Clay tennis courts in Neustift in South Tyrol.

by Eric Bies

In 1930, the German anthropologist Berthold Laufer published a monograph on the phenomenon of people eating dirt.

A sinologist by training, Laufer’s study—“the evaluation of the whole question of geophagy”—begins with a trip through Ancient China, where for hundreds of years Han, T’ang, and Sung soil disappeared down eager gullets. From there, the globe: he tours Malaysia, Polynesia, Melanesia, Australia, India, Burma, Siam, Central Asia, and Siberia, stopping off among Persians and Arabs before continuing on to Africa, Europe, North America, Mexico, Central America, and South America. His conclusion? People all over have eaten dirt for a very long time … And yet rarely does one find a Malaysian or an Indian, a Siberian or an Arab, an African or a Mexican swallowing down the plucked clod raw. Almost always water is added to the earth first: in the Yun-ho Mountains, white clay “is mixed with water and beaten on a stone” before it is eaten; in the Philippines, “it is a common thing to mix the earth taken from the nests of ‘white ants’ with water”; in Nishapur, where Omar Khayyam penned his Rubáiyát, the clay is softened with “rose-water and a little camphor,” then shaped into loaves.

Of course, few have particularly prized the practice Laufer describes in all its inventive renditions: as when the occupants of Leningrad remained under unremitting siege for 872 days and turned, in the interest of evading death by starvation, to their suppers of book glue and snow, so the chronically hungry everywhere and forever have tended to eye the lumps of mud out back with all the despairing expediency of a cratered gut.

Even now it remains common practice in the poorer parts of places like the Subsaharan to attempt to recuperate certain vital minerals as iron, calcium, and zinc, including incidental traces of vitamins B and C, through a sometime diet of dirt. Read more »

by Ethan Seavey

My grandmother’s bird of choice is the rooster. She was raised in rural Kentucky and now lives in rural Wisconsin. She collects all sorts of roosters (and, by extension, some hens): wall art, printed dish towels, ceramic statues as small as a pinky and as large as a lamp, coin bowls and blankets and something nostalgic in each one.

If you don’t mind stepping briefly into her condo, we can see what it’s like. Eyes everywhere. Thoughtless, energetic eyes. Suspicion and preparedness. A rooster’s eye is life because it is anxiously awake, unsure why, but it is safe because it is always aware of sources of suspicion; suspicion, of course, comes from an abundance of anxiety. So those eyes don’t think much about what they’re watching. I’m sure you’ll find it hard to find hundreds of rooster eyes in your peripheral vision, but you’ll get used to it. If you feel overwhelmed, you can look outside her large windows, you can see the small and glassy lake with sailboats gliding over its surface like razors through taut fabric.

My mother’s bird of choice is the crow. She unconsciously developed an uncanny connection with them. It started during our group quarantine, after the onset of the pandemic. We spent April through May isolated in our ski cabin. We had no friends there so we could not be tempted to socialize. We could social distance easily, with the majority of the houses nearby sitting empty, their owners waiting for the ski resort to reopen. Read more »

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be seen at Frans de Waal’s Facebook page.

by Frans de Waal

Since men lack a nurturing instinct, we can’t expect them to take care of kids. It would be “unnatural.”

This false appeal to biology is often heard in defense of traditional gender roles. Thus, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mocked the paternity leave of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg as a way of “trying to figure out how to breastfeed.”

At first sight, the behavior of other primates supports the assertion that caretaking is not for males. Male apes may offer protection to mothers and young, but that’s all. Raising offspring is a female job. The maternal load is so heavy that bonobos and chimpanzees get pregnant only every five or six years. They cannot handle more progeny. Mothers carry the youngest on their belly, a juvenile on their back, while an older one follows them through the forest. Young apes remain dependent for up to a decade, and mothers receive no assistance to speak of.

