Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Weird Things I LikeTM: Taxidermy




You know how all long-term bloggers decide to start something meme-ish so they devote a day a week to a themed post called "Wordless Wednesday" or "Song Lyric Saturday" or "Bodacious Tatas Tuesday?"

(OK, I made that last one up, but I think it's a great idea, so if you start it, email me. I might have some pictures you could use.)

So anyway, I tried to think of a category that would work for me. Because like many other long-term bloggers, I sometimes get tired of talking about my life.

And I think it's time I got famous for something. You know, like Five Star Friday (which I actually appeared in once) or Perfect Post (which I've never won. Even though I'm a long-term blogger. A bitter one.)

There's a problem with awards. To hand them out, I'd actually have to read a shitload of blogs. Even more than I read now. And a lot of what people seem to like are posts that moved them. You know, emotional stuff. And I hate stuff like that.

OK, what could I do week after week that wouldn't get old? Things I like. And thus was born Weird Things I Like.TM

I have a really good feeling about this. This is a rich chocolately vein of blogging greatness. And I'm going to become famous at last! You'll meet me at BlogHer and then, after Weird Things I LikeTM has taken the blogosphere by storm, you'll be amazed when you realized how humble and almost ordinary I seemed!

It will be just like the time Susie Sunshine and I sat through the writer's panel at BlogHer in 2007 and there was Ree from Pioneer Woman and we had never heard of her and two seconds after BlogHer was over, she was this massive star who invented the maga-blog! And yet, she had seemed so normal.

Well, it will be just like that for me and Weird Things I LikeTM.

Now, because long-term bloggers seem to be stuck on similar sounds and like things to be awfully alliterative, I'd call my new meme-like thing "Weird Things I LikeTM Wednesday." Or, when it gets really popular, WTW.*

My first weird thing is taxidermy, which I love. Not to own. Don't go all PETA on me and start throwing paint at me or picketing the cocktail party I'm having at BlogHer** because I don't own any dead stuffed animals. Much as I admire real dead stuffed animals, I don't want to own one, because it would be really gross if I bought one and it didn't end up being preserved all that well.

But I love that part of the Field Museum where they set the dead stuffed animals up in little dioramas. First of all, it's cool that they set up the diorama once, maybe in the 1890s, and except for a once a week when the cleaning ladies come in to dust the giraffes, they never need to work on it again. Talk about efficient!


Also, dead stuffed animals have the sense to stay still so you can really gawk at them. Live animals are always asleep or hiding in a cave or something--everyone else at the zoo sees lots more animals than I do. I always seem to be looking in the wrong direction. Either they're not there at all, or they're going to the bathroom.

And taxidermy animals get along with each other. You can squeeze all kinds of them into a small exhibit space and they don't eat each other, have spats, or fight over territory.

And if they do fight or try to eat each other, it never really happens. This tiger will never actually eat that deer. It's kind of like Keats' Grecian Urn. You know?

So anyway, while this kind of thing is admittedly way over the top


This? Is cool.


* Maybe I should have Weird Things Friday, or WTF. Please leave a comment and let me know your preference.

** Saturday night. Email me for an invitation!

10 comments:

  1. So far, Weird Things You Like is definitely living up to its name. Taxidermy freaks me out, man!

    Also, I would like to put in a vote for changing it to Friday so you can call it WTF.

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  2. I'd go for WTF, no question about it.

    And just for the record, I don't like the touching emotional posts either.

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  3. I'd vote for WTF, hands down.

    As for the "emotional posts" - overrated, and, oh, the pressure!

    signed,

    she who will never live up to this again: http://blackbird17.blogspot.com/2005/06/terminal.html

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  4. I love those dioramas! We don't have any kind of museum like that here. Although we probably do, and I just don't know about it, because I don't get out much. ;-)

    And my vote is definitely for WTF.

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  5. And another vote for WTF!

    My husband is baffled by my family's insistence on stopping to say "hi" to Bushman every time we're in the downtown Chicagoland area. *shrug* We love us some stuffed monkey. :) (But the Tsavo lions are starting to look a bit ratty...)

    I'm hoping to get the boy over to the Field when I'm in town at the end of July. To say hi to Bushman and to see some dinosaurs. I cannot imagine what he will think going from picture books to life size!

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  6. Aw, stick with Wednesday. I'm tired of reading the f word in blogs where you just know the poster doesn't talk like that IRL. But I love me some Field Museum.

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  7. oh good grief I can not cope with taxidermy. Because taxidermy ends up with you in a museum with a four year old crying "Why are the birds all dead? MUMMY, WHY ARE THE BIRDS ALL DEAD? THEY'RE DEAD! MUMMY! DEAD!" and that is not a nice Saturday afternoon out AT ALL

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  8. I think I'd vote for Friday, mostly because it keeps me from actually having to THINK on Friday.

    I've got a head FULL of posts already...

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  9. You and my daughter Rachel would get along just fine. I'll send her over. Just hide your stuffed animals, all right?

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xxx, Poppy.