The modern equivalent for a life partner, the humble yet powerful bar of chocolate has been given extra props today as it not only tastes amazing, is reasonably priced and fits easily into your bag but it’s now also been proven to reduce stress.

Indeed many people would claim the research redundant as they’ve been finishing bars of chocolate in an effort to calm down for years, at least now it’s scientifically proven.

Mice in the experiment were separated based on how happy they were, though I’m not sure how you measure a mouse’s happiness, the unhappy mice were fed a small amount of chocolate, unleashing the chemicals hidden deep within the dairy milk saviour.

Once the chocolate had been administered the mice were found to be de-stressed.

This week I was interviewing the managing director of an Australian chocolate company on my radio show who was sharing this marketing genius of research with me and I saw another news article, one regarding the syndrome sweeping Japan which I’ve dutifully dubbed MJ Fever.

MJ Fever is not a music obsession, sexual or illegal activity, dance move or jig. MJ Fever is that seemingly natural drive that pushes you away from who you really are.

Michael Jackson suffered it more than most; with his skin transformations and general slide from his teenage years away from everything he started out as and with to where we last saw him a few months ago.

I’m sure I think Michael Jackson suffered the most because his life was under the microscope more than most; there would be people who spend every last dollar in an attempt to not be who they are.

MJ Fever in Japan is sweeping the nation with white skin all the rage, where as in Australia we want tanned skin. Every country and every generation has it’s thing it wants to change.

Imagine the resources we’d have available to us if we could be happy with the us that’s here, free and available. Imagine the time, money, time … and the money … and the time …. life would be grand, or maybe we could just eat more chocolate.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091109173606.htm

‘There’s so much I’ll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics… So much has to be left out or distorted.’[1]

-Art Spiegelman, Maus

‘”La-la-la,” said Cruso, and motioned to Friday to repeat. “Ha-ha-ha,” said Friday from the back of his throat.’[2]

-J.M. Coetzee, Foe

I believe this to be a suitable way to begin this discussion of survival, storytelling, and silence. The question is how does contemporary literature cope in describing that which is beyond description? In Maus, Art Spiegelman creates what is essentially a Holocaust comic, yet despite the cultural implications of the form, his art is both distressing and beautiful. I intend to argue that he achieves his success through a process of visual defamiliarisation, which locates the historical and literary tensions in this sensitive issue, and then finds an aesthetic milieu at the centre at which to present what I believe can be seen as true sight. I intend to conclude with the character of Friday in Coetzee’s Foe to hopefully give weight to any discussion of silence, power and narrative that might arise from analysis of these tensions.

In Murder in our Midst, Omer Bartov discusses the problems of teaching students about the Holocaust: ‘Nor for that matter anyone who had experienced it or studied it from some geographical or chronological distance could quite grasp the essence…or make it understandable to others.’[3] If one aspect the Holocaust can be verbalised, it is the cliché that those events will remain one atrocity that is beyond our human power of description. As Omer Bartov digresses: ‘Somehow fiction and imagination seem to be unable to confront… Auschwitz, a place even those who had been there, both victims and perpetrators, kept describing as unimaginable.’[4] A secondary and rather sardonic cliché might be consideration of how history could have unfolded slightly differently had Adolf Hitler been successful in his goal of being an artist, rather than a politician. This link is often stated implicitly, for example in Glamorama, a postmodern satire on the image and destruction, Bret Easton Ellis begins his tale with a quote directly from Hitler: ‘You make a mistake if you see what we do as merely political.’[5] Indeed, it is impossible to study this period without considering the successful use of aesthetics in tyranny; the legacy of Nazi propaganda all the way from the Second World War to contemporary pop culture. Spiegelman also begins by merging the political and the aesthetic by taking Hitler’s view that ‘The Jews are undoubtedly a race but they are not human’[6] and manipulating the concept into something subversive to that ideology. The first tension provided to us is between the aesthetic power of Nazi Germany, and the void of representation it left behind through genocide. Spiegelman’s first success is retelling the story through his own images and those of his Father, highlighting both the success and failure of the image and its implicit work in politics of representation, both past and present.

Bartov also presents us with our second example of tension: Should the Holocaust be seen as the most important event of the epoch, or merely as a distraction which ‘obscures our perception and prevents us from a more vivid understanding of the real issues and cardinal problems’[7]? Indeed, the Holocaust may resist representation because it is being pulled apart from two opposing perspectives and cannot remain stable. All representations are also subject to varying motives, be they to achieve catharsis, or to promote a moral rhetoric. This myriad of tensions does create a problem for art. However, as Bartov relates, there is one solution: ‘Perhaps we can remember the unimaginable, but we can’t imagine it by definition.’[8] Although ultimately fragile, the personal memory seems to be the key in Maus, which is able to aim between the dichotomies, and strike ever so poignantly where prose would just remain ‘contrived.’[9]

However, this raises the question of whether Maus should be viewed as fiction or nonfiction. Despite critical acclaim upon release, it was initially relegated to the fiction section of The New York Times’ Bestseller List, until an acerbic letter was sent by a less than impressed Spiegelman and it changed category. Although the artist may not have approved of this error in journalism, he could surely have taken solace in the larger symbol of Maus moving freely between fiction and nonfiction so effortlessly, both artistically and inside the text, as well as outside in reproduction and consumption. As a piece of genre transcending art, Maus does achieve an almost ethereal status. Part of this is due to the fact that with its chosen subject matter, ‘poetic license and tolerant forbearance are not granted automatically’[10]; the Holocaust aesthetic means that Maus cannot be subjugated to regular media. Indeed, as Thomas Doherty also notes: ‘Maus redrew the contractual terms for depictions of the Holocaust in popular art.’ Of course, Maus is no regular text, as it has movement both in genre and through the tensions which complicate representation of the Holocaust.

The primary technique being used in Maus is what Viktor Shklovsky might label defamiliarisation. As Doherty observed, where the Holocaust is concerned, there are slightly different rules for attempts at media representation. Being a sensitive subject, there have to be boundaries constructed so that it is never treated flippantly. In this respect it can never become overly familiar because access is not so easily granted. However, with such fixed status, it could always remain static in perception. The result therefore requires a more spherical view of Shklovsky’s concept that ‘as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic.’[11] Indeed, he notes that ‘art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stoney.’[12] Maus is certainly an exposition of the latter parts of this statement, but its true success is not in recovering the sensation of life, but rather in penetrating the void and also recovering either the truth of loss, or perhaps the essence of death. A very subjective version of defamiliarisation is in effect in here, where Maus approaches the concept from both angles, once again manipulating tensions. Ironically, the idea seems reluctant to be articulated, but perhaps the best example of a similar interpretation can be found in the world of graffiti. On the website of urban artist Banksy, a manifesto is provided. This is an extract from a military man’s diary, and his recollections upon liberating a concentration camp. He can give ‘no adequate description’ of the terrors he saw, but one event stands out; when the Red Cross distributed lipstick. I believe this result to be very close to the visual defamiliarisation employed in Maus:

This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.[13]

By recovering both life and death as sensation and art, Maus finds a true sight that can only be described as human.

