Wasn’t it Einstein who said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”? In this week’s episode both our storytellers aren’t in danger of falling prey to Einstein’s version of insanity; they definitely try something new.
Part 1: A neurological condition makes Adam Selbst a prime target for muggers but things get weird when he tries to stop one.
Adam Selbst is a writer and graphic designer from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He hosts the monthly Big Irv’s Storytelling Roadshow and has been performing around NYC for the last 10 years. Adam lives in a bodega art collective with 64 other people and in his spare time he enjoys being slowly poisoned by an ancient, weird mold in his shower and throwing elaborate dinner parties.
Part 2: Cassandra Quave learns there’s more than one way into medicine.
Cassandra Quave, PhD, is the herbarium curator and an associate professor of dermatology and human health at Emory University. Dr. Quave is a fellow of The Explorers Club, a former president of the Society for Economic Botany, and a recipient of the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award and Charles B. Heiser, Jr. Mentor Award. She is the cocreator and host of Foodie Pharmacology, a podcast dedicated to exploring the links between food and medicine. A leader in the field of medical botany, she has authored more than 100 scientific publications and has been featured in The New York Times Magazine and BBC Science Focus, as well as on PBS, NPR, and National Geographic TV. Dr. Quave is author of a science memoir The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines. She lives in Atlanta in a full and energetic house with her husband, four children, dog, mini-pig and many houseplants.
Episode Transcript
Part 1
When I was 12 years old, I was a bit of what you would call a late bloomer. By that I mean I didn't shower nearly enough. I just always wore these sweatpants that were just completely covered in golden retriever fur, like constantly. And I refused to read any book that didn't prominently feature orcs or elves or preferably both of them. So already, to begin with, I was not exactly like the most popular kid in my middle school, but then I developed a very, very noticeable hand tremor.
You might think that a kid like me didn't have very far to fall down the social ladder in middle school but you would be wrong, because I went from this like 80-pound Dungeons & Dragons kind of nerd who just sort of flew under the radar to someone who is really getting like actively ridiculed. It fucking sucked.
Adam Selbst tells his story to a limited audience in Queens, NY in September, 2021. Photo by Zhen Qin.
I had been picked on before. I had been bullied. But when this happened, it felt like God himself had come down and was like, “All right, guys. I found a real loser for you. I'm going to mark him. Go get him.”
This disorder it's known as a benign tremor. A lot of people think that it's a precursor to Parkinson's disease, that I'm on my way to becoming very sick or something like that. That's not the case at all. It's completely benign. It's genetic and it usually presents itself for people when they're in their middle age, like when you're 50 or 60.
I had the good luck of getting it when I was in the middle of my most awkward period in middle school. And let me tell you, it fucking sucked. I began getting really picked on, like getting beaten up every day. So I decided that, I realized that I was going to need to learn how to defend myself.
So I went to my father and I told him that I wanted to learn how to fight. My father was like, “Great. I'll teach you.”
The problem with this was that my dad is kind of like an intellectual. His idea of fighting is is just like arguing. And my dad's preferred style of arguing is this very Jewish kind of arguing where you just use emotional leverage and guilt and statistics, preferably made up entirely on the spot.
And let me tell you, it's pretty useless if you're getting beaten up by some 13‑year‑old psychopath in a middle school gymnasium somewhere. Not that I didn't try, but you try telling like Tim from music class that if his mother could see him, she would be very disappointed. Let me tell you, it doesn't really work at all. Not much happened.
And it's a shame because throughout my life from then on, I would have really benefited from knowing how to defend myself.
I am a small man, but that is not even really why. You see, from the time that this thing happened, I sort of had to figure out exactly how I was going to get through life looking like I was fucking terrified all the time. Because that's what having shaky hands indicates, isn't it? That you're nervous. That you're scared. That you're uncomfortable being in a situation.
If I had learned how to defend myself, maybe I would have had a little bit more confidence and people would have noticed the incongruities with that. But no, that's not what happened.
Adam Selbst tells his story to a limited audience in Queens, NY in September, 2021. Photo by Zhen Qin.
