categories, or, "soul of the new south"

Cross-posted from my Tumblr image blog Village Dog (such as it is - and where you can see the subtitle of the magazine more clearly).  Also see this earlier post on dogs and guns and other accoutrements of Southern history.

seeing nature at monterey bay aquarium II

Everything is illuminated...

seeing nature at monterey bay aquarium

dog cartography

My love of dogs and love of maps converged in a Dog Whisperer episode I caught this afternoon (apologies for the iPhone/TiVo freeze frame photography):

Cesar's client in this episode is dog-phobic dad Ernesto - a hulking Mr. Clean look-alike - who desperately wants to overcome his traumatic memories of a childhood dog attack, so that his kids can get a family pooch. In the middle of the episode, Cesar breaks out this dog energy map, wherein his "team" has detailed the location and energy level (High, Medium, Low) of every dog in Ernesto's neighborhood. So if he's not feeling sufficiently "assertive" one day, he can simply chart a course avoiding the high-strung big dogs, etc.

Millan's dominance-based method of dog-training has been criticized, rightfully so, by progressive trainers and behavioral scientists. This 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle lays out the arguments nicely. But behind or alongside the whole macho "leadership" claptrap, there also seems to be something incongruously - or may be charlatanically? - new age about his approach. I mean, energy map? (I also suspect there's more interspecies subtlety and give-and-take in his actual techniques than he lets on - but that's an admittedly unscientific observation.)

In any case, this amusing detail of Millan's map pretty much describes the energy-scape of my household:

skunk in headlights

Outside Locopops on Hillsborough Road, Durham, NC

dog as social media?

My stamp-collecting father wanted to visit the National Postal Museum while we were in DC last weekend, so we went! (By the way I would recommend the place for kids - and for kidlike adults.) For some strange reason, though I often feel like my life depends on e-mail, facebook, and now (maybe) twitter, I haven't thought much about - or have simply forgotten - the social and affective dimensions of good old regular mail.

Affect and sociality are very much front and center at the museum. The poem engraved above the entrance makes it pretty unmistakable:

Messenger of Sympathy and Love
Servant of Parted Friends
Consoler of the Lonely
Bond of the Scattered Family
Enlarger of the Common Life

* Evidently this is only half the poem - the rest is here

So, the mail is like... dogs? Indeed dogs are everywhere in the museum: from the various incarnations of Owney the official USPS mascot (in bronze, in kid's books, as stuffed animal, and just plain stuffed!) to canine figurines in a cute postal diorama. I don't have anything smart or interesting to say about this curious conjuncture of mail and dogs, but will keep thinking about it. In the meantime, some images that caught my eye:

random dog kitsch

$12.50 bobbleheads on display at the Mark Jacobson Toyota dealership in Durham (proceeds to go to the local Animal Protection Society).

dogs & public sentiment

Seen at a Durham restaurant, homemade flyers from the Coalition to Unchain Dogs (subject of this earlier blog entry):