Much like the subversive effect of graffiti, defamiliarisation in Maus is enhanced by its style of illustration. The use of the comic form allows many techniques to flourish where in prose they may not be possible, or may also appear ‘contrived’ as stated earlier. In many places, Maus uses a dual technique of speech and symbolic imagery to add further metaphor to a point. For example, early in the story, Vladek is waylaid and nearly caught in an ambush by violent German officials. The frame captures him in a spotlight and is captioned ‘will I walk slowly, they will take me… will I run they can shoot me.’[14] The spotlight itself is shaped as the Star of David, matching the mandatory badge Vladek is forced to wear, which in turn creates a spotlight of race and difference in a crowd. It also points him out as a literal target to be shot, with the startled animal expression made more effective by Spiegelman’s use of actual creatures. Vladek is caught in the beam of something far worse than a car headlight, but the danger is equally imminent. An equivalent device is also employed much later in a frame captioned ‘Anja and I didn’t have where to go. We walked in the direction of Sosnowiec- but where to go?!’[15] Their sense of hopelessness and the futility of their journey can be brought right down to the terrain in this format, as they follow a road shaped like a Swastika. This further emphasises that all paths available to them lead to the same fate, as well as the fact that their world is under the control of a malevolent force; from the horizon to the ground under their feet. In prose this could certainly appear a spurious sentiment, but it is deadly effective in Maus.

As well as reinforcing larger themes, the comic format also encourages repetition as a device in a way language could not mirror so subtly. For example, as tension builds and Vladek is conversing about hiding his son with another family, the angle of the frame emphasises the young mice on the floor playing with a train set.[16] Their innocent play pre-empts a more sinister use of transport later in the narrative during Vladek’s train journeys to and away from Auschwitz. In the next frame, as the adults grow troubled and insistent (shown by the now straight angle) the children curiously dismantle the train. They won’t find what Vladek sees later on surrounded by corpses in a packed carriage. Another such repetition would be Anja’s hysterical expression upon realising the likely fate of her family and her own isolation: ‘Why are you pulling me, Vladek? Let me alone! I don’t want to live!’[17] Her expression seems purposefully identical to that of Vladek’s girlfriend Lucia when he informs her that he is leaving her for Anja much earlier in the memoir.[18] Instead, Lucia begs him to stay with her, whereas in the more traumatic circumstances Anja is begging to be left to die. This shows the effect of different levels of crisis on personal relationships. With Lucia, Vladek can be irresponsible, but his carelessness here intensifies his responsibility with his wife when their lives are threatened much later on. It also gives a human ambivalence to the mice, as Vladek is presented in both examples of a masculine role (carefree and restless, then later fiercely protective) showing that he is far from a faultless individual, but very much a human model.

In fact, Spiegelman’s primary mode of defamiliarisation is the use of animal characters in place of human facial features. Presumably, each species reflects either the stereotype or common misconception of each race or nationality as Spiegelman illustrates when he reflects on how to draw his wife. Her suggestion of a ‘bunny rabbit’ would be too cute to represent the French; ‘let’s not forget the years of anti-Semitism.’[19] However, Francoise appears as a mouse like her Jewish husband, showing that although the representation is a satire of generalisations its conditions are purely on personal experience level. This malleability is further highlighted when a supposed German war hero steps out from the captive Jews, begging for his life and a new definition. Mirroring his oppressor’s perceptions, he is drawn as a mouse, but in the next frame a shadow of the character (as well as his speech) appears with a feline form. German or Jew; cat or mouse, the character was still ‘dragged away’ by a guard who ‘jumped hard on his neck…’[20] Katalin Orbán suggests that the purpose of this device is to ‘prompt viewers to mobilize their imagination.’[21] Without wishing to compare Maus to a child’s colouring book, but the black and white figures often beg for definition and non-literal colour from the reader to fill in the gaps. Once again Spiegelman finds a true visuality, here by creating an absence of representation as a form of defamiliarisation.

There are also many connotations of using mice in particular to represent the Jews. As well as belonging to a food chain of prey (we could say: dogs, cats, mice), rodents are known to be quiet. This could mean in terms of storytelling; their perspective is silent. This could also play on derogatory perceptions of rodents as vermin, or pests which live quietly under the nose of society and unnerve the public when they reveal their malevolent presence. This generalisation is manipulated by Spiegelman to its full potential. One chapter begins with the illustration and the title ‘Mouse Holes’[22], but instead of lurking in society’s architecture waiting to sneak around, the mice are huddled for shelter, starving. This symbol is taken further as Vladek describes how his friends and family were forced to hide from their German oppressors. He draws Arty a picture of his ‘Mouse Hole’, which is a bunker in a coal cellar. The following three frames are structured around the diagram[23], as the comic form hides its characters in its own illustration, yet another method that prose could not articulate. It appears that Spiegelman’s methods of defamiliarisation often focus on absence as well as presence; silences and what remains unsaid (perhaps hidden, or in death) alongside the narrative that is actually explained to us.

Another technique employed in Maus is the framing device of the relationship between Vladek and Arty, as the narrative is structured through Vladek’s recollections which are recorded by his son. Memory is shown to be a painful process as Vladek mounts his exercise bike layered over three frames, and essentially begins pedalling into the past.[24] The number tattooed on his arm is clearly visible as a picture of his younger self appears in a circular frame where the wheel of the bike would be, presumably spinning to show a portal between past and present. Vladek cycles through a lot of his story until the exertion, either physically or mentally causes him to need rest.[25] Here we see Spiegelman assault the tension between past and present. Historians often assume that History benefits from a detached perspective, so to pierce the perceptions of his audience even more, Spiegelman uses an amalgamation of past and present to literally bring the effects of the Holocaust home: to introduce part two of Maus, we see a close up map of Auschwitz juxtaposed with a road map of New York State.[26] In the illustration of Birkenau we can see in personal detail the barracks where Vladek survived, whereas the road map merely shows impersonal interstates, and the location of Rego Park, where Vladek now resides. This contrasts Vladek’s two forms of survival; as a prisoner of race, but also as a prisoner of memory in his old age. Ironically, it is the modern map which appears akin to the detached historian’s perspective of History, simply added to the more immediate image of the concentration camp which consumes the page and our view of chronology in the tale.

