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I just finished Daniel Everett’s “Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes.” This work records his years spent living among the Pirahã, a small indigenous tribe of living along the Amazon in Brazil. Everett was initially sent among them to convert them to Christianity. The modus operandi of his support organization was to study the target civilization and then give them the New Testament in their native language. Therefore, Everett’s background as a linguist made him an ideal missionary. In the end, however, it was the Pirahã who converted him to atheism.

This reminded me of a story told to me by my AP English IV teacher in high school about a peer student who, the day before graduation, renounced his learning, renounced his faith, and left the seminary of Houston Baptist University. I was always struck by this story, about that point on the circle where you loop back around the other way to wherever you started’s anti-pole. To hear of the theme repeated, by a missionary no less, was a yarn I could not ignore.

“Don’t Sleep…” tracks Everett’s travel to the Pirahã village. The opening act covers the culture shock aspects of missionary work. He describes the hardships of life on the Amazon: malaria, caimans (carniverous reptiles who like some human flesh), anacondas, and a riverside-dwelling people who had, in the early stages, little compunction about killing him and his family when he threatened their access to the sugary liquor used as payment by riverside traders.

I classify this as travelogue. It’s fascinating, interesting, and ultimately paints the picture of a happy, clever, naughty, and loving people whose adaptation to their environment is a marvel to learn about.

An important finding in his study is that Everett discovers that Pirahã have an immediate experience bias. Simply, the Pirahã don’t talk about that which they have not experienced or which someone they know has not experienced. This extends into their language in fascinating directions: they don’t have terms for extended ancestors or those individuals’ beliefs, nor do they credit third-party knowledge. This bias as a taboo has completely shaped their world-view such that there is an immediacy to all utterance.

A simple point whereby to grasp the pervasivness of this taboo is that the Pirahã do not use relative clauses or indirect discourse (related linguistic concepts).

Consider: “Julia thinks he is happy” or in Latin, “Julia putat eum beatum esse,” or Dutch “Julia denkt dat hij gelukkig is.” In each of these languages something happens in that “what Julia thinks” bit. Latin changes the “He” to become “him” (“is / he” -> “eum / him”). Dutch inverts the regular verb order to push the verb to the end (“is” / “is”). In each of these cases something that cannot be directly interfaced with is encapsulated by Julia’s reckoning of it. This does not happen in Pirahã. The immediacy bias prevents utterances such as this.

Yet the Pirahã say: “He is happy. This is thought. Julia thinks this.” Come to think of it, maybe Hemingway was a Pirahã. There is an immediacy to each of these simple assertions where veracity can be ascertained. This kinda blew my mind. A language without indirection or subordination.

The extent of this bias is also shown in a different context, the Pirahã report things as either things experienced (I saw Bob in a boat fishing), hearsay (The women say Bob is fishing), or deduction (Bob, his bow and arrow, and his boat are gone, I bet he’s fishing).

Everett spends the second half of the book exploring how his research of Pirahã language fits against his profession as a linguist in academia.

I found the most fascinating chapter to be the chapter on recursion (I’m a programmer, what can I say) in the second half and how it was assumed to exist in all languages and to be a primary component of them (per Chomsky, undermined by Pirahã, contends Everett).

But what of what drew me to the story, the missionary converted? In some ways, it’s the logical conclusion of having worked with the Pirahã for thirty years enmeshed in a world with this experiential bias and the language that favors and advances it.

Dan’s translation of his encounter of Jesus is neither direct experience nor deduction, ergo it is would be in the hearsay register (Strike 1). Neither Dan nor his father had seen Jesus (Strike 2). The offer of the missionary was that Jesus was there to make them happy, but they already were happy (Strike 3).

Oh, and the night after they were told about Jesus, he appeared in their settlement, with a three-foot penis and proceeded to menace their women for sex (while they require “immediacy” dreams as well as supernatural beings do have a “real” place in their world! Think about the ramifications of that!). Needless to say the, to use a coined phrase, “come to Jesus” speech was not going the way the missionary planned.

The relevance of religion was absurd to them. Nature had been there, been good to them, as long as anyone could remember. The Pirahã don’t worry (didn’t even have a word for it!), they don’t fret, they don’t fear death, and seem to be completely happy with their lots and their culture where they talk about fishing, trysts, the river, and generally take care of one another.

I’m not about to propose some Rousseauan / Thoreauean paean to the noble savage, but unfettered by fear about a fate which no one has seen they seem very happy, healthy, and free from the decadent forks of ennui and malaise which seem to constantly drive the occidental to Paxil, Reality TV, and church.

