500 Noses Are More Beautiful Than One

Iggy Pop, 1971

OK, upon a closer reading from Ina May Gaskin's, Guide to Childbirth, I have come to the conclusion that it is natural childbirth that is punk as fuck. In fact women in childbirth look a lot like Iggy Pop circa 1971 minus the spandex. Or maybe it's really vice versa. In any case, it doesn't take too many birth stories to make one realize there is no way in hell to actually prepare for this and all the screaming, pissing, shitting, tearing, vomiting, biting, and raw animalness trumps any antics the Pistols could have come up with.

So, as my belly swells and stretches, as my internal organs get more and more pressed upon, and, as the feeling of a child squirming, kicking and punching from within becomes fairly regular, I am aware of the fact that I am pregnant 110% of the time. And judging from the way I look, everyone else is now to.    The nice thing about 10 months of pregnancy is that you get to ease into it. And though, there are startling changes around each bend, it does begin to feel like a holy sacrament. Breeder politics aside, I welcome this little bit of religion into my life.

Yoko Ono said some lovely things like the title of this blog post. It is not entirely a bad idea to randomly open her book, Grapefruit: A book of Instructions and Drawings, and read a passage. It pairs well with the rawness of all these birth stories I am consuming.

Today:

Painting to Exist Only When It's Copied or Photographed

Let People copy or photograph your paintings.
Destroy the originals.

I would say, this could apply to many other things besides paintings.

Rineke Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer who takes mainly portraits against clean, simple backgrounds. Here she photographs women just after they have given birth.