The Evolution of ‘The Origin’ September 30, 2009

This beautifully artistic chart is well worth watching. It shows how Darwin’s theory of evolution changed and, well, evolved over time as he went through editions of his book, On the Origin of Species.

The Origin is one of the most important books ever written (and re-written, and re-written)– and, as illustrated so well here, one of the most important ideas ever developed. The first edition being about 150,000 words long (and this was meant to only be an ‘essay’ version of his ‘great work,’) it still was not one quick thought that Mr. Darwin simply jotted down in the midst of admiring pigeons.

Darwin used fancy pigeons as an example of selection by humans.

Thinking of the many editions of The Origin helps undo that myth of what Richard Holmes (author of the most excellent book, ‘The Age of Wonder’) calls the ‘Eureka’ moment, or the romanticized ’solitary genius,’ working away alone in a dimly-lit room, coming up with one amazing idea. The Newton-hit-on-the-head-with-an-apple moment (though ‘Eureka’ sums it up more succinctly).

Darwin did not have a ‘Eureka’ moment. He had a lifetime of fascination, of good teachers, of unique opportunity. (He also had equal amounts of sea-sickness, mourning for dead children, and bowel problems.)

Interestingly, Wallace might be said to have had a ‘Eureka’ moment, for he came up with almost the same theory of evolution by natural selection from a malarial fever. Go figure. The important bit, though, is that Darwin had the credibility and the years of notes and research (or, the Science,) to back up his theory, and Wallace did not.

September 16, 2009

Last night I was awakened by my four-year-old cat landing next to my head and belching softly in my ear. She must have been welcoming me home. The day before we left on holiday, she sat on my chest drooling onto my face. Her favourite general passtime seems to be tap-dancing on my head at six in the morning, or perhaps it is begging loudly for food every time I enter the kitchen. Then there are the times when it seems she is attempting to eat my hair.

To all of this, my husband complains, ’she gives you all the attention.’

I iz on yer head, droolin on yer dreemz.

And this, dear readers, is the problem. Remy is a cat, and therefore because Dani desperately wants to cuddle her, she struggles to get away from him. And because I (though I love her dearly) want her to stop drooling on my face, she tries to sleep in my armpit. I usually interpret this as undying love, but sometimes I wonder if she’s not plotting to take over the world (or at least my lasagne).

Remy is currently on my lap attempting to get at my lasagne. I’m not sure she appreciates her celebrity status…

Darwin 200 Fest August 4, 2009

Shock/Horror! I didn’t blog about the Darwin200 Festival in Cambridge! Perhaps because I was so enthusiastic leading up to it…So I’ll be brief.

It was excellent. It was amusing. It was overwhelmingly intellectual and embracing-ly interdisciplinary. It was academia in all its most brilliant–and shadiest– guises. It was dinner with cognoscenti; it was champagne on the lawn of King’s. It was buzzing with books and plump with plays.

It was a highlight of my year, and I’m still processing/recovering.

Lovely people-- John Van Wyhe and Rebecca Stott.

Dan Dennett's beard is swallowing me, halp!!

Word Festival, Aberdeen May 18, 2009

Promotional banner including pictures of myself, Ian Rankin, John Boyne, and others.

This past weekend saw the festivities of Word 09, a brilliant literary festival billed as ‘an exhilarating mix of over 60 authors and 130 inspirational events for all ages and tastes covering poetry and prose, theatre, music, lectures, film screenings, workshops and exhibitions.’ Whew, no wonder I was tired!

Newly appointed Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy

I was pleased with the opportunity to meet such a varied assortment of writers, from sci-fi to children’s books to crime novelists to poets to playwrights. It was a truly fun and illuminating weekend.

One person I met was the newly appointed Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, who must be swiftly getting used to having her photo taken! She initially gave me the impression of having  a potentially gruff demeanor, but she was very friendly to speak with and wished me luck in my own work. She has really paved the way for women poets, coming from a generation and location (Scotland) where, I get the impression, women writers had to fight quite hard to prove themselves. It was an honour to meet her.

This year’s festival combined with an interlacing theme of science, so I partook in a few readings. One was semi-related to Word: a ‘Night at The Museum’ late-night opening at the University’s Zoology Museum, where I visited friends at the Natural History Centre, gave a short reading, and enjoyed an absolutely packed five hours which saw nearly 800 families pouring through the Museum. Children and adults enjoyed activities from ‘make your own owl’ to a phenomenally talented black-light puppet show, ‘From Molecules to Man,’ to a live raptor exhibition, to building paper-tube apes and learning about the human diet from ‘Stone Age to Obese Age.’ It was a brilliant evening.

Another writer I was particularly interested to meet was John Boyne, who has recently come into the spotlight with his controversial holocaust-children’s book ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.’ Coincidentally, I had just read the book, so it was interesting to hear him speak on both it and his newest book, ‘The House of Special Purpose,’ (not a children’s book).

