The next thing I know, she’s mumbling in Latin
August 17th, 2009
Top o’ the monkey to ye!
August 4th, 2009
surprise shoulder monkey, by and © goopymart, reproduction authorized by a Creative Commons license.
San Francisco artist Goopymart is, by all appearances, obsessed with monkeys.* Not for Goopy the feces-tossing variety, however –- his monkeys* are, frequently, the angels of our better nature… and, even when they ape the less-than-ideal aspects of humanity, they are oddly charming. Goopy has a set on Flickr called Monkey Monday, as well as a specialized set dedicated to “Chimples,” whom Goopy declares “the all-purpose monkey.”
Goopy’s not only about monkeys*, mind you. His quirky worldview embraces subjects as diverse as Teh Internets, taco trucks and the revenge of Schrödinger’s Kitty.
* And apes.
“…there is a more splendid thing.”
July 31st, 2009“Because you did not get a snack, do you sulk in such a place?” The latest adventure of Maru the cat may well be one of my favorites.
Sleep
June 26th, 2009
CORONER
June 24th, 2009
O Fish, Where Art Thou?
June 7th, 2009
O Fish, Where Art Thou? by and © monkeytime.
Windage and Elevation
May 31st, 2009
After the Out Breath, by and © monkeytime.
I posted this before learning that today a Christian, right-wing terrorist murdered Dr. George Tiller inside a Christian church in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller was truly a hero, having risked his life for years (and nearly lost it in a previous terrorist shooting) to provide abortions to women in an area of the country that has been under enormous pressure from people who want to control women’s bodies and restrict women’s access to reproductive medicine.
I’m leaving this photo up because I like it and there’s not necessarily a direct connection between guns/gun culture and the sort of terrorism practiced by the forced-pregnancy crowd. Indeed, society’s protectors must use most of the same weapons used by its enemies. But Dr. Tiller’s murder can’t go unremarked, nor can the link between significant parts of American gun culture and other elements of right wing culture that are violently reactionary and seriously, dangerously unhinged.
Ave atque vale, Dr. Tiller – Hail and farewell.
Gone Without Corsets & Eyes
April 14th, 2009
It’s the third anniversary of my Aunt Gail’s death. Even atheist Jews tend to light the memorial candle.
www.flickr.com/photos/brachiator/3101621277/
“Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.” – Allen Ginsberg, “Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg”
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
February 26th, 2009
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
– Edna St. Vincent Millay
The anthropologist and photographer Lye Tuck-Po recently posted an essay discussing why she exhibits so many photos of the children of the Batek people of Malaysia, and so few of Batek adults. It’s a touching exploration of loss, frailty, memory and the problematic nature of photography and publicity in traditional culture: "When They Die Young." Her essay set my mood for processing and captioning this image. I think the poem above gets at some of the emotion involved.