But oddly (or perhaps not so oddly if we assume that the genders are psychologically more similar than different), males are perfectly capable of childcare. They have a remarkably well-developed caring “potential”. We sometimes get a glimpse of this potential after a mother’s death, when there is all of a sudden an orphan whimpering for attention. Read more »

by John Allen Paulos

I recall a party game I once wrote about. The game, described by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett in his book “Consciousness Explained,” is a variant of the familiar childhood game requiring that one try to determine by means of Yes or No questions a secretly chosen number between one and one million. (Twenty questions are sufficient.)

In Dennett’s more interesting and suggestive game, one person is selected from a group of people at a party and asked to leave the room. He (or she) is told that in his absence one of the other partygoers will relate a recent dream to the other attendees. The person selected returns to the party and is then told that, through a sequence of Yes or No questions about the dream, he should try to do two things: reconstruct the dream and identify whose dream it was.

The punch line is that no one has related any dream. When asked, the individual partygoers are instructed to respond either Yes or No to the subject’s questions according to some completely arbitrary rule. Any rule will do, but should be supplemented by a non-contradiction clause so that no answer directly contradicts an earlier answer or contradicts obvious facts. The Yes or No requirement can also be loosened to allow for an occasional Maybe.

Now let me change the scene. Instead of the unlucky partygoer, consider an ardent QAnon member. Instead of the other partygoers let’s substitute people who pretend to be from the news media (to rouse the member’s antagonism) but who agree to be governed by similar arbitrary rules. Finally, rather than having the subject try to reconstruct the dream and identifying the dreamer, let’s examine whatever disgusting scandal the QAnon member believes to be the case and to whom he attributes it.

Clearly this is more a thought experiment than an empirical result, but I would guess that the likely outcome in both cases is that the subject, impelled by his (or her) own obsessions, will often concoct an outlandish dream or gruesome story in response to the random answers he elicits from the partygoers or the “media” people. The situation is a kind of Rorschach test without the inkblots. Read more »

Sughra Raza. Shadow Self-Portrait in a Reflection of a Window in a Window.

Oolloo House, Vermont. October 22, 2022.

Digital photograph.

by Joan Harvey

POZZO: Which of you smells so bad?

ESTRAGON: He has stinking breath and I have stinking feet.

POZZO: I must go.

― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

There are many perplexing things in the world, but one of the more perplexing, only recently discovered by me, is that a substantial number of people, most of whom I assume to be women, wish to smell like old books. While it is easy to have a passion for, say, invertebrates, or designer sneakers, without necessarily wanting to smell like a pink-faced broad-nosed weevil or a favorite pair of old Nikes, apparently book lovers are different. It appears that for some bookworms, parting with their yellowing bound volumes is so distressing they need a way to carry the reminder with them though the day. And one way to carry around these literary longings is to douse themselves in the scent of books or sometimes whole libraries.

I came across the phrase “excessive bibliophilia” in Wayne Koestenbaum’s book Ultramarine. A newish book, so one without much smell. Koestenbaum was referring to Queen Christina, but I wonder if excessive bibliophilia doesn’t equally apply to those who feel they must smell like old libraries even in the boudoir. Perhaps while reading de Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir? After looking into book-themed perfumes I’m surprised there isn’t one with that name. Read more »

by Brooks Riley

by David J. Lobina

I must say that, for someone who is a sort-of linguist and typically pays attention to the latest linguistic customs, I was quite surprised by the recent, sudden transformation of Kiev into Kyiv in the English-speaking media. Now, I’m not as obsessive about all things language as some of my fellow linguists, who seem to be able to notice every detail and nuance in the way language is used today everywhere they go – on posters in the underground, in the media, by eavesdropping on people’s conversations, etc. (TimeOut used to publish a section called Overheard in London, and I’m sure some of my friends followed it religiously) – but I have been following the Russo-Ukrainian War, as Wikipedia calls it, to some extent since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and even more so since Russia’s invasion of mainland Ukraine in February 2022 (236 days and counting, as I start this piece), and whilst I am sure that I was already aware of the use of the word ‘Kyiv’ to refer to the capital of Ukraine, I have nevertheless been taken aback by the fact that it has now become nearly universal in the English-speaking press to use the word ‘Kyiv’ instead of ‘Kiev’, even though employing the latter had been the norm for decades before current events.[1]

