MY LIFE IN THE THRILL KILL WORLD

donkey jen

It is a moderate time of winter this week. A few days of sunlight and cold. The sun makes the cold feel better than cold under dark clouds. By chance, I saw a weather report for the next week. It looks like every day above freezing and every night below freezing. It's not bad. The floor is not quite so cold. After maybe four winters with two bird feeders, the bird community has worked out a flow that works for all concerned. Blue jays, one black and white woodpecker with red on top of its head, and other big birds go to one feeder. Chickadees dart in for a seed between the big birds. Snowbirds, nuthatches, chickadees, the smaller birds use the other feeder. Cardinals go to both. The birds have an understanding among themselves, something like the way animals of the African plain gather around a watering hole in peace. The family of red squirrels that live in the pines around the house use the feeder the small birds go to. Gray squirrels from the trees across the road use the one the big birds go to. The squirrels don't take everything. They eat what they want and go on. I throw seeds on the ground for the squirrels so they won't go to the feeders so much. They're not a problem, but the birds have to wait when a squirrel is at the feeder. I see the birds in peace with each other, the whole variety of birds, big to small. The blue jays are not aggressive with the smaller birds. They wait their turn when another bird is at the feeder. They perch on the rhododendron branches waiting for next opening. They live in peace. The feeders are the communal station for nearby birds. The hawks know the feeders are here. Among the tree limbs and rhododendron is not an easy place for a hawk to maneuver. They wait outside the grove of trees to nail birds coming and going. I suspect one is living in a grove of white pines up the hill behind the house. I hear it from time to time. I've seen a sparrow hawk fly in here, but it didn't do any good. The birds scattered. The hawk had no reason to wait, perched on the bird feeder, and flew. 

donkey jack

At first, I didn't like the idea of the hawks invading my bird sanctuary. It wasn't long before I caught on. The feeding station is here to feed hawks too. They're birds, they live here, it's communal, they're welcome. They're part of the balance. I once saw a Cooper's hawk land just beyond the window, a big bird with impressive wingspan. It looked in the window, saw me and flew. A red tail lives nearby. I see it sometimes sit on a wire or sail by. It is Justin's hunting buddy. When he was using his tree stand, he said the red tail would fly up and perch on a branch uncannily close to him. Soon after, a deer would appear. He learned the hawk knew he was hunting. The boom of the rifle did not make the bird fly. It stayed in place, just a few feet away. The hawk knew Justin was a predator too, who went after the big animals the hawk couldn't handle. The hawk knows Justin's truck. I think of the thousands of years the Indians lived in peace with mountain lions, rattlesnakes, bears, wolves. Europeans discovered the world was round and went looking for gold. The age of discovery on one hand---the age of genocide on the other. They not only annihilated Indian civilization on two continents, but killed about everything else too. Killing became American tradition unto an attitude pervasive all my life I trained self away from: if it's living, kill it. Buffalo Bill's genocide of the plains buffalo made his name, got him fame and fortune, ostensibly to starve the Indians into submission. Someone I know heard something on the deck in the night. It was a possum. He went and got his gun and shot it. And I say within, Wha? I wanted to say, It was only passing through. He knew. Something to kill. Easy target. Hear the gun go boom. Nailed the sucker. Good shot. By this time in the life, I have emotional, as well as physical, reactions I suppress from view hearing somebody tell about killing something. I'm not a good actor.

donkeys and their shadows

I've noticed my hunting friends like to watch my face while they tell me about a kill. I do my best to keep a poker face, which gives me away. I've heard some stories that make me want to cry. The hardest time I had keeping reaction from showing in my face was the time my friend Jr told me about shooting a hoot-owl out of a tree at a hundred yards, watching my face to see me hold it. One of the great ironies of my life came the night of the morning Jr left the body. Parking at home, when I opened the car door to get out, I heard a hoot-owl in a tree so close my first thought was, why didn't you fly when the car drove up? Next thought, It's Jr telling me he's all right, saying hi and thank you. I wondered why he chose an owl to speak through. At the house I looked up owl in Jamie Sams' book, Medicine Cards. I already knew the wisdom part, but wanted to see what else the book had to say. Owl fit Jr. He was the one I call the only man I've known all along the way who had true wisdom. I found the owl is also the deceiver. It flies on silent feathers and sees the unknown. Both these aspects of owl point particularly at Jr. I was not the only one who knew him to see the deceiver, but knew I was the only one to see his wisdom. I mentioned to two of his friends of many years, separately, a few weeks after he'd been gone, "Jr was the only man I've ever known I'd say without hesitation had wisdom, the real deal." I knew neither one would allow him wiser than themselves. Also knew neither one would see wisdom in him or anywhere else. It's a bible word with no meaning in the now, like prophet or king. It's not a word you hear much on tv. Both men without much school education, though both with PhDs and post-docs in experience, answered after a pause of a few seconds in the same words, "Jr did have some wisdom about him." I took it for affirmative, knowing neither one had seen wisdom in Jr, consciously, and knew both had seen it unconsciously. I wanted to bring it into their consideration to add a new dimension to their memory of Jr.

