The monkeys and the crabs have never liked one another much. They worshipped different Gods and had little patience for what they saw as the other’s shortcomings.  Yet each possessed something the other wanted and so uneasy interaction was inevitable. The monkeys were poor and power hungry and so needed money which the crabs had plenty of. The crabs had a mighty thirst which could only be quenched with persimmon juice, and the monkeys owned most of the worlds persimmon trees.

Once upon a time in the “wretched” land of the monkeys the crabs, being rich and powerful and full of that mighty thirst, installed a monkey of their choosing in a big persimmon tree. They figured having a “puppet-monkey” of their very own, ruling over a tree, would yield all kinds of benefits in that unfriendly land, not the least of which would be access to the sweet sweet persimmons they so desperately craved. An ugly little crab shook hands with the ugly power-hungry “puppet-monkey” and all seemed just fine.

Over time the power hungry “puppet-monkey” began overstepping the bounds which his crab overlords had set for him. His land acquired a little wealth from persimmon sales and he became even more power-mad and viscous. He hurled poison persimmons at any monkey who challenged him and began taunting the very crabs who had put him in power. This went on and on and on, the monkey becoming ever more bold, the crabs becoming ever more angry. The crabs soon realized they’d picked a bad monkey to be their puppet and yearned to remove him from the persimmon tree.

Across the ocean in the rich and fertile land of the crabs a catastrophe befell the citizens which left them fearful and angry. Seeing their chance the king crabs blamed the catastrophe on their “puppet-monkey” and confused the none too smart citizens, creating a perfect excuse to shake him violently from his persimmon tree! The council of crabs, being almost wholly without chitin, agreed to the plan of the king-crabs.

Not wanting to seem as viscous as the monkey to the rest of the animal world, and fearful of having their true motivations become obvious to all, the king crabs gathered together a coalition of others with something to gain from the destruction of the “puppet-monkey.” They made promises of favor and showed all of the animal world it was not the crabs alone who wanted to be free of the “evil” monkey.

With their coalition in place the crabs travelled to the land of the monkeys and came down upon the “puppet-monkey” with all the considerable power their wealth could provide. There was shock and awe at the spectacle of flames leaping about the persimmon trees. The “puppet-monkey” proved easily defeated and the crabs exulted in accomplishing their mission.

But rich and powerful though they might have been the crabs and their coalition were not very smart! In their verve to shake the “puppet-monkey” from his tree they’d forgotten just how unfriendly the land of monkeys was, and just how much they’d always been despised. They somehow thought that mere words could erase thousands of years of distrust and animosity between monkeys and crabs. But of course they were wrong. Monkeys from all across the land came to fight the crabs and explosion after explosion would thereafter sound for years on end.

The crabs tried everything they could think of to thwart the monkeys, but as we’ve seen the crabs were not very smart, so for a long while all they could think of were sending in more crabs. Old crabs and young crabs and untrained crabs. Crabs of every kind. But no matter how many crabs they sent the explosions in the land of the persimmon trees just kept on coming. Both crabs and monkeys were blown to bits every single day. 

The crabs decided to set up super-secret prisons where they could send the problematic monkeys and torture them at will. They could beat the monkeys and demean them and piss on the books of their Gods without anyone ever knowing of their brutality. But the prisons didn’t help. Not being very smart the secret didn’t stay a secret for long and the persimmon fields exploded with a renewed vigor.

In the land of the crabs persimmons became even more expensive than they were to begin with and the citizens, after years of explosions, became tired of all the death. In truth they didn’t want to even hear anymore about the monkeys and their unfriendly land. The violence, though it occurred far away in the land of monkeys, had just as surely come to rule their lives at home as well. They couldn’t remember anymore why they’d allowed the king crabs to shake the “puppet-monkey” from his tree in the first place. Was he really worth it they wondered? Most of the crabs just wanted it all to be over.

But it was too late. The battle of the monkeys and the crabs had become an endless battle and no one could even imagine a way to stop it. It seemed no longer to be about persimmons and “puppet-monkeys.” The monkeys would fight forever to dispel the crabs they hated, and bewildered crabs would continue to die forever as well, because the king crabs, worried of being shaken from their own tree, would keep sending them. It was a sad time in the animal world, and still is, because the endless battle continues to this day.

The illustrations above were adapted from this version of the story.

