Some fascinating reading in the meantime: the adaptive social behavior of stray dogs in Moscow. As the economy and social makeup of Moscow has changed, the dogs’ behavior has changed. (via MeFi)
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
This only confirms what I’ve been suspecting for some time: By more or less forcing animals to live in environments shaped by human activities (i.e. cities, villages, roads, industry, farmland), we are making them more intelligent.
The future Earth will have to be shared with other intelligent species. But that’s probably for the best; the other options for wild animals to survive in “our” world are:
A) Evolve perfect camouflage to blend in among people (such as in the horror film MIMIC);
B) Become so ferocious, humans will avoid you
C) Burrow underneath human cities (countless rats already do);
C) Become so nauseatingly cute that people can’t bring themselves to shoot you (picture a live elephant that resembles Dumbo).