Daily Urinal scrappings

The daily student paper at my high school, the Daily Urinal, boasted two 200 word snarky articles a day. I was "The Female" staffwriter my senior year. I wrote under a pseudonym – Christ that’s a hard word to spell – James Tiptree* until I was uncloaked at the end of the year. 

*Alice Bradley Sheldon, a science fiction writer in the 1960s, wrote as "James Tiptree Jr." and proton beamed the hell out of gender barriers in the sci-fi genre. I want to quote my friendly neighborhood Wikipedia here so if you’d all kindly hold off the nearest rabid outraged librian, I’d be most obliged. Wikipedia: 

After the death of Mary Hastings Bradley in 1976, "Tiptree" mentioned that his mother, also a writer, had died in Chicago — details that led inquiring fans to find theobituary, with its reference to Alice Sheldon; soon all was revealed. Several prominent science fiction writers suffered some embarrassment. Robert Silverberg had written an introduction to Warm Worlds and Otherwise, arguing on the basis of selections from stories in the collection, that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman. And in an introduction to Tiptree’s story in his Again, Dangerous Visions anthology, Harlan Ellison opined that "[Kate] Wilhelm is the woman to beat this year, but Tiptree is the man." Silverberg’s article in particular, by taking one side, makes it clear that the gender of Tiptree was a topic of some debate.

But enough small talk. I was cleaning out my harddrive and before I deleted these old DU articles I wanted to let them breathe one last time.

LEAVE THE STARVING TO THE ARTIST, NOT THE ART.

For his exhibit in the Bienarte 2007 in Costa Rica, “artist” Guillermo Vargas Jimenez kept a captured dog chained under a sign “Eres Lo Que Lees” (”You Are What You Read”) spelled out in kibbles. The dog, which he named Natividad, was a stray. The exhibit was a response to what the artist saw as a desensitized population to the many dead and dying dogs (and sometimes people) that line the Costa Rican streets. Said Jimenez, “An animal becomes the center of attention when I put it in a place where people go to see art, but not when it is in the street dying of hunger.”

The dog’s fate is shrouded in internet backlash and exhibit cover up. In one article Jimenez refuses to disclose whether the dog was ever fed. The same article reports that the dog died during the exhibit (whether it was due to starvation is unclear). In one source the exhibit manager reports that Natividad was fed frequently and “escaped” during the night. Navitidad’s story went viral, causing incensed YouTubists to post videos of the exhibit and animal lovers to start a petition to prevent Jimenez from displaying his art at the Bienarte 2008.

Jimenez called the outraged reaction to his art the very hypocrisy he was trying to exhibit. Was it art? You decide.

Sources:
http://www.zootoo.com/petnews/starvingartisttakesonnewmeanin
http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2007/octubre/05/noticias/revista/219438.shtml

THIS IS A PRIVATE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION. WATCH IT FLOUNDER. WATCH IT FLAIL.

Over the last half a decade it seems as if the school’s administration has been playing 52 card pickup with the school’s future. Dress uniform days relocated thrice in that time, uniform dress codes oscillate like political polls, staff turnover is increasing (though this is likely due to the gutted housing economy in California), the million dollar hellion of a science building that stands – limps – on the outskirts of campus, a WWI style barrage of misguided drug talks, and not one but two conspiracy theorists (condoms & Zodaic) hijacked assemblies to reach the student forum. Whew.

As recent speaker, CNN honcho, Jonathan Klein, might agree: at least one equation seems balanced. The 07-08 assembly speaker roster is a great improvement on recent years. I’m not just saying that because Larry King’s projected face referred to me indirectly. Twice. The speakers’ fame however did not prove to be the tipping point. Klein’s presentation was “eh” (frankly any journalist could have delivered his speech) and the Q&A brief. Somers, Dallek, Rev. Kyle, and Cantus combined in a fairly well mixed cocktail of engaging and intellectual if not bearable assemblies. Cheers to that. And while I take issue with the standing ovations that have risen to follow those presentations this season, that’s for another article, another late out-fishing-for-topics night.

THE TALE OF THE FED UP FATHER AND THE TROUBLESOME BOUNCY BALL.

Will’s account of his needy Tamagatchi brings to mind an anecdote of my own.

Several years ago my sibling obtained a rubber bouncy ball. The toy was one of those sparkly affairs with a noise making mechanism embedded in the middle that activated when the ball hit a surface. At first, it was all fun and games – bouncing the toy off our heads and chucking it at each other’s butts. And then things changed. The ball made noises when it lay in a corner, untouched. Nothing could stop it. We tried exorcism, the Ghostbusters, and forcing it to listen to NPR. The dog refused to fetch it. We resorted to stuffing it inside a teddy bear, inside a blanket, inside a pillowcase, inside a shoebox and under a pile of clothes in the sibling’s room that had been there so long MapQuest listed it at its own address. Our peace did not last long, for within days it was at its antics again, blasting its alarm – through the clothes and shoebox and pillowcase and blanket and teddy bear – at an ungodly morning hour. My father was not pleased. He stormed into the sibling’s room, extracted the ball, marched to the end of our street, and catapulted the toy into the canyon.
Sometimes, if you listen closely at night, you can hear it screeching with the coyotes at the moon.