We're All Animals, and a Good Thing, Too
by the Editor
One of our favorite quotes around here (and if you know us, you've probably heard it already) is from the scientist who was asked if we would ever discover the Missing Link between Animals and Humans. "Oh yes," he said. "We found it a long time ago. It's us."
If there's one thing we believe, it's that. The storytelling, metaphor-making, foggy-brained, thrashing-around-in-the-universe animal making its way toward being fully human (if it doesn't drive itself into a wall first) is definitely us.
So we're all in this together, the other animals and us. And that seems to be what EAPers this issue feel strongly about, too. About engaging with our other partners in evolution to move forward…or even to move at all.
Harvey Lillywhite ends by believing enlightenment comes not with detachment, but with total involvement with the world around him, and we're totally on side with that, see if you agree that we are all PRISONERS OF THE SPLENDOUR . Julie Prince looks at the tragicomic web of humans and their children's pets in (what else?) TEDDY THE HAMSTER …and our favorite writing team, Marie Davis and Margaret J. Hults absolutely breaks the mold of what pets are and how they operate in PIRATE, WOMAN, MASCOT, PET . David D. Horowitz insists we should LET SNOWPAWS SNIFF AROUND . Alena Deerwater rides THE NIGHT MARE. And Mat Capper goes for a walk: ONE KID AND HIS DOG.
Chad Parmenter's back with the first poem from his mix of Rilke and Gotham City in BAT & MAN . And Marissa Bell Toffoli is a SCAVENGER . That's poetry. And yes, it doesn't get any better than that, Marissa, we totally agree.
Linda Sandoval has a conversation with performance artist Rachel Rosenthal about a lifetime of serious work and her relationship with animals in RACHEL AND THE ANIMALS , and if you're not cheering when Rachel saves an animal from being abused in the name of art, you probably don't have the same idea of art as we do.
Mira Allen urges APE LOVE, NOT WAR , and we love the way Bonobos approach conflict management. Did you know we share more DNA with them than with the chimpanzee? No, we didn't either.
Finally, we want to give a hearty welcome to Diane Mierzwik, and really urge you to read FRAGILE BIRDS: INCARCERATION AND POVERTY. I find it difficult to describe this piece, which at first may seem (depending on where you're coming from) as yet another do-gooder plea for understanding of those less fortunate, or as a complaint that prisoners have more rights than the struggling middle class. But this is deceptive. It's the struggle through those two "easier" positions that's the dynamism of FRAGILE BIRDS. It's the reality of both that's looked at as unsparingly as the narrator can manage, and it dawns on the reader that we're all in this together. Or should be. For maximum avoidance of that driving ourselves into the wall thing we're watching ourselves do in slow motion these days.
But if we make partnerships of a valuable kind, maybe we can drive our way out. And finding a little byway to suddenly turn down before we get to that looming wall is what we're all hoping for around here, in 2012 and beyond.
Welcome back.