A recent issue of the Southland Express featured the winner of the World of Wearable Arts "Bizarre Bra" category: "Lunar Duo". Two killed, preserved possums placed, joined together with rubber from a car tyre. This is meant to be a dark joke about how Possums are run over by cars, but is it creative fashion?
I helped a friend with her WOW Bizarre Bra, all the while keeping my KILLER idea to myself. You'll see a mockup at the bottom of this blogpost... :-)
Theres a bizarre disconect in New Zealand, where we're told that possums (which WE brought here deliberately, to kill them as an industry!) are some kind of EVIL animal : "notorious invaders", "plague proportions", "stripping native forests and carrying disease"....pictures hissing and trying to scratch your eyes out!
This historical sign on top of Bluff Hill really can't help itself, "unwanted immigrants" who were DELIBERATELY set loose here!!! Its not like they swam over from Australia, we *WANTED* them, in the past tense, in a lack of common sense.
Imagine if this bra featured two ran over CATS! There would be outrage, tears and anger! Talk of introducing "the death penalty"! Possums are really no different from cats, small furry animals who are great at climbing trees and see in the dark. If anything, possums are actually less harmful in being somewhat "vegetarian".
In their native land, Australia, the possum is beloved, they are actually protected! The next country over though, we New Zealanders are told to HATE the "pests"! We actually love the idea of killing them, and consider this bra made from their preserved corpses "funny"!
"No animals will be harmed" in the artists next project:
Well! I think I can one-up this "Bizarre Bra", and do it in an animal friendly way too!
As a Vegan, I do not like the idea of wearing someone elses skin, "leather". While professional use of animal skin is waning, we're still wearing preserved animals as "fashion".
You may happen to know that my favourite musician is Michael Jackson. For a long time now, I've wanted a high quality non animal skin version of his Thriller jacket :-) While MJ was a dietary "vegetarian" at the time of Thriller, the biggest album in the world, he obviously wore animal skin. He was not Vegan, but this creation of mine wil be :-)
Presenting to you a future entry idea for the Wearable Arts "Bizarre Bra" section: a Thriller jacket made from preserved orange peel!
Now, a small minority of people (Russell apparently included) will think this is a stupid idea, "you're going to dry out a whole bunch of carefully removed orange skins? And then sew them over top of a cheap, thin jacket as an outer shell, having dyed some black for the distinctive lines? Thats STUPID! And its not even a freaking BRA, you're entering some preserved orange skin JACKET based on a 1980's music video into the BRA section!!!!"
Lucky for the gene pool, these people are few and far between.
Lets face it: a Thriller jacket? The most haute of all couture! Why, I'd win by default, for all eternity! They'd just give me the Wearable Arts "Bizarre Bra" trophy engraved with "Jordan Wyatt, 2013 to infinity and beyond"! What could possibly beat a Thriller jacket made from oranges?
Look at the undeniable logic: * "Yellow Jackets" are an American term for "wasp". This would be an "orange" Jacket - literally! :-) Orange skin sort of resembles the pitted texture of skin.
* Fruit is squeezed out into dried treats, called "fruit leathers". All New Zealand 90's kids will remember the "roll up" :-)
Following the usual "Meat Week" nonsense at Pak n Save, where huge ads all throughout the store alert us to how very very lucky we are to be shopping amongst their morgue aisle, now they've turned it up a notch into "Cheep Cheep Chicken Week", advertising "Chicken [their killed bodies], and things that taste like chicken, smell like chicken, has chicken in it, or comes from a chicken, like eggs or more chicken".
This Time Its Personal. My sweet Rescued Hen Friend Curious Hen is sick, she's hit the point where her body is breaking down inside from the number of eggs we've made her create. No bird is meant to lay nonstop, when "farm hens" get to 18 months old, they are KILLED because their "egg production" decreases, and eventually stops. In the case of Curious Hen, she appears to have Egg Peritonitis, she is essentially passing egg yolk without a shell. Its like shes bleeding egg yolk. The vets have said theres nothing that can be done, I've taken her back multiple times for x rays, but its a matter of her simply shutting down, and most likely she will die from an infection.
I've been feeding her daily through a needleless syringe, holding her head back and beak open while I slowly squirt fine blended porridge onto her tongue. She wouldnt eat or drink without my aid, she'd simply starve to death due to feeling ill inside.