found on a maple

I personally do not like guns, though had two that were given to me, didn't want either one. After several years of catching dust, I gave them away to get them out of the house. I'm of the belief that guns attract guns. I also believe I'd rather be killed than kill, though haven't had a chance to test it and don't want the chance. I do not believe I'm safer with a gun. A possum wants to sleep under the house, you're welcome. A coon wants to eat leftovers at a bird feeder in the night, you, too, are welcome. It's communal. Coyotes come around in the night, I don't need to kill them. I step outside and yell big and loud, GIT. The giant's left his barn. The coyotes leave. My reputation as a human precedes me. Everything is afraid of humans. The animals left in the wild tell their babies the humans can kill you just by seeing you, they go boom and you're dead. A wild animal weaned by its mother cannot be tamed. A wild animal brought up from birth by humans is easily tamed; it hasn't been trained by mother who knows to avoid humans, rule number one in the wild. They'll kill you just for living. American cops kill three people a day, one of them an unarmed black man, woman or child. It's not safe to be a human in America either. Then we have the homicides and all the other -cides. My way in this world is to go in peace. Merely having a gun in my mind is not peace. Some friends taught me to fill half gallon plastic fruit juice jugs with water and blow them away. I had a .45 that shot magnum hollow points. I went out one day and blew holes in a few. Never touched it again. Hot dang, blew up a plastic bottle. I liked the balance of the weight in my hand. I liked the feeling of power when it went boom. OK, I experienced it, now what? I'm suspicious of "power" so readily available. As for the balance, a brush feels better in my hand. I'm of the belief that guns, like money, create more problems than they solve. A gun is an instrument of hate. I don't trust hate either.    

yard art

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DONKEYS AT MORNING HAY

jack

We have warm sun the last few days and with temperature rising above freezing in daylight and fading below freezing in the night. The donkeys are showing me something deep in donkey nature I'm gradually coming to see is important. Important to donkeys. They have taken to using their den for a toilet. After just a few days, I looked in yesterday and the hay I'd spread was wet and matted flat, a big circle of donkey droppings in the middle. I put some hay over it, thinking I was helping keep them clean. They don't want to be clean. This morning I looked at the hay. It was matted wet and a circle of donkey biscuits in the middle. In exasperation, I thought, If that's what trips y'all's trigger, have at it. I have it narrowed slightly considering they do not use their sleeping quarters for a toilet in summer. This leans me toward seeing it may, indeed, be about warmth, keeping the surface of the ground warm. Scent surely has a major role in it. The floor would be the blend of both their scents. Possibly, given that they are an item now, lovers living together, wedded in the donkey way, it's looking like this could be how they blend their scents. It is no longer Jack's scent and Jenny's scent, it's "our" scent, the scent of "our" bond, "our" den, "our" meadow. I saw them fall in love and saw them make love. It is a love making event for them. In their early months, when Jack stepped around behind Jenny, she would kick with both back legs, kicks that meant business. Now, he steps around behind her with romance on his mind, Jenny not in heat, she just hops up and down on back legs once or twice, just a gesture. A year of living with her, he gets it. If talking is not enough, she will  elbow him with her back knees to say, "Listen, boy, I'm talkin to you!" He stays with it, Jenny knows how to stop him by force. She brings out the bigger hammer. 

