WEBVTT - Curtis Sittenfeld: Breeze Point 0:00:15.130 --> 0:00:24.890 Pushkin. This is Ying Ying and Lee Lee, two pandas 0:00:24.890 --> 0:00:26.930 that live in the Ocean Park Zoo in Hong Kong. 0:00:27.370 --> 0:00:29.690 The zoo has been trying to get them to make 0:00:29.810 --> 0:00:34.130 for ten years with no luck. I'm Ashley Forward and 0:00:34.250 --> 0:00:37.410 this is the Chronicles of Now, where we ask writers 0:00:37.450 --> 0:00:43.690 to dream up short stories inspired by the news. Okay, 0:00:43.970 --> 0:00:47.890 so the news this year has been relentlessly bleak. The pandemic, 0:00:48.050 --> 0:00:54.050 a global economic depression, police violence, a dangerously incompetent president, 0:00:54.290 --> 0:00:58.650 species extinction, climate change. It just goes on and on 0:00:58.850 --> 0:01:02.330 and it's depressing. Right, We felt we needed to change 0:01:02.330 --> 0:01:05.170 it up here at the Chronicles of Now. We needed 0:01:05.210 --> 0:01:10.810 some good news. So on this episode we're going full panda. 0:01:11.010 --> 0:01:14.650 It seems was the Private season when the coronavirus shut 0:01:14.650 --> 0:01:18.330 down the zoo, the pandaly. If there's one good thing 0:01:18.370 --> 0:01:21.130 to come of this, it's not in our absence. Some 0:01:21.210 --> 0:01:25.330 timid pandas finally got it on, and boy did they 0:01:25.410 --> 0:01:28.970 get it on. No visitors were there, but the camera 0:01:29.090 --> 0:01:35.570 was rolling and the media ate it up. These pandas 0:01:35.690 --> 0:01:40.370 are having sex. I'm watching them, and I might be 0:01:40.410 --> 0:01:46.170 the happiest I've been since the pandema. Now this is 0:01:46.170 --> 0:01:50.250 a family podcast, and we would never shamelessly goat at 0:01:50.250 --> 0:01:54.130 panda sex like The New York Times did in this video. 0:01:54.290 --> 0:01:58.170 When those pandas did it, I felt this strange surge 0:01:58.170 --> 0:02:01.890 of pride. Oh no. We commissioned one of the country's 0:02:01.970 --> 0:02:04.850 finest writers of fiction to give the panda take on 0:02:04.930 --> 0:02:08.570 the story. Curtis Sittenfeld is the best selling author of 0:02:08.690 --> 0:02:12.810 six novels. Her latest is Rotten, a novel that reimagines 0:02:12.890 --> 0:02:16.290 Hillary Clinton's life. As she did in that book, she 0:02:16.410 --> 0:02:20.370 took some artistic liberties for her pandas story. The zoo 0:02:20.450 --> 0:02:23.330 in the story is sort of fictitious, and I changed 0:02:23.410 --> 0:02:28.530 the panda's names to respect their privacy. In a world 0:02:28.570 --> 0:02:33.290 gone haywire, sometimes pandas are the only way to make 0:02:33.370 --> 0:02:48.290 sense of it all. The incident the day that bifurcated 0:02:48.370 --> 0:02:53.290 my existence into before and after happened back in twenty sixteen. 0:02:54.930 --> 0:02:58.250 By then, I'd been at Breeze Point Zoo for nine years. 0:02:58.290 --> 0:03:03.530 Though time is elastic in a life such as mine. 0:03:04.650 --> 0:03:07.250 That first time I saw him, I didn't know his 0:03:07.410 --> 0:03:11.810 name or even his speeches. I pieced this information together 0:03:11.890 --> 0:03:15.770 afterward by eavesdropping on my handlers, who have long assumed 0:03:15.770 --> 0:03:19.530 that I don't understand cantonese. All I knew that day 0:03:19.570 --> 0:03:21.970 when I awakened from a morning nap atop of a 0:03:22.090 --> 0:03:25.650 massive rock, was that perched on a log hardly more 0:03:25.690 --> 0:03:29.890 than a meter away, regarding me unabashedly, was a small 0:03:29.930 --> 0:03:35.650 creature with reddish fur, pointy ears, inquisitive brown eyes, white whiskers, 0:03:36.090 --> 0:03:43.570 and a long striped tail. How enchanting he was, how 0:03:43.650 --> 0:03:48.690 life has build, how glossy his coat, and