My big beautiful Hen Friend, who never hurt anyone, who simply liked to sit on my knee, or balance on my leg, she's gravely ill and theres nothing that can be done, we bred these hens into this state of insane egg laying, and we simply kill them before they hit this age, where the egg conveyor belt goes crazy inside.
Curious Hen has even laid a "lash" or two, which are essentially egg like lumps that look like a freaking testicle or something, kinda a rubbery yellow hard lump.........which has freaking "meat" inside....... Apparently they are caused due to damage to her reproductive system, and part of the lining comes away, to coil up and be crapped out in this hard "egg" like form. The flesh inside a "lash" is part of her reproductive tract. Very unpleasant to look at, you can see a "lash" which looks like "an egg filled with meat" on this blogpost.
The best that can be done for Curious Hen is to keep her safe and warm, to keep her fed, and to hope that she can cease laying eggs, for her body to take care of itself inside, to heal over. No medical intervention is possible, its just a matter of keeping her fed twice a day, by syringe.
And here we have a large supermarket chain boasting of how "cheap cheap" it regards Chickens lives to be. Its outrageous.
An RSPCA collector was inside Pak n Save, I gave her some money while saying I was with the Invercargill Vegan Society (I gave a card) and that we supported their No Kill shelter work, thanking her for what they did. The SPCA is an Animal Welfare organisation, not an Animal Rights organisation, I support them for looking after cats and dogs, as my Grandmother volunteered at our local shelter for many years.
How odd to see the promotion of killing Chickens "and things that taste like chicken" at a supermarket while a member of the "Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" is inside! We're living in a Non Vegan world folks.
All throughout the supermarket:
What particularly caught my eye was this though, where children are to pose as though they are riding a Hen. A rather parrot like beak (like I can talk though, check out Black Chicks beak in this blogs logo!), and no wattle, the dangly bit underneath their beak.
Encouraging children to accept our domination and control of Chickens, through "Cheep Cheep Chicken Week"? To heck with that, I gave the Hen a voice of her own:
A few weird looks as I added this and took photos, but it was fun leaving it in place.
I've contacted Pak n Save supermarket about having a "Vegan Week", where all fruit and vegetables would be discounted, alongside tofu, plantmilk and other healthy Vegan products. Even if the discounts were 1% off the usual price, it would be fantastic to see it happen, and its certainly better for everyone involved to promote buying more plants and vegetables than killed animals and the products of their female cycle.
Yellow Hen doing her bit to help her brother and sister Chickens :-)
I thought of Curious Hen while I was away at the supermarket, and of how I would keep doing all I can to keep her alive. Like the portrayal of a Hen in the Pak n Save ad, she would want us to promote Veganism, the non harm of Other Animals.
A couple of days ago I found Curious Hen near dead. Now that she is two or three years old, her "farm Hen" body is having reproductive issues, due to how we've harmed these Hens to make them produce such an unnatural number of eggs. No animal in nature naturally lays eggs the way we make "laying hens" perform, one after the other, all the time, shocking their bodies into laying cycle after laying cycle. Their genetics are winnowed down so only the "highest producers" pass on their genes, Genetically Engineered monsters.
You have to give the devil his due, and in this case, of farm animals, they simply can't live forever in this state. "Broiler" Chickens, killed for their flesh grow exceedingly quickly, by the time they are around a month old, these babies are adult sized, BIGGER than what adult Chickens should ever look like.
In the case of "Laying" Hens, by the time she is 18 months or so old, her female reproductive system will start to crap out, producing less eggs, and with more difficulty. They risk becoming Eggbound, an egg stuck inside their bodies, causing lethal infection.
I found Curious Hen sitting still by herself, very weak. I recognised that she must have had egg issues, from a broken egg inside her. Every now and then, my Rescued Hen friends pass "soft eggs", hard, rubbery yellow things, like a fried egg or omlette, smelling like hell. They nearly kill them, from the infection and trouble caused. The cause is simply age, their bodies can no longer continue making so many eggs, an unnatural number of eggs, as we've bred into our "laying" breeds.
Hens naturally do not sit very often, they actually sleep standing up in nature. Rescued Hens will often sleep nested, sitting, because they've always been in a cage or confined space, its habit for them.
Finding Curious Hen like this outside is a dangerous sign.