jenny and jack

Yesterday morning, carrying the hay out into the meadow in full sun, like usual I stop just inside the gate to let Jenny pull off a swatch from the edge on one side, and Jack to rip some loose from the other side for himself. I don't pull my fingers back. Both will tear at the hay close to a finger without touching the finger. I did not teach them to lay off my fingers. They taught me they don't want to bite my fingers. Most often, Jenny will walk on my right side and Jack will follow. She walks proud like a horse with a cropped mane, punk donkey with a natural mohawk. I take for pride her keeping an eye on Jack, keeping him aware his place is behind her, not in front. The Empress Donkey Jen will be first to have hay when Ice Cream Man puts it down for them. Jenny first, Jack second, get it?! I walked out across the ground and noticed right away Jenny was on my left and Jack on my right. Jack was in a playful mood wanting to laugh. He bit some cloth on my heavy shirt sleeve and tugged on it like a dog. I let out a yelp like a puppy and he let go immediately. A few times he has bit the flap above the pocket and tugged on it. It's play. He's wanting to make me jump or squeal "uncle." Jenny outside her usual order, which she is particular about, I knew was not going to take it. And Jack in Jenny's place. Jenny made a dive at Jack with her teeth, reaching across in front of me holding the hay, her right shoulder pressing me against Jack. He spun around quick as a cat to kick, Jenny spun around, and I was between them. I also knew neither one would kick me. It came to me, Jack took Jenny's place to provoke her in play. He was feeling playful, wanted to pull a good one on Jenny, make her jump. I stepped out of the way unhesitant about getting donkey kicked. I knew neither one would kick me, even in play, and knew as well, they know where their feet are. They have good aim. Yet, when they turn on a sparring match, I want someplace else. It's a donkey mosh pit of two.

jack

I get my kicks seeing them up close in a kicking frenzy. They're so primal, small chunks of mud encrusted in the hair on their backs where they rolled in the mud and it dried. Their stripes like body paint. They wear it like Amazon Indians paint their faces and bodies. The caked mud dries in their hair, maintains the layer of dust to keep the varmints down, their own version of flea powder. I see their sides still damp in the morning from sleeping in their piss all night and I marvel. My impulse is to clean them. They'd just-a-soon I not. I want them to live as close to their donkey nature as possible in captivity. I used to think of the fence penning them in. They don't see it like I do. The fence keeps everything and everybody out, keeps them safe. This spot of ground is their territory. They don't want out. The world beyond the fence is uncharted in their minds. Dogs cross the fence and turn around running in a hurry. I've not heard coyotes recently. They come through here on a big circuit they cover, taking a few weeks to make the  round. They surely find enough food to keep a pack going. I've an idea the coyotes like to make the donkeys jump, taunt them, say mean things in the night like, "I'm going to kill you, then I'm going to eat you." And Jenny says, "If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of my strike zone." I walked away from Jack and Jenny leaving them to their sparring match that amounted to no more than hopping up and down in back pretending to kick. Ears back, heads down, manes arched on the bend of their necks. They bring to mind the Trojan War, the horses' heads in marble, the curved neck, and in my mind's eye a cropped mane. I'm happy they are free enough with me to play their donkey games in close proximity.   

jenny

I walked out into the meadow a ways, Jenny directly behind me, Jack staying out of Jenny's strike zone. I put some hay down for Jenny and she was munching before it settled. Jack ran a half circle around Jenny. I spread some hay on the ground for Jack. He ran up close just a few feet away and kicked his back feet up in the air like he does when he's having a good day. I wasn't concerned that he was kicking at me. He was kicking for me, showing me he's feeling good this morning. I loosened the hay for him while he munched. He knows what I'm doing, makes it easier for him so he doesn't have to do it. I went to Jenny's hay, Jenny who does not like man nor donkey inside the radius of her rear end when she's eating. I walked up beside her, picked up hay to fluff it up for her. She kept on munching like it wasn't an issue. This is another measure of how relaxed we've become with each other by way of trust. Jenny is open to me by degrees more than ever. Her eyes have been inaccessible to me from her arrival until maybe just a few weeks ago, or more. Now she looks me right in the eye. I talk to her at carrot time and she looks me in the eye. I've caught eye contact with Jack a few times. He's not one for eye contact unless for communication. Jack brays for me as soon as I walk out the door in the morning. Jenny does her best to bray. Jenny is of a sensitive intelligence. It has taken her a year learning to bray from Jack. She had the inbreath, the Hee part, but could not blow the horn for the Haw, which is blown through the throat stretched out the full length of the neck to make a donkey didgeridoo. She is getting it. Her bray this morning was full throated and audible. She still hasn't found the horn of it. She watches Jack while he brays, wishing with all her might she could find her own horn. It amuses me to see her study Jack's braying. It comes to him as natural as walking, but Jenny has to work at it. When she finally gets it, she'll light up this holler with a bray heard a mile.             

