The old man lived in a big green house on a shady green street in a nice green neighborhood. Dave was shown through the house to the backyard, Dave lugging the heavy duffle with its strap digging into his shoulder. Out back there was a pool and a small gathering of about a dozen people. The women were young and beautiful and bikini-clad. Dave knew this meant the old man’s family was away. One of the guys showed Dave into the pool house.
The old man stood behind the bar looking virile, tan and strong for his age. He didn’t slouch and his cabana wear was well fitted. He held an unlit cigar between his teeth. He took it out and grinned like a politician when Dave walked through the door.
The old man said, “Deadly Dave,” and put the cigar back in his mouth.
Dave had never actually killed anyone outside of war but rumors were easy to get started, and just as easy to stick, even back then. So it was in this fashion that Dave had found himself with a nickname. The nickname came with a reputation.
The old man said, “Margarita?”
He held up the frosty pitcher as if to explain to Dave what a margarita was.
Dave said, “Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks.”
The old man left Dave standing there holding the bag while he rimmed two glasses with lime and salt, his gameshow grin glowing with the cigar between his teeth. He walked around from behind the bar carrying the drinks and handed one to Dave. They cheersed to each other’s health and drank.
The old man said, “Cigar?”
Dave’s arm was going numb from the weight of the bag on his shoulder.
He said, “No thanks.”
The old man sat back in a wicker armchair with his drink. He took the cigar out of his mouth, plugged it and lit it. It took a very long time. There was a wicker coffee table with a glass top. Dave put his drink down so he could transfer the bag to his other shoulder.
The old man looked at the bag for the first time and said, “Is that what it better be?”
Dave nodded.
The old man considered Dave’s hands and face. He asked, “Trouble getting it?”
Dave said, “Not too much.”
The old man grinned at the words. He watched Dave through the smoke of his cigar. Then he looked beyond Dave’s right shoulder and spoke with a slightly raised voice.
He said, “Chucky.”
A big guy in black t-shirt came in. Dave hadn’t noticed the man standing out there in the shade. The old man beckoned the big guy over and whispered something in his ear. Then Chucky walked toward Dave. He took the bag off of Dave’s shoulder and carried it out of the pool house. The man called Chucky headed toward the street along a service path and disappeared around the side of the main house. Dave rolled his shoulders and felt the burn ease.
“Sit down,” said the old man. “Have your drink. You look like you could use it.”
Dave sat and had his drink while the other man talked.
“You have a certain talent. I’ll give you that. None of us thought you would ever be able to get it.”
Dave didn’t say anything.
The old man gulped down some margarita. Licked salt off the rim. Dragged heavily on the cigar and let the smoke leak out through his words when he spoke again.
“So, here’s how this is going to go. Now and then, down the road a ways, I might give you a call. Not often, but now and then. I’ll only call when I need somebody with talent like yours. You do a thing here, a thing there for me, but otherwise I leave you alone.” He held his hands out wide as if to demonstrate how the simple logic of his plan was unassailable. He said, “There’s no need for any unpleasantness or animosity between us. Everybody wins. Right?”
Dave said, “No.”
The old man looked at him for a long time. Then he said, “No?”
Dave didn’t respond.
Again, the old man said, “No?”
Dave said, “The bag squares us.”
The old man stared at him, “Oh it does, huh?”
Dave met his eyes and said, “Yes. It does.”
The old man raised his eyebrows but he didn’t speak again. He smoked and sipped his drink, holding Dave’s eyes. The old man didn’t flinch and he didn’t blink for a very long time, but an acceptance of some dark truth seemed to settle over him. Dave recognized this acceptance. He’d seen it before.
Dave left his mostly full margarita on the table. He stood and headed for the door. On his way out of the pool house, Dave caught a glimpse of himself in a full-length wicker framed mirror. Polished shoes, tailored blue suit, hair combed back sharp. Raw, scabbed knuckles across both hands. Two black eyes, butterfly bandages holding his scalp together above his left eye, a tampon up each nostril with the string ends cut off.
My prehistoric grandmother, exemplar of Generation W (W for Waste), shamelessly threw away new, unopened packets of Tico’s Tacos “sizzlin’ hot” salsa.
Decades later I’m haggling with squatters to excavate Tico’s Tacos “sizzlin’ hot” salsa packets from garbage dumps. I showcase the packets alongside similarly excavated fast food detritus—styrofoam packaging, plastic cups and lids, faded wax-paper wrappers—all lovingly collected in a gallery behind glass. We’re rabidly nostalgic for these sorts of things because the Tico’s Tacos chain, like every fast food chain, no longer exists. Some of its architecture survives, such as dilapidated sombrero rooftops once neon-lit, and Tico the Cat statues waving hola from atop tumbledown signage. But mostly, reminders of the before times have vanished.
I curate Portals to the Past on Mission St, inside the protected Zone. The gallery is three blocks east of the checkpoint, a razor-wire interface between us and the hungry world. Lately the hungry have been trying to breach our razor-wire. My contact, Zook, the squatter who led the most recent excavation for me—he claims the hungry are planning to attack again in three nights, the same goddamned night as my Tico’s Tacos exhibition opening.
“You should delay your party,” old Zook says, smelling of urine. We’re just outside the checkpoint.
“Why are you telling me about this?”
“Telling you about what.”
“The attack.”
“Because, young lady, I like you. You give me work.” His toothless grin seems lecherous. I ignore it.
