GoatMan

  Sepp and Rita are understandably curious as to the purpose of the day’s events. I explain all about it and that it began with the idea of escaping human worries.

  “You’re from the city,” says Sepp. “That’s why you’re crazy. Up here you wouldn’t need such a crazy idea.”

  They’ve not been down the mountain to the town for months, though Rita will have to go soon to sell some of the goat cheese she makes. She’s not looking forward to it. I can see Sepp’s point. If becoming a goat is about leading a simple life, well, perhaps a simpler way would be to become a goat farmer rather than a goat.

  “Where do you go after here?”

  “Well, I need to try and cross the Alps.”

  “Ha! You should be an ibex.”

  I ask if he’s ever seen an ibex. He has, many times. They’re amazing creatures, able to survive up here even during the snowbound winters. He tells us that sometimes an ibex will come down from the mountain and get in with the goats and breed, but the baby—

  “You can’t handle them. They just jump over all the fences.”

  Sepp tells me something encouraging. He’d spoken to Tomas, the goat farmer from the valley, who’d been observing my exploits in his fields: “Tomas says you were accepted by the herd.”

  “Really?…I mean, I thought I was.”

  “Yes, he said he saw you, and you were accepted by them.”

  And so perhaps for a while the goats thought of me as a goat and I thought of myself as a goat, and so maybe for a moment…

  Sepp buckles a goat bell around my neck. I’m part of his herd now.

  We stay at the farm for three days. I’m able to learn a lot about how my legs work in rough terrain and how goats manage to move so well despite not looking at their feet, and I get slightly better at going downhill, but all too soon it’s time to become more ibexlike and set off to cross the Alps. As we’re preparing to leave, Sepp buckles one of his goat bells around my neck. I feel accepted by goat herd and goatherd, but I have to leave: I have a promise to fulfil. A promise made by a man, to be kept as a goat. We walk away, into the mountains, and…forgive me, gentle reader, but very soon we come to a bridge, and I trip-trap, trip-trap across the bridge from the real world into fantasy. Our way is hard, involving many trials and tribulations. I eat much delicious grass.

  We go up and up and up, and finally we reach a glacier. At the top of the glacier is where Switzerland ends and Italy begins. Climbing the glacier means we will have crossed the Alps, with just the slope down into Italy remaining.

  A man falls from the sky and asks me what I’m doing. I say, “Some men dream of being a bird. I dream of being a goat.”

  “Yah, cool!” he says. I continue climbing and climbing. Do we make it?

  Near enough.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I know it is but a modest volume, so pages of thank-yous may seem a bit overblown. However, they’re entirely warranted because many people helped me with this project to become a goat, even though it is (I now realise, probably) impossible (at least in my framing of reality). And a whole further load of people helped with making it into this second book (which I found far more difficult and which took much longer than I expected), which is soon to be sent out in to the world (an exciting but rather nerve-wracking prospect. Crikey). I’m a designer, crossing sideways across academic disciplines in pursuit of something that…well, I hope it’s at least sort of original, and I know I’ve not been able to do justice to the depth of detail, the dirt of the arguments, the towers of evidence built up over decades, which mean “we” can say we know something about ourselves and other animals. And every time I wrote “we know” it was because someone has actually gone somewhere with a trowel or a notepad, or tried something out, and usually not found anything. But occasionally, someone has found something, and they and others have had the benefit of an education such that they have recognised it as something, and have been able to write about it, and it has become part of one of these towers of evidence that have made my attempt to become a goat interesting for me to do (and, I really hope, interesting for you to read about, gentle reader).

  My thanks and gratitude to: Sioban Imms for her help, support, and love. Simon Gretton, friend, videographer, editor extraordinaire, for being part of another harebrained scheme, and watching me a lot, again. The Wellcome Trust for funding my attempt to become an elephant (and sticking with it when I’d metamorphosed), without which neither the project nor this book would’ve happened. Tim Bowditch for not only his brilliant photography, but a whole load of other stuff besides. Daniel Alexander for his brilliant photography despite the tuberculosis risk. Sara Stemen for editing this book and putting up with my many vacillations, Paul Wagner for designing it, and all at Princeton Architectural Press for publishing it.

