WOTE’s (as-Fun-as-a-Fact-Can-Be) Fact of the Day*

The stem of a single Saguaro cactus plant can retain up to five tons (5 tons!) of water.



(As-Fun-as-a-Fact-Can-Be) Fact Courtesy of:

Planet Earth.


* Sort of like Harper’s Index, but even more funner.

WOTE’s (as-Fun-as-a-Fact-Can-Be) Fact of the Day*

One out of every four species on earth is a form of beetle.

(As-Fun-as-a-Fact-Can-Be) Fact Courtesy of:

The Audubon Insectarium, New Orleans's newest museum


* Sort of like Harper’s Index, but even more funner.

WOTE’s (as-Fun-as-a-Fact-Can-Be) Fact of the Day*

By weight, the most abundant creatures on earth are krill. A single swarm can weigh up to 2 million tons. One species, the Antarctic Krill, makes up an estimated biomass of over 500 million tons, roughly twice that of humans. Crazy.


(As-Fun-as-a-Fact-Can-Be) Fact Courtesy of:

The 2006 BBC series Planet Earth, which is required viewing for anyone who lives on earth.


* Sort of like Harper’s Index, but even more funner.

You Can Call Him Al, Nobel Laureate

As you’ve probably heard by now, my main man, Al "I’m too sexy for this White House" Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week for his Inconvenient Truth-spreading. With the prize, Gore joins a long and venerable list of shiny-happy olive branch-waving peaceniks, including Henry Kissinger (1973), Yasser Arafat (1994), the I.A.E.A. (2005), Bono (2012), and Angelina Jolie (2018).

In all seriousness, though, Homunculus was thrilled down to his Birkenstocks for Mr. God -- er, Gore -- and just as thrilled that the Nobel committee took this blog into consideration when it made its decision. I mean, I knew the committee members read it; I just didn’t realize they would rely on it to the extent that they’d rip it off nearly verbatim in their press release. Check it:

"(Mr. Gore is) probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."

Well put, gentlemen. So well put, in fact, that maybe you weren’t the first ones to put it in the first place? Does this ring a bell?…

"By far the loudest and most charismatic megaphone [for the issue] has been, and will continue to be, Al Gore."

Sound familiar? No? Hmm. Well then, how about this one?…

"Gore has seemingly single-handedly brought climate change to the front: the front pages of the newspapers, the forefront of the public’s conscience, the frontburner of policymakers’ policies that need making and remaking."

Coming back to you now, isn’t it? I thought so -- 'cause you read it here two months ago. That’s okay. I’m sure you have some original ideas of your own…

"If the profile of the issue had not been raised with An Inconvenient Truth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s [the co-winners of the Peace prize] reports this year would not have had nearly as much impact, experts said." *

Who are these so-called "experts" the Times cited? I’ll give you a hint: "they" are one man, and he is an impossibly brilliant blogger whose first name is Homunculus. Also, his last name is Reilly. And his middle initial is J. (Okay, that was five hints.) Here is what those "experts" said in August:

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth -- its subsequent box-office success, the media blitz that accompanied that success, and its important (if undeserved) victory at the Oscars -- global warming has finally gotten hot. It’s no longer "old news"; it’s now continually breaking news that, by virtue of its oldness, has suddenly reached its breaking point. … (Gore’s) multi-part thesis -- the climate crisis, as he calls it, is real; the scientific evidence is incontrovertible; we caused it; now we must fix it, and soon -- is nothing revolutionary. But the previously deaf ears on which those truths had fallen have finally seemed to perk up.

Well put, Homunculus. I can’t speak for my fellow media elite, but when I read the Nobel committee’s official announcement, four words immediately leaped to mind: Winter on the Equator.

No matter. In the spirit of, you know, peace and shit, Homunculus will let this one slide. So, bygones. (Also, my lawyer, Uncle Marty, told me I don’t really have a case. Apparently blogs are not copyrighted. What’s up with that? Furthermore, apparently records indicate that no one reads this blog. What’s up with that?)