As past and present are merged, Arty and Vladek’s relationship is shown to be complicated by the horrors we see conjured in the story. Their confrontations add a layer of struggle and legacy to the narrative, contributing to the tensions inherent in the idea of true sight. They argue over many things, which contrast the image of Vladek as a resourceful victim to his modern persona of utmost Jewish stereotype. Out of all things, it is Arty’s new tape recorder (the method of retelling Vladek’s story) that proves the stereotype to be correct, as Vladek criticises his son’s financial decision, saying he could have got the product cheaper elsewhere.[27] Also, whereas warmth and security are important in the Auschwitz narrative, Vladek is not averse to throwing out his son’s coat and replacing it with one of his own that he has no further use for.[28] It is important to note that later when Arty returns, he is wearing a different coat to the one his father gave him[29], rejecting part of his influence. Here we see how survival in the past has designed family life in the present. It is evident that Spiegelman’s true sight has a keen grasp on the layers of human relationships.

This humanity is continually shown through ambiguous representations of the characters. Vladek may be a hero by default because he survived, but as well as being a stereotype who collects wire from the street[30] and returns half eaten groceries[31], he is also a serious racist. When Francoise picks up a black hitchhiker, Vladek is quick to make similar negative generalisations to the prejudices which ultimately allowed the Holocaust to occur: ‘I thought really you are more smart than this, Francoise… It’s not even to compare the shvartsers and the Jews!’[32] Vladek’s ignorance helps dispel any notion of Maus being a didactic moral sermon. We see that once again it presents two contrasting points of tension, and finds a middle ground which best captures humanity, however hypocritical it might sometimes be.

To illustrate true sight and the contradictory nature of humanity, Spiegelman occasionally has his characters wear masks. When Vladek and Anja are forced to hide their race they appear drawn with pig masks to blend with the Poles, but the most notable example of masked behaviour is when Spiegelman deals with the subject of survivor’s guilt, through the character of himself. In the chapter ‘Time Flies’ the artist appears at his desk with a mouse mask over his human head, observing how quickly time has passed since events he is writing about occurred, whilst also surrounded by actual flies.[33] These flies are the pestilence of Auschwitz being summoned back by memory, although not his own. The mouse mask may symbolise his reluctance to adapt a story of his own race, or perhaps his sense of being an imposter for succeeding commercially with a personal narrative. As the frames continue, we see the bodies pile up underneath his desk, a watchtower appears outside the window, and an anonymous voice announce that they are ready to ‘shoot’[34]; either in media or military terms. Whereas the past and present had merely been juxtaposed before, here they literally return to plague the artist. The tensions in his relationship with his father gave Maus the middle ground of true sight, but his narrative also draws absence as much as it does presence, and here the ghosts of what hasn’t been said choose to surface.

Previously, Arty has tried to explain to Francoise the impossible task before him: ‘I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams.’[35] Her only advice is to be honest. Due to the fact that Arty can never comprehend some of the images he must present, he begins to be haunted, ironically by an image; that of his lost brother. Richieu’s death relegated him to a photograph; something Arty’s parents never needed of him because was alive. He therefore developed a ‘sibling rivalry with a snapshot!’[36] Arty is attempting to create an immortal image, yet the only which he finds is that of Richieu, who had he survived would have a grasp of the horrors he lived through in a way Arty can never have. Arty begins to develop a strange sense of guilt because his story (Part One of Maus) was a commercial success, yet he believes his brother’s story would have been closer to the truth. This gives Arty’s character the body of a child while Spiegelman meditates on his thought process with this difficult issue. In fact, Arty has the true sight because he includes both the presence of his father’s tale, and the absence of his brother’s ghost narrative which must remain as a silence.

The result this brings is another aspect of the defamiliarisation in Maus; recovering not life, but death. As both the narrative and Arty’s shrink suggest, there was a tension between luck and skill as a means of survival. The shrink suggests that Arty is the true ‘survivor’[37], and in many ways he has experienced the impact of the Holocaust through his relationship with Vladek. In terms of survival, the theme which is important is silence: ‘it’s as if life equals winning so death equals losing… the victims who died can never tell their side of the story.’[38] As Arty grasps this concept he regains his human form (but retains the rodent mask) and relocates his muse. By the end of the chapter Arty has realised that describing the indescribable is a dual form of defamiliarisation; regaining the sensation and poignancy by also including noted absences and untold narratives, such as his brother’s. The last frames end with a symbolic silence of speech disturbed only by Vladek, whose nightmares cause him to moan in his sleep (proving him to be the opposite of silence in the tale). The flies from the beginning of the chapter return to gnaw at the artist’s body and subjectivity—‘damn bugs are eating me alive’[39] – but they can be dispelled into silence also as Arty now holds an insect spray. The dead time flies fall outside the frame as the question of the indescribable has been answered in Maus. The answer is silence.

The first of these silences is that of Anja’s diaries which Vladek destroyed. Although they would have benefitted the memoir, their absence serves the larger symbol; Arty calls his Father a ‘murderer’[40] but this death is also vital. The other is of course Richieu’s ghost; an aesthetic (photographic) silence. This perhaps best explained by the inclusion of a real photo of Vladek towards the conclusion of the text. Posing in a camp uniform after the event makes this ‘souvenir photo’[41] looks decidedly unrealistic compared to the two hundred and ninety three pages of mouse comic which precede it. An aspect of realism is certainly lost when Maus chooses to borrow visually from reality. This photo also serves as a double form of defamiliarisation, reminding us of the relationships and tensions Maus has employed until this point that have only come as close as they can to what really happened. It also proposes that was has happened with the mice is the actual true sight, and that reality ultimately fails next to art in this task of representation.

Perhaps this is because reality relies on presence and life, whereas art can also include absence and death. Maus concludes with Vladek in poor health, and he ends his tale as such: ‘more I don’t need to tell you. We were both very happy and lived happy, happy ever after.’[42] Of course, we know from earlier that this is a fallacy; Anja committed suicide and Vladek becomes nothing but frustrated with his new partner Mala. Before the frames cease and the lives of the characters thereby end, Vladek’s final address is not to Arty, but to Richieu. Here, all the tensions previously mentioned meet in the middle and the last aspect of true sight cements its creation. The two narratives of life and death, of presence and absence, of voice and silence have met and created this space. The story belongs to the ghost of Richieu as much as Arty. This is unsettlingly effective both in its literary technique, and its poignancy.

