The Fine Print; Program 00 24 Guest Michael Sims Book Darwin's Orchestra

from national public radio this is the fine print and exploration and celebration of the written word i'm rebecca bain i'll be talking today to michael sam's the author of an absolutely delightful widgets on top of an almanac of nature in history the arts and if you're having some difficulty in reconciling the words delightful and mormon and in the same sentence well trust me darwin's orchestra as a daily dose of cultural history with three hundred sixty six interesting and entertaining essays on everything from each song this is interesting to take a closer look at the history of this plus it is he that expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today really develop an early to rise makes a man helping wealthy and wise that helps them that helps them since spring they keep the secret

to them i get a little neglect made mischief of one of the male she was last one issue the forest one of a forest a writer those mexicans are just a sampling of the many proverbs the written or collected by benjamin franklin which you shared with readers in his poor richard's almanack franklin publishes almanac in philadelphia from seventeen thirty three to seventeen fifty eight and while it was by no means the first almanac published in america it was definitely one of the most popular actually the first almanac dates back twelve hundred years before christ to the time of king ramses the second surviving manuscript from the period less religious festivals designates lucky and unlucky day and predicts the fortunes of children according to their birthdays not a great deal different from what you find today the almanac takes its name from

a twelfth century latin word for a calendar with astronomical information and by this point in its history it contained proverbs and jokes as well as planting in weather information one of the most famous english almanacs was old morris almanac published by frances moore in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries more made weather predictions based on nothing more than his own whims but his reputation was for ever guaranteed by one particular forecast his secretary had awakened him from a nap one afternoon to ask what to print as the weather for june the third which was derby day in england cold and snow dam it was his charitable replied yeah let me sleep so cold and snow was pregnant for the derby day forecast and when it did actually smell people declared morrow whether prognosticators extraordinaire despite his former dismal track record perhaps the best known of all such publications as the old farmer's almanac which has been an important part of american agrarian culture send

seventeen ninety three in addition to the traditional weather forecasts moon titan timetables analysts of eclipse days the old farmer's almanac offers mathematical puzzles home remedies for dosing people and livestock the best fishing days of the year and other amusing information so why have almanacs had such a popular and long lived history well until relatively recently they were pretty much all the common folk and depend upon there were no scientifically determined long range weather forecast know an expensive watches are clocks know agricultural extension agencies to offer advice on crops or livestock no free public libraries and relatively few newspapers because books were expensive most people owned only a bible than perhaps a volume or to his sermons but nearly everybody could afford the inexpensive almanac and this soft cover pamphlet became an indispensable part of the culture indeed abraham lincoln's most famous legal case the eighteen fifty eight armstrong murder trial use the almanac as a damning

piece of evidence the murder took place at eleven o'clock one night and a witness for the prosecution claimed to have seen the fatal five by the light of a nearly full moon standing high in the sky as defense attorney lincoln had a witness repeated statements about the bright moon several times that he's surprised the court by bringing forth an almanac which show the moon in a different cycle there by obtaining a dramatic acquittal for his client director jon favreau ortiz this incident in his nineteen thirty nine classic film young mr lincoln starring henry fonda of course he had to enhance the drama by making the defendant the murderer not a witness but the almanac is still the star you said see it and step down and over the drama coach recap i'm productive just one other question of after us would you have a guess where you join for the day to

talk about the issue that this go on lookout it's the farmer's almanac go and look at look at age twelve if you fly with the moon was only in that first quarter that night and said that tim twenty one for unesco for the killing took place so you'll see it couldn't have been moved right you lie did you guess you were trying to save these boys next week you were trying to save your own once you're welcome and which you know when when july four militia did is as plain as the nose on your face but why little more respectful of the almanac now are we welcome be sure and stay tuned after his brief time out when i'll be joined by michael sam is the author of a wonderful the almanac titled darwin's orchestra i hope you can continue to check out the fine print oh i am

broadcast of the fine print is made possible in part by helen coldren jane smith of sharon langford and associates entrusted to sell the most cherished homes in the nashville area create three sixty six hundred ad technically of course michael sims' book is not an almanac it's a book of days three hundred sixty six days as a matter of fact with an interesting informative and often amusing essay for each day's entry where else but in darwin's orchestra would you discover that on january fifth nineteen sixty one and the character premiered on network television a character who quoted hamlet spoke latin and imitated beatniks line but only to one person will propose lead character of horace was a talking horse named mr ed but don't get the idea