I took her inside, and gave her antibiotics orally, by needle-less syringe. I ran our shower, to get the air humid, easier for her body to perhaps pass the obstructed egg, and kept her warm. Here shes seen with heatlamps above her in our bathroom. She refused to eat or drink, her body was shutting down.
You can see her left eye, she's actually watching me! In this condition though, even keeping her eyes open is difficult, they default to closing their eyes and breathing heavily. They can barely stand. When they have an infection like this, its as though they are entering a coma, without help they would drop unconscious and die in spasms. Curious Hen has even laid a "lash" or two, which are essentially egg like lumps that look like a freaking testicle or something, kinda a rubbery yellow hard lump.........which has freaking "meat" inside....... Apparently they are caused due to damage to her reproductive system, and part of the lining comes away, to coil up and be crapped out in this hard "egg" like form. The flesh inside a "lash" is part of her reproductive tract.
I kept her warm and dry, some online help websites recommend standing Hens in this condition in a bath of warm water, the steam is said to help their bodies pass the blockage.......but getting Chickens wet is almost always a bad idea, they catch chills very easily in this state. I didnt want to get her wet at all. I used the shower method, running our shower with her in the bath room with me, keeping her warm, the air humid.
Hard to believe this beautiful Hen was on deaths door, but she was. Unable to eat or drink for a couple of days by the time this photo was taken. She simply had no interest, and even stepping up to this garden was difficult for her.
Earlier tonight, three days into her problems, I found this large segment of passed egg. This is what a "shell less egg" or "soft egg" can look like, basically her body has produced an egg without a shell, or with a thin shell, and its rotted inside of her. The obstruction stops her going to the toilet as usual, and can be lethal within just 48 hours.
Looks like a non Vegan "omelet", right? Do you feel like eating a Chicken's egg now? :-)
After three days of feeding her water by needle-less syringe down her beak, forcing her to drink against her will, and trying to encourage her to eat rolled oats, she seems to be getting better. Tonight I actually found she'd flown up to her usual perch, instead of sitting lumped in a nesting box, barely able to keep her eyes open. I'd kept her wrapped in a towel at night, for warmth, going in several times each night to check on her.
I hope she will fully recover. I love my friend Curious Hen.
Please, Go Vegan and help all Other Animals. We've done this to Curious Hen and her brothers and sisters because we have a tradition of eating Chickens eggs. They were never "meant" to make so many eggs, no animal is. The industry kills them when they are around 18 months old because their bodies simply start to give up.
I hope that Curious Hen, Geiger Hen, Whole Hen and Home Hen will live out their natural lives with me, safe and well.
Unlike last year, where I literally found out the day before the festival was going ahead (seriously!), txting Rebecca to ask if "maybe I could come to next years Festival?", and being allowed to join last minute with a borrowed table.....this year I planned ahead! :-)
I searched high and low for the perfect tablecloth, no more exposed formica this year!
INVSOC Green, matching our badges, and it was a steal at 13 NZ dollars from The Warehouse (NZ "Walmart") :-)
I decided to do it legit this year, getting official permits to give away food, swearing that I'd obey health and safety guidelines for food preparation.
Technically, I could have used a thing called a "laser printer" to print off a copy of the forms, then write on them with a thing called an "inked pen", and then walked to a thing called a "postal mail system box". After fixing a "stamp" to the "envelope", all Invercargill mail is sorted in Dunedin, 200KM north......where it would then be sent back to the ICC building a few blocks from my house :-)
No, easier to physically walk to the ICC building, wait in line at the help desk, get an official visitors badge, be let in past the security cameras and doors, walk up four flights of stairs, to meet the person I'd been speaking to over the "telephone" after I left a message on the "automated voicemail system" and they "rang me back"........
....to pop back down the four flights of stairs, to fill out the form in the lobby's waiting area.
On completion, using a "pen" which I found somewhere, I handed my forms to the helpdesk, thanked them, and left with a smile of triumph firmly stapled on my face - sort of like this :-D
Of course, I later found out through festival organiser Rebecca that we were all sort of automatically covered under the festivals "we promise to not spit in the food" agreement, and all my stair stepping was for nothing........but at least I got some cool bits of paper to place under my baking for this next photo! :-)
In total, I had five containers of muffins, Banana Chocolate Chip, Chocolate (with Cinnamon) and Lemon. Over fifty in total, including those I actually baked during the festival as part of a "Vegan Muffin Baking" demonstration :-)
Exposed seating bit on the diagonal has got to be good for the stadium, imagine all the birds flying in and nesting inside, the weather getting in!
