My Lucky Gold Fish

Came across this art installation, Liza Lou's Kitchen, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC. It's a kitchen made of tiny glass beads, that artist Liza Lou did, taking 5 yrs. to complete, from 1991 - 1996.

My favorite part is the sink.

"Oh him? That my emotional support hobbit."

"Uh huh. And what he got?"

"That's my hobbit's emotional support hobbit."

"And I suppose those two are also emotional support hobbits as well?"

"No, of course not. Those two are my emotional distress hobbits."

".....?"

Like it's established that your rank is a natural and immutable feature of yourself, but that says nothing for your mental state or physical health, right? Like they call out that Joohee is a B-rank technically, but she only does low-level raids because her nerves are fried.

So like. There's GOTTA be a wealth of A-rank--MAYBE even some S-rank--people who are absolute basket cases, or couch potatoes, or do nooooootttt fucking care.

Jinwoo should just assemble them, be like "you get a 7% cut for showing up", enter the gate, park them there with like a whole campsite of care items from his hammer-space bullshit, while he just goes to take care of the dungeon himself.

Like the whole raid team walks out and the Hunters Guild is like, "Ah, once again this up-and-coming A-rank-stacked team has defeated a dungeon, with their token E-rank mascot still not dead. How nice of them."

Meanwhile, anyone paying close attention on the news is watching while a camera crew interviews some A-rank stay-at-home mom who clearly does NOT know how to hold that knife she's holding, describing a dungeon boss who is almost definitely King Kong.

While E-rank Jinwoo just like, renders in the background

And the next interview is with the S-rank NEET who has not left his room in 12 years except, right now, to go kill this dungeon boss I guess. Which he also cannot describe.

While E-rank Jinwoo continues to. like. render.

And the online boards are like "wasn't that the E-rank who was one of the sole survivors of that catastrophe dungeon incident?" "You're totally right but also I was thinking of a DIFFERENT catastrophe dungeon. Did that happen twice?" "What do you mean it happened 3 times?"

"Friend kea!"

Meanwhile, a conservation sign tells tourists the real story:

I particularly love the part that emphasises that if they nick your stuff that's squarely your fault for letting them. Wikipedia (where I found these pictures) draws a clear line between human and kea behaviour:

"Kea parrots have strong cognitive abilities. According to recent studies, kea have a sense of impulse control and forward planning. Kea can wait up to 160 seconds for a more preferred reward. In addition, kea also use trial-and-error tactics and use observational learning to solve difficult problems and when faced with puzzles and locks. These decision-making abilities are similar to primates and other intelligent bird species such as the African grey parrot."