We finish our transaction: one box of ancient and interesting restaurant condiments in exchange for one box of jackets and boots. Then Zook’s limping off into the smoky urban wilds beyond the checkpoint.
It’ll be sundown soon. Portable flood lights flicker on. Security sentries inspect my ID, rush me back through the gate to safety, and I traipse down an empty Mission St sidewalk towards the gallery, eager to examine my box of treasure. But Zook’s claim about the attack irritates me. If he’s correct, my soirée will be a bust. People will be too afraid to come.
Dean phones as I pass the old California Shakes coffee shop. “Did Zook get anything good?” he says.
“We have a problem. He insisted there’s going to be….” I stop myself, realizing I’m likely the only one in the Zone who’s aware of this supposed attack. Saying nothing will guarantee that people can attend the soirée. “Actually, never mind.”
“Never mind what.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Um, okay, so about the Ranger Rick cups, I wasn’t able to fully clean them. There’s smoke damage….” Dean updates me on this and more, but I’m distracted, conflicted about whether I should alert Security. It’d be the right thing to do. However, I’ve been working on this exhibition for months, putting so much care into it. And I really need the business. And further, Zook could be mistaken; maybe the attack is mere rumor.
“Gotta go, Dean.” I disconnect the call.
The gallery is wedged between a dental clinic and a market. To the east loom unoccupied green-glass skyscrapers—stilled giants, generals without wars. As always there’s not much traffic on the once-busy thoroughfare; the absence of activity creates vacuous silence and loneliness, but I’m used to it. Earlier in the day I’d unlocked and raised the gallery’s steel shielding, hoping that rare passersby might pause and admire my window display. Presently I’m touched to see an attractive young man viewing the display, a menagerie of plastic rainbow straws, remnants of a Bloopee franchise. Above the straws hangs a neat hand-lettered sign advertising my Tico’s Tacos opening.
“You should come!” I place Zook’s box on the sidewalk, then gesture up at the sign.
The attractive young man smiles a gleaming smile, stares at my breasts, says, “Looks interesting,” which pisses me off, not because of his ogling but rather because I remember the supposed attack and its repercussions for my soirée. “Yes, it will be interesting,” I say, flirtatiously nibbling my lower lip, concluding that old Zook is full of shit, that the attack is indeed rumor and nothing more.
Three nights later the exhibition opens with a clink of champagne glasses. The attractive young man hasn’t arrived, but two dozen other patrons amble around with sentimental admiration. In addition to the Tico’s Tacos “sizzlin’ hot” salsa packages, a stack of single-use paper napkins proves popular, as does video footage of a drive-thru—grainy film-loop projecting against a wall. A violinist accompanies with popular 20th century melodies. Someone muses sadly about that distant life and its unlimited electricity. I can smell my shampooed hair, a special-occasion treat.
Dean congratulates me. “Another successful opening,” he says.
I revel in the moment, dreamy, until a ruckus at the front door causes a collective gasp. The violinist stops, and several cadaverous figures, redolent of sewage and wrapped in patchwork clothing—clearly from outside the Zone—shove their way into my gallery. But instead of killing us all, they inexplicably pause and gape at the exhibits. A scabby woman goes giddy and squeezes open a package of “sizzlin’ hot” salsa, then proceeds to slurp its contents. She gags. A man watches the film loop of the drive-thru, his cracked lips moving as though reciting a forgotten prayer. Another man, ribs visible beneath torn fabric, steps forward to examine my display of “kiddie meal” toys: three plastic Tico the Cat playthings.
A champagne-tipsy patron whispers to me, “I get it! What a wonderful performance! They represent our common humanity, abandoned by our common past.”
“Yeah…sure,” I reply. “It’s been difficult keeping them a secret.”
“Bravo!” says the champagne-tipsy patron.
Then a smash—screams, broken glass—and my soirée ends.
I think we can all agree that our smartphone software—iOS and Android—has become stale. The systems are functional but boring, which they kind of have to be for billions of collective users to know how to use them without needing to pull out a manual every five seconds. But the design pendulum—for Android, at least—is finally swinging away from digital minimalism and toward a louder and more graphic design-y user interface.
Announced today ahead of next week’s annual Google I/O developer conference, the new “Material 3 Expressive” design language for Android 16 and Wear OS is the most opinionated take on Android that Google has put out. But will it tempt iPhone users over or further turn existing Android users away?
We got an early glimpse of the Material 3 Expressive design language a week ago when Google “accidentally” published a blog post about it, but now we’ve seen some short videos and GIFs of the new Android 16 and Wear OS in action—and it certainly looks refreshing. Beyond the bolder colors and fonts, Android seems more organic and bouncier. As a lover of graphic design, I’m tickled by the new visual direction. I already took a fancy to Google’s first attempt at making Android more “expressive” with Material You in Android 12. The greater customizations, typefaces, and even the squiggly lines in places like the media player controls really broke free from iOS’s monotony. Material 3 Expressive seems to take Android’s design to its natural next evolution.
I have my concerns about usability, though. While Google says Material 3 Expressive was born from research studies conducted over the past three years that took note of factors such as “where users focused their attention” and their “emotional responses to different designs,” how general users in the real world take to the Android refresh may be different. The intention and research may have shown that people prefer larger buttons and a new floating toolbar, but I could see many users also looking at Material 3 Expressive and feeling it’s cluttered and more difficult to discern what is a button and what isn’t. Google says its research showed the opposite, that changes like a significantly larger “Send” button in a message or email app lead to users spotting it “four times faster.”