Besides, it seems that the Nobel committee staffers aren’t the only ones shamelessly misappropriating my prized I.P. Here is Times columnist Bob Herbert, the day after the announcement:

"The first thing media types wanted to know was whether this would prompt Mr. Gore to elbow his way into the presidential campaign. That’s like asking someone who’s recovered from a heart attack if he plans to resume smoking."

And here is House Representative Rahm Emanuel, who was a top aide in the Clinton administration:

"Why would (Gore) run for president when he can be a demigod? He now towers over all of us because he’s pure."

I agree, Bob! I agree, Rahm! In fact, I agreed with you two months ago!…

I don’t want Gore to run [because] I think he can do more for the world as an environmental activist than as a perpetually-compromising politician with his hands tied by political adversaries and omnipotent corporate interests. Besides, how would he make headway with the environment if he were also dealing with terrorism, the economy, health-care reform, the Iraq War, and the myriad other high-priority problems presidents juggle on a daily basis? True, the President of the United States is the Most Powerful Man in the Free World. But consider this: Even if Gore were to win, would he really get that much more accomplished in office than any other similarly-minded Democrat? If Gore sticks to his role as Mr. Green, on the other hand, we could end up with the best of both worlds: a Democrat manning (or "womanning," as the case may be) the country and Gore himself manning the rest of the earth. Unfortunately, today’s bitterly partisan political climate -- to say nothing of our checks and balances, bureaucratic inefficiency, and ubiquitous corruption -- prevents our elected leaders from initiating ground-breaking, potentially unpopular legislation. Politicians fight the battles they can win; artists and advocates fight the battles worth fighting, whether they will be won or not.

You might say that "With [The] Prize, Gore Is Vindicated Without Having to Add President to [His) Resume." If you were the Times last Saturday, in fact, that is exactly what you would have said. You might also have said that Gore was vindicated long before he received the Nobel, that he was doing okay with the Emmy, the Oscar, the reported $175,000 he receives for speaking engagements, the scores of hot young ladies who hurl themselves, bewitched, onto his undeniably sexy rolls of flab -- and, most of all, with the online tribute he received from an anonymous expert two months before a bunch of Scandinavians knew which way was up.

* Were you as pleasantly surprised as I to see that Al’s old buddy Newt “See? Newts are green!” Gingrich even got in on the hosanna-fest? Well, sort of. In minimally-veiled backhanded fashion -- that is to say, in Republican fashion -- Gingrich half-praised Gore: "In a way Vice President Gore, by raising the intensity of the issue, by talking about it, raised the challenge for those of us who think there’s an alternative to say, 'O.K., right emotions, wrong answer.'"

A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising"

Here is a message I sent today to Viking River Cruises®. In the pull-down menu, I categorized the missive as "Other":


Dear Viking River Cruises® -- "Exploring the World in Comfort"®,

Over the past eleven months, you have sent me 24 postcards, 19 full-size, full-color brochures, and, yesterday, an informational DVD extolling the sine qua non virtues and (year-round) limited-time-only savings of "the world’s leading river cruise line... by far." I don’t know what I did to deserve such treatment -- perhaps I raped a poodle in a previous life -- but I can assure you it had nothing to do with ever signing up for your mailing list.

I am thus writing to say: Please stop. First of all, I’m a grad student with a household income of approximately negative $25,000 a year; I cannot afford a Russian hooker in Far Rockaway, Queens, much less a Russian river cruise. Secondly, the 19^th full-size-full-color brochure was no more convincing than the 18^th. Besides wasting your time and money, you have, with the junk mail you’ve sent to me alone, laid waste to enough trees to (ironically enough) build a riverboat. (That you are based in Woodland Hills, CA only makes such ecological irresponsibility more egregious.)

In summary, you are the most annoying company in the world... by far. (The Men’s Wearhouse is a distant second.) I have already told everyone I know to never take a Viking River Cruise®. If you do not want me to start also telling people I don’t know, cease with the junk-mail carpet-bombing operation at once.

Much appreciation in advance,

Homunculus J. Reilly
"Customer" #1145086482

P.S. River cruises suck.