To some the equation “knowledge + time = comedy” holds sway and is a joy. To others even present “facts” are fodder, begging to be torn down and placed on the pile of the disproved, in order to climb it and reach yet higher truths. Then there are those who stubbornly embrace dead facts as the cliched Italian widow might clutch her dead husbands casket as it’s lowered into the earth, wailing, and unable to let go. All might be united in a wan smile.

Today I offer you a few such castrated bits of ancient knowledge which once bravely served the subject of zoology. They are taken from Hrabanus Maurus’s 8th book of De rerum naturis (On the Nature of Things), written between 842 and 847, an encyclopedia in 22 books covering “the entire field of sacred and profane learning” as it was then understood. Scoff, giggle, embrace, or marvel at them. Judge for yourself their present function:

Asp
Latin name: Aspis.
Other names: Aspic, Aspide, Haemorrhois, Hypnalis, Ipnalis, Prester.
Facts: Blocks its ear with its tail so as not to hear the charmer.
Attributes: The asp is a serpent that avoids the enchantment of music by pressing one ear against the ground and plugging the other ear with its tail. In some versions the asp guards a tree that drips balm; to get the balm men must first put the asp to sleep by playing or singing to it. Another version holds that the asp has a precious stone called a carbuncle in its head, and the enchanter must say certain words to the asp to obtain the stone.

Hedgehog
Latin name: Herinacius.
Other names: Echinus, Ericio, Eriçon, Heriçon, Hericus, Herison.
Facts: A beast that carries away grapes on its sharp quills.
Attributes: When it is time for the harvest, the hedgehog goes into a vineyard, and climbing up a vine, shakes the grapes off onto the ground. It then rolls around on the fallen grapes to spear them with its quills, so it can carry the fruit home to feed its young.

Dog
Latin name: Canis.
Other names: Chien.
Facts: A young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds.
Attributes: Dogs are unable to live without men. A dog that crosses a hyena’s shadow will lose its voice.  A dog will always return to its vomit. When a dog is swimming across a river while holding meat in its mouth, if it sees its own reflection it will drop the meat it is carrying while trying to get the meat it sees in the reflection.

Bear
Latin name: Ursus.
Facts: The cubs are born unformed, and must be licked into shape by the mother.
Attributes: Bears give birth in the winter. The bear cub is born as a shapeless and eyeless lump of flesh, which the mother bear shapes into its proper form by licking it (the origin of the expression “to lick into shape”). Bears eat honey, but can only safely eat the apples of the mandrake if they also eat ants. Bears fight bulls by holding their horns and attacking their sensitive noses. If injured, a bear can heal itself by touching the herb phlome or mullein.

Beaver
Latin name: Castor.
Other names: Bievre, Fiber.
Facts: Hunted for its testicles, it castrates itself to escape from the hunter.
Attributes: When the beaver sees that it cannot escape from the hunter, it bites off its testicles and throws them to the hunter, who then stops pursuing the beaver. If another hunter chases the beaver, it shows the hunter that it has already lost its testicles and so is spared.

Lynx
Latin name: Lynx.
Other names: Chama, Lincis.
Facts: The urine of the lynx hardens into a precious stone.
Attributes: Its urine hardens into a precious stone that is flame colored and similar to a carbuncle. The lynx covers its urine with sand so that humans cannot find the stone.

Pelican
Latin name: Pelicanus.
Other names: Honocrotalus.
Facts: A bird that revives its dead young with its own blood.
Attributes: As young pelicans grow, they begin to strike their parents in the face with their beaks. Though the pelican has great love for its young, it strikes back and kills them. After three days, the mother pierces her side or her breast and lets her blood fall on the dead birds, and thus revives them.

Bee
Latin name: Apes.
Facts: Bees are the smallest of birds, and are born from the bodies of oxen.
Attributes: Bees live in community, choose the most noble among them as king, have wars, and make honey. Their laws are based on custom, but the king does not enforce the law; rather the lawbreakers punish themselves by stinging themselves to death.

Ostrich
Latin name: Assida.
Other names: Asida, Assidam, Chamoi, Ostrice, Ostruche, Struthiocamelon, Struthione, Strutio.
Facts: A bird that can digest anything, even iron, but is careless of its eggs.
Attributes: It lays its eggs when it sees the star Virgilia (the Pleiades) rising.