in his gaze, 0:03:49.570 --> 0:03:56.650 what depths, what perspicacity. The internal jolt I experienced made 0:03:56.650 --> 0:04:00.010 me abruptly understand that I was sleeping my life away, 0:04:00.050 --> 0:04:08.570 both literally and figuratively. I'd been napping on my stomach 0:04:09.090 --> 0:04:11.810 with my glossy black fore legs flung in front of me, 0:04:12.250 --> 0:04:15.810 and I rolled on to my side to display my heft, 0:04:15.850 --> 0:04:19.010 all one hundred twenty kilograms of it, to its most 0:04:19.050 --> 0:04:23.810 flattering effect. I routinely twenty kilograms of bamboo a day 0:04:24.490 --> 0:04:27.770 up until this very moment. That consumption had been my 0:04:28.130 --> 0:04:37.610 raison d'etre. He approached tentatively at first, then with greater confidence, 0:04:38.530 --> 0:04:41.810 he passed my head and walked regally around me to 0:04:41.850 --> 0:04:47.850 sniff my hind quarters. To nudge my back, the contact 0:04:48.410 --> 0:04:55.290 with electrifying returning to my head. He made eye contact 0:04:55.330 --> 0:04:59.490 with me from close range, then cocked his ears to 0:04:59.490 --> 0:05:09.970 the right, indicating I should follow. What ensued was truly magical, 0:05:10.930 --> 0:05:14.690 the most intoxicating interlude of my life, and I am 0:05:14.730 --> 0:05:17.850 still unable to say whether it lasted minutes or hours. 0:05:25.410 --> 0:05:29.010 My enclosure featured an air SAT's bamboo forest and cave, 0:05:29.610 --> 0:05:33.730 multiple ponds, and wooden climbing structures, and my new friend 0:05:33.730 --> 0:05:39.570 and I frolicked through it. All. I did not know 0:05:39.650 --> 0:05:42.850 then that my friend was a red panda, that his 0:05:42.970 --> 0:05:46.850 name was Zusian, or that he'd escaped his enclosure from mine. 0:05:48.530 --> 0:05:51.010 All I knew was that it was delightful to lumber 0:05:51.050 --> 0:05:54.010 and climb with him in the sun. I was impervious 0:05:54.050 --> 0:05:57.450 to the humans pointing and hooting from above, their strange 0:05:57.530 --> 0:06:02.970 rubbery faces contorting with pleasure, and yet it was the 0:06:03.050 --> 0:06:05.330 delight they took in the sight of Zusian and me, 0:06:06.130 --> 0:06:08.770 the commotion of their delight that eventually drew the attention 0:06:08.770 --> 0:06:12.370 of the zoo handlers, who, when they realized what had happened, 0:06:12.570 --> 0:06:17.210 entered my enclosure. There were six of them in blue 0:06:17.210 --> 0:06:21.250 medical gowns. And rubber boots and restrained me while removing Zeeshan. 0:06:24.570 --> 0:06:27.090 I still remember the sight of him as one of 0:06:27.090 --> 0:06:30.650 the handlers carried him away, the yearning in his mournful 0:06:30.690 --> 0:06:34.490 expression and proud tale. I have not seen him since, 0:06:35.250 --> 0:06:45.370 and it has been agony. I soon learned that he'd 0:06:45.410 --> 0:06:47.650 been living, and as far as I know, still does 0:06:47.970 --> 0:06:52.570 in an enclosure adjacent to mine. Also that his species 0:06:52.610 --> 0:06:55.130 in general and he in particular, are known for being 0:06:55.250 --> 0:06:58.850 escape artists. It is this fact that has kept me 0:06:59.210 --> 0:07:02.570 these last four years in a constant state of alertness 0:07:02.570 --> 0:07:06.890 and hope that he's plotting another escape, that one day, 0:07:07.370 --> 0:07:10.850 if even for just another moment of bliss, we'll be 0:07:10.970 --> 0:07:23.570 together again. It's not that I dislike Da Pung, my 0:07:23.770 --> 0:07:28.570 enclosure mate. Indeed, I feel a sincere, if moderate affection 0:07:28.690 --> 0:07:31.970 for him. But really, who could be attracted to someone 0:07:31.970 --> 0:07:35.330 when you see them defecating up to fifty times a day. 0:07:35.890 --> 