You might think that it's not a big deal if people think you're nervous, until you find yourself dealing with a customs agent who is just sure you're smuggling something and is absolutely just tearing your bag apart. That happens to everybody. Sure. Maybe it's happened to you. Do you know how often that happens to me? No, 80% of the time. I have to build in extra time when I go to the airport. It happens to me so much more than it happens to you, even if you are an actual drug smuggler. I guarantee it.
Dating was a whole other matter. I would imagine if you're a normal 15-year-old, trying to figure out how to unclasp a bra is like one thing probably difficult enough. It's another thing when I physically can't do it, first of all. And, secondly, the girl looks at me halfway through and is like, “Oh, my God, you're so nervous. Is this your first time, sweetie?” What do you say to that? Like, “No, no. I'm a stud.” Like, “No, no.”
But absolutely far and away the worst thing about having this disorder is dealing with people on the street. I don't know if you know this living in New York but there are some people that are just always going to be looking for some kind of way to leverage whatever they can get out of you.
What I'm trying to say is I've been mugged a lot. I don't want to brag. I have been mugged more than anybody else I have ever met. It's okay because, guess what? Practice makes perfect. I'm really good at it. No, really. I'm like wallet, phone, in, out. Easy-peasy. Not a scratch on me. I'm like the fucking top gun of getting mugged. No one can touch me.
It was like a couple of years ago, I was walking down the street and I noticed these two dudes notice me. And when I say notice me, I noticed them noticing my hand shaking as I brought my cigarette up to my lips to take a drag. And I know that look because I've seen it all the time. I saw it in the face of the customs agent right before he pulled me into the little room. It's this look that says, “Gotcha. I see you. You're scared.”
The next thing I knew, somebody had come up behind me and put me in this really cool Kungfu grip that would have been like really awesome to have known when I was in middle school.
The guy just grabs me, pulls me close and whispers in my ear. He goes, “Don't move, motherfucker. Give us some money.”
Now, this I appreciate, like a mugger who's straightforward. There's no fucking around. You know how it's going to go. His partner's going to go through my pockets. I'm going to be in and out, easy-peasy, no problems. Usually.
Because this time I don't know exactly what it was going on with me. I was returning from a really bad date. She had noticed my hands shaking and she had said, “Oh, I don't think you have to be nervous. Don't worry. God, you're shaking like a leaf.”
And I told her, “I'm not shaking. I have a neurological disorder.” Because if I was going to… we were both going to be humiliated in the date, if anything.
So I had been walking home. I was already a little dejected. I was a little drunk. And this time, I decided to fight. As we've previously discussed, I don't know how to do that.
So the guy's got me clamped and his partner's going through my pants looking for my wallet. I'm like, “All right. This is it. It's go time. What am I going to do?”
And I was like, “Well, I don't know how to do the thing with my hands and do the fighting.” So I was like, “So what's up?”
I was like, “Well, you know what I do know how to do? I know how to bite a motherfucker.”
Now, if you've never bitten another human being, let me tell you what you're missing. Here's the thing about biting somebody is once you decide to go down that road, there are no take backs. Once you decide to bite another human being with your actual teeth, you are just signing a blank check for whatever comes next. Like that's it. You have to take it.
But I was like, “Well, this is it. This is where we are so I'm doing it.”
So I grabbed the guy's hand. It's like this giant meaty ball. I'm like, “How am I going to chew on this? It's ridiculous.”
So I grab his hand and I just shove it in my mouth. And only after I do that do I realize I am not going to go through with this. I can't. I'm too scared. I'm in the middle of getting mugged with this guy's hand in my mouth.
But I don't want to chicken out because I'm already halfway there, so I decided to compromise and I just began swallowing his arm whole like a snake.
He was so surprised because, guess what? He wasn't expecting this. Let's be honest. I think we were both pretty confused. We were both surprised at the turn this night had taken us.
So he leans in and whispers in my ear again and he says, “That's disgusting. Stop that. That's disgusting.”
But I didn't stop because I had already gotten his whole hand in. And I think there was a certain point in time where we both thought I was going to pull it off. Like I was going to swallow this whole dude, this entire dude. Because the next time he leaned in, he had an edge of panic in his voice and he said, “Stop it, motherfucker. I said stop it.”
But I didn't stop, because I had already gotten his whole hand and his wrist in and I was moving up towards his forearm, although I have to admit at this point it was getting difficult.
