Friday 11 December 2009

Natural Considerations


Do snails ever get itchy? Has anyone ever seen a snail trying to scratch itself? If it needed to, could it? Do snails sneeze? Why do they sometimes (but only sometimes) shit out of one ear? Why is there no research into this? There must be a logical reason why their poo comes out of one of their ears.

Do hens ever fall over? I grew up in the country, and I can't remember a hen ever falling over. They've only got two legs. How come they never seem to trip or stumble?

Do lady dolphins ever give gentleman dolphins "blowhole sex"? They are supposed to be such intelligent beings, but have they ever explored this creatively kinky option? If they're so bloody brainy, why don't they?

Hm. I don't even want to go into the subject of toilet paper usage within the animal kingdom.

But I will.

Does anyone else find it unpleasant that animals never use toilet paper? Imagine if we all went around like that! And another thing: whatever happened to those strange crumbly white dog poos you used to get? In the 80s, they seemed to be everywhere. Where did it all go? Why has it disappeared? What does its demise portend?

And why don't dogs ever give themselves oral sex? What exactly is stopping them? Where's the difficulty? They can reach it with ease. I mean, if you were a dog, wouldn't you be at it constantly? Surely it would be more effective than clamping yourself to a pensioner's ankle and jiggling till his socks come down.

And finally: why do butterflies insist on landing on top of poos? Has anyone else ever noticed this happening? All that flitting about from flower to flower - is it just a pose so that we don't realise what they're really up to? What is that all about? Again, why is no research available here?

There are a lot of things in the natural world that puzzle me. All things considered, I'm glad I'm a human. We have the best food and the best toilets by far. Our bodies are perfectly designed for masturbatory purposes, and we're clever enough to realise it. Seen in this light, life ain't so bad.

Wednesday 2 December 2009

Self-Portrait as a Work of Art


It's a peculiarly schizophrenic experience, being your own model, playing two totally different roles at once and switching back and forth between them in rapid succession. You play around with framing and focus, lights and exposures. Then you set off the self-timer, run into the picture and jump straight into your model role. You hold very, very still, like a statue, trying to picture how it will all look through the lens you can no longer see through, blindly trying to envision your pose and expression, trying not to sneeze or fall over or suddenly change your mind about where your knees and elbows should be.

This was an attempt to capture the feeling I have about it. It was probably the most uncomfortable shoot I have ever put myself through - including the one where I tied myself up in pink wool and hopped to the camera and back. And in the end, ironically, I didn't manage to pull it off with the self-timer (everything is so difficult with your arms snapped off). I had to engage the services of a tripod monkey.