0:07:38.970 I've heard our handlers attribute our aversion to mating to 0:07:39.010 --> 0:07:43.290 the low libido endemic among giant pandas, But this explanation 0:07:43.410 --> 0:07:48.170 underestimates our individual idiosyncrasies. All of which is to say 0:07:48.170 --> 0:07:51.050 that the handlers are erroneous in their assumptions about why 0:07:51.530 --> 0:07:54.210 once the zoo was closed to visitors earlier this spring, 0:07:54.650 --> 0:07:57.770 Da Pung and I engage in our first ever how 0:07:57.850 --> 0:08:02.890 might I say this voluntary coupling, Jiang Jian and Dapong 0:08:03.050 --> 0:08:05.810 have made a breakthrough, the handlers told one another and 0:08:05.930 --> 0:08:11.690 journalists worldwide. All they needed was a little privacy. They 0:08:11.770 --> 0:08:18.170 rewarded us with apples and carrots. But it wasn't privacy 0:08:18.210 --> 0:08:23.930 that motivated me. It was boredom. I mean, seriously, COVID 0:08:24.010 --> 0:08:28.010 just didn't shut down your world. For the last four years, 0:08:28.290 --> 0:08:31.090 I've spent my waking hours being mildly amused by the 0:08:31.170 --> 0:08:34.610 human visitors to our zoo, and my sleeping hours dreaming 0:08:34.650 --> 0:08:42.210 of a reunion with Zushan. Then the human visitors vanished, 0:08:42.650 --> 0:08:45.410 and many weeks into the new quiet, in a moment 0:08:45.410 --> 0:08:49.250 of profound enui, and I decided I might as well 0:08:49.290 --> 0:08:54.250 give a union with Da Hung a whirl. But even 0:08:54.250 --> 0:08:57.850 in the act itself, with dab Hung fumbling behind me, 0:08:58.250 --> 0:09:01.490 pressing his body against mine, the small bump of his 0:09:01.650 --> 0:09:05.410 panda hood trying to find the appropriate cavity, it was 0:09:05.610 --> 0:09:12.090 Zeeshan I thought of. As for dab Hung, I'm not 0:09:12.170 --> 0:09:15.290 convinced he felt any more enthusiasm than I did. I 0:09:15.450 --> 0:09:18.090 know that over the years, our handlers have tried to 0:09:18.170 --> 0:09:22.170 encourage him with legs strengthening exercises, with exposure to the 0:09:22.210 --> 0:09:26.250 excretions from my scent glands, and even with spicy videos 0:09:26.290 --> 0:09:29.650 of others of our kind. But I suspect in the 0:09:29.770 --> 0:09:32.930 end it was less that such incentives proved effective than 0:09:32.970 --> 0:09:36.650 that he was trying to please our handlers. Passion alas 0:09:36.930 --> 0:09:45.730 cannot simply be summoned. Meanwhile, the fact that so much 0:09:45.770 --> 0:09:51.530 about Zeshen was and is forbidden and impossible our respective sizes, 0:09:52.210 --> 0:09:58.090 our enclosures, our differing species, has never decreased my longing 0:09:59.650 --> 0:10:02.130 to know what it's like to yearn for four years 0:10:02.330 --> 0:10:04.850 for a red panda who is mere meters from you, 0:10:05.250 --> 0:10:08.130 beneath the same sky, breathing the same air from the 0:10:08.130 --> 0:10:14.090 South China Sea. Did you know? Are you tiny, wiley heartbreaker? 0:10:14.290 --> 0:10:17.250 I think as I chew bamboo, are you coming back 0:10:17.290 --> 0:10:22.530 to me? And if so, when hurry? Please Zeshian, because 0:10:22.570 --> 0:10:33.770 I miss you terribly. That was breeze point by Curtis 0:10:33.770 --> 0:10:36.690 Sitt and felt the narrator was the one and only 0:10:36.930 --> 0:10:41.970 Rachel dratch Hi. Curtis Hi Ashley. So I get the 0:10:42.050 --> 0:10:44.970 feeling that you didn't stop with the news reports of 0:10:45.050 --> 0:10:48.330 panda's having pandemic sex. I'm feeling like you went a 0:10:48.370 --> 0:10:52.970 little bit deeper. You did some serious research into panda sex. 0:10:53.730 --> 0:10:57.930 Am I correct? Well, I assume you mean that as 0:10:57.970 --> 0:11:04.250 a great compliment. I do, and I do well, Okay, 0:11:04.330 --> 0:11:07.050 so this is what I did. I mean, of course, 0:11:07.170 --> 0:11:11.090 of course I didn't research into panda sex as any 0:11:11.410 --> 0:11:16.890 self respecting fiction writer would. I started by buying a 0:11:17.130 --> 0:11:23.570 National Geographic book for kids about pandas, which I often 0:11:23.650 --> 0:11:28.370 find books meant for kids to be a useful starting 0:11:28.410 --> 0:11:31.210 place for research in fiction because it sort of tells 0:11:31.250 --> 0:11:35.170 you the general information you need but doesn't overwhelm you, 0:11:35.210 --> 0:11:37.170 and it's not like you lose like five years of 0:11:37.170 --> 0:11:40.410 your life doing research. And then, of course I also 0:11:40.970 --> 0:11:43.730 went into all the nooks and crannies of the Internet, 0:11:43.770 --> 0:11:48.250 and I've learned quite a bit. So is it true 0:11:48.330 --> 0:11:52.850 that giant pandas have low libido? It's true the giant 0:11:52.890 --> 0:11:56.810 pandas have low libidas. And actually, and I'm saying this 0:11:56.930 --> 0:12:03.170 like factually, not disrespectfully, Supposedly, the male panda does have 0:12:03.250 --> 0:12:08.850 an unusually small penis and weak hind legs, which make 0:12:08.890 --> 0:12:14.610 the physical act of sex challenging. Wow, that that part 0:12:14.650 --> 0:12:16.930 I did not find in a children's book, but I 0:12:18.650 --> 0:12:23.850 did find it online. I mean, useful information in case, 0:12:23.930 --> 0:12:28.090 in case you ever have like a panda libido emergency, 0:12:28.770 --> 0:12:31.930 you know, in your future, I think you'll you'll be 0:12:31.970 --> 0:12:34.730 well equipped a hand. You never know. The world is 0:12:34.770 --> 0:12:40.130 a big and surprising place, speaking of with everything going 0:12:40.210 --> 0:12:44.410 on in the world, why this story, Why panda sex? 0:12:44.690 --> 0:12:49.610 Why now? I always longed for an interviewer to say 0:12:49.690 --> 0:12:53.850 to me, why panda sex? Why now? No? Well, so, okay, 0:12:53.930 --> 0:12:58.130 So I'm not sure how great a level of detail 0:12:58.170 --> 0:13:03.210 I should get into. But I actually originally thought that 0:13:03.290 --> 0:13:06.650 I wanted to write a story based on a different headline, 0:13:06.690 --> 0:13:09.610 based on a headline about sort of the chat challenges 0:13:09.890 --> 0:13:15.410 of dating during a pandemic, and especially like what if 0:13:15.450 --> 0:13:19.410 you had just started seeing someone and then then maybe 0:13:19.410 --> 0:13:22.090 gone on like one or two dates and then everything 0:13:22.170 --> 0:13:25.090 shuts down. And so I actually started working and worked 0:13:25.090 --> 0:13:26.810 for a few days on that story, and I just 0:13:26.890 --> 0:13:31.130 felt like, you know, it was kind of tonally off, 0:13:31.330 --> 0:13:33.250 or I don't maybe it's because I'm about to turn 0:13:33.530 --> 0:13:36.290 forty five, and it was from the perspective of like 0:13:36.330 --> 0:13:39.690 a millennial, and I really really felt my age, like 0:13:39.730 --> 0:13:42.370 I kind of like almost like like it was like 0:13:42.770 --> 0:13:45.370 trying to be a cool mom and like use the 0:13:45.370 --> 0:13:48.690 current lingo. And so then I just kind of thought, like, 0:13:48.730 --> 0:13:51.610 you know, maybe I'm just not going to do this project, Like, 0:13:51.650 --> 0:13:54.330 of course I love the Chronicles of Now and like, 0:13:54.370 --> 0:13:57.690 I think it's such a sort of interesting premise and 0:13:58.010 --> 0:14:00.090 have enjoyed the other stories. But I was like, you know, 0:14:00.130 --> 0:14:02.090 maybe I'll just wait six months or something. And then 0:14:02.650 --> 0:14:07.690 Tyler Cabot, the founder, showed me his list of headlines 0:14:07.810 --> 0:14:11.250 he