Scatter Brained

04
 Philias!
Th
  e Great Loves of Great Lives
CROSSED EYES
René “I think, therefore I am” Descartes had a fetish for 
women with crossed eyes (now known as 
strabismus
), 
which—as it turns out—served as a proof for his belief in 
free will. As a young boy, Descartes had a cross-eyed play-
mate with whom he was infatuated, which he took to be the 
cause of his fondness for cross-eyed women later in life. 
When he remembered his young strabismal love, Descartes 
was able to rid himself of the fetish—thus proving that hu-
mans need not be a slaves to their eccentric passions. Good 
for Descartes, sure, but too bad for cross-eyed girls. In a time 
when strabismus was often seen as a curse, they could have 
used more guys like René.

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119
Others Fond of Crossed Eyes:
 Mary Todd Lincoln, 
 perhaps—since her husband, Abraham, suff ered from stra-
bismus.
DOGS
Th
  ink your pals who send you Christmas letters ostensibly 
written by their German shepherds are obsessed with their 
pups? Well, just thank the heavens you weren’t tight with 
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the shogun of Japan from 1680 to 
1709. Tsunayoshi really, 
really
 dug dogs. Born in the year of 
the dog, Tsunayoshi owned some 50,000 of them, and they 
were all fed gourmet meals of dried fi sh and rice. He also 
made harming a dog (not killing—
harming
) a crime punish-
able by death.
Others Fond of Dogs:
 It’s a far cry from Tsunayoshi, but 
Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne own a brood of nearly a dozen 
dogs.
PIGEONS
Nikola Tesla, the Serbian inventor who made countless con-
tributions to the science of electricity, had a hard life. Every 
time he invented or improved something (alternating cur-
rent (AC), for instance), his ideas were generally stolen. Also, 
he suff ered from periodic nervous breakdowns and never had 
very close relationships—with people, that is. But pigeons 
were a diff erent story. Late in his life, Tesla grew inordinately 
fond of pigeons. He fed them by the thousands and even fell 
in love with one particular white pigeon. Of her, Tesla wrote, 
“I loved that pigeon. I loved her as a man loves a woman, and 
she loved me.”
Others Fond of Pigeons:
 Mike Tyson (who has said they are