Author Archive

Performance

Bill Wallauer is a videographer, a colleague of Jane Goodall.  Click here to read Bill’s observations of chimpanzees behaving in ways that are fascinating to consider.  Bill observes males displaying at waterfalls and in thunderstorms as individuals and groups transition into the sexual-display mode of communication.  Jane Goodall wrote a famous passage describing these events. “All at once Evered charged forward, leapt up to seize one of the hanging vines, and swung out over the stream in the spray-drenched wind.  A moment later Freud joined him.  The two leapt from one liana to the next, swinging into space, until it seemed the slender stems must snap or be torn from their lofty moorings.  Frodo charged along the edge of the stream, hurling rock after rock now ahead, now to the side, his coat glistening with spray.  For ten minutes the three performed their wild displays while Fifi and her younger offspring watched from one of the tall fig trees by the stream...[Read More]

Andrew Lehman on 03/10/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Perils of Normalization

How far would you be willing to go for a more attractive and socially pleasing look?  Would you choose to sacrifice part of your cognitive functioning, leaving your brain less able to process verba...[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 03/1/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Tao of the Alarm Clock

Before the housing bubble burst, my husband and I were among those who built a house in an expensive subdivision, on the theory that it was just as good an investment as the stock market and—yay!—...[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 01/11/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Path Home

As a child, I loved to wander through quiet woods and to pick wildflowers in meadows, following paths that I pretended would lead me into fairy tale adventures in a long-ago world.  I imagined myse...[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 12/28/09 | No Comments | Read More