– – I’ve posted previously on artist Franz Marc, who refused to incorporate the human figure in his work because he believed that animals were more spiritual than humans. For Franz, the positive qualities of “purity, truth, and beauty” that humans manifested during infancy were forgotten in adulthood but were maintained intact in wild beasts. According to the painter, instinct made him depart from his solidarity with humanity and guided him to unity with animals as symbols of greater purity…
– – The full moon on the night of January 29th will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It is also known as The Wolf Moon, a name dating back to Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves howled at the moon on cold winter nights! What a beautiful image…except for the wolves being hungry, of course!
Tonight, the moon will appear 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons of the year, which is caused by a full moon coinciding with the moon reaching its perigee, or closest point to us...
…so have yourselves a howling good time!
– – I, for one, am glad that furries will be well-represented at the end of the world…
…In Norse mythology, the eldest son of Loki is described as a gigantic wolf, Fenrir, who was raised in the home of the gods, Asgard. Being a monster, the gods identified him with the prophecy that a wolf and his family would someday destroy the world. Getting a bum rap, Fenrir was then chased, caught, and locked into a cage while still a pup to avoid the catastrophe!- –Cruelty to animals! When he grew into adulthood, the Norse gods chained him, but Fenrir broke the chains!- -Good show and all that! Dwarves then made a magical chain out of six elements, with the chain thin but strong enough not to be broken. For good measure, poor Fenrir was put a mile down into the earth and chained to a rock! This bites…and Fenrir did, taking off the hand of Tyr, the god of war…
…But on the day of Ragnarok (Doom of the Gods), Fenrir will escape, devour Odin, and join the other giants in a great battle before the end of the world!- – Wouldn’t ‘ya love a ticket to see that?!- -Can’t keep a good wolf down!
…payback time, you see, is hell!- –You go, Fenrir!!!- -Bite the power!
– – I confess that I’ve always loved Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, and especially had a soft spot for the Cheshire Cat…well, said feline has never looked better or toothier than in the upcoming March of 2010 version by Tim Burton!–Who better to capture the notes of madness, darkness, and menace in the piece than Tim Burton, especially with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter?! Stephen Fry plays the Cheshire Cat.
It’s very hard to do justice to Alice In Wonderland, and many attempted adaptations have fallen short of the mark and been disappointments; the recent SyFy Channel’s adaptation comes to mind, while it did have its moments.– This could well be the definitive version!– The Cheshire Cat looks ten times creepier than in all previous versions!!!
…It’s gonna be a weird, wild Wonderland in amazing 3D…March 5th, 2010 can’t come soon enough for this fox!
— I can’t take the loss of many more of my childhood icons; Captain Kangaroo has passed on, and now also Soupy Sales at age 83. Soupy in my opinion has never gotten the credit or recognition that he deserved; a comedian of television, radio, and film born Milton Supman, Soupy drew heavily from slapstick and also used word play and improvisation. His comedy wasn’t always sophisticated, but it could be clever and was always funny; taking a pie in the face was a stock in trade, and Soupy estimated that he and his visitors took 20,000 pies in the course of his career. Soupy was big at the time in the New York area where I grew up in to the extent that kids would imitate him and do his routines.
Soupy had furry elements; two of the visitors to his shows were dogs called White Fang and Black Tooth, who appeared at his door as giant shaggy paws with felt triangular claws. White Fang spoke with unintelligible growls and grunts which Soupy repeated back to his audience in English; Black Tooth was also unintelligible, but was into giving loud and sloppy kisses to Soupy off-camera. Then there was Pookie the Lion, a hip character prone to appearing in Soupy’s window who you could understand. – -Soupy even had a novelty dance record and song called The Mouse which was wildly popular in the mid-1960’s!- –Hey!–Do the Mouse, Yeah! I last saw Soupy on game shows, those last retreats of celebrities past their popularity prime. Even then, he was funny, using his improv talents to transcend the medium and material that he had to work with.
As Soupy was influenced by the Marx Brothers, so he also influenced other comedians including Andy Kaufman and Paul Reubens; if you twist and press Soupy’s persona, you get Pee-wee Herman! Soupy was an earlier prototype of the cheerfully demented childrens’ TV show host, filled with manic energy. All of these comics realized that much comic inspiration can be drawn from childhood, which can be darker and more twisted than many realize…
Thank you, Soupy, for all the laughter and the furry undertones! To quote lyrics from The Mouse, “every cat in the neighborhood will be in shock.”