Spider
Latin name: Aranea.
Other names: Araingne, Aringne.
Facts: The spider is an aerial worm that takes its nourishment from the air.
Attributes: The spider is industrious, never ceasing to build its net from a long thread drawn from its body. It is an aerial worm that takes its nourishment from the air. Its web is fragile. It is said that if a spider (or a snake) tastes the saliva of a fasting man, it dies.

Salamander
Latin name: Salamandra.
Other names: Silion, Stellio, Sylio.
Facts: Salamanders are so cold they can extinguish any fire.
Attributes: The salamander is a cold animal. It can live unharmed in a fire, and its coldness will extinguish the hottest flames. If it enters hot water, the water will become cold. From the salamander comes a material that is unlike any other cloth; when it becomes dirty, it must be thrown into a fire, which will consume the dirt without harming the cloth. This cloth is made in the deserts of India, and is worn by important people. The salamander’s poison is very strong, and can kill many at once. If it climbs an apple tree, the apples become poisonous; if it enters a well, the water becomes deadly.

Hyena
Latin name: Hyaena.
Other names: Hiena, Hienne, Hyene, Iena, Luvecerviere, Yena.
Facts: A beast that eats human corpses and changes sex.
Attributes: Hyenas can change their sex; sometimes they are male, other times female. They live near tombs and eat the dead bodies they find there. There is a stone in the hyena’s eye (some say in the stomach of its young) that will give a person the ability to predict the future if the stone is placed under the person’s tongue. Hyena’s will circle a house at night, calling out words with the voice of a man; anyone who is deceived and goes out to investigate is eaten.


I must say that coming upon such cast-aside facts as these makes me feel slightly sad, because, after all, how wonderful would it be if our world was this magically and irrationally ordered? Today we create elaborate fantasies to entertain ourselves, the endless films, shows, novels, and games filling the hole that was once occupied by a wonder at the natural world; fictitious horrors flicker across screens rather than the demons and monsters who once lurked in the blackest area of every shadow.

In these terms I can understand the compunction to believe in Gods. What notion could be simultaneously more romantic, terrifying, and comforting? Faith is necessitated by mystery is it not? Makes it ironic that in stubbornly embracing a fantasy, and indeed actively propagating it and its attendant strict laws and codes, believers also effectively homogenate the world, stripping both culture of its magic, and in seeking to explain away all of creation, the natural world of its true majestic machinations. But of course understanding the compunction is far from being sympathetic to it. This is the year 2006 after all, not 842! And whatever else their function, abandoned notions make possible new notions, and their wake opens paths into larger mysteries.

I say when a “fact” has become impotent, spare it the viagra of faith, and let it degrade gracefully, performing on the vaudeville circuit of old ideas, until it is finally forgotten.

As stated pervious all images are adapted from the online presentation of Hrabanus Maurus’ De rerum naturis, text from the same. (For more on Maurus’ other works see Cryptic-Rabanus at Bibliodyssey.)

Hope you enjoyed.

Now with the original test you send it back via mail and it is reviewed, scored, and evaluated by their staff of art professionals, who point out your strength as well as areas for improvement, and offer an otherwise honest assessment of your potential as an artist. I assure you that is not the case here. Honest assessments are sooo 20th century! After you’ve taken the Nonist Instruction School Art Test you can ball it up, shred it, and toss it in the dumpster. Today there are no objective standards and Art is subjective to the calcium-deficient osteopathic bone.

So there you have it! You passed. You’re well on your way! Congratulations.

The book has nothing to say by way of introduction unfortunately so the following is from Talasnik’s own site:

Hope you enjoyed. If you did you might want to check out Talasnik’s sculpture as well.

For some more “Paper Architecture” see this previous post on the duo of Brodsky and Utkin.

“Do I support the Arts” you gleaming-toothed little twit of a solicitor? What exactly is it you want? To pry some of my hard-earned lucre from my wallet? What are you trying to get at with your seemingly guileless but culturally loaded opening salvo? It’s money right? Why not just get yourself a tin-can and a cardboard sign like any respectable beggar? Do a little dance at least. Sing for your non-profit’s supper.

Course, I didn’t say any of that. I like to at least pretend at civility when it comes to my fellow humans. Don’t want to rend the social fabric after all and send us tumbling backward into public defecation and cannibalism. What I said was simply:

“Yes.”

And it was true. I do.