jenny and jack

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DON'T TAKE ANYTHING SERIOUSLY

jenny

Ground cover snow fell night before last, a dry snow with enough wet to stick where it fell. Years ago I saw somewhere the Lakota language has twenty-eight, or so, words for snow, differentiating the many textures. Possibly laplanders have more. I've lived intimately with snow in the mountains, noting such a variety of snows that I no longer see it just snow. I feel like when I mention snow it requires enough description to give a sense of the kind of snow it is. The Lakota people lived far more intimately with snow than I do. Some snow is so dry, tiny ice crystals, it can be kicked like sand, doesn't stick to tree limbs. Some snow is so wet it sticks to everything, will stand an inch or two high on a wire fence, will stick to limbs and weigh so heavily the snow breaks limbs and electrical lines. Wet and dry are the parentheses all other snows fall between. Since I've learned to pay attention to the various snows, I don't recall any two the same. It happens, the variety is limited, but seldom. No two winters in my experience have been the same. Our language having one word for snow suggests civilization has been moving away from the physical world inward toward mind. For multiple thousands of years humans lived outdoors. Now we live indoors. With the age of reason, we are moving inward, emphasis shifting from body to mind. How we value body and mind shows in the pay scale. Physical work pays the least. The harder the work, the less the pay. Mental work pays more by degrees, until the highest paid work is entirely mental, accomplished in a golf cart. The snow melted through the course of the day until snow remained only in places shaded from the sun. I carried this morning's donkey hay into the meadow to a place the sun lights up first. Cold mornings I'll see the donkeys standing still at the far end of the meadow, the place they know is warmed by morning sunlight first.

jenny at the mineral block

Early humans worshiped the sun as God, life giving, sustaining, destroying. I prefer to call them early instead of primitive. Primitive means first, but popularly is taken for backward. Winter mornings the donkeys stand quietly soaking up the sun's rays in a stillness easily taken for reverence by human interpretation. It is a kind of reverence; it feels extra good. We humans exhibit reverence for whatever makes us feel good, inebriants, money, sex, on one level, and the spirit on another. People new to the mountains know nothing about mountain culture and don't want to, but mention the word, moonshine, and they're all ears, laughing and talking, "Can you get me some?" No. I avoid the word with someone new to the mountains. With hillbillies, we never use the word, moonshine. We call it "white," "shine," and several other names. I bring this up as an example of reverence. I've seen people, both men and women, wax embarrassingly foolish over the idea of moonshine. I'm reminded of a Southern Baptist in New York City without supervision. A reverence for feel-good unto foolishness, similar to a reverence for God in some religions unto foolishness. Killing somebody who shames your feel-good is the ultimate foolishness. All it got the Charlie Hebdo assassins was dead same day or next, whichever it was. They certainly had no peace of mind from the moment of the event onward until flying lead found them too. No matter how many virgins (feel-good) await them, there comes a time none of the virgins are virgin anymore. Even in their heaven, feel-good amounts to a limited time in eternity. Two months or less for seventy however many feel-goods. Honeymoon over, back to the same-o, same-o. Some of the most valuable advice of my life came from Meher Baba, "Don't take anything seriously, not even God." I take it to have something to do with being conscious about reverence. Remember reverence is about feel-good. Don't get stuck in it. The sun moves. The spot that feels good early on a cold morning will shift by midday to a spread of insulating hay someplace else to lie down on, soak up the rays and eat later.

snowbird tracks

It's a tall order to take nothing, not even God, seriously. As a remedy to quiet monkey mind, I can't think of a better way. Taking things seriously charges the mind, makes it race. The more I take seriously, the more I engage runaway mind. For someone not on the path, it doesn't matter. To open self to spirit, mind needs quieting, not swept away, but still as a lake with no wind. The Charlie Hebdo assassinations came out of taking God (Allah), by way of the Prophet, way too seriously. There, again, like freedom of speech, all things in conscious moderation. I learned early to take the candy of good liquor in moderation from the examples of people around me who did not. I wanted to be able to taste good liquor all my life, not have to quit by age 40 or die. I have some easily within reach, but haven't touched it in probably two weeks, and then only a sip for the taste. I've forgotten the last three times in town to stop at the liquor store for some Wild Turkey Rye 101. It's the only bonded liquor I've found to satisfy my palate. Haitian rum is almost equal satisfaction, but I have to go to a city to get it. I can't drink socially anymore for the need to drive home, and hangover avoidance. I like the George Thorogood song, I Drink Alone. I don't like to get out of control and let my inner stupid act out. Not many people can handle riding the bull named Stupid. I know I don't even qualify to sit on him, and him penned up. I sit in the grandstands and learn, watch other people, who thought they were up to the challenge, get trampled. Some people say, Ya gotta have some fun. Trampled by a bull is not my idea of fun. Fun involves feel-good in my dictionary. Like what kind of fun can wrecking a motorcycle be? For masculine credibility it's the ultimate feel-good. I've never been one to need every day of my life to prove I'm not a girl. Can't help but take it for obvious, what of it?