I especially mention “the English-speaking media” because the situation is rather different in other languages; this is clearly the case in the publications I follow in Italian and Spanish, where the use of the word ‘Kiev’ remains by far the most common, if not in fact as universal in these languages as ‘Kyiv’ has now become in English. Read more »

by Charlie Huenemann

It was announced last week that scientists have integrated neurons from human brains into infant rat brains, resulting in new insights about how our brain cells grow and connect, and some hope of a deeper understanding of neural disorders. Full story here. And while no scientist would admit they are working toward the development of some Rat Man who will escape the lab and wreak havoc on some faraway island or in the subways, it’s impossible not to wonder.

There are some legitimate and difficult ethical questions in this territory, such as whether we should work toward “curing” all conditions labeled as “disorders”, including those conditions that have become woven into people’s lives so thoroughly that they would rather not lose them. Autism, for example, can be a terrible burden in some cases, but in others it serves as a valued feature of one’s individuality, an element in the core of who they are. It’s difficult to follow the precept of doing no harm as we dig deeper into human natures and find it’s not always obvious what counts as a harm. There is a medical/pharmaceutical mindset that likes to pound down any nail sticking up, which is running into the fact that some nails prefer to stick up, thank you very much.

But as we leave those problems to more insightful minds, I would like to turn instead to an illegitimate and silly worry, which we shall call “Ewww”:

Ewww = What if my neurons end up in a rat brain? Would I feel its whiskers twitching, feel hungry for garbage, and find fulfillment by running endlessly inside a little wheel?

As I said, it’s not a legitimate worry, but it’s hard for many of us not to feel a tug in its direction, because many of us are entranced by illusions about consciousness. Read more »

My heart broke this morning reading a story

about surveillance reels from schools across

America where shooters use military grade

AR15 to tear apart skin and bones, the powers

that be before making the videos public first

edited out the screams of children.

by Rafiq Kathwari

by Mary Hrovat

Visualize a purple dog, the exercise said. Imagine it in great detail; picture it approaching you in a friendly way. So I did. I thought of a spaniel: long silky ears, beautiful coat, all a nice lilac color. Pale purple whiskers. The dog was friendly but not effusive. I’m not a dog person, but I wouldn’t have minded meeting this dog. All right, now what? The exercise went on to say something along the lines of “Wonderful! If you can visualize that purple dog, can’t you imagine your own life as being full of amazing possibilities?”

At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, no, I can’t. In fact, I was somewhat offended at the mild condescension of the exercise and the implicit suggestion that imagining a better life is helpful in and of itself. In my experience, it’s not that simple.

As I thought about why this well-meaning exercise bothered me so much, I realized that picturing the purple dog hadn’t actually been that difficult. I pictured a dog with a soft coat that I suspect could easily be dyed purple. (I wouldn’t advise anyone to dye their dog purple, but I can see how it could be done.) It would have been a bit harder to imagine a purple dog with a short oily coat, but I could see it happening by some kind of genetic engineering.

In any case, the main difference between the purple dog and an ordinary dog was cosmetic. Visualizing myself and my life differently, by contrast, often feels more like trying to imagine a dog, with a dog’s chest and throat and mouth and brain, meowing instead of barking. It’s much easier to imagine a purple dog than to imagine that my depression will vanish, after recurring for 40 years, or that I’ll find work in my city that pays enough to live on but also offers interesting mental challenges. Positive change does happen, even within constraints like mine, or worse. But how? Read more »

