“I’ve spent the past few months on an octopus kick. In that, I don’t seem to be alone,” says journalist Ezra Klein. “Octopuses (it’s incorrect to say “octopi,” to my despair) are having a moment: There are award-winning books, documentaries and even science fiction about them. I suspect it’s the same hunger that leaves many of us yearning to know aliens: How do radically different minds work? What is it like to be a truly different being living in a similar world? The flying objects above remain unidentified. But the incomprehensible objects below do not. We are starting to be smart enough to ask the question: How smart are octopuses? And what are their lives like?”
So he talked Sy about her “dazzling book,” The Soul of an Octopus.
His talk with Sy “was a joy.” She “writes and speaks with an appropriate sense of wonder about the world around us and the other animals that inhabit it. This is a conversation about octopuses, of course, but it’s also about us: our minds, our relationship with the natural world, what we see and what we’ve learned to stop seeing. It will leave you looking at the water — and maybe at yourself — differently.”
Listen to The Ezra Klein Show on Apple, Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts. A full transcript of their conversation is available on The New York Times website.
Online Event – Peter Wohlleben and Sy Montgomery in conversation about trees
Monday, July 12 at 2:00 pm. Join Sy Montgomery and bestselling author Peter Wohlleben for an uplifting conversation about the natural world, in celebration of Wohlleben’s new book The Heartbeat of Trees. Wohlleben. the author of The Hidden Life of Trees, returns to his favorite subject—trees—in this powerful, timely new book. Click the link above for your Zoom connection.
The lyrical film makers at the Salt Project have caught the magic of hummingbirds in a new short video featuring Sy. Watch it on Facebook, or on Vimeo, or YouTube.
After reading The Soul of an Octopus, Penny Howe wrote a song, My Octopal:
Long before the dinosaurs were ever born,
The very first octopus faced its first dawn.
At first with a shell that it very soon shed,
Still millions of years before the first biped.
With a beak like a bird,
A bite like a snake,
And ink like an old fashioned pen.
It can sneak like a fox,
And walk like an ape.
But what more could you want in a friend.
So if you feel blue,
If you’re feeling down,
There’s nothing like an octopus
To help you come round.
A hug from this pod,
Will work like a charm.
When you feel all the love
In three hearts and eight arms.
The writer Annie Graves has written a warm and appreciative portrait of Sy and her world for Yankee magazine. Read her story here.
Sy was asked to share some life lessons with the good folks at World Class Performer.
What is something you wish you would’ve realized earlier in your life?
I wish I could go back to my childhood and youth and tell that desperate, young person “one day, you will live your dreams, and wake up every morning crazy in love with life.”
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” If you are kind and thoughtful, if you work hard and give back, not only will you accumulate knowledge and skill–but also genuine friends who will help you. Both are essential.