You Can Call Him Al, Savior of the World

After several blogs about timeless but admittedly marginal topics like sadistic entomological bar tricks and magic stomach hairs -- nugatory feuilleton, I concede -- Homunculus would like to get serious. For one day, at least. This entry will therefore be devoted to a subject even more important than the imbalance of my nut sack: the fate of the earth. Specifically, I would like to pay tribute to former Vice-President and current Inconvenient-Truthteller Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., who, besides being the second-sexiest man alive, has seemingly single-handedly brought climate change (née “global warming”) to the front: the front pages of the newspapers, the forefront of the public’s conscience, the frontburner of policymakers’ policies that need making and remaking. You go, Gore! From beneath the stale glow of dim but environmentally-friendly fluorescent bulbs, Winter on the Equator salutes you.

{Inconvenient Digression: The name of this blog, Winter on the Equator, does not refer to one potential repercussion of global climate change, although Homunculus is well aware that the double-meaning of today’s topic adds yet another clever nuance to a blog whose hallmark is its nuanced cleverness. Most of my devoted readers -- i.e., my mom and dad -- still think this blog is called what it’s called because it was conceived in the wintertime while I was living in Thailand, near the equator. That was part of it -- more paronomasia for ya -- but there was another, more prominent reason. Check out the epigraph of WOTE’s much-ballyhooed debut column (5/13/06) for the answer.}

I don’t have any figures to back me up,

{Inconvenient Favor to Ask: I would love some figures to back me up, and I’m sure some figures of the sort are available to those who are more resourceful than ol’ Homunculus. So if you are that sort, maybe you can look up some study by some media-studying center (the Center for Media Studies, perhaps?) and post your findings as a comment, below.}

but it seems as though climate change has really {Inconvenient Pun (x2!) Alert} boiled into a hot-button issue within the past twelve months. Before Gore’s Inconvenient Truthfulness, the environmental crisis, handicapped by the unfortunate distinction that it was never actually news, rarely made headlines. When it did, those headlines could generally be found in only serious and liberally-bent magazines like The Atlantic or The New Yorker. If there was “news,” climate change merely served as the backdrop to the sexier or more immediately relevant topic: celebrity awareness (“Cameron Diaz buys a hybrid!”), say, or tourism implications (“It’s January, and there’s still no snow in Switzerland!”).

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth -- its subsequent box-office success, the media blitz that accompanied that success, and its important (if undeserved) victory at the Oscars -- global warming has finally gotten hot. It’s no longer “old news”; it’s now continually breaking news that, by virtue of its oldness, has suddenly reached its breaking point. One day there’s a story on NPR about a zero-emissions house being constructed in England; the next day ABC News is doing a feature on a summer camp in West Virginia devoted to environmentalism. Sales of SUVs finally go down; sales of hybrids finally take off. Live Earth makes its auspicious debut. Mayor Bloomberg takes a bold and controversial stand against urban traffic and pollution. (He loses, but “congestion pricing” breaks into the American vernacular with a single push. You just wait: By 2015, Weehawkenites will be paying $20 to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel at 9:00 a.m. -- and half of ‘em will be doing it in Priuses. {Inconvenient Curiosity: What is the plural of Prius -- Priuses or Prii? Or maybe Hippopotamuses? Meese?})

{Inconvenient Trivia: Speaking of recent environment-related media coverage, I recommend checking out The New Yorker’s recent profile about Virgin founder Richard Branson and his conversion to the cause. Here are two stats from the article that blew my mind:

• There are 45 light bulbs in the average American home; reducing that number by just one would be equivalent to removing nearly a million automobiles from the road.
• {Inconvenient Trivia-Within-Trivia: Lisa Simpson makes a similar reference in The Simpsons Movie, after her unsuccessful “An Irritating Truth” PowerPoint presentation in Springfield City Hall. The movie is worth checking out, both for its general funniness and its environmental crisis-driven plot (“eee-pa!”).}
• {Inconvenient Movie-Quote-Within-Trivia-Within-Trivia: “Welcome to Alaska! We pay every resident $1,000 to allow the oil companies to ravage our natural resources.”}
• For an average 747, the pre-takeoff journey from the docking station to the runway requires two tons -- two tons! -- of fuel.}