  The Thwaites family. The Imms family. The Percy-Xu family. Kitty Nunnely for her reassurance and insightful comments on drafts of this book, Noggin Nunnely, and the rest of the Nunnely family. The Wayman family (especially Vito for managing to write to the Queen [who still hasn’t written back]). Steve Furlonger at Windsor Workshop Ltd. for all his help and support with this project (legs and rumen), as well as with my other attempts at making stuff in his workshop over the last twenty years.

  Austin Houldsworth for photographing me making a twat of myself (and welcome to the crazy world, Thomas Houldsworth!). Vera Marin for invaluable assistance. YiWen Tseng for help with bones, both physical and digital. Liam McGarry, who I hope is enjoying New Zealand. Harry Trimble for his writing and math skills. Bernd Hopfengärtner for his drone piloting and German skills. Michael and Kerran for letting me have my Goat Show at their Studio 1.1 Gallery. Akademie Schloss Solitude for the time to develop this project, and the workshop space to make Prototype Number 2. Allan Newton for explaining the limitations of prisms and optical fibre bundles.

  Soul—Annette Høst for her genuine, wise, and frank advice.

  Mind—Bob, Gower, and all at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats for the work they do and for helping me so much with mine. Dr. Alan McElligott, Luigi Baciadonna, and Dr. Juliane Kaminski for goat chats. Dr. Joe Devlin for indulging my brain’s wish to be zapped.

  Body—Dr. Glyn Heath and Geoff for their prosthetics work, fun, and insight. Professor John Hutchinson for being so generous with his time and knowledge. Dr. Alexander Stoll for dissecting with me, Sophie Regnault for dissecting with me twice, and Richard Prior for cleaning Venus’s bones. Ivan Thorley of Puppets with Guts for metal work, tea, and sympathy.

  Guts—Dr. Alison Kingston-Smith and Professor Jamie Newbold at Aberystwyth University for telling me all about their rumen work.

  Goat Life—Rita and Joseph Waser.

  Selected Bibliography

  FOREWORD

  Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press, 1985.

  SOUL

  Aubert, Maxime, Adam Brumm, M. Ramli, Thomas Sutikna, E. Wahyu Saptomo, B. Hakim, M. J. Morwood, Gerrit D. van den Bergh, Leslie Kinsley, and Anthony Dosseto. “Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia.” Nature 514, no. 7521 (2014): 223–27.

  Bednarik, Robert G. “Pleistocene palaeoart of Africa.” Arts (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) 2, no. 1 (2013): 6–34.

  McComb, Karen, Lucy Baker, and Cynthia Moss. “African elephants show high levels of interest in the skulls and ivory of their own species.” Biology letters 2, no. 1 (2006): 26–28.

  Willerslev, Rane. Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood Among the Siberian Yukaghirs. Oakland: University of California Press, 2007.

  MIND

  Briefer, Elodie F., and Alan G. McElligott. “Rescued goats at a sanctuary display positive mood after former neglect.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 146, no. 1 (2013): 45–55.

  Briefer, Elodie F., Federico Tettamanti, and Alan G. McElligott. “Emotions in goats: mapping physiological, behavioural and vocal profiles.” Animal Behaviour 99 (2015): 131–43.

  Clayton, Nicola S., and Anthony Dickinson. “Menta
l Time Travel: Can Animals Recall the Past and Plan for the Future?” Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior (2010): 438–42.

  McBrearty, Sally, and Alison S. Brooks. “The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior.” Journal of human evolution 39, no. 5 (2000): 453–63.

  Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature. New York: Viking, 2011.

  Slobodchikoff, C. N., William R. Briggs, Patricia A. Dennis, and Anne-Marie C. Hodge. “Size and shape information serve as labels in the alarm calls of Gunnison’s prairie dogs Cynomys gunnisoni.” Current Zoology 58, no. 5 (2012): 741–48.

