Exorcism

Posted by Dave Bonta on December 4, 2006 (last modified at 1:58 pm, 12/4/06)

deer skull 2

Our task, is it not an exorcism,
a response to the inscrutable challenge?
–Enrique Lihn

the world's selves

The world’s selves cure that short disease, myself.
–Randall Jarrell

__________

For the rest of my deer skull series (shot yesterday), see here. Mosaic created with fd’s Flickr Toys from my own photos: 1. black bear footprint, 2. mannequins, 3. Baltimore checkerspot, 4. orange and blue, 5. phoebe, 6. art for sale, 7. solitary vireo 2, 8. fawn face, 9. The Middlewesterner, 10. wheel bug with wasp, 11. mushroom beast, 12. cairn man, 13. locust borer, 14. turkey hen, 15. Carolina wren, 16. annual cicada on sidewalk crack, 17. spectacled owl on eggs, 18. wattled curassow, 19. Sri Lankan mask, 20. squirrel window, 21. field sparrow grooming 3, 22. snail 3, 23. wood turtle with its head drawn in, 24. convertible, 25. vulture 2

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9 Responses to Exorcism

  1. beth says:
    December 4, 2006 at 1:42 pm

    I like the mosaic a lot, but the skull is really arresting!

    Reply
  2. Larry Ayers says:
    December 4, 2006 at 2:04 pm

    The nicely-shadowed skull shot resembles rivers meandering across an arid plain at dusk.

    Liked the Russula mushroom beast too!

    Reply
  3. quiet regular reader says:
    December 4, 2006 at 4:21 pm

    these are great….but the first one is something else!

    Reply
  4. Natalie says:
    December 4, 2006 at 4:41 pm

    What ARE those calligraphic markings in the photo? Amazing, like some ancient script.

    Reply
  5. Dave says:
    December 4, 2006 at 7:37 pm

    Thanks for the comments. Ideally, I would’ve thought of a poetic response to that first photo myself, but I’ve had these two quotes rattling around in my head for several days now, and I wanted to showcase them.

    Natalie, you’re looking at the sutures between three plates on the back of a white-tailed deer skull. See also this photo and this photo.

    Reply
  6. twitches says:
    December 4, 2006 at 9:55 pm

    Really great pics.

    Reply
  7. Jean says:
    December 5, 2006 at 10:25 am

    The sutures are amazing. Beautiful. I too thought of some strange ceremonial calligraphy. A cranio-sacral therapist should have a look at these (they believe, deeply contrary to practitioners of western allopathic medicine, that there is movement/articulation between the plates of a skull).

    Reply
  8. quiet regular reader says:
    December 5, 2006 at 2:04 pm

    are we looking at a bullet hole in that jig-saw meander, upper right quadrant of the deer skull photo?

    Reply
  9. Dave says:
    December 5, 2006 at 2:53 pm

    No, that’s just a smudge.

    Reply

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