Recall how futuristic and fresh Microsoft’s tile-based “Metro UI,” which actually started on the Zune, seemed to differentiate Windows Phone and Windows 8 from iOS and Android. Even today, Metro UI holds up. But despite a clean and seemingly intuitive UI and UX, consumers actually found it confusing and difficult to operate. Overly flourished software designs at the expense of usability rarely resonate with users.
There are some smaller changes that aren’t entirely visual. Like the Live Updates feature, which shows bite-sized real-time information, similar to what you get on iOS and iPhones with the Dynamic Island. One example Google shared was checking the arrival time for an Uber Eats delivery. Another small tweak: a more dynamic blur effect when pulling down the notification shade from the top of your phone.
Weirdly, Material 3 Expressive looks the best on Wear OS, Google’s smartwatch platform. Whereas it’s always felt like Wear OS was a UI made for square screens shoved into mostly round smartwatches like the Pixel Watch 3 and OnePlus Watch 3, Material 3 Expressive’s rounded buttons and bubblier animations look more at home and fluid. I really dig it.
If Google sticks to its usual beta release, we should be able to try out the new Material 3 Expressive version of Android 16 and Wear OS in the coming weeks.
Although Western films are no longer in their heyday—the Western cinematic gold rush lasted from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s—they’re still much loved. Gone are the days of the 1950s when Westerns outnumbered all other genres combined. Along with the enduring classics, a modern gem often hits the screen.
Whether current or classic, movies set in the Wild West were sometimes just as wild to film, so here are 10 interesting behind-the-scenes facts about some of the most popular Westerns to ever gallop across the screen.
Related: The Ten Most Lethal Gunslingers of the Old West
10 A Train Hit the Camera While Filming
High Noon – Sólo Ante el Peligro, 1952 – “Waiting for the Noon Train” – Gary Cooper – HD 1080p
For the shot of the train rushing toward the screen in High Noon (1952), the camera had to be placed directly on the tracks. While it’s a fantastic shot, it nearly killed director Fred Zinnemann and cameraman Floyd Crosby.
As the train approached, the smoke turned from white to black, which Zinnemann and Crosby—who were lying behind the camera on the tracks—thought looked great. What they didn’t know was that black smoke meant that the train’s brakes were failing. They realized at the last minute that the train wasn’t going to stop and moved out of the way just in time. But the camera tripod got caught on the rail and ended up being hit.
Thankfully, the film magazine survived the crash, and the shot of the approaching train was used in the final cut of the film.[1]
9 An Actor Committed Suicide While Wearing His Costume
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) opens with three gunslingers ambushing Harmonica (Charles Bronson) at a train station. One of the assailants, Knuckles, was played by Al Mulock, who tragically committed suicide by jumping off his hotel balcony while still wearing his cowboy outfit from earlier that day.
In a 1998 interview, screenwriter Mickey Knox explained that he was in a room on a lower floor with production manager Claudio Mancini, and they “saw the body coming down, past our window.” The jump didn’t actually kill Mulock, so Mancini drove him to the hospital (he died of a punctured lung en route). But before they left, director Sergio Leone demanded that he “get the costume, we need the costume” because they hadn’t finished filming. He wanted it for whoever was going to be Mulock’s double.[2]
8 Paul Newman Did Some of His Own Stunts
The scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) where Cassidy (Paul Newman) shows off on his bicycle was supposed to be filmed with a stuntman. Despite having spent a few days learning the tricks, the stuntman either couldn’t perform on the day of filming or (according to some reports) declared it too dangerous. Newman simply decided to do the tricks himself. The only one he didn’t do was the crash backward through the fence; cinematographer Conrad L. Hall stepped in for that shot.
Robert Redford (the Sundance Kid) also wanted in on the action—specifically, he wanted to run along the top of the train car—but Newman was against it. Rather than being annoyed at being upstaged, it was because of safety concerns. “I don’t want any heroics around here,” he said. “I don’t want to lose a co-star.” Redford agreed in the end.[3]
7 Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner Hated Working Together
Filming The Magnificent Seven (1960) proved to be a challenge thanks to some on-set friction between Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner. McQueen was a rising star at the time, and he took a dislike to Brynner, who had a bigger role. McQueen deliberately made distracting noises—such as jangling his shotgun shells or flipping a coin—during scenes when Brynner was speaking. He would also destroy the mound of dirt that Brynner stood on to match the height of the other actors.
Eventually, Brynner got so fed up with McQueen’s ribbing that he got physical. “Brynner came up to me in front of a lot of people and grabbed me by the shoulder,” McQueen said in his 2005 biography. “He was mad about something. He doesn’t ride well and knows nothing about guns, so maybe he thought I represented a threat.” However, co-star Robert Vaughn had a different idea about why McQueen was antagonistic: “Steve was intensely competitive. It wasn’t enough just to be successful—he had to be more successful than anyone else.”
In his final days, McQueen apologized to Brynner for his behavior, calling him up to say, “You coulda had me kicked off the movie when I rattled you, but you let me stay and that picture made me, so thanks.”[4]
6 The First Film to Feature Audible Flatulence
Although films with sound started being made during the 1920s, it took decades for the first audible fart to hit the screen (or, rather, the speakers). While Yasujirō Ozu’s Good Morning (1959) is full of farts, the noises are made by musical instruments, which somewhat softens the blow. The first realistic flatulence came in 1974’s Blazing Saddles, which includes a scene of cowboys around a fire eating beans and farting.