I credit the surge in awareness to two main factors. The first, paradoxically enough, is the Iraq War. In a twist that could be described as “Dubya”ously ironic, Bush’s war, the most sordid tale of this decade, could turn out to have one happy ending: providing fuel for the war on climate change. Operation We Love Oil, with its catastrophic impact on oil prices, has forced most Americans to rethink their priorities when it comes to their beloved cars. For the first time since the early 1990s, when Americans realized they needed four-wheel drive to commute to work, sales of SUVs and light-trucks decreased last year. Sales of cars that get more than 12 miles a gallon, meanwhile, have finally recovered.

Count on those trends continuing. Despite the record-breaking prices, most economists agree that the cost of gas is still too low here. But fear not, all ye pure free-marketers: every blunder our Idiot-in-Chief makes brings us one step closer to catching up with the rest of the world. Thus, today Winter on the Equator salutes you, too, Mr. President! And if your role in making Americans finally care about the environmental crisis somehow surmounts your impending legacy as Worst President Ever, WOTE will give you your due in a column entitled “Unintended Positive Side Effects of Otherwise Retarded and/or Disastrous Endeavors” (also to be featured: Christopher Columbus, Ross Perot, Romeo & Juliet).

The second and far more influential factor in bringing urgency to the movement has been Gore’s noble crusade to spread the truth about climate change, no matter how inconvenient it may be. His multi-part thesis -- the climate crisis, as he calls it, is real; the scientific evidence is incontrovertible; we caused it; now we must fix it, and soon -- is nothing revolutionary. But the previously deaf ears on which those truths had fallen have finally seemed to perk up. As critical as that core message has been the resonance of two of its corollaries: first, that climate change is literally earth-shattering, and second, that it is not a political issue but a moral one. Or, to use Gore’s catchy refrain, it’s not a matter of “red-versus-blue”; the problem is “green.” Gore’s traveling road show, and especially his film, have brought more attention to the cause than all the Earth Days and sporadic Time and Newsweek features from the past three decades combined. As for Live Earth, we may never know how many converts the event garnered -- one hopes it might become an annual thing -- but it seems safe to say it was a success, and that it would not have occurred without the inroads forged by Gore’s earlier proselytizing.

In the Branson feature, Daniel Kammen, a professor at Berkeley and the founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL), refers to the movement’s crucial need for a leader, an apostle. “The Word” is out there; now Mother Earth needs a St. Paul -- a Gandhi, an MLK, Jr. -- of her own. “What is still lacking here is what I call the ‘third wave’ of environmentalism,” Kammen said. “The first wave was Rachel Carson: recognizing the problem, and understanding that we need to protect the environment. That led to Stage 2: the system of regulations and taxes that helped make it possible to implement the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other vital legislation. ...[But] Kyoto is not going to save us. No global treaty is going to be sufficient. We also need a couple of big actors. What we need is a charismatic megaphone.” Kammen considers Branson to be one of those actors, and here’s hoping he’s right. But by far the loudest and most charismatic megaphone has been, and will continue to be, Al Gore. (And yes, I’m aware that I just used the words “Al Gore” and “charismatic” in the same sentence. That’s what saving the world can do for a dude’s rep.)

Once he no longer had to worry about campaigning for office or serving his constituents, Gore was finally able to take his pet cause and run with it. In the four or so years since he emerged from wherever it was he disappeared to -- clean-shaven and sartorially respectable again -- he has run a long way. The race still has miles to go, of course, but Gore is clearly the champion of this cause. He has a chance to do for environmentalism what Martin Luther King did for civil rights.

Which is why, unlike most members of the unofficial Al Gore Fan Club {Inconvenient Question That Begs: Is there is an official Al Gore Fan Club?}, I do not want our boy to run for President in ’08. I’ll admit it: I got the chills during the Oscars when it appeared, for a moment, as though Gore would announce his candidacy, Governator-style, to a billion people on live TV. (Of course, those chills could have been due to the fact that he was standing next to a goateed and tuxedoed Leonardo DiCaprio. Homunculus, secure in his heterosexuality, freely admits that Leo is positively dreamy.)

