awesome possum

Two years ago, my bookmarks folder's organization was inversely proportional to my apartment's: clothes covered my floors, turning the path from one room to the next into a maze; ashtrays were stuffed to full capacity; my bed looked like a bookstore's sales bin; but my bookmarks folder, its organization requiring less manual labor, was pristine. And my pride in my bookmarks folder led, very naturally, to blogging, where my patrack-tendencies were, at last, an asset.

But to the degree that my blog was a serialized publication of my favorites folder, it lacked focus. My blog's categories were, and still are, confusingly diverse. And, while each category has maintained my personal interest, I often feel that some of them -- "twisted toys," "evil animals" -- undermine my attempts to steer this blog towards more (at least half-)serious commentary on culture and the arts. Like a 12-yr old feeling compelled, upon entering middle school, to trade up her toys for more "mature" activities, I've been planning to use my (almost here!) redesign as an opp. to give up, at last, my old, frivolous categories.

But then, I come across something like Worth 1000's "Evil Animals" Photoshop Contest: "If you have a warped sense of humor, as I do, you no doubt look at all the cute animals in the world and see them for what they really are: deceitful little cretins that will murder you the second you turn your back." And then, nostalgia hits. From the rabid squirrel that lived in my front yard and refused to let my family pass, resulting in my occasionally missing first period, to the more rabid squirrel that sometimes chased us during cross country races and improved our team's performance, evil animals never strayed far from my mind when I was growing up. And, like the lightning bolts that assured Greeks of Zeus's presence, regular appearances of quick furry evil things can still reconfirm my personal religion of exciting and easily excited paranoia.

And, really: why should I feel guilty posting links to sites about evil animals when I actively seek out examples of anthropomorphic food? Evil squirrels and rabbits are the necessary flipside of smiling meat products; the latter represents our culture's pronoia, and the prior, its counter-balance: paranoia. One is shaped or encouraged by advertisements' anthropomorphism (those products are smiling because they want you to eat them), and the other resists and inverts any cultural sense of mastery or comfort.

But both, probably equally, tell you that you're special. If animals always choose you for their ankle-prey, despite your being surrounded by a group of fifty, you know that your life has been marked for adventure. Some of my most exciting (action-packed) memories from childhood include: a deranged poodle chasing me on my tricycle; a neighbor's attack-puppy chasing my family around our own house; and an afternoon in the pool during which mating dragonflies swooped at our heads everytime we tried to surface for air. Evil animals keep our instincts sharp, the drama fresh, and, most importantly, teach us that, even in life-and-death situations, we can have the last laugh. Because, after all, animals can swoop, jump, claw, and bite, but they can't laugh.

Posted by nchicha at March 28, 2004 01:42 PM