“Blazing Saddles for me was a film that truly broke ground. It also broke wind… and maybe that’s why it broke ground,” said director Mel Brooks. He didn’t include the scene to make movie history; he simply wanted to portray reality: “I mean, you can’t eat so many beans without some noise happening there.”
That iconic scene isn’t the movie’s only fart joke either. Governor Lepetomane (played by Brooks himself) was named after a 19th-century French flatulist whose name translates to “fartomaniac.”[5]
5 Stuntman Could Easily Have Died During Coach Drag Stunt
Enos Edward “Yakima” Canutt was hired by director John Ford for Stagecoach (1939) on the recommendation of the film’s star, John Wayne. Although there are many impressive stunts throughout the film, one particular stunt looks suicidal: the coach drag. Canutt jumps from his horse onto one of the stagecoach’s lead horses, but then he’s shot and falls between the horses. After being dragged along for a bit, he lets go, and the stagecoach rides over him.
The sequence was incredibly dangerous to film, but a few safety measures were in place. First of all, the horses had to gallop fast—at a speed of 45 mph (72 km/h). Canutt explained that this was “so they’ll run straight. If they run slow, they move around a lot.” Metal bars were also placed between each pair of horses to create a small gap in which Canutt could safely be dragged without being trampled. And when it looks like he falls, he actually catches himself on a modified tongue-tie. As for letting go, Canutt simply said, “You’ve got to hold your elbows close to your body, or that front axle will knock them off.”
After witnessing the dangerous stunt, Ford told Cannut that even if they failed to capture it, he’d “never shoot that again.” Thankfully, it was filmed perfectly.[6]
4 Oreos Were Used to Wrangle a Buffalo
Animals can be notoriously tricky to work with, but the spectacular buffalo hunt—technically, a bison hunt—in Dances with Wolves (1990) was worth the effort. Filming the scene required a staggering 3,500 bison plus 20 wranglers, 10 pickup trucks, and a helicopter.
“The trucks began herding the buffalo at five o’clock in the morning in hopes that they would be in position by eleven,” producer Jim Wilson told Entertainment Weekly. This lengthy setup meant that the scene took eight days to film.
The filmmakers also used two tame bison for certain shots. Musician Neil Young allowed the production to borrow his pet bison, Mammoth, and the other, Cody, was the mascot of a meat company. “Cody was obsessed with Oreo cookies,” Wilson said. “You could be 100 yards away, pull out an Oreo, and he’d take off like a bullet straight for you.” The terrifying moment when an enraged bison charges at a boy was achieved by holding up an Oreo for sweet-toothed Cody.[7]
3 A Real Earp Had a Role in a Western
If you’ve ever read the full credits for Tombstone (1993), you may have noticed that the name Wyatt Earp actually appears twice. The first time is, of course, the character played by Kurt Russell, while the second time is the name of the actor playing Billy Claiborne.
Although credited as Wyatt Earp, the actor was born Glenn Wyatt Earp, and he’s a distant relative—a fifth cousin to be precise—of the famous lawman. Although likely an advantage for getting a role in Tombstone, he said the name usually works against him. “Actually, there has been greater skepticism of me as an actor because of my name,” he explained in a 1993 interview. “Casting directors would call up my agent and say: ‘Is this guy for real?’”
In a 2023 Facebook post, Earp explained that he originally had a bigger role in Tombstone, but many of his scenes were cut, including “the stagecoach robbery where I killed Mr. Fabian and the gunfight where I was killed by Billy Breckinridge.”[8]
2 A Stuntman Lost a Leg While Filming
It’s rumored that a stuntman was killed during a fight scene in How the West Was Won (1962), but in reality, he wasn’t killed, and the accident didn’t happen during filming. During “The Outlaws” chapter, a gunfight breaks out on a moving train, and Bob Morgan was working as the stunt double of George Peppard. Morgan had safely completed his shots and was resting against the train when some fiberglass logs fell off the car and knocked him onto the tracks. He was then crushed by the train’s axle.
Although Morgan lived, he didn’t get away lightly: He lost one of his legs and some of the bones in his spine and was facially disfigured. His stuntman days were over, but he did continue to act. His missing leg even led to a few pegleg-specific roles, including Iron Horse (1967), Chisum (1970), and Scarlet Buccaneer (1976).[9]
1 A Bridge Explosion Had to Be Unexpectedly Filmed Twice
The scene where Blondie (Clint Eastwood) and Tuco (Eli Wallach) blow up the bridge in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) is iconic. Still, the cameras weren’t actually rolling the first time the structure was destroyed. Everything was ready, and director Sergio Leone just needed to wait for the correct lighting before the signal—the Spanish word “vaya”—could be given to the person responsible for blowing the bridge.
However, someone said the word about a different element of the scene, and the explosives crew member thought it was the signal and lit the ignition before the cameras were ready. Despite the enormity of this mistake, Leone apparently just said “let’s go eat” and waited for the construction crew to rebuild the expensive bridge. Thankfully, the cameras were rolling the second time around.[10]
40th reunion. 40. How did she get so old so fast? She was popular and had plans. A “most likely to…” type. Succeed. Be on TV. Own a beach house in La Jolla. She did none of that and didn’t want any of that, but the party at Penmar Golf Course — $100 for hors d’oeuvres with an open bar — has her feeling jittery, thinking about what might have been. Most likely to become a cliché is more like it. She kept the yearbook, Venice High 1985, and opens it periodically to reconcile it with what she sees in the mirror. She’s not entirely unhappy. Her hair is still blonde, no bangs glued straight with gel! Her blue eyes look tired now but mascara helps. And she’s bigger, like everyone else. But her tits look good, even better than back when she survived on diet coke and Marlboro lights. She will not take Ozempic, at least just yet, like her friends. No Botox either but she knows it’s just a matter of time. Everything is just a matter of time.