  Sommer, Volker, and Amy R. Parish. “Living Differences: The Paradigm of Animal Cultures.” In Homo Novus–A Human Without Illusions. Edited by Ulrich J. Frey, Charlotte Störmer, and Kai Willführ, 19–33. Heidelberg: Springer, 2010.

  Suddendorf, Thomas. The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals. New York: Basic Books, 2013.

  Wrangham, Richard. “Did Homo sapiens self-domesticate?” (presented at the CARTA symposium “Domestication and Human Evolution,” Salk Institute for Biological Studies, California, October 10, 2014. carta.anthropogeny. org/events/domestication-and-human-evolution.

  BODY

  Wilson, Frank R. The Hand. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.

  GUTS

  Chandel, Anuj K., et al. “Dilute Acid Hydrolysis of Agro-Residues for the Depolymerization of Hemicellulose: State-of-the-Art.” In D-Xylitol: Fermentative Production, Application and Commercialization.” Edited by Silvio Silvério da Silva and Anuj Kumar Chandel. New York: Springer Life Sciences, 2012.

  Kingston-Smith, Alison H., Joan E. Edwards, Sharon A. Huws, Eun J. Kim, and Michael Abberton. “Plant-based strategies towards minimising ‘livestock’s long shadow.’” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 69, no. 4 (2010): 613–20.

  Sun, Ye, and Jiayang Cheng. “Hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials for ethanol production: a review.” Bioresource Technology 83, no. 1 (2002): 1–11.

  Van Nood, Els, Anne Vrieze, Max Nieuwdorp, Susana Fuentes, Erwin G. Zoetendal, Willem M. de Vos, and Caroline E. Visser, et al. “Duodenal infusion of donor feces for recurrent Clostridium difficile.” New England Journal of Medicine 368, no. 5 (2013): 407–15.

  GOAT LIFE

  “De tre bukkene Bruse.” In Norske Folkeeventyr. Edited by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (1843).

  Credits

  Front of jacket, 2–4: Tim Bowditch

  INTRODUCTION

  14 left: © Brooks Kraft/Corbis

  14 right: Mark Nunnely

  16: Jenny Paton, Wellcome Trust

  CHAPTER 1: SOUL

  18–19: Richard Erdoes, San Juan Pueblo deer dance, ca. 1977. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

  23 top: Thomas Thwaites

  23 bottom: Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Man, and the elephant. From Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, A comparative view of the human and animal frame (1860), plate six. Courtesy of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center

  24 top left: Frank Stuart, Nellie, circa 1950. Courtesy of Reuben Hoggett, cyberneticzoo.com

  24 top right: “Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine” constructed by General Electric in the 1960s. Courtesy of miSci, Museum of Innovation & Science, Schenectady, New York.

  24 bottom: Guilhem Vellut, Les Machines de l’Ile at Nantes, 2012. flickr.com/photos/o_0/7936101566. Creative Commons BY 2.0. Cropped from original.

  29, 30: Thomas Thwaites

  32 top: Nicolaas Witsen, een Schaman ofte Duyvel-priester. From Noord en Oost Tartaryen: Behelzende eene beschryving van verschiedene Tartersche en nabuurige gewesten (M. Schalekamp, 1705), 662. Ghent University, digitised by Google Books

  32 middle: Alphonso Roybal, Hunters’ or Deer Dance, ca. 1932. From C. Szwedzicki, Pueblo Indian painting; 50 reproductions of watercolor paintings (Nice, France, 1932). Courtesy of the University of Cincinnati Libraries, Archives and Rare Books Library

  32 bottom, left and right: Richard Erdoes, San Juan Pueblo Deer Dance, ca. 1977. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

  35: Löwenmensch of Hohlenstein-Stadel. Photograph: © Sabrina Stoppe. Courtesy of Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany

  36 top: Pendant du Sorcier, Salle du Fond at Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave (Ardèche, France). Photograph: J.-M. Geneste © MCC/Centre National de Préhistoire