Katalin Orbán reaches a similar conclusion about the text. This critic believes that as time passes (or perhaps ‘flies’) the Holocaust slowly becomes de-sanctified and reduced to melodrama as generations end and culture changes. The success of Maus is how it models these changes by finding a middle ground: ‘it cancels and yet authorizes its own visuality and thereby seems to validate both sides of the conflict in an ambivalent and dynamic way.’[43] This is much like Bartov describing the conflicting social and historical tensions which capture the Holocaust in a difficult web. Orbán describes how Maus has ‘an ability to see inwardly, without the eyes, cancelling the visual image’ creating ‘blindness as true sight’.[44] With the Holocaust as a web of representation, Maus manages to locate an aesthetic milieu in the centre of the numerous tensions, and uses the numerous opposing forces to capture that which cannot be described.

If we are discussing the concept of visual silence, we should at least mention Foucault and the relationship between silence and power: ‘There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.’[45] Here, we see that ‘for Foucault discourse is always inseparable from power, because discourse is the governing and ordering medium of every institution.’[46] In many ways Maus can be seen as a power struggle between Arty and Vladek; both in terms of their relationship, and in terms of the life and death narratives. Indeed, Arty comments that he only became an artist because his father would not threaten him in that field.[47] If we are probing the depths of Maus, power and discourse must be relevant. Our model for this conclusion is the theoretical labyrinth of Foe.

Initially, Foe can be seen as a text which also deals with race, in this case, contemporary South African racial politics. Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran suggest that the eponymous ‘foe’ will be ‘those who design, uphold, live amidst, fail to dismantle, or fail to detach themselves from systematic racial dominance.’[48] Indeed, the character of Friday remains a silence throughout, as those who struggle to extract his story believe he ‘has no command of words and therefore no defence against being reshaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others.’[49] Susan Barton does find Friday’s presence (or perhaps absence) to be quite vexing at times, as she finds herself wiping ‘the utensils which his hands had touched’[50]. Presumably because these may have entered the mouth she is frightened to examine, and touched the neutered stump where a tongue once existed to promise a story she cannot control by herself. If we consider these racial terms alongside Maus, the story itself is both an object of power and oppression, leaving Friday as ‘helpless’[51] as a mouse shivering in its bunker.

There are many examples in Maus however where Vladek uses language as a means of survival[52]. Coetzee also painted a response to a reversal of power in the depths of the critical Foe. Lewis Macleod proposes that Friday may in fact have a tongue, and his silence is therefore ‘an epic gesture of defiance’[53].  This is certainly a possibility, as on the island we learn that Crusoe’s teeth have become rotten, yet Friday’s have remained ‘white as ivory’[54]. The contents of his mouth may be pure out of his choice to resist the seduction of storytelling offered by Barton: ‘unlike Susan, he refuses to put the story… of his life into anyone else’s hands and as a result he seems to avoid the kind of narrative conscription that troubles his more ambitious caretaker… he avoids becoming source material.’[55] If we see the tensions that Maus manipulates represented by Barton and Foe, each struggling for discourse and power, Friday’s silence is another example of what we can now more confidently label true sight.

Friday also represents the exhibition of death and absence in a story, as Barton recalls ‘townsfolk pay us no heed’[56] because they move like ghosts. There are several ways to interpret the almost incongruous final chapter of Foe, but if we are using it as a theoretical explanation of Maus we can see the endings of both texts as very similar. The now anonymous narrator informs us that ‘this is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday’[57]. It is a place of death that concludes Maus, where all the stories not told can exist, both Friday’s, and Richieu’s. As the speaker opens Friday’s mouth, his side of events flow forth, ‘up through his body and out upon me… soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.’[58] These are all the tensions and contradictions, historical, cultural, even personal, and all the complications that give Maus a true sight. Of course, this is where the text ends, so the silent story remains untold, to us at least. Both texts have located the space that exists between the tensions, and successfully found a way to capture the indescribable in contemporary literature. As Holocaust survivor Primo Levi states: ‘Silence, the absence of signals, is in its turn a signal, but it is ambiguous, and ambiguity generates anxiety and suspicion. To say that it is impossible to communicate is false; one always can.’[59] Describing the indescribable is possible through true visuality, an aspect of which will always include silence.

Let us conclude simply with Katalin Orbán saying that Maus ‘alerts one to the artificiality of visual representation.’[60] If discourse and storytelling is a power struggle, then Maus is a warning of this. The true sight that it achieves is reclamation of the power through its various techniques of anti realism and defamiliarisation. The type of power it has is its invitation to think about the holocaust in light of contemporary media[61] and therefore question political discourse as well as the power of the image in general. This purpose is illustrated with a certain grace through Foe’s Friday, who responds with a mocking ‘ha-ha-ha’ when asked to repeat after Crusoe’s inane ‘la-la-la’. Perhaps he is laughing because ‘real power is executed through discourse, and… this power has real effects’[62] or because like many readers he did not envision a Holocaust comic about mice to be so delicate and powerful, until he also fell under its spell.

5225 words

Bibliography:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html (last checked 8/01/08)

Bartov, Omer, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Coetzee, J.M., Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987)

Doherty, Thomas, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

Easton Ellis, Bret, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006)

Foucault, Michael, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979)

Levi, Primo, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988)

Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

MacLeod, Lewis, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

Orbán, Katalin, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’, Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993)

Shklovsky, Viktor, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004)

Spiegelman, Art, The Complete Maus, (London: Penguin, 2003)

[2] J.M. Coetzee, Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987) p.22

[3] Omer Bartov, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) p.115

[4] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[5] Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006) p.3

[6] Maus p.10

[7] Murder in Our Midst p.117

[8] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[9] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[10] Thomas Doherty, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

[11] Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004) p.15

[12] Art as Technique p.16

[13] http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html

[14] Maus p.82

[15] Maus p.127

[16] Maus p.83

[17] Maus p.124

[18] Maus p.22

[19] Maus p.171

[20] Maus p.210

[21] Katalin Orbán, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’,  Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

[22] Maus p.97

[23] Maus pp.112-113

[24] Maus p.14

[25] Maus p.93

[26] Maus p.166

[27] Maus p.75

[28] Maus p.71

[29] Maus p.108

[30] Maus p.118

[31] Maus p.249

[32] Maus p.259

[33] Maus p.199

[34] Maus p.201

[35] Maus p.176

[36] Maus p.175

[37] Maus p.204

[38] Maus p.205

[39] Maus p.234

[40] Maus p.161

[41] Maus p.294

[42] Maus p.296

[43] Trauma and Visuality

[44] Trauma and visuality

[45] Michael Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979) p.27

[46] Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) p.127

[47] Maus p.99

[48]Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

[49] Foe p.121

[50] Foe p.24

[51] Foe p.121

[52] For example, Vladek teaches his Kapo to speak English, and is treated less harshly as a result, Maus p.192

