[UA] Cultures in animals

[Timothy Toner]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart Anderson" <stuartanderson at qwest.net>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: [UA] Cultures in animals


> holycrow at mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > To put it more simply, a dog can be a good dog or a bad dog, but you
don't talk of a dog being ethical or unethical.  They lack the grasp of
abstractions.
>
> But then you're mixing your metaphors. If you make abstractions
> concrete by bringing to life the IC, then animals ought to be able to
> interact. I think the IC's barred them out of the same indefensible
> arrogance you use to bar animals from public places. You have an
> extremely inflated idea of the importance of souls, or self-awareness, or
what have you.
> --Harold, Stu's extremely ethical dog.

Or maybe, like the dolphins in The Hitchhiker's Trilogy, they think the
whole thing is downright silly.  Personally, I'd like a bizarre mix of UA
Cosmology and "Dream of a thousand cats," from Gaiman's Sandman.  We're on a
race to come up with 333 unique...somethings, and winner takes all.  So do
us all a favor, and kill a cat.  For the good of humanity, and all.

Speaking of Gaiman--American Gods is coming out midmonth.  Here's the cover
blurb on Amazon.com:

The storm was coming...

For the three years Shadow spent in prison, he kept his head down and did
his time. All he wanted was to get back to the loving arms of his wife, and
to stay out of trouble for the rest of his life. But days before his
scheduled release, his wife was killed in an accident, and his world became
a colder place.

On the plane home to the funeral, Shadow meets a grizzled man who calls
himself Mr. Wednesday, a self-declared grifter and rogue, who offers Shadow
a job. And Shadow, a man with nothing to lose, accepts.

But working for Wednesday is not without its price, and Shadow soon learns
that his role in Wednesday's schemes will be far more dangerous than he
could have ever imagined. Entangled in a world of secrets and age-old
mysteries, Shadow encounters, among others, the murderous Czernobog, the
impish Mr. Nancy, and the beautiful Easter--all of whom seem to know more
about Shadow than he himself knows.

Shadow will learn that the past does not die, that everyone, including his
dead wife, had secrets, and that the stakes are higher than anyone could
have imagined.

A storm is coming, and Shadow and Wednesday will soon be swept up into a
brutal and epic conflict. For beneath the placid surface of everyday life a
war is being fought--and the prize is the very soul of America.

American Gods is a dark and kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across
an America at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. Magnificently told,
American Gods is a work of literary magic that will haunt the reader far
beyond the final page.


The actual Publishers Weekly review has more details, but there also might
be spoilers, too.




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