Chemical Defense – Bombardier Beetle (Brachininae)

Bombardier beetles defend themselves with a chemical system. In their bodies, reactive substances are stored separately—hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone. Only in a specialized reaction chamber do they meet. There, a controlled, explosive chemical reaction occurs. The result is a hot, corrosive spray that is aimed at threats with surprising precision.

This system employs physical principles. The temperature rises to the boiling point of water, the pressure in the reaction chamber increases, and the liquid is released in a targeted manner. It is no accident, no “super-attack” - every defensive action is a perfectly coordinated interplay of chemistry, mechanics, and biology.

A citadel of scholarship

Volatilities of perception and memory essences. Daydreams. Mental debris ... the story is set in the fictional northern Hessian university and former residence city of Ederthal. The university was founded in the Middle Ages under Protestant auspices. It originated from a knightly college and is named after its founder, Landgrave Philipp University. Its first incarnation was a castle. Today (in the 2020s), the campus is a mixture of eras. Some buildings are scaffolded. Others are closed to the public due to structural instability. There is a “dead wing” that has occasionally hosted theatrical performances. Among the clandestine districts within this Kremlin of scholarship is the princely apartment, unused for nearly two hundred years. After the end of Ederthal’s princely rule, it served as accommodation for Hessian landgraves and electors during brief visits. It has a largely inaccessible, almost enchanted garden. Nana von Eisenreich loves the view of this small gem, maintained with rare plants. In her eyes, the garden is one of the privileges that come with the almost intimate proximity to the dean of the Germanistics department. Professor Goya holds his high office at the almost youthful age of forty-two.

Goya is the master of language—a historical title.

But at the moment, it is not about Goya. For the first time, Nana is ready to admit her obsessive interest in Chet. The reliability of her desire excites her. She has never been so intensely drawn to a man. With the seriousness of a novice, Nana turns to Chet. The lecturer quotes Didier Eribon: “Emancipation requires urbanity and freedom of movement.” He recalls transvestite balls in New York as magnets for heterosexual voyeurism. Subcultures inherit ancient ways of life. A reflection on the Belle Époque and the Années folles illuminated the iconography and bar metaphors of Parisian meeting places when James Baldwin was in the city. In her thoughts, Nana guides Chet’s finger—but in reality, she doesn’t need it. Words themselves form a body with the right qualities.

Nana conceals her determination. She does not reveal herself in everyday details. What she does not want is a poorly imitated Venetian carnival with masks, torches, and worn-out fetish kitsch. She does not want strained pedantry.

Earlier, she heard Chet say in a lecture: “Concierge derives from Comte des cierges—Count of the Candles.” That was enough for a fleeting moment of intrigue. There are so many empty rooms in the old university building, even a dead wing full of mummified mice. Nana knows that Chet recommends Pierre Bourdieu’s Anamnese der verborgenen Konstanten to his students. He is thus an accomplice. Nana does not yearn for an accomplice. She wants to be misunderstood in the right way.

The Timbre of Intelligence

For some people, physical desire diminishes when they are approached physically. It grows with the use of voice, education, and intellect. Conversely, certain inclinations can have a destructive effect on people whose pleasure centers are activated by words. We are not talking about “trash talk.” The challenge is that eventually, physical presence must come into play—but that is beyond this account.

Lustful Half-Knowledge

An observation cut from life with a scalpel—a divine revelation once rescued Nana’s friend Lale from the gutter and sent her into the kitchen of the legendary Vincent. The veteran of his craft belongs to a cohort of culinary revolutionaries who pioneered molecular gastronomy. In the present narrative, the veteran can only be explained historically. Vincent benefits from his guests’ desire to venerate a hero at the stove. Their culinary half-knowledge interprets the kitchen as a cage with predators of all sizes. Vincent plays the king of beasts, but in reality, Lale runs the place. This is not apparent from the outside; it would be commercially damaging. The guest pays for a successful illusion. Vincent, long worn down, smokes over his Creuset equipment as sweat drips like meltwater over stone. Ash and sweat fuse with the contents of the pots.

It is a mess transformed into a magical process through the power of suggestion. No guest ever sees the kitchen and the disciplined, uniformed labor of the team, sometimes treated by Vincent as slaves, sometimes as demi-gods.

Mise en place, let’s roll.

Asceticism and the Pursuit of Knowledge

The ascetic brings a willingness to go against their nature. When this tendency is energized by expectations of optimization, education becomes the key to success. In the 5th century, “a regulated, reflective, and controlled practice of asceticism” spread. Monasteries provided the architectural framework. The knowledge society forms. The first information age dawns. By nature, the self-focused Church is an academy, and also a space center, organizing celestial voyages. What is required to participate?

Three concepts intertwine: chastity—purity of heart—mental struggle. Chastity of the body coincides with chastity of the mind. Thoughts are not free. Imagination is dangerous. Education develops into discipline. Its opposite: vice—a word that persists, still smelling of urine, orphanages, and juvenile detention.

Nana experiences the weight of vice in a secular society.

Foucault and Education

At the same time, Grandmaster Goya lectures on Michel Foucault. The answer to all uncertainties is education. Foucault notes this almost at the end of his journey to the sources of the Nile in The History of Sexuality, Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh. He describes Christianity’s project as a post-antique improvement of humans through faith and renunciation. Foucault shows that the economization of sexuality, continuing even into disciplinary regulation, was not first initiated by Christianity, but existed beforehand. Apostolic directives were based on environmental agreements in a non-Christian world. At the start of a long process of understanding, Foucault demonstrates that the Church Fathers copied Stoic precepts at the beginning of the Christian era. He examines regulations concerning baptism, sin, and penance within the community of believers.

“The versatility and instability” of humans demand regulation. Through simplification comes asceticism.

Quoted from Michel Foucault, “The Confessions of the Flesh. Sexuality and Truth,” Vol. 4, edited by Frédéric Gros.