Not only is the very second letter of the sign slanted, "Southland" is missing an 'l'! You'd think that would be one of the first things to fix, to nail the sign in place, make it look as nice as possible from the outside, while the inside is consistently delayed by woes such as "oh no, the steel beams which crapped out last time are being replaced with new ones which are too short, lets just weld a bit more in to make up the difference!"
The Velodrome (indoor cycle track) stands, just to the west of the closed Stadium. Carpet for the badminton hall was apparently inside, I was told to walk in through the cyclists tunnel entrance, a curving concrete corridor, with those huge heavy plastic flaps you see in walk in freezers. Though in that case, they keep the freeze in the freezer, in this case, they keep the heat inside the building.
I eventually popped out inside the actual wooden sloping track, with people in the seats all around looking down at me! "Umm, am I in the right place?" :-)
Yes, the terrific Terry Guyton was in the middle of the venue with his Parkour army, watching as a forklift loaded the rolls of carpet onto a trailer. After cautiously stumbling through the plastic flapped tunnel, and emerging on the other side, I got to do it all in reverse, this time following a slow moving fork lift pulling a trailer topped in carpet!
Rolling out the (blue) carpet, over the Badminton courts.
The fantastic, and rather dated card scanning computer system for booking the badminton courts. "If its broke, dont fix it", it has a wired mouse in a cubby hole below to click around the interface, no touch screens here!
Although, when the thing DOES break.....
The two computers on the other side of the wall
....and a shuttlecock box stuffed full of tarnished trophies! "yeah, you done good kid, here, pick a trophy outta mah box"
Carpet rolled out, and unlike the 2011 Eco Festival, THIS time I was prepared: the Invercargill Vegan Society had the first booked spot, and the first setup table :-)
Right by the entrance too :-) (bottom left corner)
Our table! Russell (seen on the left, grey top) had a stall for SAFE next to the Invercargill Vegan Society table. He focused on Veganism, it was great having a like minded table beside ours. He let me use a pinboard he had for our INVSOC posters, on the end so people coming in would notice them.
One of our first visitors, in bright colourful clothing!
Posters, "Veganism: it's* doubleplusgood" and "World Vegan Day" draft design. I like having the second line all lowercase, skipping the " ' " apostrophe. One contracted word without mid punctuation deserves another, I always say! The other INVSOC members? Not so much. We'll probably go with an apostrophe'd version.
Hellhound Hotdogs, a vegan streetcart in Australia. Justin visited Invercargill earlier this year! :-) We all had a great time, from seeing a male ballet, visiting Bluff at the very bottom of the South Island, to having a fantastic potluck, where he showed us how a REAL hotdog is made :-)
"It's Easy To Be Vegan!" by Emmy James :-)
Russell's table had great books, such as "The Pornography of Meat" by feminist Vegan author Carol Adams.
Russell at the SAFE stall (promoting Veganism), myself at the INVSOC stall (promoting Veganism) Photo taken by Dan, first Vegan I ever met, on my Galaxy Nexus. Apparently I was having a bad redeye day :-)
Russell's perfect iced cupcakes, vs my giant muffins:
As Mr Joseph S said, "Quantity has a quality all of its own" :-)
Wifi iPad tethered to my phone's data connection. I showed the INVSOC website, photos and video of my Hen Friends.
A new Invercargill Vegan Society member, Luke! I met Luke at the last Green Drinks meeting, after he saw a poster Dan put up at the hospital. He's training to be a doctor, and plans to focus on nutrition.
Great to meet another Vegan living in Invercargill, and someone else who appreciates the virtuosity of mr Michael Jackson :-)
Audio of INVSOC members Russell and Luke about Eco Festival 2012 :-)
Audio of Michael Thomas about the Sustainable Building Alliance and Eco Festival 2012
The Hall was packed with fantastic stalls, from political parties, energy saving ideas, gardening, unusual bicycles, caring for native animals.....and a couple about Non Veganism, such as The Croft, who follow the teachings of Weston Price. The stall was about drinking raw cows milk, and there are also beliefs about "bone broth", boiling bones for vitamins and nutrients inside.