Novelist John Boyne

As a supplement to the science themed Word Festival, I was asked to be one of the judges for a University-based exhibition called ‘50 Words on Science,’ where University researchers had the opportunity to create a ‘postcard’ style piece with 50 words on one side (creative or straightforward or a mix,) and a related image on the other side. The 40 or so entries were displayed in the Festival’s Cafe at Elphinstone Hall, where visitors could come up to look at the pictures, turn over the cards and read the 50  words. It was both educational and fun, at times quite amusing, to judge the competition! Congratulations to the winners– one that particularly sticks in my mind is the gentleman who wrote about (and won a prize for) his work on copepod poo.

50 Words on Science exhibit.

Fortunately I was able to fly up to Aberdeen on Friday, so I enjoyed a few events before the hectic but fun Night at the Museum on Saturday, and my reading on Sunday afternoon. This was a pleasant mix of reading, discussing my work, answering questions from the audience (of about 30 people, I’d estimate,) and announcing the winners– 5 of 6 attended! — for the 50 Words on Science.

Another interesting talk/reading I attended was Ian Rankin’s. I have to admit I have never read any of his books and I know absolutely nothing about crime fiction. The huge hall was absolutely packed, and we passed an incredibly agreeable hour listening to both questions from the audience and bantering discussion between Rankin and Stuart Kelly, the literary editor of Scotland on Sunday; they clearly knew each other well. I was completely surprised at how funny Rankin is! Of course, going in with no expectations at all was probably helpful.

Stuart Kelly is an interesting character, whose trademark look is wearing matching Converse trainers with his suits (‘trying to make himself look younger than he is, and failing,’ Rankin joked). A former Oxford professor, Kelly is totally acerbic and quite possibly too smart for his own good; he smokes like he’s looking to kill himself, and he was absolutely acidic about Ruth Padel and the whole Oxford poet professorship issue. An entertaining person to talk to all round, certainly, though I was bemused at the 4800 literary names he tossed around and did my best to pretend I knew who he was talking about, and probably failed entirely.

The Word 09 Festival was, overall, a great success, and I feel extremely priveledged to have taken part. It would be a pleasure to return!

April Trip: DC, VA, RI, TX May 13, 2009

My recent book tour trip to the States went very well– I ended up wishing I’d brought more books along, but that’s the best way to feel, I suppose. 

Xiao outside Union Station

First stop, DC, where I stayed with my friend Xiao for a few days. I hadn’t seen many of the people on this trip since graduation; it was so wonderful to catch up!

RC Botanic Gardens

Next stop, Randolph College (formerly my alma mater Randolph-Macon Woman’s College) in Virginia. There I was so pleased to visit some friends and former professors, wander around the lovely campus once again, and be honoured to read at the Visiting Writer’s series, which I used to attend religiously as a student. The school made good use of my visit; I volunteered to speak in four classes and take part in the weekend Science Festival as well.

Signing books at The Other Tiger

One week and a long train journey after I arrived in VA, I was home in Rhode Island, catching up with family and friends and giving a reading at the lovely little local bookshop, The Other Tiger. This went down a treat– finally, a chance for my family to see what I’ve been talking about! I was especially pleased that my grandparents were there. Luckily the weather was nice enough to squeeze in a few beach walks– how I miss the sea. 

Flight to Houston, Texas, and finally some heat! This was the perfect end to my month in the States; no readings, just catching up with very close school friends.

British Society for Literature and Science March 30, 2009

I spent the weekend at the 2009 conference of the British Society for Literature and Science (BSLS,) which was held this year at the University of Reading. The BSLS is a relatively new creation, begun 4-5 years ago by Dr. Alice Jenkins and Dr. Michael Whitworth. At the AGM on Sunday, re-elections were held, as current officers had served 3 years and this is the term; Alice stepped down from Chair and it was resumed by Michael. I’m very happy to say I’m stepping into Michael’s former role as Secretary of the Society.

The BSLS is not based out of a particular University; it is because of its now quite significant membership. The annual conference this past weekend had between 80-90 delegates. The BSLS is ’a scholarly society which promotes interdisciplinary research into the relationships of science and literature in all periods. Membership is open to anyone interested in the field, regardless of geographical location.’

I’m very pleased that, entirely separate from the Secretarial role, my proposal for their first annual grant towards conferences or other relevant activities, was accepted and I was thus the first recipient of the BSLS grant– this will go directly towards the reading series I am currently organizing for The Whipple Museum of the History of Science in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. I will elaborate on this as details become definite, but I am currently arranging two dates this summer for two talks on literature and science, to be held at The Whipple.

At the conference, I presented a paper looking at the history of cetology as represented by Herman Melville in Moby-Dick; also looking at environmental awareness by Melville, contemporary cetologists, and whalers themselves, as evidenced in their various texts. I would like to take this research further, and the conference opened up and directed my thinking on the paper in very helpful ways. 

