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University of Northern Iowa
Sperm CountAuthor(s): Jim HallSource: The North American Review, Vol. 268, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), p. 63Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25124386 .
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helped energize and integrate civil izations scattered over the earth, no
longer function to bring order and re
sponsible participation to the single planetary culture of our shrinking
world. Those myths no longer offer an image of the universe in keeping
with the knowledge of our time. The mnemonic function of the cave art in
a time of information overload has been replaced by computers. It may be that our youthful initiates gain some kind of mystical experience as
they stand mesmerized in front of a Pac-Man machine, but I question
whether this puts them in touch with a mystery dimension of the universe
and themselves.
The fine contribution of Pfeiffer's book is its new enlivenment of the
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon past. To enhance our understanding and
respect for humans we once consid
ered barbaric savages is to extend our sense of the lifeline of human con sciousness. The farther back we can
experience our roots, the greater the
possibility we have for envisioning the future. When we can equate our
own efforts at survival with those of
people like us 30,000 years ago, it can
give us a perspective at once humb
ling and inspirational. I applaud Pfeiffer's call for an interdisciplinary team of a zoologist, artist, psychol
ogist, dancer, architect, dramatist,
and acoustical engineer to probe (de
licately) the cave art's functions and
meanings. The richer our under
standing, the stronger our sense of
continuity with, and the creative po
tential of the human family. Our very ability to observe the past in a sense
creates the future. ?Loree Rackstraw
JIM HALL
SPERM COUNT
On the bright slide a thousand
of them squiggle. Some set off
for the edge of this flat world, some spin in a frenzy as if they know
this isn't where they were meant to be.
And there are the dead ones,
the two-headed or tailless ones.
The jig is up for them.
No marathon swim. No happy cry: I'm here! Look what I've brought!
What are we anyway
if it can all be sent in one
microscopic slithering? I have, as I peer at a thousand versions
of myself, every conceivable predictable
response. I am clearly more than
anything one of them can deliver.
I side with the two-headed ones.
They, at least, had some new idea.
When later I am home and cleaning out
old trunks, old letters, scraps of
writing, things I can't bear to read
or part with, things that have swum
as far as they can and have come to
nothing, I think again of the ones
that finally make it.
They would be the very ones
I would never have as friends:
dogged, mean enough to bump their twins aside.
The will to wriggle up the last hostile twist
of tube. The blind brutal ignorance to believe
the message that they carry
should be passed on at all.
63
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