I visited and "extended the olive branch" on behalf of the Invercargill Vegan Society, offering some of our muffins :-) I knew that they disagreed with eating flour, with a laugh, I was offered a huge glass bottle of cows milk, which looked like pure fat. We "agreed to disagree", and swapped pamphlets.
Dan "voila"-ing our cupcakes and muffins :-)
The terrific Grant Meikle of Sea Shepherd and a Hectors Dolphin protection group. Pictured at our INVSOC stall, complete with Hectors Dolphins!
Audio of Grant Meikle talking about Eco Festival 2012
At 12 oclock, I gave a "Vegan baking demonstration". Rather odd mixing ingredients out of a kitchen, with an audience of 8 or so people who'd followed the speaker systems directions to attend "my class" :-) PA System audio
"How To Bake Vegan Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins" class audio, ha! I dont expect you to listen to my awkward fumblings and stumblings for 17 minutes, its good for a laugh, but not quite 17 minutes of laugh(ter) :-) Lots of dramatic folly sounds for the recording :-) This fun recipe can be found on our website, the photos are more interesting than listening to my droning voice.
Highlights of the audio clip include explaining how Sanitarium is run by vegetarian-ish religious people, and answering a question "I thought baking usually didnt need as much mixing" with "True, I like a strong banana flavour so I've used a lot of potato masher-ed Banana, if you used less, it would be (quote) more spongy" :-)
30 minutes in the oven, ta-da! Hot, steaming muffins, which were irresistible. Almost literally "gone in 60 seconds", like the ~2 hour movie :-) I took a photo with the piping hot muffins at our stall, then gave them to people who'd attended my workshop.
Greyhounds Down South, who rescue and take care of Greyhounds wrongfully used in the "racing" industry, rehoming them, almost like Rescued Hens. I followed the parade of ~8 dogs to their workshop, and actually had to help one climb up the few stairs. Being so neglected by their former "owners", they'd never really see stairs before, "didnt know how to walk up them"! Seriously! Similar to "farm" Hens who cannot actually walk when first saved, treated as a someone instead of a something.
Hollie Guyton, for All Good Bananas. A quality fair trade product, which I used in our Banana Chocolate Chip muffins, and am proud to support on the INVSOC website :-) Available from Pak n Save supermarket, while in stock! :-)
Audio of Hollie Guyton about All Good Bananas, and Eco Festival 2012
Hollie gave me a bag of popcorn, informing me that the bags with icing sugar were best. Thanks Hollie :-)
Mention of patriarch Robert Guyton, friend of the Invercargill Vegan Society, although somewhat elusive.
2012 Jordan at stall with 2011 Jordan at stall :-)
The elusive Robert Guyton left a comment on last years blogpost......have our paths finally crossed, by the time of this 2012 Eco Festival??? :-) "
"
I do indeed know Mr Terry Guyton, in fact, I interviewed him today about the 2012 Parkour display! :-)
Terry Guyton, on his mob of crazy athletes running about and jumping off every vertical surface they could find, they call it "parkour"
And Behold: the infamous Robert Guyton himself!
"And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!"
Robert caught mid "burble" :-) Beside stands local Green Party candidate Dave Kennedy, vorpal blade hidden out of sight!
I believe the right poster has a couple kids killing fish with a rod, tastefully covered using A3 posters? Well played Green Party, cover your shame!
I had a lovely time at the Transition Towns Spring Eco Festival 2012 :-) Our bigger and better table looked nice, and seemed to go down well. I received an email tonight from Lisa, who found our website after being given a (non profit organisation) card :-)
"Kia ora Jordan, I met you at the Festival today. I just wanted to say that the website looks great and the recipes very yummy. You have photographed them really well and they are very easy to follow. I am certainly going to try a few.
Thanks also for your kindness today with your muffin giveaways- most generous. Great that there is a Vegan Society in Invercargill- keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Lisa" Thank you to Transition Towns Eco Festival organiser Rebecca Amunsden! We'd been joking about people getting her name wrong, hence my stumble at the start of this clip
Rebecca Amunsden on Eco Festival 2012
Four vegans at the INVSOC table this year, Dan, Russell, Jordan and Luke. A bold green table cloth, and Russells pinboard with attached posters, Vegan t shirts. We truly outdid last years effort of one guy at a borrowed formica table! Well done team! :-)
I look forward to the Spring Eco Festival 2013! :-)