michael's book is frivolous i was impressed with the depth and breadth of information michael present in darwin's orchestra apparently does again the book an almanac of nature in history and the arts gave michael a great deal of latitude in the subject matter well that's the one thing i like about the most is it gave me the opportunity to ramble anywhere could make related to major in some way it's amazing to me how many things you can micro we're all yet there is an underlying theme a remote a book of days is that everything that we think is built upon our attitudes toward nature there's an emerson quotation as epigraph in there to sort of sum that up and given indication that i do hope there is a unifying view underneath all these random for years actually they're very much as it's one of the things that when you start it you think all these are three hundred and sixty six essays there are related really only in terms of they loosely can be defined as relating to nature but if you've read for a while you realize that there are many more elements that connect these pieces this book really holds

together it's not a day by day thing this is a book that has a lot of friends to connect all the pieces are i'm glad you say that because my idea was that it would be a collection of essays disguised as a book but as a framework to build upon and so that the publisher could look at my original proposal say well if you can do two dozen of these is no reason he can write the whole book and they would give me a little money upfront to do it and that i would be able to do that so the book of days format is for a very successful one i started off i was going to read it just day by day but i found out that soon i was just reading on which is when everybody don't it's interesting people they keep saying they'll look at first at their birthday or something like that which i think it had never occurred to me and my editors predicted that would happen and it is happening forever say however the one on my birthday it's about a louse that's the gamble because the next one might be about the nightingale in amber

shakespeare or george bernard shaw just a lot of withdrawal yeah my night is that the discovery of uranium and dropping the bomb on hiroshima thank you michael flamm as more well known i honestly cannot imagine how much research must have gone into darwin's orchestra you just live in the library will i have a substantial research library home of some thousands of books that have accumulated over the years and we're going to fall down on the apartment door someday just for that reason but i spent a huge amount of time in the nashville public libraries and invented the locker and some others cheek with members others in a national i wound up problem for a huge number of sources but for some reason that amuses me enormously vivid one would have to a book like this you would even approach unless you love to learn a lot of different things yes one of the things about the book is that i no longer have to constantly played my friends with oh by the way did you realize that robert

burns report about alaska and blah blah blah and instead i just going over him and write it up and forced upon unsuspecting public there's a very nice line here though between giving information letting people know why a pit vipers called a pit viper or whatever but then taking it one step further and turning it into an asset into a commentary into on michael sims viewpoint on things that are going on i imagine that was an interesting line wow that was fun i didn't want to be at all encyclopedic or i'm in any way dry because the main emphasis for me has always been the stories it's an anecdotal ramble through both cultural and natural history all of that border habitat ornithology <unk> border habitat's already scientist knows that you go to where a forest of but smithfield a new sea species from both environments and natural and cultural history or the same way i find a story about george bernard shaw points is interesting if it's something

about his views on natural history because artists and scientists are of equal interest in it yeah i was a very interesting piece i know what you're talking about and when he's writing and please an ally in elite is a letter to a friend of his and says many think there's an actor who can play a line including being able to twitch a stereo yes and i love that those behind the scenes stories at white's research for charlotte's web a huge number of books and movies that you wouldn't expect would have that involvement behind them or the way that arthur conan doyle who's famous for dashing off stories without doing any kind of research whatsoever and those are interesting in a different way because they reveal attitudes toward nature that are less informed that in itself becomes just as fascinating because our misinformation are mistaken notions about nature are just as fascinating and informative as are accurate perception of us or more before you wonder how many people tried a charmer snake with a bowl of milk after reading the speckled band really defined as like snow white male or whistle

or whistling to death yesterday had to climb over a rope to begin with a wonderful story but it's like hitchcock's movies they're wonderful and and stunning to watch and they're so full of holes that it's a mr firth i didn't realize though until again reading darwin's orchestra of that the young bassist for the helm of the basketballs was a true legend yes yes one that arthur conan doyle's friend i think fletcher robinson told him this story was when he was vacationing in cromer and the wind was howling have been to cramer on the coast of england and it is a howling guerrieri nasty voice and so that they were sitting there looking out and robinson said let's talk about some religions i've been hearing and evolving for sherlock holmes dear well obviously we need to talk about some of the more fascinating things that you've turned up i know that they're worth things that to know whether you're at home in your own research library are sitting downstairs in the national public library you probably squeal when you discovered some things and just uh oh wow this is so cruel or some of a number of things like that