Cats, you see, loved Soupy Sales, and will miss him as will I…
If you like complex comic book heroes and dark story lines, you just might enjoy Watchmen, now available for purchase or rental. Set in an alternate reality circa 1985 that’s teetering on the brink of nuclear war, Watchmen covers the exploits of half a dozen flawed superheroes as they investigate the murder of one of their number and uncover a sinister plot threatening the world.
While the avian-themed Nite Owl appears to be the only quasi-furry character in the movie, for me the heart and soul of the flick is Rorschach. Looking like some 1940’s gumshoe detective in a trench coat and a fedora, Rorschach also sports an enigmatic mask on which play constantly-changing inkblot images that give the character his name. Rorschach also has the best dialogue in the flick, lines like:
“Felt dark planet turn under my feet and know what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.”
(…from the journal of Rorschach as seen in the movie, Watchmen…)
While a sociopath as “crazy as a snake’s armpit,” Rorschach makes disturbing sense at times, has a kind of tragic nobility to him, and is exceedingly tough and cool. When locked up in a prison with fifty or so criminals he placed there, Rorschach re-frames the situation to consider the cons as locked up with him, not he with them…he is the alpha predator there, and he proves it!
Watchmen also features Ozymandias, the world’s smartest human, with his intriguing animal companion, lynx. There is also the blue-skinned Dr. Manhattan, yet another physicist given awesome powers to manipulate matter as a result of a terrible accident. Nearly-omnipotent, Dr. Manhattan spends much of the movie fully-exposed in the nude…(when you’re omnipotent, you can dress pretty much any darn way you want!)
The movie also has a wonderful historical perspective, going back to 1940 or so to chronicle the early history of these superheroes and their parents; you’ll even catch glimpses of President Kennedy and the legendary second gunman who assassinated him, and view Watchmen fighting on the American side in Vietnam. There’s a Mothman in this group as well, but he’s not the cryptid and winds up in an asylum, possibly due to a cheesy costume.
You’ll probably either love or hate Watchmen, but I fell into the former group…guess I’m learning what cats know…
– – “If you talk with the animals they will talk with you, and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears one destroys.” — Chief Dan George
— The belief systems of indigenous peoples throughout the world share an almost universal faith in Animal Spirit Guides, who help the people in their daily lives by offering protection, guidance, and healing…
…while foxes are often called sly and cunning, keenly observant and highly adaptable might be a better description. Instead of asking the world to change, those guided by the Fox Spirit trust in the possession of all the skills necessary to adapt to whatever circumstances life throws our way…
…by being flexible, shrewd, and showing ingenuity, we may, as the Borg might put it, adapt and prevail… 😉
– – Furry jewelry is hard to come by, but can be well-worth the search. Animal jewelry isn’t the kind of stuff you’ll be likely to find in mall jewelry stores, but rather in places like second hand shops, flea and antique markets, and places like eBay. There are some very talented artists who will sell items that they’ve made or do custom work for you at prices that run the spectrum, dependent on the quality and the materials. If you have a little talent and can work in a suitable medium, try making your own!
It’s not just a purchase, it’s a quest! And wearing jewelry with an image of your inner species on it can be a sign of your furry affiliation without the permanence or fixed location of a tattoo…
–Artists who have worked with animal themes are not all contemporary. One of the best was Franz Marc (1880-1916), whose work The Fox (1913) is shown here. He was one of the principal painters of the German Expressionist movement, and his work was influenced by futurism and cubism. Franz Marc also had a strong affinity for the work of Vincent van Gogh. Most of his mature work portrays animals, usually in natural settings. His work is characterized by bright primary color, an almost cubist portrayal of animals, stark simplicity, and a profound sense of emotion. Regretably, Franz Marc was killed in 1916 in World War I.
That Franz Marc was a furry spirit is illustrated in this quote:“I found people ugly very early on; animals seemed to me more beautiful.”
–Two paws up for Franz Marc, and they couldn’t be higher! 😀
FOXSYLVANIA 
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