Monkey, Penguin and Mystery Bird

Day 307: Monkey, Penguin and Mystery Bird

How did Walter Putnam come to write the article Stuffed Animals: Transcultural Objects in the Bedroom Jungle? His article - which contains footnotes but no context for its writing - might be science fiction, or it might be poetry. It might lunatic rants, but then again, it might be brilliant. He makes these points:

• Stuffed animals have no intrinsic value; their value comes in their acquisition and the subsequent meaning we imbue in them (describes 90% of what I've gotten rid of this year?)
• They are invisible, a soft, cuddly, ubiquitous artifact of the industrial revolution; bombs are smuggled inside teddy bears (here are three more invisible stuffed animals; they snuck into our house somehow, and we have never imbued them with emotional value)

What are stuffed animals, anyway? The penguin in the center is more evocative of the animal it purports to represent. The two others are strange anthropomorphic creatures. A bird with a red scarf and a belly button? A monkey that smiles ear-to-ear while leaning its elbow on the penguin's head?

And who is Walter Putnam anyway? The article doesn't say. According to Google, Walter Putnam is a financial advisor for Northwestern Mutual. He is Chair of the French Department at the University of New Mexico. He is president of the U.S. chapter of Space Renaissance International and the Kepler Space Institute's vice president of communications. He is a former AP reporter/editor and Middle Easter correspondent. He is a licensed Arizona State Board of Pharmacy intern. He is a major general in the U.S. Air Force. He was a teacher, and a restaurant and sports shop owner, now deceased. He is a jockey, and an orthopedic surgeon. He is on Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Life in the modern age.