by Mindy Clegg

The mid-term elections are less than a month away—voting has begun in many places, including here in Georgia with some of the usual struggles already unfolding. In a normal mid-cycle election like this one, control of the house, senate, or both would flip to the minority party—so says common knowledge. This year seems a toss-up. The polls since this summer have kept swinging back and forth between the Democrats hanging onto the house, and expanding their control over the senate, to the GOP taking both, but barely. Ordinarily, the minority party sweeps Congressional elections and that would make perfect sense—the party in power rarely gets it right when they control Congress and the presidency. But this year, the GOP continues its march toward right-wing authoritarianism. The party is wildly out of lockstep with the majority opinions on most of the major issues facing the country. Yet many voters seem poised to hand over control of at least one house in Congress to them. Why? It seems to largely stem from a mistaken belief the GOP has a better set of economic policies (they don’t) and that inflation is thanks to the Democrat’s recent policies (it largely does not seem to be). Far too many people are treating these upcoming elections as normal, ignoring the plethora of red flags being waved in our face. This is not a full-throated defense of the Democrats, whose policies are a mixed bag. I do believe that we face a serious existential crisis that must be averted. The far right-wing represented by the former president have a stranglehold on the Repubilcan party. Despite the very real limitations of the Democratic party, they are better if we wish to maintain a democratic form of government. We should avoid support for the GOP based on their violent, anti-democratic (small d) rhetoric. Read more »

Rowan berries on a tree in late-afternoon sunlight in Franzensfeste, South Tyrol.

by Mike Bendzela

Hannah was a wide-horned, burgundy-red American Milking Devon heifer, with bug eyes and such a timid disposition you got the impression of a creature permanently bewildered.  You could not approach her; she would just pace off to a corner of the barnyard pasture and stare at you from a distance. And she seemed never to blink: you swore she knew she was doomed.

Her adopted mother, Belle (full name: Colonial Williamsburg Belle), was just the opposite—outgoing, ornery, bright, also wide-horned and the burgundy red of the breed. We had had Belle a few years before we bought Hannah as a yearling from a Devon breeder. My husband, Don, had visions of hand-milking a small population of cows and selling the milk and the inevitable bull calves to neighbors and hobbyists. Such a prospect caused me to have visions, period.

But Hannah never calved.

We thought something was wrong with her from the time she was a young cow, when she attempted to nurse off Belle. Even though Belle already had her own calf to feed, she indulged the new yearling. Not even the spiked “weaner” that hung from Hannah’s nose like malevolent jewelry dissuaded her from Belle’s teat. She just learned to flip the weaning device up out of the way and twist her head in such fashion as to permit her access to Belle’s swollen bag.

The near-adult cow nursing off the adopted mother in the barnyard got to be something of a scandal. We even had to pen Belle up in the barn with her calf, Abe, to allow him an unmolested meal. Hannah literally had to grow out of it: After a time, she just could not fit her head and horns under the other cow anymore. Read more »

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be seen at Frans de Waal’s Facebook page.

by Frans de Waal

It’s not always easy to talk about bonobos at academic gatherings. There is no issue with fellow primatologists, who are used to straightforward descriptions of sexual behavior and know the recent evidence. But it’s different with people outside my field, such as anthropologists, philosophers, or psychologists. They become fidgety, scratch their heads, snicker, or adopt a puzzled look. Why do bonobos stump them?

One reason for the discomfort is excessive shyness about erotic behavior, which bonobos exhibit in all positions that we can imagine, and even some that we can’t. Moreover, these apes do it in all partner combinations. People assume that animals use sex only for reproduction, but I estimate that three quarters of bonobo sex has nothing to do with it.

But there is a deeper reason why bonobos are the black sheep of our extended family despite being as close to us as chimpanzees. They fail to conform to the traditional model of the human ancestor. Most evolutionary scenarios of our species stress male bonding, male dominance, hunting, aggression, and territorial warfare. This is how our species conquered the earth, it is thought.

Chimpanzee behavior, which can be quite violent, lends support to this narrative. This ape is therefore happily embraced as model. The peaceful, female-dominated bonobo, on the other hand, doesn’t fit. The species is sidelined, such as in “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” in which Steven Pinker calls bonobos “very strange primates.” And Richard Wrangham, in “The Goodness Paradox,” portrays them as an evolutionary offshoot, who “have gone their separate way.” In other words, bonobos may be delightful apes, they are bizarre and irrelevant. Let’s just ignore them! Read more »