helping to heal loss.

Craig Hatkoff has written several lovely children's book about animals, including Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captured the World (website here) and Leo the Snow Leopard: The True Story of an Amazing Rescue. Owen and Mzee is not only about animal friendship; it's full of well written information about hippos, animal sanctuaries, tsunamis, and more.

Isabella Hatkoff, listed as co-author or contributor, is Hatkoff's daughter. When she was six years old, Isabella saw photos of the friendship between the hippo and the tortoise, and persuaded her father to write this book.

Another book, A Mama for Owen, treats the same story in picture-book format, without success. Author Marion Dane Bauer over-simplifies the story, portraying the baby hippo as meeting the tortoise by accident. Although I often argue in favour of introducing children to difficult concepts, I'd approach this book with great caution. Should very young children see a baby separated from its mother, who gets swept away in a huge ocean wave? The baby hippo finds a new friend, but friends are not mothers. This book isn't particularly well done, but more importantly, it could be extremely upsetting, even traumatizing.


Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends, Carol Buckley, 2009

This post wouldn't be complete without Tarra and Bella. You've probably seen video of this inseparable pair, who were YouTube superstars.

Tarra had been a circus elephant. When she was allowed to retire, she was put in sanctuary. Tarra avoided other elephants and didn't make friends - until the appearance of Bella, a stray dog and new sanctuary resident. It was, as the cliche goes, love at first sight. When Bella was hospitalized after a serious injury, Tarra sat outside the dog's recovery room, every day. When Bella recovered, Tarra was waiting for her, ready for them to walk together at Bella's new slow pace.

This is a beautiful story, beautifully told, with excellent photographs, including frames from video of the moment the friends were reunited after Bella's recovery. The book contains great, brief information about the Tennessee animal sanctuary where it took place, and the URL of an "EleCam" on the sanctuary grounds.

* * * *

Bonus tracks! A collection of interspecies love sent by wmtc readers over the past year.

Dog and river otter at play!

Animal odd couple photo gallery from the New York Daily News: here. Turns out that paper is good for something after all!

Dog adopts abandoned tiger cubs: here.

Lions and tigers and bears oh my: here.

Thanks to Eric, Stephanie, Allan, James, and if you've sent me one that I've forgotten, thank you, too.

what is it about love?

I was looking my dogs, thinking about how each came into our lives. How one day a dog is living in a shelter, and that's its pack and its life, and then one day it is put in a car and taken somewhere else, and now it has a new family, and a new life.

The dog loves its new people and its new packmates, because that's what dogs do. That's what it's programmed to do, so to speak. That's its dog way of being. Even if the dog is stressed from the huge change, or depressed over the loss of its old family, after a period of adjustment, the dog will grow to love its new pack with the same loyal, intense dog-love, because that's what dogs do.

And for us, the day we bring the dog home, we're excited and we like the new dog, and we anticipate is life with us. But the longer the dog lives in our home, the longer we take care of the dog, the longer it depends on us, the deeper the bond becomes, and the more we love the dog. Because, I think, that's what humans do.

I like all animals, especially all dogs, but when I look at my own dogs, I feel a unique and profound love. And if another dog were to appear in my home, and it depended on me and I took care of it, I would eventually feel a deep and special love for that dog, too. One day a dog is just a dog, and another day, it's part of your family and part of your heart.

And that's the way it is with people, too.

How do we love, where does love come from?

People talk about "maternal instinct," the drive of a mother to love her children. I don't doubt that a mother's love for her biological child can be a unique force. We've only to check YouTube for all those animal mothers nurturing orphaned babies of other species to see how that works.

But that's a partial explanation at best. "Maternal instinct" doesn't explain a father's love, or the love of adoptive parents for their children. Or how I took a job as a nanny, and grew to love the boy in my care, how he came to be part of my heart's family. Or why I love my dogs.

We could say it's caring for another being that forges that special bond - but that, too, would be but a partial explanation. It wouldn't explain the protective love of a young child for its new infant sibling. Or my love for my nieces and nephews. Or, for that matter, our love for our partners.

It's a mysterious force - so powerful, intrinsic to us, and beyond our control.

On the one hand, love keeps replenishing itself: the more you give away, the more you have. The more you love, the more you can love. There's limitless room for love in our hearts.

And on the other hand, the more we love, the more potential there is for loss, and for pain. The loss can be devastating. But knowing that, most of us continue to love and to seek love. Those who don't - people who try to avoid love, in order to avoid pain - are seldom happy.

I recently finished reading this excellent book, the literary zombie novel. In the end, I saw the whole story as a search for human connection, the human's relentless search for love. In a world filled with misery and death, with the knowledge that whoever he connects with will soon die or disappear, our hero keeps searching. He keeps telling himself he's through, that he wants nothing further to do with other people, yet he continues to make those connections, in spite of himself. He can't help it. It's what humans do. I can't rightly call this a metaphor for life: more like a simple description.

When I was a teenager, and avidly collected quotes and sayings that felt profound to me, I loved the poetry of Kahlil Gibran. All these years later, I re-read The Prophet and the verses still speak to me.

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet, On Love

tala plays with a grizzly bear cub!

Psyche! Not that Tala! This Tala is a wolf pup, now a full-grown wolf. Watch more inter-species love.

Thanks, James!

more interspecies love, lion and human edition

This is one of the most beautiful animal videos I've ever seen. Enjoy!

Lion and human, friends and family

more love among the species

Just your typical boy meets goose story...

Animals never cease to amaze me. What is the goose thinking? Why did she choose that one man? How does she feel about him? I wish we could know. But I honour the mystery, the not knowing.

Many thanks to David Cho.

seals, dolphins, cats and other adorableness

Is there anything sweeter than inter-species love?

Check out the penguins in the background! The vid was filmed in South Georgia, which should be in Argentina but is actually part of the United Kingdom.

Many thanks to Stephanie for both of these.

non-human animals showing us the way

Love is all there is
it makes the world go 'round
love and only love
it can't be denied.
- Bob Dylan

Have you seen the orangutan and the hound dog?

And in case you missed it the first time I posted it, more cross-species love.

bff

Watch this lovely story of friendship and love.