“Wow, that’s great. May I ask how?” the twit responded in his carefully rehearsed solicitor’s version of familiar speech, betrayed, as it often is, by the inclusion of the the overly polite, or overly formal. These guys just can’t seem to nail realistic dialogue.

“Well, actually, it’s funny that you ask…” I began.

I often like to stop cold after a statement like “it’s funny that you ask.” The person your speaking with knows full well that something is to follow, that’s the whole point of an old chestnut like “it’s funny that you ask,” and they’ll generally wait patiently for the punch-line, allowing an unnaturally long pause in conversation. Seeing how long is the fun part. With solicitors an awkward pause in conversation is like a glimpse into the slavering maw of Death. In this case I managed a full 6 seconds before sensing an interjection, and continued.

“It’s funny that you ask because I only just left a doctor’s office who gave me some test results. Coincidentally they answer your question better than I ever could. I’ve got some pictures here taken with an electron microscope. Would you like to see them?”

Before letting him answer I produced the images and brandished them right up in front his oxy-cleaned pores.

They looked like this:

I saw a mixture of confusion and revulsion in his eyes. He looked instinctually to his identically dressed cohort who was, unfortunately for him, busy accosting someone else, and unable to offer cover fire.

“I’m not sure I understand. What are they?” he bleated.

“They are Art of course! Art seen at 1,000,000 times magnification. You asked whether I supported the Arts and as you can see clearly from these I do. Art is a parasite and we are embraced in a mutualist waltz of sorts.

Art has lodged itself in places throughout my body. Since childhood, when I was initially infected, it has spread everywhere. It’s in my bowels, my heart, and my brain. It nourishes itself on my insides and It floods me with chemicals. Had it not been for this infestation I might have gone into the sciences! But Art wouldn’t allow it. It influences my decisions. It’s disgusting little flagellum run over every inch of my guts. It’s eggs are buried in me. It takes everything it needs to survive from me.

In return it offers me occasional delusions of grandeur. It tricks my mind into perceiving some kind of purpose. It keeps me from putting a rifle in my mouth or in yours. It keeps me from building bombs in my basement. It keeps me from disemboweling people on the street. It offers me some kind of hope. You see? Art and I are engaged in a symbiotic relationship. I keep it alive, it keeps me relatively sane. Get it?”

“...”

“So yes, I support the Arts, bodily, as a host.”

“Well that’s not really what I was asking Sir.”

“I know. You want money. ‘Can ya’ spare a dime for a cultural institution that’s down on it’s luck?’ I understand. Well how about this, I’ll just keep the money and cut out the middle man. How’s that? Easier, don’t you think?”

I walked away from the shiny-toothed little shit-head then, happy to have given him a small taste straight from the teat which he harassed people on behalf of, and I could swear, as I eased on down the road, I heard him say to his coconspirator:

“God! I hate Artists.”

Note: The original microscopy images used to make up the “Art parasites” above were taken from here and here. Both very nice resources.

Consumers of 1800’s America were as disparate a group of peoples as one could imagine. They were an ad-man’s demographic nightmare. A focus group without a focus. They did not yet truly share a common language and certainly didn’t share a common culture. Simple commerce in this age before wholesale could be a challenging proposition.

Characterizing an “average” customer from a shop owner’s perspective in this melange would be an almost comical task, except for the single obvious trait which everyone shared: the inability to understand one another. Add to this the fact that most people were illiterate and you have the seeds of what would ultimately grow into a ubiquitous American sight: the cigar-store Indian.

“Visual trade signs” were essentially stand-ins for written signposts that might have been incomprehensible to potential customers, many of whom were immigrants or illiterate. Chiropodists (early-day podiatrists) displayed large white feet, teahouses had Chinamen to lure customers, pharmacies used an oversized mortar and pestle, Locksmiths featured large keys, pawnshops were known by three balls. The most popular, however, were the tobacconist’s cigar-store Indian. Tens of thousands of shop figures were carved in the United States and Canada in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

The origin of the wooden Indian dates back to England in 1617, when small wooden figures called “Virginie Men” were placed on countertops to represent tobacco companies. The “Indian” likeness became synonymous with tobacco products for a century after.

After the Indian became recognized as the standard smoke-shop symbol, certain tobacconists sought to distinguish themselves by using other types of figures. Turks and sultans (for turkish tobacco), Punch figures (which survived into the modern age on rolling papers), Scottish Highlanders (for snuff), baseball players, and “racetrack touts or dandies” with jeering faces dressed in houndstooth coats and top hats.

