Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder Read Online Free PDF Page B

for the Northwestern University Press, only to be told there was no listing for that either—which seemed odd until the operator pointed out that if it did exist, the press, like the university itself, probably would be listed under Evanston, not Chicago, and, sure enough, it was. But when I called them, they’d never heard of Sonnabend either. I called KUSC and asked for Jim Svejda; when he came on, I explained the situation, told him about the exhibit, and asked if he’d ever done a show about the singer Madalena Delani. He just laughed and laughed: never heard of her. I called information in Chicago once again and got the number for the Chicago Historical Society. Once I got through to them, I asked dubiously for Rusty Lewis, who, however, did turn out to exist. Had he ever heard of Charles Gunther? “You mean the candy tycoon?” he shot back, without missing a beat. He went on to confirm every single one of the exhibit’s details about Gunther—his collection, the transplantation of the Libby Prison, the historic tables, even the snakeskin,which remains in the Historical Society’s collection to this day.
    Back at the library I asked about the ethnographer Bernard Maston: “No record found.” I asked about Donald R. Griffith: “No record found.” For some reason, I tried that reference out by title too—
Listening in the Dark
—and this time I hit paydirt, except that the book had a different subtitle and its author was Donald R. Griff
in
, not Griffith. I went upstairs to look over the book’s index but found no references to Maston, the Dozo, or any
deprong mori.
I went back downstairs and tracked down Griffin’s most recent whereabouts; he appeared to have retired to Lexington, Massachusetts, where I in turn located his number and called him up. When I reached him I started out by explaining about the museum (he’d never heard of it) and its exhibit about Donald R. Griffith—“Oh no,” he interrupted, “my name is Griffin, with an
n
, not Griffith.” I know, I said, I know. I went on to ask him if he’d ever heard of a bat named
Myotis lucifugus.
“Of course,” he said, “that’s the most common, abundant species in North America. That’s why we used it on all the early research on echolocation.” Did its range extend to South America? Not as far as he knew—why? As I proceeded to tell him about the piercing devils and the thatch roofs, the lead walls and the X-ray emanations, he took to laughing harder and harder. Finally, calming down, he said, “No, no, none of that is me, it’s all nonsense—on second thought you’d better leave the spelling of the name Griffith the way it is.” He was quiet for a moment, before continuing, almost wistfully, “Still, you know, it’s funny. Fifty years ago, when wewere first proposing the existence of something like sonar in bats, most people thought that idea no less preposterous.”
    I don’t know why, I just couldn’t let the story go. I called information in Portland, Oregon, and asked doubtfully whether they had any listings for a Carolina Biological Supply. They did. I called the number and asked for Richard Whitten. The woman who answered said he no longer worked there, which was really too bad, because he was such a wonderful character, bless his heart. She went on to regale me, completely unbidden, with tales of his incredible beetle and butterfly collections and of his other passions, how he’d even managed to sing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir—the whole thing. A couple of years ago, though, she explained, he and his wife had pulled up stakes and headed down to San José, Costa Rica, where they’d finally launched their dream project—a little museum entirely given over to displaying their marvelous collections. Whitten didn’t have a phone down there, but he had sent up some clippings—did