The Tasmanian Experience Continues. . .

Cunts... and other conversations, 2008–11

Greg Taylor and friends

Oh, Dear. I'm forgetting so many things already! In Hobart, we visited The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), a very quirky, architecturally improbable and unique museum. It had the usual collection of perplexing art. . .much of which I find inscrutable, too obvious, technically wanting or just creepy. Wow. My own brand of art snobbery. For example, there was a diorama (for want of a better word) of stuffed kittens serving tea. . . .maybe 2 dozen stuffed kittens. They were made of REAL kittens that a taxidemist had stuffed and set up in this unsettling tableau. Truly creepy, and not fun to look at once you realized what it was.
The building, however, was extraordinary, and set in an extraordinary Tasmania setting. . .on the estuary/river that passes through Hobart. I didn't photograph the kittens, by the way.

Here's an example of the obvious. Rows and rows of the female organ along a dark wall. Maybe 150 of them? A nice idea, of course, since it's what we all want to see, but still. . . .

The other visit I almost forgot was to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. We stopped on our way out of the city enroute to Bicheno. It was my first face-to-face with a Roo, as well as a chance to see the Tasmanian Devil and other species unique to Australia and/or Tasmania. To the right is where John and I are likely to end up. Ha. But seriously, folks. The Tasmanian Devil, that most unlikely of anti-heros, is endangered. One of the missions of Bonorong is to breed them and re-introduce them into the wild. Oddly, they still can live many years after they pass breeding age, so so sign labels a very large enclosure where the older devils were allowed to live out their dotage. Below are signs sort of explaining the devil. Honestly, it's amazing that they evolved and stayed around this long, but they are sort of endearing, in spite of their BugsBunny image.






John took the image below of a Tasmanian Devil at the refuge.



 Note that all of the animals at the refuge are either there for the breeding program, or in most cases being prepared to be released. The only permanent members of the gang there are those who for some reason can't be released back into the wild, usually due to injury. More on that in the next post.