This story is in the book. The book written by Dan Everett. This book opens the mind. The mind of Steven. The very one. Steven recommends the book. The book is by Dan Everett. The book is called “Don’t Sleep, there are Snakes.”

Update: Changed “things” to “thinks” per comment by Dev.

I really enjoy David Byrne as a commentator, artist, pretty much anything, except as a singer and except as the icon of the Talking Heads. I just am not really into their music besides the obligatory “Psycho Killer.” That said, the Heads were an influential musical act and I can hear their reach far and wide into today (No Talking Heads, no Lady Gaga).

But I have always liked Byrne’s commentary and interviews, he seems like a really interesting cat and is a standard bearer for what my friend Alfredo calls “The White Guys who Make World Music (Sting, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, et al.).” Here are some of the quotes wrote down while reading this.

In these quotes Byrne muses on censorship, the South Bay, the psychology of coffee shops, and beyond.

A cognitive scientist need only look at what we have made — the hives we have created — to know what we think and what we believe to be important, , as well as how we structure those thoughts and beliefs. It’s all there, in plain view, right out in the open…They say, in their unique visual language, “This is what we think matters, this is how we live and how we play.” 2

There once existed natural geographic reasons for most towns to come into being:…Eventually what was originally a geographical justification for choosing one place over another to settle got cemented down as rail lines reached across the open spaces…In many cases the rivers or lakes eventually became irrelevant, and shipping mode…As a result the rivers and waterfronts soon became derelict… 10

The faint cacophony of many distant cell phone rings. In the train car — snippets of Mozart and hip-hop, old-school ring tones, and pop-song fragments…These ring tones are “signs” for “real” music. This is music not meant to be actually listened to as music, but to remind you of and refer to other, real music. These are audio road signs that proclaim “I am a Mozart person”…symphony of music that is not music but asks that you remember music. 22

Europe is manicured, a millennial custodial project.

The best surveillance is the one where everyone suspects they’re being watched all the time.

What’s the time limit on reparations? How long can you legitimately claim that it should be handed back to you? Can Jews in Leipzig demand their old houses back?

The two biggest self deceptions of all are that life has a meaning and that each of us is unique

She mentions Israel’s dominance over the Palestinians, and the aggressive behavior of the Israelis, as if this were a well-known fact….I am surprised to hear it voiced so openly. In America, and especially in New York, there is a hidden level of not-so-subtle censorship of such statements. They are just never heard, or if they are the speaker is often given a nasty look or accused of anti-Semitism…At that point, it seems to you that there is no censorship at all; it appears to you that your thoughts are actually unfettered and free. (188-9)

When the TV-saturated public begins to act as if the TV reality is real [Fox News, America’s dumbest criminals] and behaves accordingly — reacting fearfully and suspiciously to a world perceived as being primarily populated with drug dealers and con men, according to Gerbner’s scenarios— then eventually the real world begins to adjust itself to match the fiction. …. Existence can be confirmed, just not in the proportion seen in TV land. ….any marketing …person will tell you, perception is all. (Referring to George Gerbner, professor of communication)

Re: Rodochenko. Here is a layout featuring “illuminations” added to a tractor factory for the enjoyment and excitement of the workers —- sort of workplace as pleasure palace / theme park. Google, the current hip place to work, where the workplace is hyped as a cool campus, has some catching up to do.

Abercrombie and Fitch…has remade itself as a kind of homoerotic Fascist-chic outpost. Talk about a makeover! Do the straight kids who shop there, many of whom would never knowingly be associated with anything gay, think Oh, they’re just cute guys?

In Venezuela there are chains of coffee shops where the clientele, almost exclusively male, is waited on by attractive women in tight outfits. ….The twist…is that the interior architecture allows the female wait-staff to tower over the men. They women are positioned behind the counter on a slightly elevated platform. This means the typical Latin macho man is either being put in his place and enjoying it our that he is being transported back to childhood, where his primary view is of this mother’s breasts looming conveniently above him.

From what I can tell, there’s really not much to do around this part of the bay (Cupertino). I ride my bike fairly aimlessly down clean, spotless arteries and see on one around — not walking or biking anyway. All roads lead to places that are versions of what I just left. I ask if folks her go up to San Francisco to catch shows, exhibits, or to sample the wildly innovative cuisine in the SF restaurants. Nope, these folks just love their work, so they stay put her in the beautiful suburbs, working late, or they take their work home.