First of all, as much as I admire the guy, he’s still pretty much a big nerd. Yes, he’s been a “charismatic megaphone” for this one cause, but that doesn’t necessarily make him the type of charismatic personality that wins elections. Before seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I had heard the buzz about the “new and improved” Gore. “Surprisingly hip,” the media tabbed him. “Relaxed and unrestrained.” “No longer pedantic, wonky, or condescending.” Then I saw the film. Sorry, but I’m not buying. No doubt, Gore Version 2.006 was new and improved. But relaxed and unrestrained? Um, no. Hip? I don’t think so. The criticism pundits had of Gore in 2000 -- that he is a college professor at heart, not a politician -- was, for me, only confirmed by the film.

{Inconvenient Wishful Thinking: I would love to see Gore’s film remade as a blood-boiling courtroom drama -- Inconvenient Truth meets A Few Good Men. Cut to...

Tom Cruise: I want the truth!

Jack Nicholson: You can’t handle the truth! It’s just too inconvenient!}

Call me a pessimist, but if Gore were to join the race, I have little confidence that he would not, once again, find himself ill at ease in that all-too-familiar terrain. I can easily picture the new and improved version, under the intense scrutiny of a national campaign (not to mention the counsel of another batch of overpaid consultants), stiffening up and reverting back to Version 2.000 -- that is to say, pedantic, wonky, condescending, decidedly unhip. Gore would make an excellent President, to be sure, but we Dems are looking for someone to get excited about. In other words, someone exciting enough to get non-Dems excited. Professor Gore conjures up too many painful memories of Dukakis, Kerry, and, well, Gore himself. We want a Kennedy, a Clinton (Bill, that is). Who knows? -- Obama could be that guy. Even Edwards. (Hillary is a Clinton in name, not electability. But that’s a topic for another day.) But not Al.

{Inconvenient Musical Interlude:

Dear Al,

We know you’re soft in the middle now

Your post-2000 life was so hard

There were incidents and accidents

There were hints and allegations

But you had your photo-opportunity

If you take a shot at redemption

You’ll end up a cartoon

In a cartoon graveyard

What if you run now

Who'll be my role-model

Now that my role-model is

Gore, Gore!}

The second reason I don’t want Gore to run -- {Inconvenient Clarification: Yes, I’ve only named one reason so far -- all my Inconvenient Interruptions have just made it seem like more.} -- is that I think he can do more for the world as an environmental activist than as a perpetually-compromising politician with his hands tied by political adversaries and omnipotent corporate interests. Besides, how would he make headway with the environment if he were also dealing with terrorism, the economy, health-care reform, the Iraq War, and the myriad other high-priority problems presidents juggle on a daily basis? True, the President of the United States is the Most Powerful Man in the Free World. But consider this: Even if Gore were to win, would he really get that much more accomplished in office than any other similarly-minded Democrat? If Gore sticks to his role as Mr. Green, on the other hand, we could end up with the best of both worlds: a “Gore-y” Democrat manning (or “womanning,” as the case may be) the country and Gore himself manning the rest of the earth. Unfortunately, today’s bitterly partisan political climate -- to say nothing of our checks and balances, bureaucratic inefficiency, and ubiquitous corruption -- prevents our elected leaders from initiating ground-breaking, potentially unpopular legislation. Politicians fight the battles they can win; artists and advocates fight the battles worth fighting, whether they will be won or not.

Assuming, then, that Gore continues to serve his post as Inconvenient Truthteller, the question becomes, Is it too late to turn this thing around? Are we all, as the French say, totally fucked? In the film Gore claims that, scientifically speaking, it’s still not too late. Like a smoker and his lungs, the damage we’ve inflicted thus far is not irreparable. If we act now -- if the world works together to develop new technologies and enact sweeping lifestyle changes -- the present course of climate change can be stalled, perhaps even reversed. But those, as the French say, are big fuckin’ “IF”s. Enormous, earth-sized “IF”s.

