Anyhow, I have decided to make more of an effort with my blogging, mostly because-- and I give you all a hearty NERD ALERT in advance-- I am learning some super cool stuff in my classes, and I want to share it. Go ahead. Taunt me. Stick my head in a toilet. I am a total dork.
Anyhow, here is what I learned this week, SparkNotes (or, my favorite, Great Illustrated Classics) edition:
1. Ring-tailed lemurs are, like most primates, social creatures. The details of their relationships and social groups are fascinating and occasionally mystifying. Males lemurs have glands under their arms and in the crook of their forearms that produce a smelly, fatty secretion (yum! that's like the stuff left at the bottom of the Lay's bag when you're done, right?). Lemurs rub their tails in the glands to anoint them with the scent. Male lemurs, especially those in the presence of a female in estrus, will have elaborate "stink fights" that involve growling, grimacing, and waving their smelly tails at each other. The fights can last as long as an hour.
An HOUR!
Mary Katherine Gallagher probably would have made a great male lemur.
2. Grabbed this from Deborah Blum's fabulous book Sex on the Brain:
In 1889, the US Surgeon General's office reported that 51% of all operations to remove ovaries were necessary to "repair" mental disorders. American mental institutions at the time kept gynecologists on staff so that they could quickly perform the surgery to calm down the "hysterics."
Gotta love that. Blum also taught me that a German scientific team from the 1930's, eagerly searching for the magical male hormone (which turned out to be testosterone, and not necessarily all that magical), "mashed up some 2,000 pounds of bull testicles."
Just picture that, dear Readers. 2,000 pounds of bull testicles. Ovary removal and bull testicles. However men managed to be in charge of science (as well as everything else) for so many years is a mystery to me.
I was considering googling "2,000 pounds of bull testicles" to find a nice image for this section, but I'm sure you'll appreciate my decision to refrain.
3. Some stellar quotes from William James, historical love of my life (look him up if you aren't familiar with his extensive work in early psychology and philosophy), and apparently a man who loved to party:
"Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis"
"If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience."
"Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly."
"The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives."
"The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour."
"To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being."
Hear that?? Drunkenness= mystical faculties of human nature. I don't know, he did a lot of great work in his life, I'll assume he knew what he was talking about.
And an excellent nugget from my other main man, Charles Darwin:
"All nature is perverse and will not do as I wish."
Don't I know how it feels, Charlie dear.
And a final note: one of the student composers here is writing a piece for me to Sylvia Plath's Mad Girl's Love Song. In his most recent email, he told me he was thinking about including some "basic overtone throat singing technique."
Oh, ok.
No biggie, right? I don't even know. I like extended technique and all, but the chances of me mastering this in 1.5 months are questionable. In other news, enjoy this totally freaky video of a five year old child performing throat singing:
Oy vey.
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