  36 bottom: The Shaft Scene at Lascaux Cave (Dordogne, France). Photograph: N. Aujoulat © MCC/Centre National de Préhistoire

  37 top: Breuil H, Un dessin de la grotte des Trois frères at Grotte des Trois-Frères (Ariège, France), 1930. From omptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 74e année, N. 3, 1930, 261–64. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. Creative Commons BY 4.0

  37 bottom: Breuil H, Homme masque en Bison at Grotte des Trois-Frères (Ariège, France), ca. 1930. From ibid. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. Creative Commons BY 4.0

  CHAPTER 2: MIND

  48–49: Sioban Imms

  51: Vera Marin

  52, 53: Thomas Thwaites

  62: © Araldo de Luca/Corbis

  64: Baby being fed milk directly from a goat’s teat, Postcard, Havana, Cuba (Havana: C. Jordi, ca. 1930). Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. Creative Commons BY 4.0

  70: Liberia Official Scott O48 5c Stamp, Chimpanzee, 1906. bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ClassicStampsofLiberia1860-1914.html

  77, 81, 82: Sioban Imms

  CHAPTER 3: BODY

  86–87: Tim Bowditch

  89: Vera Marin

  91: Tim Bowditch

  93: Tim Bowditch

  95–102: Thomas Thwaites

  103: © Fahad Shadeed/Reuters/Corbis

  104, 107: Thomas Thwaites

  110, 112: Austin Houldsworth

  114, 115: Thomas Thwaites

  117, 118, 119 left: Daniel Alexander

  119 right: Gerard de Lairesse, Engraving of a dissected human arm, 1685. Plate from Anatomia Humani Corporis (Bidloo, 1685). Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. Creative Commons BY 4.0

  120, 121: Liam Finn McGarry

  CHAPTER 4: GUTS

  122–23: Thomas Thwaites

  125: Daniel Alexander

  126, 128: Thomas Thwaites

  129: YiWen Tseng

  130: Thomas Thwaites

  136: Dr. Glynn Heath

  138: Thomas Thwaites

  CHAPTER 5: GOAT LIFE

  140–201: Tim Bowditch

  202 top: Eadweard Muybridge, A goat walking, 1887. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1887). Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. Creative Commons BY 4.0

  203 bottom: Austin Houldsworth

  205: Tim Bowditch

  PUBLISHED BY

  Princeton Architectural Press

  A McEvoy Group company

  37 East Seventh Street

  New York, New York 10003

  www.papress.com

  © 2016 Thomas Thwaites

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.

  Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

  EDITOR: Sara Stemen

  DESIGNER: Paul Wagner

  JACKET PHOTOGRAPH: Tim Bowditch

  SPECIAL THANKS TO: Nicola Bednarek Brower, Janet Behning, Erin Cain, Tom Cho, Barbara Darko, Benjamin English, Jenny Florence, Jan Cigliano Hartman, Lia Hunt, Mia Johnson, Valerie Kamen, Simone Kaplan-Senchak, Stephanie Leke, Diane Levinson, Jennifer Lippert, Sara McKay, Jaime Nelson, Rob Shaeffer, Joseph Weston, and Janet Wong of Princeton Architectural Press

  —Kevin C. Lippert, publisher

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Thwaites, Thomas, 1980– author.

  GoatMan : how I took a holiday from being human / />
  Thomas Thwaites. — First edition.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-61689-405-4 (alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-61689-493-1 (epub, mobi)

  1. Thwaites, Thomas, 1980—Themes, motives. 2. Psychology—Miscellanea. 3. Goats—Miscellanea. I. Title.

  NK1447.6.T49A35 2016

  745.4092—dc23

  2015028271

  Thomas Thwaites—extolled by NPR as “a laugh-out-loud-funny but thoughtful guide through his own adventures”—studied Human Sciences at University College London and completed his masters in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. He is a designer in London, where he ponders technology, science, and futures research.