19 November 2006
The Bug in Our Year
Scenario: The three of us are at home. Suddenly, a Hexapod, Chelicerate, or Myriapod (a beetle, spider, or centipede to anyone who hasn’t recently consulted an encyclopedia) becomes apparent. Before George can check it out with his nose or ascertain its edibility, the closer human reaches for what? Fly swatter? Newspaper? Claw hammer? No, a medicine vial. Not to cure it, but to trap it and transport it outside. Submitted for your consideration and possible deriseration: the why, the how, and the who of this admittedly unconventional method of dealing with the arthropods (aka “bugs”) who share our home.
After a succession of one- and two-bedroom apartments during my army, law school, and clerkship days, the Missus and I went just a little nuts three years ago, going from 1250 SF on a quarter-acre in suburban Springfield to 2700 SF on 1.7 acres in rural Clifton. Each of the three of us could, if he or she wanted, have one bedroom, with one left over for a guest. Add living room, dining room, family room, rec room, and library, and we have rooms that we might not enter for months at a time.
I say this, certainly, not to brag (As I suggested, it was not our most thoroughly thought-through decision.), but to suggest that this situation creates two conditions:
First, an often uncomfortable awareness that we take up a lot of space once the exclusive province of a vast array of wildlife, from bears to bugs, but mostly the latter.
Second, a surplus of unoccupied, relatively quiet, temperate spaces to which certain individuals, in search of venues for their buggy business, might find themselves drawn.
Having created these conditions, we hesitate to treat our guests with (as the quaint saying goes) “extreme prejudice.” Thus, the wildlife relocation program. How?
The Tools. As we developed this practice, we at first started leaving small vials, or even empty Pop-Fizz containers, staged strategically about the house. However, as one of our neighbors, who moved to Clifton from nearby Centreville, phrased it, “When my ZIP code increased by three numbers, the spiders increased by three sizes.” What I’m saying is, these are not just stretch spiders, but toy tarantulas. Thus, the wide mouth vial.
The Capture. The easiest method is to lay the vial on its side, allow the animal to enter of its own volition, and then right the vial, trap the bug in the bottom, and put on the lid. This, however, is frustrated by Man’s dominion over creation. Over many generations, Man has destroyed the stupid and the slow, bidding the clever and the quick to “be fruitful and multiply.” Thus, for most, one must drop the vial on them, slide the lid up under the edge, and nudge the captive toward the bottom. The ceiling capture is the easiest: Bring the vial up from below, dislodge the interloper, and then cap the vial before it can climb up from the bottom.
The Release. Most of our guests are escorted briskly to the deck and dropped off on the rail. Biters and stingers merit special treatment. As I carry a spider toward the deck, I examine it closely, looking for the violin marking of the brown recluse or a fixed, homicidal glare in what I think are its eyes, suggesting that he intends us harm at the next opportunity. When in doubt, I stand on the deck with the wind to my back, uncap the vial, and throw the intruder about one spider mile from the house. For the hornets we sometimes catch starting nests between the screen and the window, we provide door-to-hollow-tree service in our woods.
Based on what I have told you, you may have concluded that we are bug-huggers, and that vermin of every description are eligible for our catch-and-release program. The truth is more complex. We use a sort of utility assessment: Every form of life presumably has some function to perform in our ecology, and to eradicate one form could upset the balance of nature. For example, the spiders and mantises keep other species in check; kill them off, and their prey species become too numerous. However, the function of some bugs eludes us. Flies? Mosquitoes? The only function I perceive is as a mass transit system for microbes. So, although everyone gets to go outside, not everyone arrives alive. Some, like the flies and mosquitoes, leave by way of the trash can. For the rest, we employ the golden rule, treating them as we would want to be treated, were we born bugs.
The late Richard Vaughn, 20th-Century journalist and humorist, wrote: “We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.” I do not believe the arthropods will take over during the age of humans. If bugs become dominant, it will be because we have added homo sapiens to the list of species we have eradicated from the earth, and the justice we face will not be that of bugs. I fear more that we will someday encounter a species who, by virtue of its physical, mental, or mechanical prowess, could dominate humans as humans now dominate bugs.
I hope that such a species would engage in the same utilitarian calculus in which we engage daily. But even if it does—as it attempts to divine our function, to weigh our utility, by observing how we interact with one other, with other species, and with the earth—will we qualify as the spider or the fly; the mantis or the mosquito?
After a succession of one- and two-bedroom apartments during my army, law school, and clerkship days, the Missus and I went just a little nuts three years ago, going from 1250 SF on a quarter-acre in suburban Springfield to 2700 SF on 1.7 acres in rural Clifton. Each of the three of us could, if he or she wanted, have one bedroom, with one left over for a guest. Add living room, dining room, family room, rec room, and library, and we have rooms that we might not enter for months at a time.
