Axolotl

At my father's practice there used to be a whole shelf full of National Geographic magazines. Sometimes when I went there to see him I had to wait for him to finish with a patient and I used to wait in the reception room, on the sofa, flicking through the National Geographic magazines for what felt, at the time, like hours. I could not read English then, but I loved looking at the photographs of animals, places and people. I could tell the stories and information in them were extremely interesting and I tried to imagine the people, journalists and photographers, who worked for the magazine and what their lives and jobs were like. Occasionally I buy the National Geographic myself now.

The most recent issue I bought was the February 2013 one because it had a very extensive article I was eager to read on Libya. I read it but had no time to read the rest of the magazine so I left it laying around the table, hoping to get to the rest of it soon. Then Aretousa got to it first and started looking at all the photographs. I did not pay much attention, but then she started giggling and pointing again and again at a particular double spread image in the first pages of the magazine. I went to see what it was that caught her attention so much and saw a photograph of a very strange creature I had never seen before.

Axolotl  (Ambystoma Mexicanum)

The creature was a rare Mexican salamander, called an Axolotl. It had the most strange appearance and I could not but search out to find more about it. Unfortunately Axolotls are endangered because the fresh water lakes they used to inhabit in Mexico no longer exist. What is so fascinating about these creatures, is that they do not follow the normal metamorphosis stages that amphibians do. For example a frog will begin life as an egg, then become a tadpole (larva) and finally an adult frog. A typical salamander too, will start life as an egg, then become a larva and then an adult salamander. The Axolotl remains in its larva form throughout its life. It never changes to an adult salamander, but remains as an oversized larva and that is the stage it reaches sexual maturity in. This phenomenon the Axolotl exhibits is known as neoteny, loosely meaning the retention of characteristics seen in youth and childhood by adult individuals. That in the case of the Axolotl refers to the physical characteristics of a larva salamander.

What really intrigued me quite a bit, other than these fascinating facts, was that the Axolotl was described as having a "grotesque appearance" in the web site dedicated to Axolotls (http://www.axolotl.org/). I did not think that at all and I don't think Aretousa thought that, as she was giggling a lot when she saw it, rather than being scared. In fact I thought it was a bit cute, maybe funny and strange, but not grotesque. Then I remembered reading some of Konrad Lorenz's writing on ethology and what it was that made creatures "cute". I think Lorenz was looking at what were the characteristics that made humans and animals cute, and if and why it was important that someone was cute. What he proposed in a few words, was that cute or attractive were the characteristics associated with childhood and infancy, such as a round head disproportionately big to the body, large wide eyes, relative small nose and small over all size.  These characteristics are called pedomorphic, which means literately child-like characteristics. The infants of humans and animals exhibit these qualities for a maximum effect of cuteness and vulnerability, so as to ensure the total protection and nurturing by the adults and ultimately guarantee the survival of the species.

So if that is to be believed, humans retain these preferences into adulthood and look for them not only in children but in other adults, pets, objects and so on. Apparently the Japanese cartoon and design industry has based many products and characters on the research done on pedomorphosis or neoteny. Many cartoons throughout the years also exhibit such characteristics, from Betty Boo to Hello Kitty and the Pokemons. Large round heads with far apart big eyes and relatively small bodies. Some dogs and pets are also deliberately bred to resemble puppies and remain small in size with large eyes, like toy dogs. Of course character traits such as innocence, playfulness, curiosity and tenderness are also associated with childhood and apparently make an individual "cute" if they are retained in adulthood.  In any case, I am totally covered it seems by this research and my and Aretousa's finding the Axolotl "cute" is completely predictable, it being one of the rare cases exhibiting spontaneous neoteny left in the wild.

I think some kind of "cuteness" in design (albeit imaginary) played a bit of a role in me getting some sleep when I was a kid and on holidays. My cousins and I used to spend a big proportion of our summer holidays (which are long in Greece because of the heat) at our grandmother's summer house. My younger cousin and I were always very close throughout our childhood and very alike except on one issue.  One of the things I found hard during those summers was sleeping; both for naps and at night. I always slept in the same room with either my grandmother or my mother at home and we used to talk a lot and tell stories before we slept. I never had issues with the dark or being scared, but then again I always had company. We used to sleep on bunker beds with my cousins, but what annoyed me most was that they slept immediately as soon as their head touched the pillow at night. I told them stories but they were asleep before I had even finished the second phrase. On top of that my younger cousin had to have plugged in a night light in order to sleep. I was used to complete darkness in our house and I just could not sleep between the night light and not having anyone to talk to. So I lay there with my eyes open unable to sleep for what felt like hours. I was also convinced that he just needed the light to fall asleep, but what was its purpose once he had fallen asleep other than to annoy me?

So I used to unplug it after he was asleep for a bit. But as by some kind of sixth sense he always woke up within ten minutes of me unplugging it and got very upset and angry. Apparently he wanted a reference in order to orientate himself in relation to the room, the house and to the road outside. As a compromise eventually he agreed to remove it but instead we left the window shutters open so that some light would come through the curtains. To begin with I thought it might be better, but then the wind used to so very slightly move the curtains and there were all sorts of unidentifiable little noises from outside. Fruit bats used to live around the area and I had seen them flying around the lamp post not more than twenty meters away from our window. I had heard of stories where apparently bats get caught in your hair. I normally have no fear of any creatures but I started to get a bit uncomfortable with those shutters open. It was actually a bit ironic that the darkness did not scare me but the noises and shadows did.  I was almost going to put back the night light and switch the deal back but then I started playing a game. The curtains were unremarkable during the day, made of some rough linen with beige and brown-green and ochre designs typical of the seventies. But with the dim light from outside I started to see some creatures forming amongst the line weaves and coloured shapes. I tried to imagine them as "cute" little creatures dancing around and changing places so as to distract myself from the bat noises outside. And it worked.

Not long ago I found in a high street shop a hand made Indian paper which had wax batik kind of designs that  reminded me a bit of the shapes I saw in the night on those curtains.

Then I cut out some imaginary "cute" creatures and rearranged them against a night background and against a wallpaper.