It was Rabbit…
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 9:58 amIt was Rabbit who found the drum:
I’m being a rather bad blogger - I should be writing about Japan. Which I will do, but somehow, despite having been out and about in Tokyo and its nearby towns, most of my travelling on this trip has been inwards. I’ve been writing and thinking, and drifting, and poking in corners. The sketchy messy style I tried out with the last picture has kind of grabbed me. I can do stuff with it…
I don’t know the significance of the drum Rabbit has found. Drums have always made me feel uneasy for some reason, not because of their noise but because of their shape. I don’t know why. Perhaps, too, because they’re such a primitive instrument, with a real skin that once belonged to an animal, they seem more quasi-alive than other instruments. Now that I think about it, goodness knows whose skin the drum in this picture is made of!
September 18th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
…have you read Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy at all? 2/3 of the way through it, and it is a corker…especially the bit about the daemons…
September 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
that phallis has a rabbit attached
lets see if it bounces from a freeway over pass
September 18th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Eh, I don’t see that you ~should~ be writing about certain things. It’s your blog, after all. (Though I admit I’ll be interested in more Japan posts if/when they surface.)
I really, really like the picture. The sketchy, messy style works really well; I particularly like the scribbles around the rabbit. I can’t work out if they emphasise his shape, if they serve as some kind of extension of him… my art-crit skills are weak. But I like it! =D
Maybe the drum is made of his skin, and though it was long ago and he’s healed, he still sees the drum as part of him. Music made on the drum is music made on him.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Ooooh, it’s like a children’s picture book picture gone horribly horribly crooked. ♥
I’ve always found a heavy drumbeat to be full of eroticism. I see the animism inherent in a drum too - it has a skin that belonged to a living thing, and it has a voice and a vibration reminiscent of breath…
September 19th, 2007 at 4:13 am
and the drum works well with a well thought out and well played bass line
September 19th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Al - I am the only person in the Western world who hasn’t read it, I think. For some reason I’ve been off fantasy lately - maybe because reading it reminds me of work…
Colin - Rabbit’s dong is not taking a dive off any overpass!
Alankria - Thanks! I think the scribbles connect the figure to the background and maybe give a sense of movement, or at least emotional movement? His own skin? That’s an intriguing thought - and less horrid than the plausible “Oh my god, that’s cousin Bluebell!”
Laurie - you’re reading my mind again! I thought the same thing about children’s books - the old ones that were often quite eerie and wouldn’t have needed much pushing to veer into the Land of Wrong. I can see what you mean about the eroticism of drums, except for me they seem to have connotations of death more than sex. They make me think of executions and sacrifical processions.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I’ve only read the first book of the Dark Materials trilogy, and I really enjoyed it. But I tried to read the second book about 2 or 3 times and each time got bored within a few chapters and put it down.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Mmm…that must make the penultimate person in the Western world who hasn’t (hadn’t? has’is?? what is the present tense of “hasn’t”??) read it.
Agree with Alankria, the first book makes you gasp out loud with “oh-what-the-f*ck?-ness”…the 2nd one had it’s moments but was not as inspired…and have high hopes for the third…
Back to the Rabbit…Why do I have a sudden thought of a book title, vis, “Beatrix Potter’s tale of Flopsy, Mopsy and Cousin Bongo” ??
September 20th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Poor Rabbit! Having failed to find work every since his cameo appearance in Watership Down he turns to his youthful dreams of being a drummer in a rock band.
September 21st, 2007 at 7:26 am
Al - “hasn’t” is present tense, as in “I can has cheezeburger.” Cousin Bongo - the Black Rabbit?
Lee - he is the Black Rabbit! The band, Northern Fairy Necro-Bluebells went on to great success…
September 27th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
its a bunny lets kill it
September 27th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
then eat it
so its not a complete waist