She looks at the scrawl on the back page — “My one regret: not asking you out…” — from the skinny kid with the big nose and curly mop, the one who became a writer. She probably would have said no but as the years go by, she’s developed an abstract crush on him. She’s followed his career, read a story here and there, a blog where he talks about his divorce. Divorce! When she read that, she got a tingle. She’s married and living a perfectly fine, decent, good life. But knowing he’s free out there is fun, harmless; she smiles mischievously when she sees his name on the rsvp list. She knows her husband would have no interest so she buys one ticket.
What will she wear? A teal linen dress, tan flats, simple; she remembers he was short so she doesn’t want to tower over him but she does wear a push up bra so a little cleavage shows, casually, like she didn’t mean it, her boobs are so big she can’t help it kind of thing. She puts the yearbook in the large leather bag she inherited from her recently dead mother. She is hoping that maybe, after a cocktail, she could get him to sign it again, let him know that she’s followed his career, hint that it’s not too late though for what she doesn’t know. She feels reckless. Giddy.
He looks different, bald now, a graying overgrown goatee; they all have changed, but she recognizes him from his author photos so she walks up, tipsy, and says, “Hey Nathan!” and he says, “Hi!” as he squints at the name tag pinned to her chest with a picture from high school on it. She says, “Mallory. We went to high school together!” and he says, “I think all of us here did!” And they laugh, she can feel her face reddening from the tequila, she’s half a margarita in. He says he doesn’t remember her and she pauses. It’s too late to run away so she pulls out the yearbook, flips to the back, points at the exact words he wrote. “You wanted to ask me out but never did!” and he says, “Huh, that sounds about right.” And she says, “Why not? Why didn’t you Nathan?” thinking that using his name will create some intimacy and he says, “I don’t know,” but he is charming enough now to say, “I was an asshole for not trying” in a tone that is more polite than flirtatious.
A chubby woman, older than them, walks up. She’s not wearing any makeup. Her hair is pulled back but a few straight strands have fallen forward. Mallory thinks she’s one of the servers and is about to ask for another drink when Nathan says, “This is my girlfriend, Lucia.” Mallory is too stunned to respond. “We live in Brooklyn.” Nathan puts his arm around Lucia’s broad waist, kisses her round cheek, making a wet smooching sound. Mallory shakes Lucia’s small strong hand and says, “Nice to meet you!” Someone tells Nathan to put on the playlist he made for the reunion, so he looks down at his phone while Mallory and Lucia smile at each other. Mallory can see that Lucia doesn’t whiten her teeth, they are stained from the coffee Mallory imagines they drink together in the morning or red wine they drink at night, frumpy Lucia and her adoring boyfriend Nathan, the writer.
Mallory puts the yearbook back in her mother’s bag. She wonders if she should get another margarita, decides yes but on the way to the bar she suddenly feels exhausted, weak, like she’s been punched, as if she could sleep for a year straight, so she reaches into the bag for her keys, walks to the red Prius she also inherited from her mother, gets in, presses the button to turn the car on and puts it reverse; she backs up, switches to drive, then steps on the gas to go forward.
In humans, nearly a quarter of children grow up with a disorganized attachment style — the most extreme form of insecure attachment, linked to trauma, fear, and emotional instability. But in the West African forests of Taï National Park, researchers just spent nearly 4,000 hours observing wild chimpanzee mothers and their young — and they didn’t see a trace of it.
The new study published today in Nature Human Behaviour delivers the first field evidence that wild chimpanzees form organized attachments to their mothers — secure or insecure-avoidant — but never disorganized. The implications challenge long-held assumptions about human attachment.
“We found no evidence of disorganized attachment in wild chimpanzees, unlike in humans and in orphaned chimpanzees raised in captivity,” says Eléonore Rolland Institute of Cognitive Sciences Marc Jeannerod, in an email to ZME Science. “This supports the idea that disorganized attachment may not be an evolutionarily adaptive strategy in high-risk environments like the wild.”
“However, we did observe clear individual differences that aligned with recognized human attachment patterns — specifically, secure and
insecure-avoidant types. This suggests that the attachment system is deeply rooted in our evolutionary past and may operate similarly across species in certain contexts.”
Disorganized Attachment May Be a Human Problem
Psychologists identify four main types of attachment, based on how infants respond to stress and their caregiver’s availability. Secure attachment is the healthiest, most adaptive type. Insecure-avoidant attachment is linked to more independent behavior but also suppressed emotional needs. Insecure-resistant (or ambivalent) attachment is linked with clinginess and anxiety. The most troubling one is disorganized attachment. This is linked to emotional dysregulation, mental health problems, and difficulties forming stable relationships.
The study challenges a common belief: that all human attachment types are equally rooted in evolution. They’re not. Disorganized attachment, with its confused, fearful approach-avoidance behavior, doesn’t seem to show up in the wild.
If a baby chimp doesn’t know whether to run to or from its mother when scared, it may freeze at the worst possible moment. That’s not a useful strategy. It’s a glitch. In the unforgiving wild, such glithces are quickly wiped out. But if human infants develop disorganized attachment in environments where there’s no predator to tax you — well, that glitch can persist.
In this study, none of the wild chimpanzees showed signs of “disorganized” attachment.
