By Noah Baumbach, in The New Yorker, January 19, 2009
Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs. The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. . . . [In a related study] scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day.—The Times.
August 24, 2008
I uncork a 2003 Haut-Médoc, which has a delightfully oaky nose, and pour a glass for myself and a bowl for my subject, Louis, the gray-and-white mouse I’ve selected for this study. I’ve chosen him for his serious and restrained demeanor—among the other rodents, he keeps to himself. Cautious by nature, he sniffs the wine apprehensively, but after a sip or two he laps it up eagerly.
The Château La Croix opens up in the glass, developing a full body and a luscious texture, and really hits its stride by the sixteenth bottle. Once we get a good head on, Louis is able to do the treadmill for twice his normal length of time and I do a pretty solid forward roll.
August 25th
Late start today. I don’t wake until after ten. (And that’s only because the phone clangs like an air-raid siren. Debra wondering where I was last night.) Louis moans in his cage until eleven-thirty. A 1998 Saint-Émilion helps ease the crippling sensation of blood poisoning. A little hair of the dog. Try to jot some observations from last night, but, really, after I started dialling ex-girlfriends it’s all a black hole.
Louis again shows an abundance of energy, however; he must’ve taken the wrong turn in the maze about eight times in a row before he realized the cheese was to the left. Once he gets it, he collapses in a pool of laughter and urine. And then I collapse in a pool of laughter and urine.
September 3rd
Louis is characteristically reserved and a bit testy before we get going, but after eight or nine glasses he’s back to his jocular self. He even makes some astute comments about the 2005 Pomerol’s peppery herbaceous finish. This is a terrible thing to say, but I like Louis better when he drinks.
After eleven bottles, Louis shows unbelievable muscular progress. He can lift my left foot and, according to the rabbit, he arm-wrestled the monkey to a draw. (I must have been dialling ex-girlfriends around this time.) I do what might generously be called a cartwheel but really is just me losing my balance. I fall and smash into a cabinet of borosilicate glasses.
The mice in the control group get the usual bowl of water and are asleep by nine-thirty. Louis and I don’t crash until four, following a spirited argument about free will and half of “Norbit” on Starz.
Read the rest of the story at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/01/26/mouse-au-vin
Regular visitors to Pixels may wonder why a story from The New Yorker is being published here today. It’s fairly simple: I love the story. It made me smile and allowed me a brief respite from the horror show in which we have been embedded for the foreseeable future.
Over the past ten+ years, I have often posted articles related to photography and art, poetry, along with documentary and, of course, music videos. Due to the pandemic, I have been posting a lot more music and other videos of late. Traffic on the site has climbed dramatically, which I rather like.
I stumbled on the this short story and thought, “I’d like to share this on Pixels.” Pondered it for a minute and here we are. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my favorite website besides Pixels is biblioklept, so I think I’ll be taking it as an example and expanding the scope of this site to make it more magazine like. For a while, anyway. Pixels has been an improvisation every single day since November 29, 2009, so we’ll see how this works and if people like it.
Iphonic art is Pixels’ raison d’être, its heart and soul. That will never ever change, but I feel like celebrating more of what life has to offer. I need it. Do you?
Thoughts and comments welcome, as always.
—Knox
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