It’s not easy to study a whale vagina. But it is necessary.

From this Scientific American article by marine biologist Dr Marah Hardt. The same article also features the following twelve words:  

“You can easily fit your whole arm up in there,” says Mesnick. 

A somewhat improbable event. // Are you sitting comfortably, children? Then I’ll begin. // A list of slightly curious London bus stop names. // Water bottle of note. // When panoramic smartphone shots don’t quite work. // Hungry worm. // Goofy maggot. // Small cars and more. // Storm in the Mountains, 1870. // Early 20th century acoustic mirrors. // How much precious material has been extracted? // Softbody Tetris, you know it makes sense. // EyeVerify. // Levitating Bluetooth speaker, $179. // Looting. // Iceland, from above. // Neighbourhood. // The rooftops of Paris. // Packed lunches of note. // The wing mirror project, an ongoing series. // Why parents rarely want their children to be artists, parts 10 and 11. 

Or, They’re Teaching You. Can’t You Tell?

Yes, it’s once again time to wade through the aesthetic slaughterhouse that is performance art. This time, I’m treating you to edited highlights of a ninety-minute “durational performance” by Katy Albert and Sophia Hamilton, aka Mothergirl. This Chicago duo tells us that their work “exhibits a strategically refracted or misrepresented view of current political and philosophical discourse, creating a space where viewers are challenged to think critically about their own relationships with feminism, consumerism, and representational visuality.” But of course. Given their talent, or at least their self-regard, how could it not?

In the video below, filmed in 2013 near an onramp in the city of Chicago and titled Don’t Sleep, There’s a War Going On, we see the ladies beating themselves around the head and face with large feather pillows. Thereby enlightening passers-by, obviously. The duo describes the piece as “a physical act of frustration – an ambiguous response to the implicit guilt of inaction and the weight of overwhelming knowledge.” If the point of the performance somehow escapes you, due to your philistine tendencies, the ladies provide clues to its deep meaning, and by extension their own brilliance: “The lack of clarity serves two purposes: to show the expansiveness of war and to allow [the] audience to access the image first and the meaning second.”

Now cower in the shadow of their artistic enormity: 

We must pray for her safe return from the bosom of academia. 

For newcomers, more items from the archives.

The Humble Among Us. 

Novelist Brigid Delaney wants a nicer flat in order to write about those non-creative people. You, taxpayer, come hither.

As a member of our creative caste, Ms Delaney wants to capture the buzz and thrum of city life. She wants to inspire “recognition” and above all “empathy.” It’s just that she’d prefer not to empathise too much with those non-creative people. Say, by working for a living and paying her own bills. And who will write about those ordinary people and their non-artistic lives if we don’t encourage Ms Delaney and her peers to live way above their means, at our expense, in places they can’t afford? Places they can’t afford because what they create isn’t as vital to the public as they might wish.

Pearl-Clutching Pornographers. 

Campus feminists combat “male-centricity” by making unerotic pornography and rubbing eggs on their breasts.

As some readers may be intrigued by the notion of all-female feminist pornography, here’s a brief description: “It begins with a group of girls sitting around a library table taking their shirts off. As the film progresses, the girls engage in activities including kissing, rubbing eggs on their bodies and twerking around a chicken carcass.” The finished political opus, titled Initiation, also features the somewhat lacklustre use of a riding crop and extended scenes of floor-wiping. 

Militantly Nude. 

A San Francisco “nude-in” reveals more than intended.

Some may register a whiff of disingenuousness in exhibitionists accusing their critics of being repressive and stuffy. Exhibitionists may be eager to dispense with clothing in incongruous locations – say, a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection – but they desperately need an audience, preferably one that’s embarrassed and unwilling. San Francisco is remarkably well-equipped in terms of nude-friendly clubs and amenities, including a nude beach and nearby nudist colonies. What’s revealing is that such venues weren’t deemed sufficient for our wrinkly radicals. And while I doubt many readers here are prone to fainting at the sight of withered genitals and subsiding buttocks, they may conceivably object to being made an accomplice to someone else’s psychodrama. As one young lady points out, “Unwanted exposure to scrotum is never okay.”

And I’m told it’s possible, if not wise, to while away an hour in the greatest hits, now updated.