had gathered. And of course, because headlines from the 0:14:11.370 --> 0:14:19.010 recent past are all so overwhelmingly sad and heartbreaking and 0:14:19.050 --> 0:14:22.770 frustrating in so many different ways, I mean, across lots 0:14:22.770 --> 0:14:27.290 of topics, and so this headline about you know, these 0:14:27.450 --> 0:14:32.330 two pandas have made it for the first time voluntarily 0:14:32.370 --> 0:14:36.170 after all these years together. It was the one headline 0:14:36.210 --> 0:14:40.250 that made me literally laugh out loud, and I thought like, oh, 0:14:40.250 --> 0:14:43.090 there's no question, like that's that's definitely the one I 0:14:43.090 --> 0:14:45.690 want to write about it, like ding ding ding, yes, 0:14:45.810 --> 0:14:47.850 And I mean I also I do have a soft 0:14:47.850 --> 0:14:53.850 spot for just like writing about like crushes and romance 0:14:54.090 --> 0:14:56.930 and yes, sex, I mean, I try to write about 0:14:56.930 --> 0:15:00.650 sex in like a intentional way where it serves the plot. 0:15:00.690 --> 0:15:02.650 But so in some ways I also saw this as 0:15:02.650 --> 0:15:07.290 a really festive opportunity to make fun of myself and 0:15:07.290 --> 0:15:09.490 and to make fun of myself and the people who 0:15:09.490 --> 0:15:11.850 make fun of me for writing sex scenes in fiction. 0:15:12.650 --> 0:15:16.530 Your latest novel is Rodham, a novel about Hillary Clinton, 0:15:16.850 --> 0:15:19.010 and there are sex scenes in that book with Bill, 0:15:19.490 --> 0:15:23.210 and I'm wondering which was more interesting and challenging to 0:15:23.330 --> 0:15:26.610 imagine Hillary is having sex with Bill or panda sex. 0:15:29.330 --> 0:15:35.890 They were each challenging yet rewarding in their own way. 0:15:37.610 --> 0:15:42.330 It's the best possible answer for that question. You end 0:15:42.330 --> 0:15:47.410 with a note about forbidden love across species, sizes, enclosures. 0:15:48.090 --> 0:15:56.450 What can we humans learn from the female panda's love affair. Well, 0:15:56.490 --> 0:16:00.170 I think I think that one thing that maybe I 0:16:00.210 --> 0:16:03.930 don't know if this is like unsettling or reason for hope, 0:16:04.130 --> 0:16:05.890 is that you know, she she sort of lives her 0:16:05.890 --> 0:16:09.250 life in her enclosure. And my research did reveal to 0:16:09.330 --> 0:16:12.370 me that giant panda spent the majority of their time 0:16:12.570 --> 0:16:16.530 eating bamboo and napping and kind of pooping. I think 0:16:16.730 --> 0:16:20.410 to a lesser but still significant degree of pooping and 0:16:20.530 --> 0:16:25.050 knit like. But actually that I think the appearance of 0:16:25.090 --> 0:16:29.530 the red Panda is maybe like a lesson that all 0:16:29.610 --> 0:16:33.530 of our lives can take surprising twists when we don't 0:16:33.570 --> 0:16:41.370 expect it. M M, come on, Curtis, yes, bring that 0:16:41.410 --> 0:16:46.290 back around. You can read my full uncensored interview with 0:16:46.370 --> 0:16:50.410 Curtis Settenfeld on our website Chronicles dot fm, where you 0:16:50.410 --> 0:16:54.010 can also read her story and other short fiction torn 0:16:54.090 --> 0:16:59.210 from today's headlines. Our sound designer and composer is Bart Warshaw, 0:16:59.650 --> 0:17:03.130 our producer is Curtis Fox, and our associate producer is 0:17:03.130 --> 0:17:07.530 Emily Roston. Tyler Cabott is the executive producer and founder 0:17:07.570 --> 0:17:11.850 of Chronicles of Now for Pushkin Industries. Our executive producer 0:17:11.930 --> 0:17:16.730 is Ali Tom Mullock. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg, Carly Migliore, 0:17:17.010 --> 0:17:21.490 Heather Fame, and Eric Sandler for the Chronicles of Now podcast. 0:17:21.650 --> 0:17:23.810 I'm Ashley Ford. Thanks for listening.