“Our findings suggest that humans and chimpanzees share foundational aspects of attachment behavior, indicating that this system has deep evolutionary roots. At the same time, environmental conditions play a significant role in shaping how attachment is expressed.”
“For example, disorganized attachment seems to emerge more frequently in environments where offspring are not exposed to survival threats, such as in captivity or modern human societies.”
A Look At Chimps
To find out how wild chimpanzee infants form bonds with their mothers, researchers followed 50 young chimps — ranging from newborns to ten-year-olds — for over 3,700 hours in Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. They watched how these infants behaved during real-life stressful events: sudden aggression nearby, alarm calls, loud noises in the forest. These were natural threats, the kind that actually matter for survival in the wild.
They focused on what the chimps did in these moments of fear — did they run to mom, stay put, or act independently? Using a detailed catalogue of behaviors, they tracked each infant’s responses and analyzed patterns over time. To detect attachment styles, they applied machine learning techniques to identify behavioral clusters, similar to human categories like “secure” and “insecure-avoidant.”
Image from the study.
As none of the chimpanzees showed the erratic, conflicted behaviors that define disorganized attachment in humans and captive chimps, this suggests that such responses may not be viable in the wild.
“In humans, attachment is often assessed using the Strange Situation Procedure, where infants are briefly separated from their caregiver and reunited, and their responses are observed. Since such an experimental setup isn’t possible and is unethical in the wild, we developed a non-invasive approach that captures the core principles of attachment theory.”
Some infants would immediately seek comfort from their mother, while others would move away independently. “These consistent behavioral differences allowed us to identify distinct attachment types, regardless of the age of the offspring,” the researcher adds.
In humans, disorganized attachment is surprisingly common: about 23.5% of children exhibit it. In orphaned chimps raised in captivity, it’s even more prevalent — 61%. But in the jungle? Nada.
This is the main finding, and it supports the idea that disorganized attachment may not be an adaptive survival strategy in the wild. If you’re a baby chimp, you’re either clinging to mom for dear life, or learning to handle yourself — but you’re not flailing around in a confused mess. Because if you are, you probably don’t survive long enough to pass on your genes.
So, what does this say about us?
This Is Also About Humans
Rolland’s findings suggest that the basic architecture of attachment — secure and avoidant — may be shared across our evolutionary relatives. That makes sense. Across primates (and mammals in general), the ability of infants to stay close to a caregiver during threats is a matter of life and death.
But modern humans don’t face those same threats. We’ve traded leopards for layoffs and community for daycares. We live with the tactile comfort for screens, free from many of the evolutionary pressures shared by our ancestors and our close relatives. In these radically altered environments, attachment patterns may not play out in the same adaptive ways.
“Our results deepen our understanding of chimpanzees’ social development and show that humans and chimpanzees are not so different after all,” says Rolland. “But they also make us think: have some modern human institutions or caregiving practices moved away from what is best for infant development?”
The implication is unsettling. Modern environments — especially those marked by social fragmentation, institutional care, or inconsistent parenting — might inadvertently foster attachment patterns that are out of sync with what our brains evolved to expect.
The rise of disorganized attachment in human societies be a signal that something is off in how we structure early childhood. Studies in humans have shown that consistent, responsive caregiving can prevent disorganized attachment — even in high-risk settings.
They’re continuing to follow the chimpanzees as they grow into adolescence and adulthood.
Jacob, a TV journalist for a regional station, was setting up the shot with Tommy, his cameraman, when Eris first approached him.
“I saw what happened,” she said.
“You saw the trampoline take off?” Jacob asked, giving her a quick look over as he did so, seeing if she was sufficiently telegenic for his report.
“Yes, the whole thing. It was awful.”
Jacob weighed her up. Local accent, but clear voice. Clean, well-dressed, nice features, not emotionally constipated. She would do.
So Eris made her television debut in Jacob’s report from the scene of the fair, where unexpectedly high winds had whipped an unsecured trampoline and its four juvenile occupants momentarily aloft. No major injuries unfortunately, so not reaching the tragedy level that would make the national news and so boost his profile, but better than nothing.
Two weeks later, arriving at the scene of a fire at a hospital two towns away, Jacob recognized Eris in the bystanders.
“I had an appointment at the eye clinic,” she explained. “I’d just arrived when the fire broke out.”
Remembering how well she’d come across in his previous report, Jacob decided to use her again. As before, she was a good witness, emotive and descriptive.
Jacob thought little of this coincidence until three weeks later, when he attended the motorway pile-up. He’d arrived a bit late on the scene and was setting up a favorable angle with his cameraman when he saw one of the national broadcasters interviewing Eris.
He listened in and heard her state, “Yes, I was driving along on the way to meet an old school chum when the tanker veered right across the road. I managed to brake in time but…”
All through the rest of the summer, Jacob would arrive at every significant tragedy or accident, murder scene or disturbance and Eris would already be there. Even when he wasn’t working, he would see her being interviewed on his TV screen. She was never directly involved or affected, but always close enough to witness. It turned out she was even a neighbor of the “Sofa Strangler,” the serial killer who was caught that summer. “He seemed like a nice man,” she opined.
Other journalists noticed her regular appearances on their screens. There was initially some suspicion that she was actively involved in these diverse tragedies, but a cursory glance at the facts showed the impossibility of this. It simply was all just a rather unlikely coincidence.
Word got around locally however and it was the town’s Mayor who first approached Eris, gifting her tickets to a theatre performance at the other side of town while his inauguration was taking place in the Town Hall. It was an astute move, as it turned out, as a hostage crisis broke out at the theatre just as Eris arrived. She was subsequently interviewed about it on live TV.
