Daemon Mice

PLAYPEN or MAYHEM

For those of us perched on this side of the abyss who reflect on such matters, in the ever-undecipherable dream of things - thecomic/tragic comings and goings through all history of the individual mineral, plant, animal, human – is THE GRAND CONUNDRUM.

The genesis (and God said, “Let there be mice.”) of Daemon Mouse, Ink. goes back to my childhood and Farmer Al Falfa a.k.a. “Farmer Gray” and some little, nameless black mice (very un-Mickey) that like the furies pursued him. Thanks to Paul Terry of Terrytoons, these silent-cartoon creations of the ‘20s can still be found on the internet today.

There was something about those mice that was haunting – creepy yet funny in a terrifying way, endearing and somehow indestructible. A life force; hence, ‘daemon.’ For better? For worse? For good? For evil?Irrepressibly individual. Irrepressibly ‘mob.’ Playpen or mayhem.

Fast forward to six years of Latin and four of classical Greek and my all-time favorite quote from Horace’s Ars Rhetorica:“parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus” (the mountains will be in labor and a ridiculous mouse will be born).

Faster forward, then, to knitting – a pastime that quells the mind while busying the hands. Wool too itchy for me. And there you have it. A kind of knitting, the daemon mice, each unique – impossible to draw two the same ever, are an exercise in staying in time while ‘strolling’ meditatively on the brink of the absurd.

A lucky seven circles – two ears, a head, a nose, a torso and two rounded feet – a curlicue tail, nose stem and two stick legs all done with a fine-point felt-tip pen. And repeat, repeat, repeat. I’ve done tens of thousands. Recently they’ve made their way into collages. And, as a pastime (no more ridiculous than one’s favorite mantra or prayer) it has become a quieting, ‘artistic’ activity when I don’t have the energy to think. You can only concentrate on the mouse. And then the next one. And the next.

Yes, they are an obsessive, mad and maddening pursuit. But born of these our days. And I am their god. As each is ‘born’ through my pen, I sometimes I imagine I hear small voices saying, “Hello!” and “Next!”

As I detail their life force – individuals all – it’s hard not to consider our own brief experience on the page of this our century.

Sometimes while creating them I’ll recall the final line of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65: “That in black ink my love may still shine bright.”

So take them. Or leave them. I do.

dae-mon or dai-mon n.

mythological being that is part god
an attendant or indwelling spirit
a demon (archaic)
intermediate between gods and men
one that possesses extraordinary drive

NOTA BENE:

A student and forever admirer of Marshall McLuhan (The Medium Is The Message, Culture Is Our Business), I have always been fascinated with the barrage of images cascading over us in the now-waning print media. A futurist friend insists that if you truly want to understand our times, you need to become an alien in your imagination and look at our tumultuous planet as if you just landed.

With Daemon Mouse, Ink. I have taken artist’s license to appropriate and circle the wagons of these print images with colonies of daemon mice shooting fire arrows some satirical, some elegiac, some in horror, some in wonder at the status quo; that which is hidden in plain sight.

My intention, has always been to create a shock of dissonance, so that we suddenly, clearly SEE what is unseen, what we are daily force fed and inundated in by our print media; a form of social, artistic, even literary criticism. Surprisingly critically, hopefully amusingly.

My intention is to play in the great company and tradition of those commentators whose soul goal is to cast small rays of light on these our challenging and confusing times.

Gregory J. Furman

August 2011

Clinton Corners, Manhattan, Toronto