on politics, potato(e)s, and chimpanzees :: shenanigan stew (soup and salad, too)
I listened to a piece on the politics of chimpanzee shenanigans as I drove through a rainstorm. All guards down. All windows up. All wipers (and widgets) operating at full steam. The speaker said something about size, shape, and showers. I listened as the rain streamed. His stream of thought took a sudden cut—with a sharp (no blunt-tips) chop—and the station transitioned to a bit on Bob’s Discount Furniture. Apparently, the purchasing team acquired a premium, also highly discounted, lot. Consumption, airtime, and purchases ultimately intertwined. Bob as aggressive as most chaps (and chimps). Eventually, the convo returned. The speaker hadn’t missed a beat. He eloquently spoke of opportunities embedded in cultures, ways to modify behavior, and windows to suppress certain (some peculiar / more not) predispositions with unusual verve (as well as an option for waiver).
My stomach growled and I realized—primate families are often as peculiar as undercooked potatoes. Random lots of spuds—a little sweet / a little sour / often more salted (and salty) than not. I wondered what chimpanzees might think about sautéed potatoes or turkey-flavored gravy atop a homemade shepherd’s pie. The speaker didn’t lie, but power is peculiar and gender dynamics (often problematically) persistent. Limitations linger even as edges sizzle amidst newly emerged hues. Chimps, like other primates, tend to pay a regular round of irregular (and highly cyclical, rarely whimsical) dues.
Despite the increasing prevalence (and presence) of women in politics (chimpanzee and others), terminology persists. The term alpha male as arbitrary as an alphabet’s positioning (and poison). Also, as peculiar as the deepest layer of politics (both primitive and traditional). Shepherd’s pie also complicated. Mixed and mashed. Don’t forget us, yell the spuds at the bottom layer. All while knowing, the pie is going to cook (also going to be dense)—no matter how hard (and whether or not) one tries. Some potatoes will end up on five-star plates. Others as one of many in a basket of fast-food fries.
There’s also lots to be learned about politics (both environmental and contextual) while living a life as an anti-Barbie and Ken dealer in an older individuals’ rest home. The kitchen served potatoes for lunch yesterday. The day before that, too. Scooped and then slopped from a 16-quart pot. I wonder what the chimpanzees would think of the variety of our daily lot (plot)? Do they know better than you and I? In a 2015 study, Warneken and Rosati found that chimpanzees preferred cooked to uncooked potatoes. Bartering and trades a common combination. I’m not sure. At the core of each carefully plated plot, it’s still the same spud.
Training is tantamount to both taste and tenacity. Food chains are as fascinating as fairness. All recipients acutely aware of potato propositions, proportions, and positionality. There’s always a little (sometimes a lot) more on one plate – sometimes the one to the right, other times the one to the left. A cucumber is sometimes dropped beside a grape. A carrot sometimes brushes a garnish. Mashed and mixed. Power clashes in peculiar ways. Pastimes as pressing as postal stamps. Meals and mayhem often delivered. Potatoes and politics a staple. Did you catch the chimpanzee waiting in the limbs of a maple?
It takes eighty to one-hundred days to harvest a potato (a curious analogy to the century-based pace of political change). Chimpanzees in the wild live, on average, fifteen years. Those raised in captivity closer to thirty. I wonder what they’d choose, if presented the opportunity. The distinction between captivity and wild grows increasingly smaller. Angles converse. Plotlines dull. Politics muddle and meddle. Averages no more than a series of mathematical applications and equations – quickly calculated numbers (across multiples and divides) amidst well-established ordered of operation.
At the end of the day, politics and play rock both hierarchy and games of hot potato. Add a dash of this. Add an extra teaspoon of that. Shenanigans both a smorgasbord and buffet. Biologists have always been used to individual variability. Chimpanzees also well aware that no two trees are the same and no potato a path to primate fame. Potatoes are neither perfect squares nor symmetric circles. Chimps are as porous as any crated lot. We all soak up the atmosphere in which we persist.
The rain cycled (and recycled) as I drove. Some rounds relentless. Others less bold. A red car to my left was pleasant (not unlike a mashed potato when properly cooked). The vehicle let me merge when I missed the passing lane. All champions (whether cars, cuisines, chimpanzees, or competing politicians) can be nice when the elements are right (and despite their power dynamics of place and any ongoing race). One of my favorite things about a potato stew is that there’s always more room in the pot. To add a pepper. Perhaps some tomato paste. Then an onion. All flavors influence others -- interactions often idiosyncratic but never isolated. All language a base. It’s always an appropriate time to season and stock. Also, to take stock of both tolerance and taste. As I drive, I continue to listen. To learn and absorb all I can from Frans de Waal on Gender: Through the Eyes of a Primatologist.
Note: Inspired by "Gender Roles, Primates and Frans de Waal," an episode of the podcast Radio Times on WHYY, the NPR station in Philadelphia.
—Submitted on 09/24/2022
Jen Schneider is the 2022 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Her poem have appeared in Spillwords Press, The Write Launch, Fevers of the Mind, and many other journals.
SUBMIT to A River Sings via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value our online series, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.
Editor’s Note: The series title A River Sings is borrowed from “On the Pulse of Morning,” the poem read by Maya Angelou at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
The poems of Thomas Brush first appeared in Poetry Northwest in 1970. He has received creative writing grants from the NEA, Washington State Arts Commission, and Artist Trust. His most recently books, from Lynx House Press, are God’s Laughter (2018), Open Heart (2015), and Last Night, winner of the Blue Lynx Prize (2012).