SengX Chong 
A Wilson moment
Book signing by E. O. Wilson at the AMNH. The smiling fellow to the right is yours truly.
Back in June 14th, 2006, Edward O. Wilson delivered a public talk at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (the transcript of which can be read here) on the occasion of his then recently published anthology Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949-2006. I wasn’t going to miss the event, and went to the public section of the museum down from the Ivory Tower research floor of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology.
From a fully packed auditorium E. O. Wilson moved to a crowded book signing, where most people had one of Wilson’s popular books in hand (Concilience, The Future of Life) rather than the anthology. I did not have a copy of this latest book either. However, since I was going to bother him with a signature myself, I decided to do a small thing nice for The man– a person for which all myrmecologists own so much. So I brought down with me a book that I think represents E. O. Wilson’s soul well: the 818 pages, phonebook-sized, massive monograph Pheidole in the New World, and stood close to the end of the long line.
As my turn was getting closer, I could see how tired he was, signing one book after another, without loosing the kindness that characterizes him so well. My turn. I handed the monograph to him. He paused for a moment, leaned back from the table, and opened his eyes wide at the surprise of seeing a copy of his monumental taxonomic work in front of him. With a big smile on his face said he was not expecting to see this particular book that day. Oh boy! The occasion, he continued, deserved a special big ant. He drew the ant in the image below. Mission accomplished, monotony broken, book signed.
I got the impression that Wilson was delighted. I surely was.
5 Comments to A Wilson moment
Awww.
Marc "Teleutotje" Van der Stappen June 27, 2009
Big ocean between Europe and America and me, not alowed to fly over that ocean in a plane (medical reason!). Oooo, ****, wish I could have a signature of the big man like that!
I have several [popular] books signed by Wilson, including the his recent edited-Darwin volume. He was happy to have someone ask him to sign it. He went to sign a blank page because he couldn’t sign his name on the same page where Darwin’s name was. But I insisted he do so!
Wilson drew an ant on the back of a business card (not his, but of the fellow in Bozeman who got Wilson to come visit Montana State Univ.) while at a luncheon with him and other fortunate students.
Back in 2006:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7230309@N05/1384307438/
In April 2009 (the Darwin volume):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7230309@N05/3459772000/
I really should take a photo of the ant on the business card…
Angelica July 2, 2009
That’s a beautiful picture. Wilson told me once that my work was important for today’s conservation biology and I almost fainted, I wish I had asked him to sign something (it was at Harvard’s Biogeography Symposium a couple years ago), or at least take a wonderful photograph like this one.
June 27, 2009