wonderful things about the store dracula and howl they change various things for the movie and made it more visual more powerful imagery than the original book at first book is a pistol or it's a collection of fiction the letters reading about jurassic park and it took a great deal of digging and then shaking with some experts on this before i felt at all confident to write a statement about this but the notion is that the makers of jurassic park ahead it really should be called cretaceous park by the way most of the dinosaurs featured on it more from the cretaceous rather than the jurassic which was earlier a number of things like that one of my first stories in the entire book is the affair of the diamond necklace which is a famous french story and it inspired a scandal that really helped lead to the revolution in france in the way sending hundreds and it was inspired by the clandestine purchase of a diamond necklace that had belonged to my them to buy and marie antoinette insisted she had nothing to do it it will all of this

cultural history intertwined beautifully because for me the focus and aren't orchestra is the diamonds themselves and not only our cultural attitudes toward him but what they geological a r and just how quirky and weird it is that we've assigned all of these arbitrary values to so many things in nature one of the things that was interesting to read that was the similarity of the modern scientific approach for example in uranium the essay on her birthday the similarity of that to alchemy because one of the ongoing dreams of the middle ages was to find the bill to transmute one mineral into another one comes uranium they gradually discover this winter for spawning out that uranium and other minerals in time change into a different mineral alongside has responded with oh come on this is alchemy are talking about this doesn't have that wonderful stories like that mark twain's story of mr coyne is a recurring

character in the book is that he was rather several of her shakespeare mark twain arthur conan doyle there are people that i've enjoyed reading very much when i was working on the book a number of things came up one was mark twain story of the platypus and how he met a naturalist in australia who had various claims about the platypus and how twain refuted them and it's just i think screamingly funny mark twain for example looked at the natural world as a mark twain character everything was through his own quirky weird one of you he looked at the docks and can analyze that structure of the face and pointy can classify the creature and many things like that it was wonderful to read about tornadoes and the twister in american cultural history because tornadoes appear in various parts of the world there most common in the us because the vast plains states in the way they are but the the rockies the huge and they do an oz dorothy gale her last name is gail which must never forget is carried by a tornado but the mistake asbill he rides a

twister in the southwest and then there's the mickey mouse cartoon the band concert in which waller all performing the entire band is picked up and twirl around and around in the air and they're performing the us storm section of the linville overture think there where we're on in iran and the reason of course of course michael and how long did this book take you to do not as long as you might think since i didn't do anything in the real world and i had a deadline people say you need a lot of commitment to work the redoubtable know you just need a signed contract that will cause you're a great deal of trouble if you do not think that i had written two dozen of the essays when i submitted a proposal by the time the book was sold to hear hold i'd written another dozen so that's a little less than one tenth of it was written i wrote the rest in the next fourteen months while so now i'm at the prison back in us adjourn or an suv was life again as the recipient emerge from all that

another recurring character in isi <unk> thorough actually as a technically how they think his name was pronounced but yes he's that he's there several times and for strolls darwin christie's the main fanatic character and darwin's orchestra is a specific essay but also that the metaphor of the book but darwin is sort of like arty johnson on laugh in he is pricey going through the background of every third are forcing i just think is an enormously interesting man and of course won the most influential scientists in all of history and so a number of characters recur just because they interested me and so the book is not representative of anything so much as my own whims and for his own taste or how lovely for us the readers that we enjoy as you're sauteing much well that's the gamble you write something you think do i look at what popular taste seems to want and try to do that or do i pursue whatever quirky little side roads interest me and

gamble that i'm not that differ from everyone else and so i opted for that and we'll see the more difficult thing so far people responding pretty well there is a un line that i had used as a screen saver on my computer while riding barnes orchestra and it's from rex stout who's near a wolf mr niles are the favorite thing of mine he had the line somewhere that was supposedly posted in his study the city if i'm not having fun writing the book no one's going to have any fun reading the book and so i just try to keep that mind i didn't want anything dry but i wanted to emphasize how fascinating and entertaining the world at large can be and how submerged in and sometimes not submerged all the very obvious in everything we do is our relationship for the natural world what got you so interested in natural history it grew out of just a childhood interest in the natural world bird watching from major for practically and spinning a great deal of time in the woods behind my mother's house were gray about our house and then gradually i became interested

in more than just what i could learn about the natural world and became interested in who had originally learned of these things and so i began to be interested in a number of scientists and especially the nineteenth century the great heyday of biology coming into its own as a science and the other scientists do astronomy and so many things for just booming the victorian naturalist especially charles darwin huxley some of the others like that and so that gradually expanded into a broader and broader interest in history and so now i'm just as passionate about human history as natural history but in my mind there are always completely intertwined that's why the book works so well i think there are a lot of people who would say i'm not really that interested in natural history iowa pick up an almanac that it is a day by day look at dong whirling beatles stuff like that but i picked the book up and they find you know there's a section about dung beetles but there's also a section about lewis

