Category: United States

Susan Cain writes an article titled “Shyness: An Evolutionary Tactic” (or the more tentative version of the title “Is Shyness an Evolutionary Tactic?”) in a recent edition of the New York Times.

Shyness is here a synonym for introversion, which is examined as a means of observation and assessment by “sitters” versus the extrovert (“rovers”) curiosity and attraction to novelty that often ends in a rush into danger. Mentions introversion as a tool for creativity, contemplation, workplace stability, and psychological well-being. Important point, too, is the medical and pharmaceutical industry’s attempts to make introversion a disease in need of a drug.

The author has a blog titled “Quiet: The Power of Introverts” and a forthcoming book with the same title.

URLs: article – http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness.html
blog – http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com

Alec Soth is a Minneapolis photographer and publisher of Broken Manual, a collection of documentary photographs which, as its Vimeo preview puts it,

investigates the places in which people retreat to escape civilization. Soth photographs monks, survivalists, hermits and runaways, but this isn’t a conventional documentary book on life “off the grid.” Instead, working with the writer Lester B. Morrison, the authors have created an underground instruction manual for those looking to escape their lives.

The book is presently only available in a limited special edition.

URL:
website – http://alecsoth.com/photography/projects/broken-manual/
blog entry – http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/broken-manual/
Vimeo preview – http://vimeo.com/14759277

A forthcoming film titled Somewhere to Disappear is an hour-long documentary about contemporary American hermits in mountains, caves, and deserts. The film website includes a trailer, plus Facebook and Twitter links for keeping up-to-date on screenings. Brought to our attention by a friend of Hermitary.

URLs:
website – http://www.somewheretodisappearthefilm.com/
trailer also on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/23007373

An article titled “Let Private ‘Leather Man’ Rest in Peace, Teachers Says” in lohud.com, which provides local news for the lower Hudson Valley, New York and Connecticut, describes a controversy over the fate of the remains of the “Leather Man.”

As a team of scientists prepares to exhume the body of the famed “Leather Man,” a Connecticut resident is advocating to leave the mysterious 19th-century figure alone. In November, the Ossining Historical Society received approvals from the state Supreme Court to dig up the obscure leather-clad wanderer so forensic testing could be conducted on his remains. The society owns Sparta Cemetery, where the Leather Man was buried in 1889.

Donald Johnson, a Connecticut school teacher, opposes the exhumation. While the remains will be relocated to a safer site, the intent of the exhumation to extract DNA for research purposes, is wrong, argues Johnson, who launched a web site to express his opposition to the historical society’s plans.

URL: http://www.lohud.com/article/20110509/NEWS02/105090319/Let-private-Leather-Man-rest-peace-teacher-says?

This article is updated by a Huffington Post article.

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margie-goldsmith/exhuming-the-leather-man-_b_862032.html

Brother Paul Quenon is interviewed for the PBS “Religion and Ethics” program. He was inspired by the example of Thomas Merton to become a monk, and has since published several books of poetry.

The lumber shed at the Abbey of Gethsemani in northern Kentucky. It’s late February. Each night at 8:00, Brother Paul Quenon walks to the shed, as he has every night for 20 years. He goes around back, where he finds his mattress. This is where he will sleep—outdoors, no matter the weather.

BROTHER PAUL QUENON (The Abbey of Gethsemani): I can’t be a full-time hermit, but I can be a night-time hermit, and there’s something about waking up in the middle of the night, and there’s nobody around. There’s a kind of an edge of solitude that you cannot experience in any other way.

Both a video and a transcript of the program are available on the website.

URL: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/may-6-2011/brother-paul/8764/