Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

TIGER, TIGER

Tiger, Tiger
Tiger, Tiger: Painting by Rebecca B.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

                              - William Blake

I am partial to tigers, being a product of Princeton University and the Great Corporate Salt Mine, both of which claim felis tigris as mascot. They are, in my view, the most beautiful of the Great Cats... which beauty does not necessarily imply a desire for physical proximity. They are, after all, King-Shit Carnivores, and to them, the vaunted human intelligence is merely the ghost in a machine made of tasty meat.

Nevertheless, I am partial to tigers - and when my sister-in-law Rebecca presented us with the above painting, I was practically ecstatic.

Now all we have to do is find a suitable wall upon which to hang it... and where its fearsome stare will not keep me - or Hakuna - awake at night.

11 comments:

Kevin Kim said...

What a magnificent painting!

Sissy Willis said...

Love the bit about 'the ghost in a machine made of tasty meat."

My contribution to the discussion, from the good old days:

What immortal hand or eye?

og said...

I always wonder how they get the paint to stick to the velvet.

Elisson said...

@og - Only Elvis knows for sure.

Wilma said...

Lovely! That was one of my mother's favorite poems. :)

og said...

I do know when the paint comes together with the velvet, it forms a new, third substance, known as "Elvet"

Claude said...

That beautiful painting is more than alive. It's also untamed. I would not even try to stare it down.

Ole Phat Stu said...

If you read SciFi, may I recommend the
'Man-Kzin Wars' series?

Roughly, Kzin = bright tigers.

Elisson said...

@Stu - The kzinti were one of Larry Niven's great SF inventions: a race of intelligent, spacefaring creatures that had evolved from their world's equivalent of our tigers. They were an aggressive species that managed to lose all the wars they fought with humans, mainly because they invariably attacked before they were ready.

Froth said...

Fabulous picture. I wish I could do that.

Rahel said...

Whaddaya mean I can't skritch him?!