jack

It's a sight how freeing it can be to let go of serious thinking. I don't mean to imply I'm there. I've been conscious of letting go of being serious about one thing or another, especially art making, just enough to have something like a peephole experience. I've seen the good sense in it enough to check myself when taken over by serious mind, to back off and say, this isn't going anywhere, it isn't working, it's not in alignment with the flow. Here again, I see other people acting out serious and it makes me want no more to do with it. It's all about peace of mind. It's unimportant to someone who does not value peace of mind. I confess to some reservation about not taking God seriously at first. Whatever it is we call God isn't even close. If we can imagine it, it's not God. If we can name it, it's not God. Mind is not able to comprehend God. Serious has to do with mind. Mind is limited. The spirit is famous for lightness. Serious is famous for heaviness. We are well trained in the serious, especially in the realms of religion and politics. We leave God out of it, the great unknown we can't even put a handle on, even quicker to run between our fingers than water. I take it for sound counsel to avoid being serious about something I know nothing about, am unable to know about. I believe it is so, if someone were to see God as God really is, it would take one out of the body. While I'm involved with a body on earth, the best I know to do is enjoy being in God's dream. To take it seriously would be like Peter who walked on the water til he thought about it. He took it seriously and got wet. It gives me insight into Jesus mind. He was in the mind of not taking it seriously all the time, not just when he walked on water. He walked on land the same. Remembering when he saw Moses and Elijah on the mountain, I think it was Peter who wanted to build a shrine on the site, take it seriously. Jesus said to let it rest, it was for the moment only. 

sky

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VIVE CHARLIE

The air is full of Charlie Hebdo in Paris this week. At first, it was shock. Now, everybody has an opinion about what somebody should have said they didn't say, or the other way around. Somebody said or did something racist. Surprise. Whoever heard of such? Francis the new pope said something I took for fairly rational and pundits are making him out for a fool, doesn't know what he's talking about. He said something like free speech, like everything else, is good in moderation. To insult somebody's faith is using free speech to harm. He didn't condemn it or say there oughta be a law. He simply noted that speech has the capacity to be harmful. In my way of seeing it, the boomerang of karma came around. Muslim fundamentalists are hyper sensitive to their belief system of absolutes being challenged, the same as American fundamentalists. They're right and everybody else is wrong. To quote Mitch McConnell, "Period." Those people are humorless and of zero tolerance. The Charlie Hebdo people were challenging intolerant absolutists. OK, so that's not PC, but it doesn't matter when they have AKs. If there were a Muslim satire magazine in Los Angeles that shamed American fundamentalism with in-yer-face laughter and mocked Jesus, consequences would be inevitable. In Paris, they're talking like freedom of speech is important. Hearing it with American ears, such talk sounds old-fashioned, like questioning capital punishment, the 1950s. I remember my ears perking up when I heard the talk about the importance of freedom of speech. I can imagine Obama paying it lip service in a rally-round-me speech that, like other American political speeches, has no meaning whatsoever, but as smoke screen for what they're not saying. I wondered if French politicians were not as sophisticated as American, or if American were not as sophisticated as French. Seeing the American part from the inside, I already know our politicians have no sophistication at all. American politicians come from an anti-sophistication people.

