Steven Church - One With the Tiger: Sublime and Violent Encounters Between Humans and Animals

Table of Contents

T his book has been a long strange journey; and Ive had more fun than is probably appropriate given the subject matter. I owe a great deal to many people for helping shepherd this book to publication. First and foremost, I want to thank Dan Smetanka, who believed in the book from day one, and everyone at Soft Skull Press. I also want to thank my wife, Andrea Mele, and my children, Sophie and Malcolm. Thanks also to my parents, Sally and John Ramage, Ed and Carolyn Church; my brother, Cory Church; Jim and Debbie Mele, and my extended family. Many thanks to my colleagues and students at Fresno State in the MFA Program, the Department of English, and the College of Humanities, and to my coeditors and friends, Matt Roberts, Sophie Beck, and Adam Braver; and massive thanks to an extended network of friends, writers, and editors whove been supportive of this project: Rob Shufelt, Justin Hocking, Elena Passarello, Jill Talbot, Matthew Gavin Frank, Hattie Fletcher, Dinty W. Moore, Jeffery Gleaves, Kristen Radtke, Taylor Goldsmith, Jefferson Beavers, and others too many to name, including my amazing students at Fresno State. Thanks to Taylor Petersen for her awesome research and copyediting assistance. Thanks also to Creative Nonfiction and their imprint InFact Books, to Salon.com, Prairie Schooner, the Brevity blog, and The Nervous Breakdown, where portions of this manuscript originally appeared. I also want to extend special gratitude to James and Coke Hallowell for their continued support of the Hallowell Professorship in Creative Writing, which has allowed me some much-needed time to work on this book. Finally, I want to say thank you to David Villalobos, the inspiration for this project, and to all the other manimals whose stories have helped shape this journey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Credit: JOCELYN METTLER

S teven Church is the author of The Guinness Book of Me, Theoretical Killings, The Day After The Day After, and Ultrasonic. His essays have been published and anthologized widely, including in Best American Essays and most recently in After Montaigne: Contemporary Essayists Cover the Essays. Hes a founding editor and nonfiction editor for The Normal School, and he teaches in the MFA Program at Fresno State, where he is the Hallowell Professor of Creative Writing.

A ll quotes at the beginning of each part that reference savagery, and most quotes attributed to Mike Tyson, were found by doing searches in a variety of online quote databases such as the following:

www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/octaviabut322227.html

www.quotehd.com/quotes/author/mike-tyson-boxer-quotes

PROLOGUE: DAVIDS LEAP

Esposito, Richard, and Colleen Curry. Man Mauled by Tiger at Bronx Zoo Charged with Trespassing. ABC News Network, Sep. 22, 2012. http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-mauled-tiger-bronx-zoo-charged-trespassing/story?id=17296069

Horror at New York Zoo as Man, 25, Is Brutally Mauled by a TIGER after Leaping into Its Den from Monorail in Bizarre Suicide Attempt. Mail Online. Sep. 22, 2012. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206932/David-Villalobos-mauling-Horror-New-York-zoo-man-25-brutally-mauled-TIGER-leaping-den-monorail-bizarre-suicide-attempt.html

Lestch, Corinne. Man Mauled by Bronx Zoo Tiger Pleads Not Guilty. NY Daily News, January 11, 2013. www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/man-mauled-bronx-zoo-tiger-pleads-not-guilty-article-1.1238201

MTV Movie Awards Sketch. When Leo Got Fucked by a Bear. 2016. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyQ9rW5ntsk

The Revenant. Dir. Alejandro Irritu. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter. Regency Enterprises, 2015. Film.

Wild Asia Monorail. Bronx Zoo. N.d. http://webmail.bronxzoo.org/ani-mals-and-exhibits/exhibits/wild-asia-monorail.aspx

PART ONE: STEPHEN HAAS

Bear Kills Woman and Her Son in Alaska. New York Times, July 4, 1995. www.nytimes.com/1995/07/04/us/bear-kills-woman-and-her-son-in-alaska.html

George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1959. Print.

Glacier Parks Night of the Grizzlies. Montana PBS. 2010. Documentary. www.montanapbs.org/GlacierParksNightoftheGrizzlies/

Jabin, Clyde. Grizzlies Turn KillerTwo Girls Die, Youth Mauled. Windsor Star, Aug. 14, 1967, p. 1. Windsor Star - Google News Archive Search.

Krakauer, Jon. Death of an Innocent: How Christopher McCandless lost his way in the wilds. Outside Magazine, Jan. 1993.

List of Fatal Bear Attacks in America. Wikipedia. Last modified June 11, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America

McKay, Brett, and Kate McKay. Bear Attack Survival Guide. The Art of Manliness. 2008. www.artofmanliness.com/2008/01/30/how-to-survive-a-bear-attack

Online Etymology Dictionary. www.etymonline.com. N.d.

PART TWO: TIMOTHY TREADWELL

Bissell, Tom. The Secret Mainstream: Contemplating the Mirages of Werner Herzog. Harpers Magazine, Dec. 2006.

Burke, Kerry, Kerry Wills, and Barry Paddock. ZOO-ICIDE: Man mauled after leaping 17 feet into Bronx Zoo tiger den in crazed bid to kill himself. New York Daily News, Sep. 12, 2012. www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/man-injured-jumping-falling-tiger-den-bronx-zoo-arti-cle-1.1165004

Farley, Frank. The Type T Personality. In L.P. Lipsett and L.L Mitnick (eds), Self-Regulatory Behavior and Risk Taking: Causes and Consequences. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishers, 1991.

Goleman, Daniel. Why Do People Crave the Experience? New York Times, Aug. 2, 1988. www.nytimes.com/1988/08/02/science/why-do-people-crave-the-experience.html

Grizzly Man. Dir. Werner Herzog. Perf. Werner Herzog, Timothy Treadwell. Lionsgate Films, 2005. Film.

The Holy Bible. Daniel 6:22, and he shut the mouths of the lions.

Munsey, Christopher. Frisky, but more risky. Monitor on Psychology, July/Aug. 2006, Vol. 37, No. 7, www.apa.org/monitor/julaug06/frisky.aspx

Schopenhauers Aesthetics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer-aesthetics/#Sub

Zuckerman, Marvin. Chapter 31. Sensation seeking. In Leary, Mark R. and Rick H. Hoyle, Handbook of Individual Differences in Social Behavior. New York/London: The Guildford Press, 2009, pp. 455465.

PART THREE: CHARISMATIC BARBARIANS

George, Carmen. Man arrested after allegedly touching orangutan at Fresno Chaffee Zoo. Fresno Bee, April 21, 2015.

Hittel, Theodore. The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California. 1860.

Hulk. Dir. Ang Lee. Perf. Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot, Nick Nolte. Universal Pictures, 2003. Film.

Sellier, Charles. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. New York: New American Library, 1977.

Shenk, Dean. Yosemite Nature Notes. Yosemite National Park, Vol. 45, No. 2, April 1976.

PART FOUR: THE ANIMAL WITHIN

Friedman, Myra. My Neighbor Bernie Goetz. New York, Feb. 18, 1985.

Hornblower, Margot. Intended to Gouge Eye of Teen, Goetz Tape Says; My Problem Was I Ran Out of Bullets, Washington Post, May 14, 1987.

Hulk. Dir. Ang Lee. Perf. Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot, Nick Nolte. Universal Pictures, 2003. Film.