My prevailing memory of An Inconvenient Truth is of Gore declaiming and PowerPointing his way through the first 90 minutes of the film to the pernicious and incontrovertible truth about the climate crisis, only to wrap up by stating that we still have a chance to win this thing. To me he sounded more like a coach urging on his team, down 10 with one minute to go, than a true believer. In the end, the one aspect of Gore’s message I couldn’t embrace was its optimism. Yes, we have Priuses/Prii, but what about alternative energy? What about the difficulties of imposing and enforcing regulations on the dozens of rapidly growing Third-World countries? What about the half-billion Chinese who will soon be first-time car owners? As another venerable American, Kermit the Frog, would point out to Mr. Gore, it won’t be easy going green.

Then again, that’s the difference between people like Al Gore and people like ol’ Homunculus. Positive thinking, baby. That’s why he’s an inspiring world-changing leader and I’m an embittered, out-of-work blogger. {Inconvenient Metaphor: I stand on the equator, feel a breeze, and think, It must be winter; Al Gore stands on the equator, feels a breeze, and thinks, It must be summer.}

So go to it, Al! Keep up the good work. Do us proud. Keep at it, don’t give up, et cetera and all those other platitudes. The world needs you now more than ever. And if you do succeed in the end, if you can save us all, think of the rewards! (In addition to the continuation of human life on earth, I mean.) The Nobel Prize... the adulation... the eternal gratitude of all mankind for the remainder of human history... the scores of insanely hot chicks hurling themselves upon you when they otherwise would have approached you only to ask if you had Bill’s number. Maybe even-- just when you thought it couldn’t get any better!... maybe even another tribute in Winter on the Equator. Hell, if you can make a believer out of the ultimate pessimist -- a man who can stand on the equator and claim it's winter -- you can accomplish anything.

Revival of the Fittest

When I was living abroad, my friend Ed told me about a bar trick that so transcended the standard scope of run-of-the-(gin-)mill bar stunts that it could easily be upgraded in the Pantheon of Trickery to “Legitimate Magic Trick.” I was skeptical at first -- Ed’s tales tended towards the hyperbolic -- but he swore he’d seen the trick turned twice himself, first-hand, and with his own two eyes.

Here is what you do:

Step 1. Think like a Boy Scout: Be prepared.
Setting: A bar or pub where houseflies may be found (see below -- “Materials Needed”). Usually this will be a bar with an outdoor seating section or patio, but a sufficiently shady dive bar may also suffice.
Materials Needed: housefly (alive), glass of water, coaster (optional), spoon (optional), 2 TB table salt

Step 2. Catch a fly without injuring it. The best way to do this is to wait until the fly alights on the interior rim of your water glass or beer mug, then trap it inside with a coaster. You can also use the palm of your hand. If the fly prefers to buzz around rather than alight on drinking utensils, you can try the ancient Chinese cupped-palm clapping method to trap the fly.
(Warning: Do not use chopsticks. Man who catch fly with chopsticks can do anything -- except this trick… for fly likely end up kaput.)
(N.B. Although this is the first real step in the trick, it may be the most difficult, involving as it does agility and adeptness to secure the fly, and even more skillfulness to do so in a harmless fashion.)

Step 3. Knock out the fly. With the fly trapped between the water and coaster, pick up the glass and shake vigorously. Slosh the fly around until it becomes sufficiently disoriented.
(Using beer instead of water may augment the disorientation process, though the effects of alcohol on insects have not been thoroughly researched.)

Step 4. Drown the fly. Once unconscious, the fly should soon become waterlogged and sink slowly but steadily to the bottom of the glass. If it does not, you may abet the sinking process with a spoon (or, God bless you, your finger). The fly now appears drowned and dead.

Step 5. But wait.

Step 6. Wait some more. It is unknown how long you can actually wait without killing the fly, but some spectators have claimed to have witnessed comas as long as twenty or thirty minutes.* It is a bit like sex in this respect: the longer you can hold out, the more dramatic the climax.