I also had a very agreeable time chatting with a number of delegates from a great variety of backgrounds, and learned some fascinating new things about Dickens, waxwork figures, astronomy, encyclopedias, teaching science and literature, and more. I look forward to the 2010 conference.

Inaugural Poem January 20, 2009

See Nobel Winner Derek Walcott read “Forty Acres“, a poem written for Barack Obama. It is fascinating to see what place poetry is given, or what place it claims, for events such as this. 

Here is an interesting article on the topic of occasional poetry (poetry for an occasion). This article is a bit more dense but also more intellectual.

This is the NPR story he mentions, where poet Elizabeth Alexander talks about writing the inauguration poem for Obama. Finally, read “Bards at the Inaugural Gates” here.

I’ll be happy to post the poem itself when I can manage to find a copy! Of course I’m very curious to hear/read it…

Coleridge January 16, 2009

A positive thought and a negative thought from Samuel Taylor, both probably true:

 

…But where there exists that degree of genius and talent which entitles a writer to aim at the honors of a poet, the very act of poetic conposition itself is, and is allowed to imply and to produce, an unusual state of excitement, which of course justifies and demands a correspondent difference of language, as truly, though not perhaps in as marked a degree, as the excitement of love, fear, rage, or jealousy. The vividness of the descriptions or declamations in DONNE or DRYDEN is as much and as often derived from the force and fervor of the describer, as from the reflections, forms or incidents, which constitute their subject and materials. The wheels take fire from the mere rapidity of their motion …

 

… With no other privilege than that of sympathy and sincere good wishes, I would address an affectionate exhortation to the youthful literati, grounded on my own experience. It will be but short; for the beginning, middle, and end converge to one charge: NEVER PURSUE LITERATURE AS A TRADE. …

Urban Fox: Part II January 14, 2009

The garden has been busy this morning! The poem in the post below was prompted by the wild yelping, followed by a few foxes running around. However, my speculations were answered pretty swiftly when the pair began mating, right in the middle of the garden! It’s 10:30 am for goodness’ sake…It was pretty fascinating to watch, actually.

There was an open-mouthed behaviour that I first thought was the female telling the male to **ss off, where she held her mouth open and bared her teeth, and he did the same in response. It actually seemed to be more like an, ok are you ready to go again? Gesture. 

Male on the left, female on the right.

The whole shindig carried on for quite some time, probably about an hour. I didn’t watch the entire time, but I did get rather nervous when I realized my neighbour’s little cat was hanging out just below our window! The foxes couldn’t have cared less. After a little bit of research it seems that urban foxes don’t tend to go for cats, which is good news and also makes sense–there are an awful lot of cats in this neighbourhood as well as an awful lot of foxes. Some really interesting information about London foxes can be found here. 

Unfortunately, while I was observing the mating foxes and doing research about what was going on and their level of threat to the cat, they finished mating. (That’s not the unfortunate part.) When dogs finish mating, they “tie” or get stuck together:

“This is due to the bulbis glandis of the male dog’s penis swelling after it enters the female, thus preventing the male from withdrawing from the female until after the swelling has subsided. This is a completely natural occurrence that can last anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, and does not hurt either one of the dogs. The worst thing a person can do is to try and pull them apart because that can cause trauma to both dogs.”

The happy couple

Well, trauma may have occurred, because after about five minutes of the “tie,” the neighbour (in the flat below), ran out, clapping her hands and driving the foxes off…The neighbour turned to see her cat, innocently standing by, and made a dramatic gesture of relief. 

I wasn’t able to see, but what happened to the poor, post-coital foxes? Did they have to lope off sideways, butts stuck together? Based on the way they were pulling each other around, back-to-back, they were very definitely stuck.

If only the neighbour were more well-informed, she wouldn’t have been so worried about her cat and maybe would have left the foxes alone. Even if foxes did eat cats, they certainly weren’t thinking about food at that point!

Even though I’ve got to adjust to the number of foxes around, I should say that I certainly wouldn’t advocate shooting them. It seems pointless, (and cruel,) as they just breed more and a new fox will take the territory of one that has been “culled”. Once you know what the yipping is, it’s not so bad, though if you don’t know it can certainly scare you! Urban foxes are part of city life, just as other wildlife is part of country life. People should adapt– the foxes certainly have.

Urban Fox January 14, 2009

Foxes scream at each other in the garden.

Wild pig-squeals in the morning,

territorial or matrimonial I do not know,

but isn’t a fox nocturnal? Why do these two lope effortlessly

over the garden wall, big, bushy, russet.

So this is why neighbourhood cats are so big. The fox

trots past me on the street in the afternoon, blue eyes

eerie, looking elsewhere. Am I not a threat?  I turn,

half-expecting teeth at my ankle. You foxes, I am foreign

to your urban nature. The fox I know hides until dusk,

takes cats for dinner, ravages bird-feeders,

not rubbish bins. The fox I know does not yell and run

through gardens in the mist of the day.