I suspect the French have not yet been taken over by corporate mind control. That they have television tells me the probability is not far away. All I know about the French is from French writers and art films. I love the French je ne sais quoi that characterizes French art in all its forms. To me, French is a culture, a sophisticated culture. I don't know if the French appreciate their artists any more than the Americans don't appreciate our artists. I've noticed in films, the French are quick to say, of course, something inhibited in American talking. I can't say conversation. We don't do conversation in America. We do distraction. We talk. An old country saying, a dog is barking to hear its head roar. We talk to hear our heads roar. We are characterized by willful a-literacy. It felt heartening to hear a Frenchman talk of the freedom of speech as something important and sound like he meant it. I wondered if he might be ahead of the times or behind the times. The trend seems to be going away from freedom of speech. The North Korean reaction to the American film, Interview, made fun news. Like all laws, they are for court, after the fact. Abusing somebody with freedom of speech, legal in court, will create a reaction. The reaction will make the abuser cry persecution. The pope left out when you mock someone's faith, a wrath will come back to you in a form you don't want. In Paris, the satirists were walking a knife's edge and they knew it. They were stirring volatile people, fundamentalists, and they knew it. It was their purpose. It's not my place to point out blame. It seems to me a natural law that what goes around comes around. Provoke just about anybody, you will get a reaction in proportion to the hurt delivered. To mock one's faith is below the belt. The return will be below the belt. They knew they were taking a chance. One day death walked in the door dressed in black. 

I'm not saying the Charlie Hebdo people should have done anything differently. There is no should about it. They made their decision, acted on it. Someone else made a decision and acted on it. The reaction I'd call overkill, but it makes a measure of the hurt the satire delivered. My feeling is Muslims are regarded in Paris about like black people are regarded in any American city. The Muslims resent being shunned. They are proud people too. When something extreme happens, they would quite naturally react in extreme, and through a few volunteers do what everyone else wants to do, but can't allow themselves. Another old saying, It's the weak link in the chain that breaks. I call the satirical cartoonists brave people, knowing they were aware of the danger. I take them for people who like the edge, people who climb Himalayan mountains solo. I have freedom of speech, but I don't use it to provoke others with disrespect. I don't do it, because I know something I don't want will come back. This is partially why I am not a satirist. Even if I were, I would not mock Krishna to Hindus or Zoroaster to Parsis. I would not mock Martin Luther King to disrespect black people. This is the difference between me and a satirist in an extreme time. I don't mean to deny them their right. It's just that I don't want the consequences for such action to come back on my head. This is why I align myself with the pope's thinking on the matter. Free speech is a good thing, but push it too far and, like anything else, it breaks. Had they lived, they would have won in court. In America, it's legal for the False News Network to tell fake news. A case of freedom of speech gone awry. Generating hate like they do will inevitably come back on them. The fake televangelists get their fraudulent tax-free fortunes, then are publicly discredited for private indiscretions. They point the finger at everybody else. The turn-around comes and all fingers point at them. I felt like what the pope wanted to say was something like consequences follow words and actions, but it sounds too callous to speak from on high. I think he was talking about self-editing with consideration of others in mind, living in peace.      

        

Fifties comedian Lenny Bruce pushed the obscenity laws and suffered for it. There again, I would not have been one to push the obscenity envelope. It doesn't matter that much to me. The Sixties band, the Fugs, pushed the obscenity laws and spent about all the money they made as a band in court defending obscenity charges. There again, it's not my issue. The satirists in Paris were pushing an envelope of zero tolerance with dangerous consequences. I think of Paris with a large North African underclass, people there for political and survival reasons, every one his and her own story. My first feeling when I heard about the Charlie Hebdo incident was sadness that artists were shot down. Gentle people who don't settle issues with guns. One thing it said to me was art matters. In this country, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ caused a furious backlash. It didn't fire somebody up to assassination, but might have. I remember when Giuliani kept his name in the news for a week over a painting in the Brooklyn museum with a couple of balls of elephant dung, painted, hanging from strings. It was called Madonna. She was black. It offended his faith mixing a black mother of God with elephant shit. He failed in his efforts to have it removed from the show, but that wasn't the purpose. The purpose was his name in headlines. Jesse Helms made headlines attempting to censor Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. He failed, but it drew plenty of attention to himself. I would not drop a crucifix into a jar of piss to make an artistic statement. I can see what Serrano was about, and defend his right to do it. He was pushing the envelope, seeing how far he could go. What it did for Serrano's art was make him famous overnight. I'm all for these people pushing the envelope further and further. I may not want to provoke a backlash, but I defend the right of anyone who wants to. It feels good to see the remaining staff at Charlie Hebdo sold out their edition of three million right away and printed two more million, then two more million. It appears this experience has boosted their determination.

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