The next time he leaned in he said the magic words, “Bitch, I will stab you.” So I disgorged his arm.
And as he was walking away with his friend, he turned to him and he said, “Did you see that? This dude tried to swallow me. Can you believe what's going on out here? People are crazy.”
And he's right. People are crazy. I was the crazy one. I was crazy. I'm so sick of being treated this way.
The thing was, okay, that didn't work out great that night, that fighting. We had to figure out my exact style. Swallowing a dude whole? Not in my skill set. But I had made a choice and I had chosen violence. I walked away from that knowing that I was never going to be made a victim again.
Until two weeks later when I was accosted by an enormous group of 12-year-old boys who beat the shit out of me and took my wallet.
Thank you very much.
Part 2
I'm standing in the apartment mailroom in my senior year of college. In my hand, I have this really important letter. It turns out that it's my acceptance letter to medical school, something that I have literally worked my entire life towards achieving.
But in that moment, instead of feeling elated and ecstatic, I felt ambivalent. How could that be? How did I get there? It all really came down to some very special trees.
I grew up in a very rural town in Southwest Florida. You have thousands of acres of saw palmetto and piney woodlands and oak scrubland that are interspersed between cattle pastures and orange groves. When I wasn't rolling around the dirt with my dog Spot, you could often find me high up in a tree in the welcoming arms of a centuries-old live oak tree.
Cassandra Quave shares her story with an audience at an outdoor show in Atlanta, GA in September, 2021. Photo by Rob Felt.
Up there, I would read books and I would observe nature. I'd watch little beetles crawling around and look out for fox squirrels and watch birds hopping from branch to branch. I especially delighted in looking at epiphytes, so these really cool plants that grow on other plants. One of my favorites was one that has these gorgeous gray tendrils that kind of sway in the wind like an old man's beard. We know it as Spanish moss.
So that's where I would spend my days. And at the base of the tree, my dog Spot would sit there snoozing next to this pair of battered, old wooden crutches. You see, I was actually born with multiple birth defects.
At birth, my parents’ greatest wish was that someday I could walk. My foot, I had two legs but one was actually much shorter than the other. I was missing my fibula. My tibia was very short. My femur was short. I was missing a bunch of bones in my ankle and so they needed to amputate my leg, which nearly killed me at the age of three because of a hospital-acquired infection.
They later rebuilt my hip. I had scoliosis surgery. I was the Million Dollar Kid, I mean literally.
So having this level of exposure to medicine and being in the “smart” group of kids in school, I was given two options that I was really pushed towards, either law or medicine, as happens in small towns. So I chose medicine because it's what I knew. They were my heroes. That's who I decided I must emulate.
So when I went to college, I became a very studious, hardcore pre-med student, dedicating my time to rote memorization of physics and chemistry and biology facts. But in some of my anthropology classes, my eyes were opened to this other facet of medicine. This idea that there are actually many different forms of medicine that were practiced around the world. And so when I had a chance to experience another form of medicine firsthand, I leapt at it.
That's how I found myself sitting on this rickety old bench propped up against the tree trunk in the middle of the Amazon. I was waiting on a medicine man. He'd gone back to his palm patch hut to grab something.
As I waited, I kind of took in the scene. Above me, there was this really fascinating shrub that had glistening, dark green leaves and these red, spiky fruit pods that were like fire engine red about the size of a chicken egg. It reminded me of a Christmas tree just laden with holiday ornaments.
Nearby, these beautiful blue morpho butterflies swooped by, their blue and silver wings glistening in the light. I was just in such an intense state of amazement that I was surrounded by this level of biodiversity and was just trying to take it all in.
As I waited, I tried to knock some of the mud off of my boots. We'd taken a hike into the jungle that morning. They were still too wet, couldn't come off.
And next to me on the bench, I had a backpack that was filled with field gear, with camera equipment, clippers, a field guide to the plants and trees of the Amazon, and a notebook and paper.
The medicine man's name was Don Antonio. He was a few inches shorter than my five‑foot six‑inch frame. He had dark pins of eyes, charcoal black hair and broad shoulders. His hands were calloused from his work in the garden every day, but he was no simple gardener. He was an ayahuasca shaman and he was based at this research camp that I had arrived at a week prior.
