Topic 126: Animal Resemblance in People

Carol:

Animalia Mania

I told Megan not to worry about me being late on my daily theme today because I had no intention of doing research. Generally, it takes me about four times as long as Megan to write my essays because that’s what I do, get sidetracked on all kinds of little Googly research trails. In search of animal resemblances, I looked up:

• David Naughton: loved him dancing through the Dr. Pepper commercials, then loved him even more in An American Werewolf in London, one of my favorite   wolfian incarnations);
• James Naughton: did not know he was David’s older brother; loved him in Glass Menagerie, thought to myself maybe he acted or directed in an Edward Albee play;
• Edward Albee: well, James Naughton was in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But, I was really hoping that he was in Seascape, which Marc says is one of the best plays he has ever seen performed at the Prescott Fine Arts theater—the lizards were incredible.
• Frank Langella—omigod, did anyone know he made his broadway debut in Seascape? The same Frank Langella who was the first actor to make vampires sexy in the 1979 John Badham version of Dracula. Maybe the word is sensuous,  which neither Tom Cruise nor Brad Pitt are in Interview with the Vampire.
• Being Human—so, vampires and werewolves just kind of go together. And, this British TV series proves that they can co-exist and even like each other. Not like those shapeshifters in Twilight. Now, the British version (haven’t seen the American copy-cat) is filmed in Bristol, which looks to be about 2-3 hours west of London. London! American Werewolf in…that takes me back to David Naughton
• I’m caught in a perpetual google-loop!

But, like I said, I wasn’t going to do any research on this topic because it is too time-consuming.  And, I don’t want people to think that just because I’m retired, I have so much time on my hands that I don’t do anything but watch British TV shows on my big-screen HDTV, go to B-Grade teen flicks with my daughter, and obsessively surf the Internet.

I used to read, folks. I mean I really read a lot of great things. And I went to plays, all kinds of plays. Here is what I can say about animal resemblances in people without using the Internet.

 Great world literature:

•  Frankz Kafka--who can forget Gregor Samsa, the caripaced protagonist in   Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Those first few lines of the story where Gregor wakes up  to realize he has turned into a cockroachian insect with multiple legs are creepy.
• Julio Cortazar’s surrealistic short stories.  In one story a man goes to a zoo to observe a group of lizards, then suddenly he becomes one of the lizards. Cortazar also wrote a great story translated as “The Man Who Vomited Rabbits,” but the man doesn’t actually resemble a rabbit.
• Eugene Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, a great example of Theater of the Absurd. I never saw the play, but in the movie version, Zero Mostel is incredible as he gradually transforms into a rhinoceros. His best acting work, I think.
• Ichabod Crane—don’t have to be a genius to get the picture of this character in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Disney got him right in the cartoon version with his long, knobby knees.
• Aristophanes’ The Frogs—haven’t read it in a long time, but Marc saw a production of it at Yale that was performed in the University swimming pool. Look it up yourself. That was the year Christopher Walken and Sigourney Weaver were both Yale drama students, so one of them might have been in that pool.
• Beauty and the Beast—an old story with many incarnations, one being Cocteau’s film, another being, okay I admit it, the B-grade teen flick Beastly I saw last week with my daughter.

I think I may have completely muddled the topic because most of the references I have made are not, strictly speaking, people who are like animals but people who become animals.

I have to wrap up this not-quite-an-essay because Megan has come up to check on my progress. She can be doggedly determined, stubborn as a mule, quiet as a mouse, wily like a fox depending on her mood. If I get this essay to her right away, maybe she will give me a great big bear-hug.

P.S. I refuse to list all the sources I went to for the first list. I blame any misinformation on the second list for faulty memory. Look them up yourselves. However, here is a gift.
Read Julio Cortazar’s story Axotol online. Here’s the link.
http://sayberklas.tripod.com/anthology_short_stories_in_english/id32.html

Megan:

People Resemblance in Animals

Yesterday, and not for the first time, Milo rolled over to escape my admittedly aggressive affection and fell off the bed. At the same time, my mother knocked over a jar of paper clips and I said, “See that? He gets his clumsiness from you.”

A simple Google search will provide plenty of proof that there are people out there who look like their pets, or who behave like animals. I worked with an officer in the prison who had a squirrell-like habit of keeping stashes of food hidden in drawers and other places around the library. But other than that one example, I can’t think of anything else to say about the topic as it is stated. So, I’m gonna reverse it and talk about Milo.

Aside from his remarkable gracelessness, my mother claims he is a very intelligent dog. He knows exactly what he can get away with from each of us in the house. Obviously, I am the most lenient and my father is the most strict. Considering that he pretends not to even like the dog, Milo hasn’t noticed. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, that dog clearly worships my father.

Milo has studied Dad’s habit of never closing a door behind him. In the dead of winter, my father will go down to the laundry room, via the basement, and then out the garage, leaving every door in between wide open which creates a perfect tunnel of arctic wind to circulates through the house. He may claim his hands are full with the laundry or the trash, but I believe it is simple carelessness. Just as Milo is careless when he opens the sliding glass door on the porch and lets himself in after dinner. Never thinks of shutting it behind him.

And when Milo sneaks into the kitchen for a snack if he thinks no one is looking (something he may have inherited from me), he leaves the cabinet doors open too. After he finishes (or is caught) rooting through the trash, my mother will say, “Look how smart he is! He knows just where to go.”

Well, the other day, he knew just where to go when he regurgitated corncobs in the middle of the night– her room. I’d known it was coming because the last time he had corn on the cob, it was my room he puked in.  This time, I locked my door.

Speaking of having to lock my door – remember when Milo was peeing on my bed? Well, we finally figured out that  he was jealous of my cousin’s kids. He’s too rambunctious for them, so when they come over he is banished outside. The moment he is let back in, he marks the corners of my bed. My mom told me this story once about how shortly after my brother was born, she was feeding him on the couch. I resented his introduction into our family, and peed on the floor right in front of her, knowing she couldn’t get up to stop me. I wouldn’t normally reveal something like that about myself, but I can honestly say that I don’t remember doing it, and have not urinated out of jealousy in the 27 years since. I guess it’s another example of the complexity of the nature vs nurture argument. Some behaviors are learned, and others are just in the blood.

Mom and Milo