A Whore Among Flowers

I already quickly referenced it earlier, but I just finished The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (could his name be any more perfect?). A best-seller from 2001, the book explores how plants have manipulated humans to gain evolutionary advantage as much as humans have manipulated plants. As the subtitle says, it's "a plant's-eye view of the world." He explains how the apple exploits our desire for sweetnes, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato for control. The book is chock-full (what does that expression even mean?) of interesting facts, you just have to get to them through his twisting, turning, history-lesson narrative that jumps and dances around the main stories.

The chapter on the apple is practically a biography of the highly eccentric John Chapman, a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed. A cliff's notes version:
- a nature/animal lover, he would buy lame horses to save them and rescue wolves from traps and let bear cubs sleep in hollowed-out logs he planned to use as a bed (he'd sleep in the snow instead)
- a shoe hater, he'd go barefoot year round, punish his feet if he stepped on a worm, and entertain local boys by pressing needles or hot coals into his gnarly, coarse soles
- ambiguously sexual, he allegedly arranged to help a farmer raise his ten-year-old daughter so that he could marry her later (ewwww)

Johnny Appleseed? More like Johnny Weirdoseed. Or something.

Not only does the chapter on pot explain how plants have contributed to the origins of religion, philosophy and art, it comes up with two of the best descriptions of the experience of getting high that I've read (not that I know what it's like to get high...):
- Quoting David Lenson's On Drugs, "Every object stands more clearly for all of its own class. A cup 'looks like' the Platonic Idea of a cup, a landscape looks like a landscape painting, a hamburger stands for all the trillions of hamburgers ever served." Then Pollan sums up: "A psychoactive plant can open a door onto a world of archetypal forms."
- Since our brains actually have cannabanoid receptors already built in that act very similarly to the THC found in pot (though, obviously, on a much milder level), Pollan theorizes that pot increases those receptor's ability to drain our pool of sensory information so that we can live much more in the moment. "It helps account for the sharpening of sensory perceptions, for the aura of profundity in which cannabis bathes the most ordinary insights, and, perhaps most important of all, for the sense that time has slowed or even stopped. For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment."

So let's see: Your environment becoming more profound than it actually is. Check. Short-term memory temporarily annihilated. Check. Time slowing down. Check (Ah-hah, that's why "Like A Prayer" went on for like four hours on our way to Baker's Square that night). Michael Pollan, you're genius!

The chapter on potatoes covers bioengineering. Some corporation came up with the idea of creating potatoes that have a pesticide (Bt) in its DNA so that it kills its predators (like beetles) automatically while still remaining (supposedly) safe for humans. The only problem? It's all assumptions. The potato is safe, the Bt they're injecting into the potato is safe, but that's all they know. Since this Bt has never actually been part of the human diet before, they don't really know how humans will react. Um, great. Does that mean I have to give up McDonald's french fries? (No. McDonald's stopped using genetically manipulated potatoes. See? They have some health standards.)

The best part is how they inject the potatoes. They have two methods. One of the ways is to soak a potato leaf in a solution that has the new DNA in it. Pretty straightfoward, right? In the second method, they get medieval on the poato plant's ass. They use a gun - yes, an actual gun - to fire DNA-soaked bullets at the potato plant. When the bullet pierces the leaf or steam, maybe some of the new DNA will break into some of the cells' nuclei and into the old DNA, maybe not. Even if it does, the new DNA would still have to land in the exact right place, and they don't even know where that is. Comforting, right?

But my favorite chapter is on the tulip. First, it explains how flowers attract bugs to spread their pollen. One plant, the Ophryus orchid (pictured on the left), has evolved to actually look like a female bee or fly, depending on the species. Actually, it looks like a female bee or fly from behind so as to attract male bees or flies. The male then tries having sex with it, gets covered in pollen in the process, then flies off in sexual frustration to mount countless other blossoms. What would I call this flower? "The Cocktease Orchid." What do botanists actually call this flower? "The Prostitute Orchid." Close enough. I wonder if the other flowers nearby are like, "Geez, Ophryus is such a slut." When they go to the bathroom, they probably write on the walls, "For a good time, call Ophryus." Orchids can be so catty.

Not only did botanists come up with that nickname, but one botanist even calls bees "flying penises." Who knew botanists were so kinky?

But, as for tulips themselves, there was actually an era of Turkish history known as the Tulip Era. Sultan Ahmed III actually had tulip parties. Check this out:

"The imperial gardens were filled with [thousands of] prize tulips. The scale of the display was further compounded by mirrors placed strategically around the garden. Each variety was marked with a label made from silver filigree. Songbirds in gilded cages supplied the music, and hundreds of giant tortoises carrying candles on their backs lumbered through the gardens, further illuminating the display. All the guests were required to dress in colors that flattered those of the tulips. At the appointed moment a canon sounded, the doors to the harem were flung open, and the sultan's mistresses stepped into the garden led by eunuchs bearing torches. The whole scene was repeated every night for as long as the tulips were in bloom, for as long as Sultan Ahmed managed to cling to his throne [27 years]."

I think it's obvious: the Sultan was gay.

Doesn't this sound like a party P. Diddy would throw if he liked tulips? The tortoises, the mistresses, the guests having to match the theme? I'm sure Diddy could round up some eunuchs if he wanted. Hell, he could pay a couple guys enough money to volunteer to be eunuchs.

Anyway, the information Pollan digs up is fascinating, his grasp of history, myth, philosophy and poetry is impressive, and his own stories are hilarious (like trying to hide the pot in his garden from the cops). Plants can drive people to do some pretty crazy stuff. Thankfully, Pollan lets us in on their weird little worlds.