Local companies started approaching Eris with offers of free products if she would only stay away from their stores and offices. One less scrupulous businessman offered her money to attend the premises of his business rival and as Eris approached, the building was levelled by an engine that fell off a passing jet airplane.
Despite these unique earning opportunities, fame wasn’t kind to Eris. She now had the reputation as a jinx and was consequently shunned by all and sundry. She was unwelcome at any of the local shops, while people actively crossed to the opposite side of the street when they saw her coming. Friends deserted her and even her family would only talk to her by phone.
Jacob didn’t really believe that there was anything special about Eris. She didn’t have psychic powers, she wasn’t cursed. She was just unlucky, a statistical outlier, the victim of a series of coincidences, unlikely but not impossible. He knew though, that the public believed otherwise and ever alert to an opportunity to advance his career, he arranged to interview her in her home.
Eris, isolated and alone, jumped at the chance to both see a familiar face and explain herself to the public, to let them see she was just a normal person.
In her living room, with Jacob and his cameraman sitting opposite, she spoke to the viewers on the live broadcast.
“I’ve always been around when bad things happened. Sometimes they’re scary, sometimes just sad, but I always remember what my Mum told me, after our Headmaster had jumped off the school roof. ‘Inside every cloud, there’s a silver lining’. And she was right! The new Headmaster was so much better, so much friendlier. All these things I witness, I know that they’re sad for a lot of people. But I have to believe these events also change some people’s lives for the better. Even the asteroid that killed all the Dinosaurs, well, that was good for people, wasn’t it?”
“I feel so alone now,” she continued. “My family won’t visit, my friends have abandoned me. Even my neighbors all complained to the Council, calling me an Environmental Health hazard. They’ve all been re-housed! All the neighboring properties are empty!”
Eris spoke with such feeling that her heartfelt words broke through Jacob’s cynical veneer and for a moment or two he wasn’t even bothered about the ratings.
“I feel so sad,” Eris said, “I honestly just wish the earth would open and swallow me up.”
And just like that, it did.
Seismologists subsequently measured the earthquake as a whopping 8.5 on the Richter scale, its epicenter being a half-mile under Eris’s house. The city was devastated and Jacob’s life and more importantly, his career, were brought to a premature end.
The nature and timing of the last words of Eris Fortuna were widely discussed, but eventually dismissed as an amazingly unlikely but ultimately statistically acceptable coincidence. Nevertheless, an alternate view might be encapsulated in the wise words of that great philosopher and sometime Baseball player, Yogi Berra: “That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence.”
With nearly 900,000 Twitter followers and close to $80,000 in monthly earnings, Girthmasterr—real name Ben—is one of OnlyFans’ most recognizable names. But behind the viral sweatpants clips and jaw-dropping income is a brutally honest story of hard work, constant hustle, and emotional toll.
Ben, a 6-foot-7 former pizza delivery driver, first rose to online fame after a former girlfriend told him to stop giving away his photos for free. “She told me people would pay for it,” he told Rolling Stone. “I thought it’d be just beer money. But it snowballed.”
That “snowball” became a lucrative full-time job, with Girthmasterr not only dominating OnlyFans but also gaining traction on TikTok and other adult platforms. He’s known for his NSFW content and has even released a sex toy modelled on himself. But despite the perks, Ben is clear about the price he pays.
“I probably shoot a couple times a week,” he said. “Then I edit the videos, do marketing. I’d say I spend 60 to 80 hours a week working.” It’s a schedule that dwarfs most nine-to-five jobs, and he’s candid about how demanding the creator lifestyle can be. “I went full-time a year ago, and it’s been a wild ride,” he added, noting that he’s flown to the U.S. several times to collaborate with other big-name stars.
Platforms like TikTok and Twitter are crucial for visibility, but they come with risks. Girthmaster’s infamous “grey sweatpants” videos once racked up millions of views until TikTok deleted his account for breaching community guidelines. “I was in a tiny Airbnb in Scotland, and the camera angle made me look massive,” he laughed in an Interview Magazine story. “It worked—until it didn’t.”
With fame also comes unwanted attention. Though he’s often recognized in public, the experience isn’t always flattering. At a recent Oktoberfest, a fan crossed a serious boundary by groping him. “That’s assault,” he said plainly on TikTok. “It makes me anxious to go into crowds by myself.”
Despite the challenges, Girthmasterr remains an advocate for the industry, but not without acknowledging the gendered double standards. “The outrage from women is valid,” he told Rolling Stone. “They get treated very differently than I do, and it doesn’t make sense.”
He blames this in part on toxic influencers like Andrew Tat,e who “call OnlyFans creators low-value women” and try to shame them for being financially independent. “It’s insecure men who can’t handle that women might not need them,” he said.
For all the assumptions people make about creators like Girthmasterr—wealth, freedom, fame—he wants people to understand that the work behind the camera is often relentless and emotionally taxing.
“This isn’t just easy money,” he says. “It’s a job. It’s a business. And it takes a toll.”
“Beware of the Ides of March,” Madame Hannah said, picking up the tarot card with its stormy-looking tower. The woman tapped her long black fingernails on the card. Bree wondered how the woman was able to shuffle with nails that long.
“The hides of March?” Bree asked. “What’s a March hide?” Long purple curtains covered the walls of the small room, and unscented white candles burned on the side of the little circular table.