In America the vast majority of the sculptures were created by shipcarvers trained in traditional Anglo-American woodcarving techniques. In the 1820’s steam ships brought about the decline of sailing ships and these shipcarvers had to find new avenues on which to ply their trade.

The carvers themselves coined the phrase “the image business” to characterize the wide range of shop figures that they were eventually called upon to create. And they were very successful. By mid-century, the phenomenon had reached the dimensions of a fad, with the figures becoming an essential part of any shopkeepers’ operations.

Most of these artisans worked out of the east coast and may never have actually even seen an American Indian. As such they are often characterized as “looking like white men in native garb.” Shaped by nineteenth-century Anglo-American values, they also reflected the tenor of the times, including racial and gender stereotyping and an embryonic popular culture. The cigar-store Indian typified what is now commonly considered the birth of modern advertising techniques in America.

Although some figures were made of cast metal, the great majority were carved from wood. The preferred material for the statues was white pine, usually three to seven-foot sections of masts purchased at spar yards in the maritime district. The carvers’ tools were axes, mallets, and chisels. Industrialization, which was well under way by this time, never made much headway into the craft of “trade figure” carving, and so surviving statues represent an interesting blend of folk, fine, and popular art of the time.

For a variety of reasons, including over supply, changing tastes, and new modes of advertising, the production of new figures virtually ceased by 1900. They were increasingly seen as old-fashioned symbols of an era that was rapidly passing away.

As a result of the 1910 urban-sidewalk-obstruction laws countless Indian statues were sold from the commercial streets and slowly disappeared. During the depression most wooden cigar-store Indians were broken down and burned as firewood.

Of the tens of thousands once carved it is thought that now only a tiny fraction of original trade figures survive. A fact which the people whose likenesses these statues stereotyped are none too broken up about I’m sure.

I find it interesting that this visual mode of salesmanship, which is one of the earliest tropes of advertising, was created to draw in illiterates by employing obvious stereotypes and the most simplistic symbolic language… Looking at the lion’s share of advertising today I can’t help but wonder whether it has really changed that much, in form or ultimate function. Just a thought.

This post incorporated information from the following sources which you should look to for more in-depth information on the subject:

The Image Business, Shop and Cigar Store Figures in America. By Ralph Sessions.

Cigar Store Indian History and the Origin of Tobacco Shops.

The Museum of American Folk Art page on the subject.

Cigar Store Figures.

Also see:

Peace Party for an American Indian viewpoint.

Sidewalk Sculptures. Cigar-Store Indians Served as High-Profile Advertising Tools for Tobacconists. By Nancy Wolfson. Which points us toward Mark Goldman’s collection.

And this page which focuses on one of the most famous and well documented of all surviving 19th century American cigar-store Indians.

Most of the images in this post were scanned from The Book of Pipes and Tobacco by Carl Ehwa Jr. Published in 1974 by random house.

Hope you enjoyed.

To me they look, more than anything else, like overhead shots of failed civilizations, or possibly the images now returned on a daily basis from the surfaces of distant moons and planets. Me Likey.

One final note: Discovering Droste today had extra punch for me, though not because of the sculpture pictured above. While looking for more info on him I came across his photography, which he evidently began dabbling in latter in his career. Take a look at these images and then take a look at these (especially those toward the bottom of the page) and it shouldn’t be hard to tell why.

Every so often I come across an artist who I’ve never heard of and am humbled to see (what I feel to be) my own aesthetic in evidence elsewhere, created long before I ever touched a camera or brush. In the case of Droste’s photographs I can see immediately what he was after. How many times have I stood by the edge of the lake in Central Park trying to capture the same kind of thing? Fascinating; for me anyway.

Hope you enjoyed. If anyone out there has further info on Droste please let me know.

From the very brief front matter of the book, in Einsel’s own words:

I think they are pretty beautiful. Just exactly of their time stylistically. But then I may be reacting to them because they kind of remind me of the metal piggy-bank my mother always had around… a rotund bald man with a black mustache sitting in a chair. When you put a coin in his hand he’s deposit it in his jacket pocket… might even have tipped his hat. I’d gladly offer up more of Einsel’s work, but as I said earlier, does not seem to be much on the old internet. Hope you enjoyed.