I say this, certainly, not to brag (As I suggested, it was not our most thoroughly thought-through decision.), but to suggest that this situation creates two conditions:
First, an often uncomfortable awareness that we take up a lot of space once the exclusive province of a vast array of wildlife, from bears to bugs, but mostly the latter.
Second, a surplus of unoccupied, relatively quiet, temperate spaces to which certain individuals, in search of venues for their buggy business, might find themselves drawn.
Having created these conditions, we hesitate to treat our guests with (as the quaint saying goes) “extreme prejudice.” Thus, the wildlife relocation program. How?
The Tools. As we developed this practice, we at first started leaving small vials, or even empty Pop-Fizz containers, staged strategically about the house. However, as one of our neighbors, who moved to Clifton from nearby Centreville, phrased it, “When my ZIP code increased by three numbers, the spiders increased by three sizes.” What I’m saying is, these are not just stretch spiders, but toy tarantulas. Thus, the wide mouth vial.
The Capture. The easiest method is to lay the vial on its side, allow the animal to enter of its own volition, and then right the vial, trap the bug in the bottom, and put on the lid. This, however, is frustrated by Man’s dominion over creation. Over many generations, Man has destroyed the stupid and the slow, bidding the clever and the quick to “be fruitful and multiply.” Thus, for most, one must drop the vial on them, slide the lid up under the edge, and nudge the captive toward the bottom. The ceiling capture is the easiest: Bring the vial up from below, dislodge the interloper, and then cap the vial before it can climb up from the bottom.
The Release. Most of our guests are escorted briskly to the deck and dropped off on the rail. Biters and stingers merit special treatment. As I carry a spider toward the deck, I examine it closely, looking for the violin marking of the brown recluse or a fixed, homicidal glare in what I think are its eyes, suggesting that he intends us harm at the next opportunity. When in doubt, I stand on the deck with the wind to my back, uncap the vial, and throw the intruder about one spider mile from the house. For the hornets we sometimes catch starting nests between the screen and the window, we provide door-to-hollow-tree service in our woods.
Based on what I have told you, you may have concluded that we are bug-huggers, and that vermin of every description are eligible for our catch-and-release program. The truth is more complex. We use a sort of utility assessment: Every form of life presumably has some function to perform in our ecology, and to eradicate one form could upset the balance of nature. For example, the spiders and mantises keep other species in check; kill them off, and their prey species become too numerous. However, the function of some bugs eludes us. Flies? Mosquitoes? The only function I perceive is as a mass transit system for microbes. So, although everyone gets to go outside, not everyone arrives alive. Some, like the flies and mosquitoes, leave by way of the trash can. For the rest, we employ the golden rule, treating them as we would want to be treated, were we born bugs.
The late Richard Vaughn, 20th-Century journalist and humorist, wrote: “We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.” I do not believe the arthropods will take over during the age of humans. If bugs become dominant, it will be because we have added homo sapiens to the list of species we have eradicated from the earth, and the justice we face will not be that of bugs. I fear more that we will someday encounter a species who, by virtue of its physical, mental, or mechanical prowess, could dominate humans as humans now dominate bugs.
I hope that such a species would engage in the same utilitarian calculus in which we engage daily. But even if it does—as it attempts to divine our function, to weigh our utility, by observing how we interact with one other, with other species, and with the earth—will we qualify as the spider or the fly; the mantis or the mosquito?
Labels: "homo sapiens", "Richard Vaughn", "utility assessment", beetle, bugs, catch-and-release, centipede, Chelicerate, extraterrestrials, exurbs, flies, Hexapod, mosquitoes, Myriapod, picnic, spider, spiders, suburbs
Lost In a Translation
Some men dream things that never were and say, “Why not?” I see things as they are and obsess endlessly about “Why?!”
Sunday, 17 September, I flew to Seattle to meet the train from St. Paul, which was carrying my mom, the younger of my two sisters (both of them younger than I) and my baby brother (about a foot taller than I).
After cramming myself into the center seat, I checked the in-flight magazine for movies. I was disappointed that X-Men 2 was showing on the way out: I had missed the original; also, I have little interest in transsexuals. Though I had to sleep on Wednesday night’s return flight, I noticed that movie would be Nacho Libre, which the accompanying Spanish synopsis called Super Nacho. My complex thought process went something like this:
First cancel out the common denominators. That would be the “Nacho”s.
I then thought: Some products must be rebranded for export: For example, Chevy’s Nova translates to “It does not go.” I wondered whether “free nacho” had some negative connotation for Spanish speakers. Maybe the word “nacho” provided a clue. I checked Bartleby.com for “nacho.”
“Independent Burrito”? “Uncontrolled Taco”? Could be fighting words. But “Willful triangular piece of tortilla topped with cheese or chili-pepper sauce and broiled”? No problema. “Impulsive, pug-nosed, ugly, or poor?” Not high praise, but not a marital tort, either.