carroll i discovered lewis carroll stuttered and would often say his last name is dug the dog sense and that's where the dodo came from that he used an alice in wonderland i never knew that that's a wonderful story i mean all these little things i didn't know that mary stuart little terrier was cowering under her skirts and she was beheaded oh yes we're you know it's a terrible story and yet a wonderful story and her nurses were kept back at the last moment when she was to be executed and she walked slowly up and put her head on the block and no one knew the dog was there until after the execution enemy and other moments like that when the ford motor company as marianne moore the poet who is of all american poets as obsessed with animals and nature as anyone they asked her to help them name a car and she went through a wonderful whole area seized to read her letters on this is just north of our time and she wrote back how about the targeting go after the turquoise tricking of which is a south american bird and on and

on and on huge number series and finally ford rejected all of our wonderful suggestions malaria suggestions including the not very serious but hilarious utopian turtle top which would be wonderful what you dr i have a blue utopian town taught my just for the us and instead form rejected all those unnamed current the edsel so there was a wonderful bunch of stories like well did you go to look for this stuff well most of it i didn't really find that way most of the stories came to mind and i had a long long list of topics that i wanted to write about because the book is partially attribute to the books and movies the poetry of the plays that i've enjoyed so much or years and the sign just being a tribute to the scientists that i found so interesting and the animals and plants of the world so as much as anything else i free associated the topic list and then went and

dug for a date to penetrate because one of the things i wanted was that this wouldn't be a random book of days it wouldn't be just any old topic on a particular date but that it would be a relevant date and they would have some point to tsa occasionally toward him as a precipitous leap between the date and the topic but it is their ally to finland ah and you know some of the other photographs that some us the all the vote has a pitcher ordered artist was ordered fox terrier he is asked is noble lineage his bear markets but the thin man being my favorite movies i had to work in carriers and then also there are a number of natural history connections two terriers that we don't need to go into but it made for a great excuse to work in the thin man thing for a wonderful essay and a number of my favorite monster movies i think i should say that in the introduction listing the various topics i couldn't bear to leave out my favorite monster is so not only dracula which is sort of a monster it but the creature from the black lagoon and had to

be in there the thing because these movies say so much about our attitudes toward natural history also the movie down the famous giant and visit us the question of whether a number of those movies were communist conspiracy propaganda you know and the questions of how much that reflects our views on a number of different things at the same time that it reflects our views on the natural world and some weather accurately or inaccurately still very entertaining and very interesting early on a team at one charles darwin took a new manuscripts of his loyal publisher john murray of london hear is a work he said which is occupied me for many years after the subject will not interest of public that we publish it for me the formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms with some observations on their habits was published on october ten fifteen although not a topic calculated to grab the victorian reading public rather

starched collars within three years the book sold eight thousand five hundred copies darren was in his seventies and as usual in poor health he knew this might be his last book rather than a weighty summation of his life and thought it is the last chapter in a lifelong habit of pursuing whatever the ecological an evolutionary effects of earthworms fascinated darwin for decades making thirty seven his uncle decide which would founder of the pottery dynasty and the man who persuaded barbara are going to allow this time travel of people showed young charles objects found buried in his yard that had formerly been on the surface a few months later darwin wrote his first paper on earthworms as agents information trickled out there instead of their rates have fallen sustenance and the florida excavated run and there was even an incrementally more forms worms live in parts of the study is still red hot poker is near

davenport water in the soil in his family even subject them to various noises on one memorable occasion son francis played a bassoon grandson bernardo whistle and wife and the play the piano the audience really reacted with darwin's little orchestra is remembered as one of the more amusing experiments in history of science study performs combined interest in biology geology the very nature of the observations record especially patient conservation experiment soon after he and emma felt townhouse he had a layer of chalk laid on the lam disease after twenty nine years of the trenches and examined carefully and layers of chocolate fountain in the soil as foreign observers of worms and her green tea in close partnership of his early work on coral reefs the earthworm increased at the action of organic upon the point of this research was the same as that of evolution the implications of incremental changes over a long time the naturalistic considered the cumulative effects of the quotes in the streets but

as one reviewer observed are rehabilitated their reputation discover that reform spend most of their time swallowing much of the earth passes through their intricate gets a grand rocks ever smaller casting comes together vegetation fans last book demonstrated that ecological utility reform so successfully that one reader wrote asking if you still feel snails an important that was writer michael sam he's reading from the title essay is darwin's orchestra and almanac of nature in history and the arts and that does include our program for this week and i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you'll join me next week as well the fine print is

produced by rebecca davis sent copies are available information on all six point five incidents in so many male is this is a deal in washington