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You don’t often hear a bird-watcher say something like, “I’ve had a lot of sex and I’ve only been sure I’ve seen an ivory bill once. So.” But it makes sense coming from Mark Michaels, the titular grail-seeker and co-founder of Project Principalis, an organization dedicated to the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. Michaels is a compelling figure.

Even if some ornithologists dismiss their search for the ivory-billed as quixotic, the team includes serious researchers. Last week, Michot searched for the bird alongside Bob Ford, who retired recently as the coordinator for a Fish and Wildlife Service migratory bird program, and Michaels, the non-scientist co-founder of Project Principalis, an organization that collaborates with the Pittsburgh-based National Aviary to locate the woodpecker.

Michaels says he hopes it won’t come to that for the ivory-billed woodpecker, but he’s concerned that an unattainable quality of evidence will be required to prove its survival. Last July, while presenting evidence to USFWS that the bird still exists, he mentioned his opinion that a series of photographs taken in the 1930s created an unrealistic burden of proof. “Most of them were taken from a blind at nest height, close to the birds,” he tells The Scientist. “They’re glamour shots.”

It is not often that Iggy Pop, Pete Seeger, and the ivory-billed woodpecker can all be considered in the same breath. But when Steve Latta and Mark Michaels teamed up in 2019 to search for the iconic bird—which many assumed was extinct—they were surprised to find themselves comparing notes from the Detroit and Ann Arbor punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

An Ann Arbor native, Steve pogoed around the scene as a teenager and later as a young community activist. At some point, he may even have bumped into Mark, a New York native and high-school habitue of CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. As a U-M undergrad, Mark led a band called the Relaxors, opening for Johnny Thunders’ and Wayne Kramer’s Gang War, Nikki and the Corvettes, and other local acts.

Researcher Mark Michaels claims to have new video evidence proving the existence of the ever-elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, which is sure to ruffle feathers in the ornithology world -- and in our office. He spoke with AIH guest host Susan Bonner.

If the editors of Time had asked for our response to the question, “Is monogamy over?” we would have answered, “It’s absolutely not over; however, it means different things to different people, attitudes toward it are changing, and the changes benefit everybody.”

Married Tantric instructors Michaels and Johnson draw from personal and professional experience to put readers on the path towards a long-term intimacy that is satisfying and exciting . . . With a thorough resource guide included, this book runs the gamut on sex education, and the authors’ sex-positivity, feminism, and rejection of gender stereotypes makes it a welcome addition to the genre.

Each chapter is characterized by the authors’ easy-to-understand writing style, willingness to explain the details, and entirely nonjudgmental attitude towards sex. As a result, Great Sex will be a useful resource for individuals seeking to enrich their sexual experiences and open their minds to new possibilities of intimacy.

At the very start, the translation and adaptation by Mark A. Michaels sounds like a reading of subtitles from a foreign film, but the stiffness goes away in very short order and the script joins the general merriment.