Alternatives

It is so tempting, when I am cranky, to write about things that are bugging me.  Things like the illegal immigrant situation, governmental wiretapping (illegal or not - Qwest, sign me up!), or the same old sh*t happening in NJ every year.  But I don't succumb to the lure because 1) it raises my blood pressure, and 2) there are already too many people writing about them.  Really. Too Many.   I have been participating in the Carnival of the NJ Bloggers nearly every week for the year of its existence (Happy Anniversary, Carnies!), and every week, my entry is one of the paltry three or so (out of dozens of entries) that are not written about such things. The opinions expressed are mostly eloquent and rational in my opinion, and I can't hold a candle to the writing skills of most of them.  Still, I start to twitch and feel a headache coming on after skimming just three or four of the weekly entries each Sunday.

Oh, I know most of the readers of the Carnival enjoy that stuff and I'll bet most of those blogs get more than the one or two hits per weekend off the event than I seem to.  I don't mind at all.  I started, and continue, blogging because I wanted a creative outlet and an easy way to keep a diary of sorts.  I type way faster than I write. Therefore . . . Shamrocketship.  I didn't get into this for the hits.  I generally shun attention and go out of my way to blend in, not be noticed.  So it was with some trepidation that I raised my hand in a college class about twenty years ago, after my professor asked the question:

"Has anyone here ever heard of Stephen Jay Gould?"

It was the first day of an entry-level Communications class in a community college, and I knew before looking around the room that I would be the only one with my hand up.  I was already a few years older than my fresh-out-of-high-school classmates, and Stephen Jay Gould wasn't a major-league baseball player or a rock musician.  He was a paleontologist.  I had read some of his books and articles, and I had fallen in love with his work. I mean, who else tackles questions like:  What color is a zebra? Does the changing size of a Hershey bar hold a lesson of adaptive significance? Did an asteroid bring mass extinction to the earth 65 million years ago? Why do animals walk, fly, swim and slither but never roll? Human beings not withstanding, why are the females of most species larger than the males?

Ahhh. I loved his stuff. 

And now for some strange reason, my instructor was asking about him.      

So she singled me out.  Not hard actually, as I was indeed the only one with a hand in the air.  She approached my desk with a serious look on her face.  Damn.  How could I be on the professor's bad side already?

"What have you read?" she quizzed me.

I rattled off some of the titles that came to mind.  "The Panda's Thumb, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, and The Flamingo's Smile.  And some other stuff."

She continued interrogating me: "Did you like them?"

"I loved them.  Are we going to be reading his stuff for this class?" I was really puzzled trying to make the connection between his writings and this class.

"No.  We won't.  But bring one of your books to class next week and I'll get his autograph for you.  He's my son-in-law."

Holy crap. 

If I couldn't meet Stephen Jay Gould myself, I was still tickled pink to be somehow connected to him.  I was awestruck, actually.  Here I was, in the presence of a woman who Mr. Gould probably loved and feared!  And I would be able to bask in that presence for another 13 weeks!  I appreciated the connection as well as one of my classmates might drool upon hearing that our professor was Jimmy Paige's mother-in-law.  It was that cool.

To me, anyway.

Still, I balked at her asking for the autograph on my behalf.  As I said earlier, I am not an attention-seeker.  And I have great empathy for the similar-minded. I have, in fact, gone out of my way to avoid asking anything of the celebrities (Bon Jovi, Connie & Maury, Geraldo, BRUCE) that I have run into around my neck of the woods.  Even if they are attention-seekers (Geraldo?  Noooooo. We weren't talking about you - of course not!), I figure they're entitled to privacy when they're shopping or renting movies or driving by in their Mercedes.

And now my professor was proposing to ask her son-in-law for his autograph for me, during their next Sunday dinner together.  Arrrgghhhh!  I was horrified that my idol would forever associate me with having to interrupt lifting a forkful of salad to his lips. I thought: there's no way I can ask this of him, such a brilliant creature - a man who uses baseball references (among other things) to illustrate theories of evolution! - to write his name in a book because I admired him.   

But I got over it. 

A few weeks later, my professor returned my copy of "The Flamingo's Smile" with the inscription "For Lynne - Best Wishes. Stephen Jay Gould" inside the front cover.  He even spelled my name right.  I nearly melted under my desk, and it was all I could do for the remainder of that class to keep from opening the book and looking at that writing over and over and over again.

I eventually got over that too.  I stopped looking at the inscription ten times a day.  However, the book and the author's note to me, remains one of my most prized possessions.  One of the few things I would grab if the place was burning down. Other than Stevie Ray Vaughan's autographed album cover, that is. My only other autograph. But I had to pay bucks for that so it's not even in the same category.  Hrrmmphhh.

So . . . my point was . . . something completely different.  On Sunday, if you're reading the Carnival and happen to click on over here because you've had enough of the other stuff, and if you're not already very familiar with the works of Stephen Jay Gould, go here and order something. Expand your brain and laugh while you're doing it.   

Unfortunately, the man died four years ago so what's there is all there's gonna be. 

Carpe Diem.   

Comments

[scorpy]

How very cool! So, which would you suggest for a beginner in the Steven Jay Gould library?

[Schadenfreude]

I had the honor of taking a class in college called "Thinking About thinking" that was co-taught by Gould, Alan Dershowitz and Robert Nozick. Well actually I lasted 2 classes and dropped it for another philosophy course (I was big into pyschoanalysis as philosophy back then), but I still have all the readings to this day (14 years later).

All fascinating men -- but Gould surprisingily was the most aggressive of the bunch. Shot a couple students down within seconds of the class starting. Heheh, making him real with your mother in law story makes me regret not taking the class now.

[scorpy]

I like the new look! Green has always been one of my favorite colors.