Animals of October

Frozen, shoulders pressed together, they stared, watching the spot of hillside across the brook where the grass moved, watching something unseen move slowly across the bright green hill, chilling the sunlight and the dancing little brook. "What is it?" Eleanor said in a breath, and Theodora put a strong hand on her wrist. "It's gone," Theodora said clearly, and the sun came back and it was warm again. "It was a rabbit," Theodora said. ~ The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson, p. 54 This is, perhaps, the first apparition in The Haunting of Hill House ; a rabbit, according to the rash and bohemian Theodora, although we don't see the creature, just its wake as it moves the grass. The two women shake it off, but the moment lingers, their first taste of the weird thrill-fear that this lopsided house will continue to bring down upon them. I read page 54, and most of the other pages of the novel, in breathless thrill yesterday, while my own rabbit Fi...

In what has now become a trilogy of posts , I'm here again to write about the RSPCA Badly Drawn Pets fundraiser because last night it was my turn to get sketchy. The fundraiser has done really well, sailing past its 3K target, but that has meant there is a backlog of pets to be badly drawn and the pool of 'artists' has had to be extended. I am now within that pool, bathing in the inks and paints. Well, its more like colouring pencils and felt tips, but you get what I mean. My subject was a black rabbit called Inara (Hittite goddess of wild animals - cool name!) who stands proudly in her picture sticking her ridiculous cartoonish tongue out. I've not posted the full drawing here because I thought it better for the owner-donators to see it first, but this detail shows the aforementioned tongue. It was a fun exercise, taking me back to those heady days of GSCE art where I would gamely reproduce various Still Lives and be awarded Cs for attainment and Bs for effort. But I...

Hungry bread and butter hustle You’ve been doing it a while, it is only fair Where’s your relaxation? Where’s the time required for your health? ~ Animal Collective, ‘Who Could Win a Rabbit?’ Lyrics by Noah Lennox I was put in mind of this song yesterday after a call-out on the radio for songs themed around rabbits (it was, apparently, the anniversary of the publication of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit). ‘Who Could Win a Rabbit?’ is track two of Animal Collective’s album Sung Tongs , and is a typically weird, jangly, hooting-and-howling tune from these purveyors of surrealist forest-folkrock from their headiest days of jangle and screech. I often return to Animal Collective at this time of year because they remind me of my days as a fresher back in 2005/06. This was a time pre-Spotify, just on the cusp of music streaming becoming a thing, so we all trooped up to University with choice selections from out CD collections which we would swap around for burning to our various c...