Spring Fling

It's Spring! and time for cartoonist extraordinaire Jules Feiffer, and A Dance to Spring. 

Jules Feiffer's "Sunday Morning"
(another version)

I'm getting ready to go to New York, a trip I've taken in spring for the past three years. The realization that I'm leaving soon has manifested itself in weird dreams and mental confabulations. I feel turned upside down, rushing forward, towards what, I'm not sure. Which brings to mind this drawing by James Thurber, of a crowd stampeding through the streets of Columbus, Ohio, during the imaginary flood of 1913:

 From Thurber's, My Life and Times, "The Day the Dam Broke."

I have a special fondness for Thurber, and bring him out whenever I need a good chuckle. In a shameless copy of his style, I drew this picture many years ago, of children running in all directions, holding flashlights, looking for a wild dog named Fatima:

I bring this up because, lately, I've been thinking about the act of drawing and how a drawing can disappear into the dustbin of history, only to be found in a box hidden in the back of a closet, high on a shelf, or on an obscure website, like this one by Zuni Maud, a Yiddish illustrator, cartoonist and puppeteer. (To see his amazing puppetry and more drawings, click here.)

What possibly could the name of this drawing be? "Jews gathering moss uphill?" "Sisyphusberg?" In his subtle comic style, Maud illustrates hopeless labor, like the Sisyphus myth, something artists, cartoonists and bloggers know well. But the mere fact that one can find humor in the act of hopelessness, is in itself, not hopeless, and a trait I much admire, which brings me back to Thurber, which makes me think of Feiffer...which reminds me that it's Spring!

See you in NY!

Hello/Goodbye

Getting ready to leave NY tomorrow and I'm already missing it. I love this loft, I love this neighborhood, I will miss my son and daughter. Leaving NY is like those acupuncture suction cups they place on your back—it takes a lot of oomph to pull away from this much energy.

Before we left for the weekend to go to Philly, Maya and I walked around the East Village on our way to, where else, Veselka's, and stopped inside this nondescript antique store on Ninth Street. 

  Archangel Antiques on 9th St.

Inside, a curmudgeony old man wandered out from the back as if he'd just woken up from a seven-year nap. Maya asked if he had any small taxidermy animals, and without missing a beat, he replied he'd sold all his little ones. But as a matter of fact, he had bigger animals— a lion and a deer. I wasn't quite sure I'd heard him correctly, although Maya didn't flinch. What the......? A lion? Isn't that illegal? And where does he keep the deer? In the back storage room where he naps? It was all rather bizarre or maybe obscure, as we found out later: Obscure on Tenth St. is the place to go for small taxidermy animals. The other place is Evolution in Soho.

Welcoming mounted raccoon at Evolution with penis bones for only $8.

On Evolution's first floor is a hodgepodge of touristy taxidermy stuff—iridescent butterflies, humongous beetles and bizarre walking sticks, pinned between glass. Upstairs is the really interesting stuff, much of it museum quality, for those who have a thing for colorful birds (probably illegal) or smiling squirrels for viewing in their library.

Small smiling mounted animals. Oh please, stuff me!

What is it about taxidermy that intrigues? Obviously a lot of people want to buy it (enough to support a store in Soho), but what is it exactly that they like? Is it the grotesqueness and oddness of having a dead animal on your mantel, or a way to prolong life forever, perhaps the life of something you've love? Maya and her friends find taxidermy really cool, but she made it clear she'd never do it to a pet. Could I ever stuff our pet rat Malka when she dies? Many questions but not enough time for answers. Leaving tomorrow. Goodbye New York until the spring.