Mystical Pornography

Japanese photographer Daikichi Amano renders some strange, beautiful, animist-seeming images interacting with the ancient art of Shunga, woodblock erotica.





See more images at Beautiful Decay Magazine or at his own website

Dog Diarrhea

So over the last few days Hollywood has been releasing these pretty foul dumps, which at times have an almost rainbow color to them (Orange, yellow, and green) and were pretty watery.

It looked kind of like this

Holy fuck
Uploaded by kafka71

or, maybe more like this,

Lightning Bolt - Dracula Mountain from Czlowiek Kamera on Vimeo.


While on walks I became one of those bad dog owners because there was absolutely no way to pick up said deposits.

After panicking, remembering that pitbulls historically have very senstive stomachs, and then turning to my singular source of vernacular diagnosis, the internet, I found this website which recommends giving the dog 3 smaller meals a day of boiled rice and chicken, and also human probiotics (good for intestinal health). After two days of chicken and brown rice the poop has solidified, although remains somewhat fluorescent, her mood is clearly better.

Five Things I Currently Find Annoying About Pittsburgh

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Animals as Cultural Producers

I was recently forwarded this video



of a Lyre Bird, who has the capacity to imitate the sounds in its environment in order to attract a mate. With the incursion of civilization into their territories the lyre bird starts to imitate the sounds of documentary cameras that surround it, chainsaws, and even a car alarm. In effect, according to the voice-over (in the longer version), the lyre bird appears to be singing of its own doom.

In an oblique way, this reminds me of Wittgenstein's query:

"Why can't a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the surroundings which are necessary for this behaviour to be real simulation are missing."

It has been indicated that the capacity of mimicry, in a particular sense, is what makes the human precisely human. The now intellectually defunct Homi Bhabha describes "mimicry" in the colonial context as an attempt to "educate" the colonized into an imitative relationship to the colonist to serve "the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite." This figured proximity between animal life and the "bare life" of humans (as opposed to real or political life) has been commented on by political theorist Giorgio Agamben who suggests that the very basis of the political requires a cut in life, the separation of mere existence from real life, or the human from the non-human. Thus particular lives (human or not) remain subject to the state, killed but not sacrificed.

Whatever we might think of the question of human to animal proximity, the domesticated animal tends to have a quasi-social relationship to the human--it is often integrated into a family structure, perhaps a hierarchy, and it substitutes certain functions of other humans might supply. For example, fronting for your band.

Two hardcore bands recently brought to my attention feature a parrot and two pitbulls producing vocals of sorts:



Hatebeak

&



grindcore act Caninus, recently completing a split with vegan gore-metal pioneers Cattle Decapitation.

Dog Poop Consumption

Hollywood has taken up the habit of attempting to eat some of the stray poop laying about the neighborhood while we take walks in the mornings. I have to say for all of the discussion I have generally about the minutia of pooping every day, I find myself a largely repulsed, and a little ill every time she does or tries to eat the feces of other dogs. And since we live in Lawrenceville there is dog poop everywhere. Perhaps, this is a kind of anthropomorphic image that I am projecting on her, like that all cute things should only consume things that are likewise cute, as in sugary, pink foam. A similar anthropomorphism I think occurs when we project the cuteness of babies across species, so that in any other species that has this attribute likewise requires, indeed needs, the care and caresses demanded by babies.



This is a lesson many learn of the chihuahuas owned by a lesbian couple in the neighborhood, who bark madly, particularly when approached by children: lesson being that cute things do not necessarily want to cuddle or even have contact with humans. A former Portland roommate of mine had a dog (Beija) with a similar temperament. Beija urinated in my room several times when I moved in and barked at my every approach, but when I walked her we were best friends, and she is ultimately one of the reasons I wanted a dog at all. Her manifesto "not a stuffed animal" can be read here

Two sites of interest document some of the reasons dogs consume dog poop:

20 Reasons Why dogs eat poop

Dog Eating Poop.com

Some of the interesting reasons include that dogs learn from their owners (who pick up poop in bags) and do so accordingly, recent mothers protecting their litter of puppies from predators--eliminating evidence of prey-worthy vulnerable pups, poor nutrition from actual foods, and obviously because they like the taste. Although I cannot account for the psychological reasons or the taste possibility, I know Hollywood gets plenty of nutritious food because we often given her broccoli stems, carrots, and fruit bits, as well as holistic food dog treats--yeah, we are that kind of dog owners.

I am hoping with time this tendency will fade particularly because I just imagine all the ways that the consumed poop could emerge out of Hollywood's body, through her skin, etc., which still makes me a bit queasy.

For some reason I accidentally made it such that no comments could be left for this post. That has been changed. Comment away on my dog poop problems.

I got a dog, named Hollywood

She is a one year-old pittbull mix, and is incredibly sweet. She has some swollen tatas from having given birth and then leaving her puppies in a bus station. Here is a picture of her from the Animal Rescue League website



Also,



Here is her official video:

Hollywood
by videos22