There are a million reasons to subscribe to Cabinet Magazine, but here's one more:
Mats Bigert writes about the pacifier tree at Stockholm's zoo in Skansen. Since they began to accumulate thirty years ago until they were last counted in 2000, 11,873 pacifiers have been strung along the tree and fence of the zoo's kitten enclosure:
These days, toddlers from all over Sweden make the pilgrimage to Skansen to throw away their pacifiers. By offering their pacifiers to the kittens, toddlers leave behind babyhood to take on the burdens of kiddyhood. From that point on, the kid is obliged to lead a life without substitutes. And perhaps this modernCafellatio? Is that Swedish?is a way of creating a more self-controlled individual who konws how to kick a habit voluntarily. And who also knows how to subdue the adolescent oral cravings that would otherwise one day lead to dope smoking and excessive use of cafellatio.
Cabinet Magazine, Issue 23 [cabinetmagazine.org]
image: Skansen + Pacifier Tree via aphrodite-in-nyc's photostream [flickr]
They have kittens in zoos in Sweden? You mean cubs?
[nothing surprises me. Central Park is full of European tourists staring at squirrels, too. -ed.]