Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Flying Monkey Repair, I

“Jesus, I’m / going out / and throw / my arms / around.”

--found on Orange Crate Art, who explains it's "an untitled poem from Lorine Niedecker’s Next Year or I Fly My Rounds Tempestuous (1934), a work made of short handwritten poems pasted over the inspirational aphorisms of a two-week-per-page calendar"
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This Flying Monkey, below, is the neediest stuffed animal I've yet scooped up––I found it yesterday in the alley, soaking wet and run-over by a car––quite icky––
so I'm showing the after-the bath photo first.

I'm drinking coffee this morning in one of the hand-painted, speckled stoneware mugs ^ I've become enamored of (Otagiri-type, made in Japan). This mug ($1.49 at Goodwill) is one of my favorites.
Ever since Marz got into Starsky & Hutch, I've reevaluated 1970s design style, which I hated when I when I was a kid––but I like some of the designs now.

And here, below, are the BEFORE photos--those rubber tubes allow Monkey's arms to work as slingshots, to fly across the room. Before I did anything else, I gave Monkey the hot tub treatment, with a friend (also picked up in the alley):

With some new stuffing, Monkey will fly its rounds again:

I found the original toy online--they have noise-makers inside (I took the smashed pieces out when I removed all the stuffing), and a cape;
I am going to make a flying-monkey jacket from Wizard of Oz for this toy--along the lines of (but not as excellent as) this one by costumer and body-painter Breanna Cooke [links to her instructions]:

6 comments:

gz said...

(O)

ArtSparker said...

Pleeease don't change the eyes. I must remember to pick up new friends in alleys myself.

ArtSparker said...

Oh Yeah, and also the Wallace Stevens poem that begins "The garden flew round with the angles"

ArtSparker said...

angels

Fresca said...

Thanks for the poem, Sparker!
The monkey does look great in photos with a half-missing eye, but in person it was one of those childproof plastic ones that broke off, leaving a sharp plastic shank--I'd already replaced it when I read this comment--
Luckily I had a sweet old glass one that fit.

bink said...

He is very winsome. I'm so glad you found him to rescue!