vanishing world

February 20, 2004 9:32 AM

For the adventurous reader Dispatches From The Vanishing World a collection of environment themed travel articles by Alex Shoumatoff. Observe the "skeed row" behaviour of The Alcoholic Monkeys of St.Kitts, or travel to the worlds largest swap almost twice the size of England in the Amazon, this site presents magazine articles by Alex over the last 30 years as seen in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone.
posted by stbalbach (6 comments total)

QUOTES from The Alcoholic Monkeys of St.Kitts

monkeys would come out of the forest and get drunk... some of the males would beat their wives and children and would exhibit what he called "skeedrow behavior."

Ervin dreamed of stocking the southern tip with monkeys and doing a.. experiment : fencing them off in a confined area and providing them with unlimited food until.. every space was filled and they became a city and began to rape and murder each other and the mothers to commit infanticide, eating their babies. All this was a little hard-core and Island of Dr. Moreau for my blood.

"This is one of these off-shore medical labs where ghastly experiments that would never be permissible on the mainland are performed.

A little adolescent came up to us, masturbated briskly, and licked the cum off its fingers; "hate to waste protein," Frank explained. Masturbation, he said, was basically something to do to while away the day. Another monkey caught a fly in the air with a lightning swipe of the hand and ate it. Left Thigh sodomized Right Thigh three times in the course of the morning, stepping up on the crooked back of his calves to get a better angle of thrust. I recalled the gradient of expressions for "hanging out" in northern Mexico : around Mexico City people say they are tragando caote, "sucking cane;" in Chihuahua it becomes comiendo moscas, "eating flies;" while in northern New Mexico it is chingando la borega, fucking the sheep.

There seemed to be a correlation between drinking and low status. None of the alphas were drinkers.

..when SCT was reeling drunk, Maurice observed several of the sober monkeys catch him and prop him up as he was about to fall.
posted by stbalbach at 9:35 AM on February 20, 2004

Sadly the Pantanal in the Mato Grosso is only a swamp, albeit a spectacular one. They will not trade your old bike for a giant anteater.
posted by liam at 9:47 AM on February 20, 2004

I admit, I was confused for a few moments until I clicked the link.
posted by ashbury at 9:58 AM on February 20, 2004

These are really good - thanks. (Though I admit to being really intrigued by the possibility of a flea market twice the size of England!)
posted by whatzit at 10:57 AM on February 20, 2004

I gotta say: The St Kitts piece is good readin' but bad science.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:19 AM on February 20, 2004

This site is a great resource. Thanks.
posted by troutfishing at 7:44 PM on February 23, 2004