“The Ides of March,” the fortune teller said, enunciating clearly. She flipped her hand, and her long bat-wing sleeves fluttered dramatically over the small table with its crystal ball. Bree pulled her head back to avoid getting smacked in the face. She worried about the candles.
“I’m not understanding you,” Bree sighed. “When am I supposed to be aware?”
“March 15th,” the woman frowned. “The date that Julius Caesar was murdered.” Madame Hannah looked at her as if she was a moron, but how was Bree supposed to know about Greek mythology?
“Oh well, why didn’t you just say that?” she sniffed. “March 15th is tomorrow. So what am I supposed to be looking out for?”
“Chaos and change,” the woman said dramatically, leaning so close that Bree could smell the cinnamon gum on her breath.
“Could you, like, be more specific?” Bree wrinkled her nose. “Is it like being-hit-by-a-bus type chaos, or like can’t-find-matching-socks level chaos?”
“Another card is ten dollars,” Madame set the tower card on the table and extended her hand.
“I’m good,” Bree stood, ignoring the woman’s extended palm, and walked out of the little bookshop. It was a gorgeous spring day in Chicago, and Bree took a deep breath of the fresh air, tinged only slightly with bus exhaust. Though she knew she needed to get back to her desk, she walked slowly back to her apartment, stopping by her favorite smoothie store to get a mango and chocolate super kale surprise.
The line was long, and the smoothie staff moved with a lurching apathy that made her wonder if they were all stoned.
Twenty minutes later, Bree took her smoothie from the counter and sipped the bittersweet sludge. She really needed to get back to her desk. She had taken a two-hour lunch break, but that was the joy of working from home.
Back at her desk, Bree removed the vibrating device from her mouse that made it look like she was working and went to work. She answered a few customer emails and then browsed Amazon for a new blender. Maybe she could start making smoothies at home.
With a perky ping, Bree received a message from her boss in the company’s ugly messenger system.
“Bree, I’m going to need you to come into the office tomorrow.” Her boss’s message said. “8am sharp, and make sure you bring all of your company-issued equipment, please. See you tomorrow morning.”
Bree sipped her melted smoothie and wondered why her boss needed her in the office and if she could figure out an excuse to get out of it.
At just three millimeters long, the newest addition to science’s catalog of life is easy to miss. But when a team of malacologists stumbled upon the minute snail in a Thai national park, they noticed something remarkable—a twist of geometry that seemed to echo the bold distortions of Picasso himself.
They named it Anauchen picasso.
The snail’s shell defies the smooth spirals we associate with its kind. Instead, it folds into boxy, angular whorls, a shape one researcher described as “like a cubist interpretation of other snails with ‘normal’ shell shapes.” It’s a natural form so distinct, so artful, that it seemed to demand a name that commands respect.
Anauchen picasso shell. Credit: Gojšina
A Microscopic Art Gallery in the Jungle
The discovery came amid a sweeping effort to catalog the often overlooked: microsnails, land mollusks smaller than a grain of rice. Led by Serbian Ph.D. student Vukašin Gojšina and his Hungarian mentor Barna Páll-Gergely, the international team has just published a 300-page monograph in the journal ZooKeys detailing 46 new species from across Southeast Asia—Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. These include 17 new species of Anauchen.
Most are no larger than five millimeters. But their shells, the researchers write, are “real beauties.”
Intricately coiled, their apertures—the openings where the snail emerges—are often armed with jagged, tooth-like barriers. These features likely act as armor against predators. In some species, the final curl of the shell twists upward or downward, flipping the whole structure into what looks like an upside-down spiral. Such traits helped scientists tease apart species that, to the untrained eye, look nearly identical.
“Although the shell sizes of these snails are less than 5 mm, they are real beauties!” the researchers emphasized. “Their shells exhibit extraordinary complexity.”
Why Microsnails Matter
To outsiders, these minuscule molluscs might seem trivial. But they tell a much larger story—about evolution, geography, and extinction.
The limestone landscapes of Southeast Asia are biodiversity hotspots, and snails are their quiet sentinels. Because they don’t migrate far and are adapted to very specific niches, their shells serve as a record of evolutionary change and environmental isolation.
Yet they are also at risk. Many species described in the new study are known from only a single cave or cliff face. That makes them exceptionally vulnerable to habitat destruction, particularly quarrying for cement, which is widespread in the region.
“The Latin word evanidus means vanishing, which refers to the quarrying of the type locality of this species,” the authors explain of Anauchen evanidus, one of the new species whose only known habitat may already be gone.
In that sense, each new species is both a scientific discovery and a conservation emergency.
Shells of species belonging to the genus Anauchen. Credit: Gojšina
Not all of the species were recently collected. Some had been hiding in plain sight for decades—in drawers at the Florida Museum of Natural History, where specimens gathered during the 1980s had sat unrecognized. Now, with fresh eyes and sharper tools, they’ve been named and described.
But many of the places these snails once lived may no longer exist.
Deforestation and limestone quarrying are rampant across Southeast Asia. These are not just general threats to biodiversity—they are lethal to land snails, which often evolve in small, hyper-local pockets of habitat and can vanish when even a single hill is destroyed. Some of the species in this new catalog might already be extinct.
Yet even in extinction, they tell a story.
“These snails,” the authors wrote, “are pieces of art hidden in the leaf litter.” Their forms are sculpted over millennia by evolution and geology, shaped as much by isolation as by adaptation. The toothy apertures, the upside-down shells, the cubist spirals—these are records of survival, etched in calcium carbonate.
