On this morning’s walk I was thinking about dogs and vacuums. Dogs abhor a vacuum because it ruins the olfactory universe in the same way that Picasso and Pollock ruin the visual universe. An entity that sucks up familiar and remembered senses and spews them out in ugly chaos is NOT AN ARTIST. Such an entity is a CRIMINAL.
Art, like all life, creates order and beauty. Criminals create chaos and ugliness. If you’re doing the latter, you are a CRIMINAL, no matter how loudly you repeat idiot slogans like “art should challenge the existing order”.
While I was thinking the above, the birds were starting to discuss their plans for the day. Listening to them, it struck me that birds and humans share another odd quality that is not shared by other mammals. Most mammals live in an olfactory world. Dogs can get along pretty well without sight. Birds and humans live in a mainly visual and auditory world. We have a sense of smell but we don’t rely on it, and certainly don’t use it for communication. People without a sense of smell get along quite well, and perform better in some occupations.
So this shared non-quality needs to be tacked onto the earlier discussion of positive qualities:
= = = = = START REPRINT:
I believe that humans are a mix of mammal and bird, possibly from horizontal gene transfer. Like birds, we’re bipedal, we build complex nests, we enjoy and produce music, and we enjoy and produce speech. The rest of our talents and tendencies are shared with other mammals.
Male humans have a conflict between the bird habit of mating for life and the mammal habit of humping everything in sight. Some of us are totally comfortable with mating for life. Some are totally humpy. Most are in between and conflicted.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
Should I put up a sign like this?
Probably not.
Polistra's Mill 