[53]Lewis MacLeod, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

[54] Foe p.22

[55] Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

[56] Foe p.87

[57] Foe p.157

[58] Foe p.157

[59] Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988) p.69

[60] Trauma and Visuality

[61] Trauma and Visuality

[62] Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory p.158

I thought I would shed light on the problem of dealing with mice and how it relates to being a landlord and/or tenant.
The first fact to point to before the main content of this post is that mice only exist where they are provided for. Mice can venture anywhere looking for food, warm shelter and water, but they only stay and breed where those elements are readily accessible. Think of them as unwelcome guests that constantly eat your food and don’t clean up after themselves.
That being stated, many tenants will find a major problem with the fact that they appear and leave evidence of their scavenging. The first thing that you (the tenant) have to do is take a good look at your apartment/home by asking these questions:
1. Is your trash placed outside of your home/apartment at all times?
2. Do you vacuum regularly?
3. Do you clean up after every meal or snack so there is no possibility of leaving food behind (even very small crumbs)?
4. Do you store all your food in air-tight containers?
5. Do you clean up after your pets after every meal or snack (if applicable)?
If you have answered yes to all of these questions, make sure you can verify the following:
There are no open containers of any kind (trash cans, open bottles, soda cans, food containers, etc.) present within your apartment.
If you can positively assess that you are keeping your living spaces up to these standards then a couple of things can be assumed.
If you cut off an animals food supply, they will not stay around. If you violate any of the rules alluded to in the form of questions above then you are susceptible to a mouse invasion. Don’t blame the landlord for maintaining an “uninhabitable” dwelling unit when you are often the one to blame for forgetting to follow through with these principles of cleanliness.
If you are still convinced that you are the epitome of health and sanitation then take a flash light to all the dark areas of your apartment. Look for water leaks, small drops to ponding water since you know the little guys will need a drink once and awhile. Again, you have to take the offensive when getting rid of the problem, not with landlord but the mice. If you find leaks, old trash, wet basements, etc you can then inform your landlord that these problems exist and you can work together to eliminate these issues.
You can also set traps with bait to get rid of the problem. Mice have an interesting problem; their teeth are always growing so they have the constant need to chew to literally file their teeth down. The one thing they can’t chew through is metal or in the form of steel wool. You can stuff a liberal amount of steel wool into any open hole within the building that might allow their access in. Once all the points of ingress and egress are blocked you are left with stir crazy rodents. Mice without food (once you have taken it away) are left to chew holes in walls, electrical wiring, and shoes, whatever. So you need to make sure once you have them trapped you finish the job by trapping them or poisoning them.
I have found that the old fashioned traps yield the best results and they are inexpensive. I have read things like people leaving buckets of skunky beer out with a diving board type of entry for the mice so that when they take the plunge they can’t get out and you can fill in the blanks from there. I have not tried that and I don’t imagine it can be as successful as a cheese bait trap, but it’s a war and by all means use what works to stay on top of it.
You can venture into these other articles to find out more helpful info:
Helpful Tips
Mice & Your Pets / Children

1. First, happy birthday to my brother! Hope the day is a good one.

2. Tomorrow, after Cavorter gets out of work, we’re driving to Chicago for a familial visit. We will bring birthday and Christmas presents for my various nieces. Buying adorable presents for infants reminds me of the more pleasant moments of my kids’ own infancy. But not quite enough to mask the memories of sleeplessness, poop, and spit-up.

3. Tern is giving the weekly music lesson to the kids as I type this. M is faintly adorable as he sings, and K’s piano playing is progressing nicely.

4. Last night Cavorter and I watched Jackie Chan’s Operation Condor. I could not, at this moment, tell you the plot. In fact, I’m not sure I could tell you the plot of any Jackie Chan movies. I sort of zone out and think about writing projects or look around the house, wondering what needs cleaning, when the plot are happening. But I love the martial arts set pieces. I would buy and love a dvd that was nothing but excerpted Jackie Chan fight scenes.

5. We still have not eliminated the mice. A friend of ours mentioned that she had to dig three feet down all the way around the outside of her foundation to find and plug the mice entrances. This thought fills me with despair.

  My Husband and I had two hours to ourselves this past weekend.  Sooo……. we went for a drive and came across this great place that we have in our area to see the wonderful site of Christmas display.   Every Year this is one of my favourite visits.   I remember before we were married we went together to Niagara on the Lake, short drive from the Niagara Falls in Ontario.   I always remember the beauty of all the handmade items some stores displayed in their windows.  Believe it or not I even visited Santa……my wish came true that year. Smile……..

 It is wonderful to see, and of course to shop for the small or big budget items you have liked to get for your special Christmas tree for your home:  Santa’s in all kinds of styles, Angels, Birds, Mice, Christmas Balls, Bells, Stars, and Trees.   Red or Yellow Dogwood Branches for your fresh ornaments you have welcoming your Guest and Friends by the Front Door.

 So many choices…and the nice time you have just looking at it and having fun sharing it together.

                                “Never Stop Believing”

