In the opening scene of the 1941 mystery Citizen Kane, the eponymous protagonist, played by Orson Welles, clenches a snow globe in his hand as he utters his last word: “rosebud.” The glass-encased spherical diorama of a snowy scene was a mere novelty at the time, but the film, in part, gave rise to its popularity.
Now, more than 80 years later, it’s hard to imagine the Christmas season without snow globes. A symbol of childhood nostalgia, the Austrian innovation has become beloved around the world.
Te Araroa is considered one of the world’s most diverse trails, with walkers navigating mountain terrains, coastlines, farmland and cities. Each year, roughly 2,000 walkers travel the route: some in a continuous journey over months, others dipping in and out to hike sections.
Along the way, live a vast network of trail angels – locals ready to offer a bed, a lift, or a shower to weary walkers for free, or a small fee. Trail angels are not a formal part of the Te Araroa trail, but for many walkers, they have become a lifeline.
“The Brain – is wider than the Sky – / For – put them side by side – / The one the other will contain / with ease – and You – beside –,” wrote Emily Dickinson. To all that the world presents to our senses, the mind effortlessly adds things that will not and cannot ever be. We can’t help it: imagination is humankind’s unbidden superpower, perhaps the capacity that most distinguishes us from other animals.
In The Shape of Things Unseen, neurologist Adam Zeman attempts to explain how and why this is. It is a wide-ranging survey – too wide, offering a mass of fascinating information about creativity, mental imagery and child development bloated by superfluous discourses on the origins of life, the Covid pandemic and climate crisis. Even then it doesn’t quite resolve the mystery of why our imaginative capacity seems to far exceed what is adaptively useful. But in this Zeman simply reflects the state of play: brain science tells us a great deal about the imagination but can only ever take us so far.
When Charles, a western lowland gorilla, died in the Toronto Zoo last year, did his fellow primates mourn his passing? What does a gazelle think when a member of its herd becomes a lion’s dinner? Questions like these have been very much on the mind of the Spanish philosopher Susana Monsó, whose new book, “Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death,” invites the reader to think about death from the point of view of the creatures we share the planet with.