Getting to the Amazon, I'd taken this flight from Atlanta to Lima and then to Iquitos. From Iquitos, I'd taken a boat way up the Amazon onto the Napo River, almost reaching the Ecuadorian border before stopping in at the Sucusari River, which is where the camp was based.
Iquitos is a really fascinating place if you've never been there. It's just this vibrant live city with a floating market where they have everything from like baby caymans to little monkeys in cages they're selling. There's all this Masato, which is the spit beer that people drink in the area.
Interestingly enough, it's actually the sixth largest city in the country but it is totally inaccessible by roads. You can only fly or get there by boat.
So back in his garden, Don Antonio approached me and he reached above me to grab one of those spiky, red fruit pods. As become habit between us, I took out my notebook and started studiously writing down everything he said. I was really serious about this. I was super curious about this idea that medicine could be made from plants, but I was also really skeptical. I was teeming with questions.
Did these actually work? Was this just placebo effect? Was there actually any scientific merit to these remedies?
So I'm recording these things on my paper and my brow is furrowed. He's explaining things in Spanish. Going slowly, because I wasn't the best Spanish speaker. I knew enough to write down words that I didn't know at the moment and could look up later.
Cassandra Quave shares her story with an audience at an outdoor show in Atlanta, GA in September, 2021. Photo by Rob Felt.
And then he opens up the fruit pod and he starts smushing at it with his finger. He creates this really deep-red paste. The seeds inside the pod, by the way, are the color of cranberries, about the size of a cranberry or half the size of a cranberry, but more rugged in texture.
So he's pushing these into a paste and it's like this waxy red stuff. He starts applying it to my lips and I'm thinking, “Oh, my gosh. Is this a cure for viral cold sores on your mouth or something else? What is this all about?” My mind's just racing like, “What is he using this for?”
Then after a while, he steps back and he grins at me. He reaches into his bag and he pulls something out. It flashes with the light coming down through the forest canopy. It's a small mirror. He holds the mirror up to my face and I see that this red paste is just all over my teeth and mouth and looks pretty ridiculous. And he just bends over and starts laughing. Not like a chuckle but like a belly laugh. He thinks it's hilarious.
He's like, “Lipstick,” and I start laughing too. That was kind of the moment that we broke the tension because I was so serious about every little detail and it was his way of helping me kind of, okay, let's learn but let's have fun doing it.
What's amazing is that since the time that humans first walked out of the African savannas on two legs, we have been using plants as medicine. In fact, billions of people across the globe use plants as medicine today. We have some of our most ancient records go back to the time of ancient Egypt where there are these amazing scrolls that document over 700 different remedies based on plants.
And in the Amazon, they've also used plants as medicine for millennia. This rich amount of knowledge that's passed down from shaman to apprentice is something that's incredibly rich in detail. It's not just about which plant to use but it's when to harvest it, where to find it, how to prepare it, how to know when a patient needs it and how often you give it to the patient.
In addition to that, there are over 400 different tribes, tribal groups in the Amazon, and each group has its own distinct religion, language, form of medicine, an entire world view that's distinct from the others.
And what I was beginning to learn from Don Antonio was not only were these plants powerful and actually they were showing effects as he treated patients, but also that they were being quickly lost. Because with every shaman that dies without an apprentice, we're losing the equivalency of libraries of knowledge for the future.
Now, another thing that's amazing I learned was that, over time, we humans have discovered around 374,000 species of plants on earth. Amazingly, 33,000 of those or 9% of all plant life has actually been used in some form of medicine somewhere. The one thing that's more amazing than that fact that 9% of plant life can be used medicinally is that scientists haven't bothered to study the vast majority of those.
Ethnobotany is a scientific study of the relationships between people and plants. It was during that time in the Amazon that that connectivity between culture and medicine and nature kind of solidified for me. It awoke in me an awareness of both the strengths and limitations not only of traditional medicine but also of western medicine.
So when I was back in that apartment mailroom after returning from the Amazon and I'm holding this letter, this ticket to my future, the future that I had always been told is the only path for me, that I am destined to become a surgeon, somehow I found the courage to crumble that letter up and I became an ethnobotanist.
Thank you.