CS PURAM- GEETA
Our neighbour was a driver in KSRTC, living in rented house.
His daughter Geeta was a dark, tall, slim girl, working in a shop at Palakad town. She has a younger brother, still in school when, we were there.
An offer came for her hand. The boy is handsome. His parents are well to do, both getting pension, in addition to their savings, a house in Thiruvanthapuram etc. They have only this son whom they want to entrust to a reliable loving girl.
At that point we had to go to Delhi. On our return, we brought Ammu, Sudha’s daughter Meghna, who was only two years old, as there was nobody to look after her, when the parents went to work.
 There was no such decision. We were inside the railway compartment. Damodaran and Sudha were on the platform. When my wife stretched her hands and called Ammu, she jumped into her hands; the train moved. So that was how she came in  our custody. As some wit put it, we bring babies into this world, jus to play with them!
I used to take her wherever I went, in the village. She never showed any sign of remembering her parents; but, when Damodaran and Sudha got into the autorickshaw on their return, after a brief vacation with us in the village, she went away with them, without once turning bach to look at us! My wife was on the point of tears.
One day Geeta came from Thiruvananthapuram. She looked serious. Her man was a spoilt child. After break fast, he goes away with his friends to roam about in the city. At noon, he comes back, takes rest and again, in the evening another outing, returning home after dinner in the restaurants.
Three times, she has to wash his cloths. Always, he goes in clean ironed cloths. Geeta is his washer woman.
An itching caused a nuisance to me. Nothing was visible. Thuppan told me it is caused by small mice. After observing my abdomen he confirmed it.
I went to a doctor, who gave me a medicine to be applied all over my body, for seveal days. No relief came except when it is applied.
Then I poured kerosine oil all over my body. My body became clean. I became fair, but the mice thrived.
Murugan told it comes from the river water. Several persons are victims, not myself alone. It was little consolation.
In March 2000, we came to see Leena’s baby and could not go back to CS Puram, as there was nobody to help her. My mice disappeared, without any reason. I was very much releaved.
The baby born on the auspicious day, when Ammathiruvady is brought to our ancestral home, on Makam of the month of Meenam,every year, was named Ananya.
Premchand, Leena’s father-in-law was also there. They stayed at their son Shishir’s house at Lajpatnagar, quite near to our place, and he woud come to see Ananya daily.
He was younger to me, very jolly, but suffering from diabetes and heart  trouble. Doctors at  AIIMS had recommended biopsy. I think a ring was inserted already.
At his instance I too joined the Yoga course, for ten days, provided by  the AIIMS, free of cost.
Of course, the classes were good, but of no use, unless we continue the practice during our life time. This is not practicable. A proper study to determine the efficacy of the system, I believe, has not been conducted. The pulse rate comes down. That is because we remain in a detached atmosphere, free from normal tensions. The same experience can be had, when we pray at a temple or  church etc.
In the library attached to the Yoga cell, I came across a remarkable book titled POWER HEALING by Dr. Leo Galland. He is a normal allopathic doctor, who examines those cases, where doctors are unable to find out the root cause and fail. He has recorded a number of  strange cases. In one case, doctors treated a patient for heart attack who died after repeated attacks. His investigation revealed that, the patient died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The deceased was working in an old cellar, peeling off plaster, under which the poisonous gas had accumulated, over a long time, in some pockets. THE POISON CAUSED THE SYMPTOMS OF HEART ATTACK.
Another case was a young girl whose skin was extremely dry. She was a schizophrenic patient. Seeig her skin, the doctor told her to take cod liver oil, which contans omega 3 fatty acids. AFTER SOME SIX MONTHS, SHE RETURNED TO GIVE HIM THANKS. She was cured of her mental condition. Now this oil is given routinely to all mental patients in England, I read in the news paper.

Perusahaan kami menawarkan kegiatan konferensi berskala international. Dengan konsep elegan
kami tawarkan untuk menampilkan konferensi / seminar yang “super”. Kami menyediakan
“red Carpet” sebagai welcome home.

Untuk tempat kami menawarkan :

1. BICC
Bali International Convension Centre

2. Cruise
Kapal Pesiar

3. Alam Terbuka
Kami menawarkan kebun Raya Bedugul sebagai tempat konferensi dan seminar

4. Hotel – hotel Convensional

Kami tegaskan sekali lagi bahwa perusahaan kami tidak menutup diri atas permintaan konsep,
dekor, dan lain sebagainya yang diinginkan. Selagi Perusahaan kami mampu, kami akan lakukan
yang terbaik untuk customer kami.
“Anda puas kami senang”

Kami menawarkan konsep konferensi berupa daerah Bali. Contohnya; kami menampilkan tari -
tarian bali dan gamelan bali sebagai welcome home pada tempat yang sudah disesuaikan,
mengenakan pakaian adat bali pada peserta konferensi / seminar, serta menyediakan snack
bali.

Kami tidak hanya memberikan konsep daerah Bali saja, hanya saja kebetulan perusahaan kami
berlokasi di Bali.
Untuk mengetahui konsep budaya – budaya daerah yang kami tawarkan anda dapat hubungi kantor
kami.
Terimakasih.

Kami menawarkan suasana seperti konferensi Meja Bundar. Jadi para peserta konferensi sendiri
bisa menikmati suasana lingkungan yang kami buat dengan menggunakan meja bundar yang bisa
diikuti 350 orang.
Untuk tempat, kami juga menawarkan gedung konvensional, seperti:

1. BICC
Bali International Convension Centre

2. Cruise
Kapal Pesiar

3. Alam Terbuka
Kami menawarkan kebun raya bedugul sebagai tempat konferensi dan seminar

4. Hotel – hotel convensional

Pada era saat ini terlalu banyak masalah – masalah kompleks pada setiap negara -
negara di Dunia, terutama Indonesia. Perlunya kegiatan konverensi di bumi pertiwi untuk
membicarakan hal – hal apa saja yang harus dilakukan untuk ke depannya.
Hal ini membuat perusahaan kami ingin membantu melaksanakan kegiatan – kegiatan
konferensi.Jadi untuk skala nasional kami menyediakan suasana yang segar, agar para peserta
konferensi tidak terlalu stress dengan bahan konferensi itu sendiri.

Kami menawarkan dekorasi tempat konferensi, diantaranya :
1. Ala Zaman Penjajahan
2. Ala Budaya Daerah

Tidak berarti kami menutup diri untuk menerima pesanan dekorasi anda sendiri.
Terimakasih.

I was actually just reading the article written about mice with human brains before I saw Walter’s post on the same article. As carefully justified in the article, and also mentioned by Walter, this kind of research is purely used for medical purposes, and not anything like attempting to create new species. Being able to “try out both stem cell interventions and other potential cures on living human brain cells without having to use humans in the process” is the big advantage, and it’s a big step towards curing many diseases.

What I read from this article is that any kind of research or experiment is okay as long as it stays in the lab. They did manage to ban mating among the artificial species to try to regulate this branch of research. It seemed that they were saying that if we don’t allow reproduction and don’t release them into the wild, creating a mouse with a human brain is perfectly fine. Right now they are only studying brain development through medium that’s not human. But what will happen once they want to study environmental effects on the brain? Would they have to make a creature with a brain so similar to a human’s that it would react the same way a human would when stimulated by its surroundings? If we created an new species that has almost the exact characteristics as humans, is it still going to be morally right to do so if we promise to keep it in the lab?

All these questions lead to the debate of where to draw the line and how much meddling with nature is too much. We allow the sacrifice of many dispensable lives of mice in order to cure humans of illnesses. In the future, when we advance even further in science and medicine, are we just going to re-convince ourselves that whatever research we do then is completely justified by the benefit is brings?

I think I’m about ready to crack under the stress of realizing my home may be infested with mice. One day everything was great – no more signs of mice since finding evidence under my sink a month ago. Then, in a heartbeat – the fast, frantic variety: Zippy the House Mouse showed up, performing daring acrobatics through my apartment. Zippy is dead. A direct result of my lack of forethought.