Step 7. Play it up. With the fly long since drowned and “dead” at the bottom of the glass, bet any and all dubious witnesses that you can bring it back to life. Gather a crowd around, even those who missed the first half of the trick. Throw twenties on the bar to show you’re for real. Smile at the ladies. Wink at them if you’re the type of guy who can pull off a wink. Then tell everyone to prepare to be astonished.

Step 8. Revive and astonish. To bring the fly back to life, simply pour all contents of the glass -- water and “dead” fly -- onto the bar, counter, or table. Pour two tablespoons of table salt on the fly, forming a miniature salt mine/gravesite. After several minutes, the fly will miraculously crawl out of the salt pile, no longer dead, and soar away as spirited as ever. The crowd will cheer. The guys will slap your back and congratulate you. The chicks will kiss you. You will be a hero. Fame and glory will follow.

Sound apocryphal? My friends and I thought so too, so we decided to find out for ourselves, and we ended up getting more excitement than we could have hoped for.

I thought the first real step, catching the fly, would cause us the biggest problems. For one thing, flies do not routinely alight on the inner rims of water glasses. How many opportunities would we have? For another thing, flies are fast little fuckers. It’s not like we invented the fly swatter because wads of Kleenex were doing the trick. Nevertheless, my friend JC trapped the first fly that landed on his glass under his coaster. He sloshed the fly under tow and pushed it down with his straw. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I should admit that we were never able to keep the fly fully submerged. Whenever we pushed him under, he kept floating back to the top. But he was definitely unconscious -- he was completely motionless the whole time -- so I don’t think our experiment’s results should be dismissed as partial or inadequate.) With the fly floating upside-down between chunks of ice, we put the glass aside and finished our breakfast.

About a half-hour later, after we’d paid the bill and had our table cleared, we resumed the experiment. We dumped the contents of the glass -- water, ice, and “dead” fly -- onto the table. (Lest you think us ugly Americans, I should point out that this was an outdoor café.) We covered the little guy with salt and waited, then waited some more. Sure enough, within four or five minutes the fly stirred beneath its briny grave, like a phoenix rising from its ashes (I know what that looks like, incidentally, because we’d performed that particular revival trick several months earlier). The clumped grains of salt at the top of the pile began to slide away, down the side of the mini-volcano. A tired wing emerged, then the other, and then a pair of antennae and a quadruplet of bug eyes. He surveyed us exasperatedly, then rolled his four eyes -- perhaps this wasn’t the first time a group of scientifically-minded diners had done this to him.

And then, the real surprise. An ant, alerted by the Homo-sapienic “Ooh!”s and “Ahh!”s from above, crawled onto the table and scuttled towards the fly. He sniffed once or twice, then ran back under the table. A second or two later -- it couldn’t have been more than three -- the ant returned, accompanied by about two hundred of his closest buddies. In a veritable insect blitzkrieg, they charged at the fly from all directions to execute the dramatic coup de grâce.

As we all know, there’s nothing like an entire entomological infantry brigade literally nipping at your heels to encourage a little hustle. Our new friend, who, to that point, had been taking his sweet time with his reversal of being temporarily dead, suddenly snapped to life. Vibrating like a dog shaking itself dry, the little guy flapped the remaining salt from his wings and took to the skies, lending credence to his species’s common name and leaving an army of disgruntled predators with nothing for breakfast but a soggy heap of sodium chloride.

My friends and I cheered in astonishment. The guys slapped each others’ backs. The girls kissed the boys. We were heroes. We soon became famous throughout Southeast Asia.

The fly, meanwhile, died several days later, having a two-week lifespan and all. That made us sad, but we later heard he died in his sleep a happy bug, reminiscing about his two victories over certain death and surrounded by his 271 children and grandchildren.


* Devoted readers of this blog -- both of you (hi Mom & Dad!) -- will recall that the fly isn't the only common household pest with the ability to hold its breath a freakishly long time (see "Big, Black, & Nasty" -- 10/14/06). On a related note, I'm not sure what it is with me and sadistic abuse of insects. I swear I wasn't one of those kids who hung out on the driveway roasting ants with a magnifying glass.