EBOOK
About
Irrepressible Passarello has done it again in this bestiary of critters, each famous, each with a presence in the historical record spanning forty-two millennia. The book begins with Yuka, a mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, and moves on to Pleistocene cave paintings, a crocodile name Osama, war pigeons, Mike the red jungle rooster, Barry the great mountain rescue dog, all the way to "de-extincted" ibexes. A stunning example describes Arabella, the cross spider that spun a web on Skylab and became the first American female in space. The essay weaves the realities of the first US space station--NASA jargon, CAPCOM transcripts, and aerodynamic procedures--into the quieter (but no less complex) narrative of arachnid web-creation. The essays vary widely in tone and approach to reflect both the facts of the animal and the society that kept it. The author plans on live performances at zoos and natural history museums.