Now the tortured screams of a second and third mouse stuck in live traps that I used to replace the bait traps will haunt me. The sad reality though is that they’re all still pooping blue poison, which means they’re all as good as dead anyway.

It seems, for the near future at least, freezing poisoned mice to save them the torment of a slow, painful death over the course of a week will become part of my daily routine. (I don’t actually have the guts to physically kill them. The freezer is the most passive aggressive murder I can muster.)

I also foresee lots of crawling around on my hands and knees, a headlamp strapped to my head and armed with a can of expanding foam – staring intently off into dark corners looking for holes no bigger than the size of a dime. Also, I’m quite certain no good will come of me interacting with a can of expanding foam again. The crunchy bits in my hair have finally softened. Not to mention I’m now also armed with a staple gun to batten down the fireplace grates with hidden chicken wire. Feeling more than a bit twitchy, I smell imminent disaster and a possible brain meltdown.

Note to friends: If you find me in a few days, frozen to death in the freezer with my apartment crawling with mice, for gods sake be careful. They’re smarter than you think. Also, don’t let my parents go through any of the five drawers in the large dresser in the bedroom.

Like Lindsay, our class on chimeras really got me thinking.  This field of genetic experimentation has so much promise… but should the distant goal of miracle cures allow us to do whatever we want with test animals?  Creating a mouse with a functioning, thinking, and feeling human brain would be cruel.  I went on to the nat geo website to learn more about this controversial subject.

In 2005, a mouse with functioning human brain cells was created.  But, only one tenth of one percent of all the mouse’s brain cells were human.  This is not enough to make the mouse have a “human” brain, but it proved that embryonic human stem cells can grow functionally in a foreign environment.  This information is amazing, as it illustrates the amazingly promising versatility of stem cells.  Scientists hope that one day stem cells can be used to cure many degenerative nerve diseases.  In order to prevent ethical debate, they carefully monitor the subject mouse’s brain activity, to make sure that it doesn’t display any “human” brain activity.

But even if a mouse does not have a totally functioning human brain, is it ethical to put even a small amount of human brain cells into a mouse?  Machiavelli would say it is.  But many bioethicists say it is not.  The opposition to this research dubs it “inhumane,” and that it “crosses the natural border.”  Is this overreacting? One researcher states that “A few thousand human brain cells will not turn a house pest into Mickey Mouse.”  Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t.  I honestly haven’t formed a concrete opinion on this issue yet, because both sides have such valid arguments.  Are we impeding the progress of finding miraculous cures to life-threatening human diseases in defense of mice?  Or are we putting innocent creatures through insufferable pain and defying Nature itself?  There are definitely boundaries to how much science should interfere with the life of an animal, but I think this early brain cell testing is ok for the time being.  The mouse is still a mouse with a mouse brain, just with a few human cells thrown into the stew.  Just like Robin Williams with his new bovine-valve heart is still human, the mouse is still a mouse.  The genetic change in its brain hasn’t changed how it lives (as of now).

Mickey mouse hasn’t been created just yet, and hopefully never will be.  There are many laws setting regulations on research such as this, defining just how “human” you can make an animal.  In Canada, it is forbidden to create a human-animal “chimera.”  Are there loopholes in laws such as these though?  At what point does an animal become “too human?”  Everything is very subjective.  I expect even more debate to emerge in the coming years over this controversial issue.  My advice for the scientists: cure the sick and ailing parents of the bioethicists with the results of your stem cell research.  That should quiet them.  My advice for the bioethicists: Keep a careful eye on those scheming scientists, but actually learn about the research being done before you condemn it.  Come off as educated people, not hippie-nazis.

Nowadays living conditions for laboratory mice are being improved by giving them furniture…

Daily Draw November 22nd, 2009

I got my Lenormand deck printed and trimmed and I’m just waiting for the collage on the tuckbox to press and dry. However, it’s a perfect day to try it out. I wrote up a one-page explanatory sheet with some of my interpretations and card symbolism to go with the deck. I call it The Illustrative Lenormand Oracle.

I find it embarrassing that I’ve only used Lenormand cards for one-card draws, so it might take a while to figure things out doing 3-card draws. I generally find that fewer cards allows greater impact of the message.

ANCHOR; MICE; CHILD

And I thought mice were such nice little creatures.

Work, stability and hope from the Anchor. I like the idea of home port and security with this card as indicated by the engraving I used for the background. The Mice can indicate a thief, loss, false friends or errors, and the Child is one of my favourites, I LOVE this little girl I found in my clip art collection. She’s pointing and asking questions and bursting with enthusiasm. She’s also a bit naive, so she’d better watch out for those dastardly mice and their nibbling.

I take this to mean that work can be an anchor and not to worry about people who disturb you, but keep the channel of joy open and concentrate on that. I do feel the loss of my job still after over four years, it sometimes nibbles at me, but I feel much better at home doing my own work, secure and not dealing with unethical people, but being able to feel joy and curiosity again.

I am working on some bookbinding today while my two tuckboxes dry. It’s good to have work set out to do, that’s a very stable thing when you work from home.

We have a mouse in the house. There were a number if sightings of said rodent by all three residents of our currently unnamed house, one of which was in my room and prompted me to order a mousetrap (a humane catch and release one that hasn’t shown up yet) and prompted fears that there were actually an army of mice in my room waiting for me to fall asleep and then eat me alive.

This morning Emily and I stumbled around the house feeling every so slightly worse for wear after a particularly riotous games evening where we learned that I can’t draw and there is no such person as Billie Jean Hucknall (yes, Dawn, I’m talking to you). I was in the lounge feeling sorry for myself while Emily investigated the oven pizza situation in the kitchen when there was a noise from the trashcan. A kind of rustling noise… like the scrabbling of tiny feet. I am ashamed to say we did what girls stereotypically do in this kind of situation… we stood at the doorway and squealed.

It’s not that either of us is afraid of the mouse. It’s approximately the length of my thumb. I can’t be afraid of anything that small… well apart from Parktown Prawns (see below) and everyone with any sense is afraid of Parktown Prawns, they’re like miniature velociraptors.

Anyway after the squealing and much ominous rustling from the bin we figured it was time to (wo)man up and face the furry demon. My ingenious plan was to put a black bag over the top of the bin so it couldn’t jump out and sink it’s rabid teeth into the jugular and then chuck it outside where it belonged. There was a mad scramble to get the front door open and get the dustbin on its side at which the poor little creature frantically scurried into the bushes, while Em and I screamed in horror at the sight of it.