So here I am, older, more knowledgeable, yet no wiser. And that, as my own long-suffering spouse often tells me, is the story of my life.
Sunday, 17 September, I flew to Seattle to meet the train from St. Paul, which was carrying my mom, the younger of my two sisters (both of them younger than I) and my baby brother (about a foot taller than I).
After cramming myself into the center seat, I checked the in-flight magazine for movies. I was disappointed that X-Men 2 was showing on the way out: I had missed the original; also, I have little interest in transsexuals. Though I had to sleep on Wednesday night’s return flight, I noticed that movie would be Nacho Libre, which the accompanying Spanish synopsis called Super Nacho. My complex thought process went something like this:
Nacho Libre = Super Nacho?Though 8th grade Algebra cost me a stretch in summer school, I can work this simple equation.
First cancel out the common denominators. That would be the “Nacho”s.
Nacho Libre = Super Nacho?
Libre = Super?
Next, simplify to English [“Libre” to “Free” and “Super” to “Super.”]
Nacho Libre = Super Nacho?
Libre = Super?
Free = Super?
Finally, factor “Free” and “Super” into their definitions.
Free =
1. “Not imprisoned or enslaved[;]
2. “Not controlled by
obligation or the will of another[;]
3. “Having political independence.”
Super =
1. “Above; over; upon[;]
2. “Superior. . . .”
So then what? I guess, total the definitions of “Free” and those of “Super.”
3 ≠ 2
Therefore—
Free ≠ Super
Libre ≠ Super
Nacho Libre ≠ Super Nacho
It didn’t add up: Why take one Spanish title and “translate” it to another Spanish title with a different meaning?
Nothing in my half century provided a ready answer. St. Matthew’s, where I survived fourth through sixth grades under the mailed fist of the Sisters of Notre Dame, gave me a rudimentary facility with Spanish and a pathological terror of penguins. But, though I could tell “b de burro” from “v de vaca,” request directions to the bibliotheque, and even know what a bibliotheque is, I’d learned naught of the duplicity and depravity of Hollywood.
So I must research. For the tech-savvy, couch-potative researcher, the Internet is the bibliotheque of first and last resort. Since 1980, I’ve moved far beyond the young—well, younger—court reporter who scoffed at using a “word processor” for court-martial transcripts: “I don’t need no stinking word processor; I am a word processor.” My personal computer is now a great time-saver: Time I once spent sleeping, rough-housing with my German Shepherd dog of four years, or conversing with my Korean-born wife of 14 years, I now spend blogging my rabid views, reconnecting with old friends (and sometimes remembering why we lost touch), and reading news and opinion from across the English-speaking world. A Google search for “nacho libre super nacho” yielded a synopsis on La Butaca (“the armchair”) that, obligingly translated by the same Google, tells us:“Nacho . . . is a man without talent. One grew up in a monastery inWell, that raised more questions than it answered. A direct answer is not out there.
Mexico of which now he is the cook, but does not seem to fit. Nacho loves the
orphans for whom it cooks, but everything what lets knows fatal. According to
him, because it has a terrible raw material. Account occurs of which it must
ingeniar them to it to cook something better for “the orphaned poor men who do
not have anything”… and, of step, to impress to the precious Sister Incarnation
(Ana of the Reguera). The idea is happened to him to make money in the free
fight and there it discovers that it has an innate gift. It is united to a
little conventional companion, Skeleton (Héctor Jiménez), a man delgadísimo, and
it feels for the first time that it has an objective in the life. But the nuns
of the monastery are totally against the free fight and to Nacho does not have
left more remedy than to take it one double life. It hides his identity behind a
blue mask and one faces the most famous fighters of Mexico, decided to that the
orphans live better.”
I then thought: Some products must be rebranded for export: For example, Chevy’s Nova translates to “It does not go.” I wondered whether “free nacho” had some negative connotation for Spanish speakers. Maybe the word “nacho” provided a clue. I checked Bartleby.com for “nacho.”
“NOUN: . . . A small, often triangular piece of tortilla toppedAfter becoming all I could be in the U.S. court-martial system, I labored a year in the New Jersey court-marital system, clerking for a Burlington County family part judge, encountering many volatile people and many bizarre causes for domestic strife. Still, I never met a party of any cultural background, no matter how hypersensitive, who might have taken offense at being called “Free Nacho.”
with cheese or chili-pepper sauce and broiled.
“ETYMOLOGY: American Spanish,
possibly [an] alteration of ñato, pug-nosed, ugly, poor . . . . .” “
“Independent Burrito”? “Uncontrolled Taco”? Could be fighting words. But “Willful triangular piece of tortilla topped with cheese or chili-pepper sauce and broiled”? No problema. “Impulsive, pug-nosed, ugly, or poor?” Not high praise, but not a marital tort, either.
So here I am, older, more knowledgeable, yet no wiser. And that, as my own long-suffering spouse often tells me, is the story of my life.
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