At the time it seemed like a mission of great risk and importance… now sitting on the couch reading this I feel like a massive loser… and the mouse is still at large… or at small…

Unbelievable site that I recently discovered somehow (if I could retrace the site-to-site-to-site-ad infinitum itinerary, I promise I would.): Kiddie Records Weekly: Classics from the Golden Age. Kiddie Records Weekly features a weekly selection of  vintage children’s album designs. Their archives are enormous, AND they stream all the audio! It’s pure old-school craziness! Go forth and enjoy. And, for now, here are some of my faves (but I still have stacks to pore through):

Aren’t they amazing? Love them. Love the colors, love the type, love the illustrations… love it all.

Uh oh, mouse tracks everywhere today! Time to get out the traps, using my new method that works every time (as you can see from this photo.) It involves affixing to the trap’s mechanism a bit of string nicely smeared with peanut butter: the old Bait and Switch at its finest. Will that be a bit brunch or a broken neck today? I hate thinking about it.

Time was, our two cats covered the whole Wild Kingdom beat around here and invading critters got away with nothing, not even the bats who drop down the chimney from time to time. Once, when our boy-cat Abe came down from his nap and saw a bat swooping and dipping around in the kitchen his face said “Damn!” and quick as a wink he was six rooms away. The girl-cat Charlotte had another reaction: she sauntered into the room, caught what was happening, shot one deadly mitt in the air and  – POW! – felled the thing mid-flight.

Charlotte is hunting on that Far Shore now and Abe is pleading old age so it’s back to man-made contraptions for us these days. Maybe one day we can all live peaceably together like the three pals in this You Tube video but it won’t be in MY house, at least not until we can teach mice about potty-training!

Mice have slowly begun to chew away at the connective tissue that safely keeps my brain from rattling around inside my skull.

All right, I admit that is a lie. However, I do have mice on my brain. You may recall the incident in October involving a can of expanding foam and my hair. Since that follicular disaster, all has been quiet, until mid-afternoon on Wednesday when a mouse performed a daring running leap out of my bedroom and zipped past the solarium, to scoot under my couch.

The building has been experiencing an insurgence of mice, partly due I’m sure to the Crazy Lady on the third floor feeding seagulls. I had an encounter with her during late summer. I thought she was talking to me when she said, “Oh you poor baby. You must be starving.” I laughed because I thought she was joking – the meat on my bones precludes me from fearing imminent starvation.

She looked at me sternly and pointed to a seagull across the street and said, “They’re starving you know. If it wasn’t for the fish I feed them, they’d all be dead.” Instantly a light went on in my head and the mid-day sounds of a seagull frenzy made a lot more sense.

One of the downsides of rotting fish on the roof is you might as well stick a mouse size sign out front stating “Vacancy”. I’ve been diligent however, and I’ve made it a habit to check under and behind my furniture and kept my food tucked securely in containers since the turd sightings under the sink. My exuberant use of expanding foam in every nook and cranny I could find also helped to make my home an impenetrable fortress.

What ensued, after Zippy the House Mouse ran under my couch, was a lot of crawling around with a windup flashlight and flipping over my couch, which is no easy task, as it’s a giant mid-century style sectional. Nothin’. Zippy had found a place to hide, heart pounding. I’d certainly done a lot of crashing around.

That evening I made arrangements to obtain a cat for a few days. Night passed. I did not sleep well, despite the grand infusion of side cars (1 ½ oz brandy, ¾ oz Cointreau, ¾ oz sour mix; ice; shake; pour.)

The Paws of Death – a curious seven-month-old cat on loan from my aunt – arrived early Thursday morning. The name is a joke. My intent was not to let PoD hunt and kill Zippy, but instead to assist me in locating the little bugger. It’s a safe bet that if the cat is intently staring at something under the bookshelf, that’s a great starting point.

That afternoon, PoD was fast asleep on my bed when Zippy dashed by the fireplace and under the bookshelf. I was on my feet instantly, flashlight in hand. Laying on the floor, I tugged on the cords under the bookshelf to encourage Zippy to run out into the open. Eventually he did and I managed to trap him under a Tupperware container.

You’d think all the noise I was making would have brought the Paws of Death running to investigate, but no – she proved to be rather useless to me. From the moment she arrived, all she did was eat, sleep, and scratch my couch – oblivious to the fact that a mouse was hiding somewhere inside.

With Zippy safely encased under the container, I took a moment to breathe, calm down and reassess. That’s when PoD sauntered out of the bedroom, one ear askew and her whiskers mashed up against her face. She yowled at me in what I can image was the feline equivalent of voicing her displeasure about being disturbed from her slumber.

Oh but wait! What’s that, over there, skittering around under that container? In shorter time than it takes to say Meow Mix, PoD was on top of the container, jeopardizing all my hard work (as I’d yet to flip over the contain and affix the lid). Zippy freaked out and started doing back flips and frantic twirls. I snatched up PoD and locked her in the bathroom, much to her very loud displeasure.

Cardboard in hand, I did that nifty little trick one does when capturing a bug and slowly slid it under the container. Then I deftly replaced the cardboard, inch by inch, with the lid. I poked a few holes in the container and then sat down, quite pleased with myself. Zippy was safe and soon I’d take him outside and set him free. That’s when I noticed the bright blue poo on the cardboard.

A google search provided the bad news. Remember those bait traps I agreed to place under my sink and behind my stove? Well, the bright blue turd was a sign Zippy had eaten the bait. His fate was sealed. In an instant, I was facing accountability for my actions, which I’d put little forethought into a month ago.

Staring at Zippy, running circles in the Tupperware, I thought about my choices: set the mouse free outside, knowing he would slowly dehydrate over the course of a week or two; or save him from slow, painful torment and actively play the role of death. By my actions he was good as dead anyway.

Zippy was so fucking cute, though. I was mad at the fates and mad at myself. Yes, I know some might say it’s just a mouse, but the point is that his imminent death was my fault. With a heavy heart, I put the container in the freezer – knowing it wouldn’t take long for the little guy to fade away. The last 24 hours of his life had been shit. Deep blue, toxic shit, and it was all my fault.

Early Friday morning I removed the frozen remains of the Tupperware entombed mouse and took it to the community gardens near my place. Plopping the stiffly curled body in a shallow grave I gave my apologies. I felt like a little girl again – burying birds in the backyard that the cat had killed.

Pushing the dirt over top of the frozen Zippy with my foot, I heard the familiar cronk of two rare city ravens. They winged past three times before settling on a fence ten feet away, to call out raucously to me. Perhaps they’d come to escort my victim across the veil? I don’t really know. The fantasy, however, helped me to feel better.