(No) Redeeming Features

Leilani Bustamante’s “Diabolica” at Modern Eden Gallery.

I don’t know how I missed this one but currently on display at Modern Eden Gallery San Francisco, California until March 26th, 2016 (Sorry!) is Leilani Bustamante’s solo show of new work “Diabolica.”

From the press release: “The natural and unnatural world requires balance. As in life and death, light and shadow, above and below one cannot exist without the other. The hero is locked in a symbiotic dependency with its nemesis. Whether it is an angel, a soldier of justice where goodness is righteous or a demon, an agent of malice where destruction of morality reigns supreme both sides are ferociously absolute. These stories of the occult are as old as the theme itself. They are a complex telling of an age old battle.  Angel and demon lore have long represented a conflict that have been raging since the dawn of man.  It is a conflict that continues to rage in all of us today.”

“Dear Miss Kampenfelt, since you expressed a desire today to learn more about adult life, here are 10 bitter truths for your reading pleasure.

1. Complete honesty is a complete lie. 2. Two, marriage is sacred only to those who have never been married. 3. Three, money is more integral to happiness than romantic love. 4. Four, every human being is a contradiction. Some hide it better than others. 5. Five, never underestimate the tendency of human beings to act contrary to their own best interests. 6. Six, were it not for the fear of getting caught, most of us would behave like savages. 7. Seven, all sex has consequences, most of them dire. 8. The older you get, the faster time flies until months pass like days. 9. There’s no such thing as living happily ever after. 10. Everything gets worse.”

domestic cats, on the other hand, do know how to make friends. they are friendly to the point that lots of feral cats live in colonies— the females hang out together, even raise kids together, and the males like to spend nonsexual time with their baby mommas. they groom each other, play around, and have a particular tail position to signal to one another— straight up with the tip curled— that they’re friendly and happy to see each other. cats learned how to be chill with each other in order to take full advantage of human food sources: an ancient granary supplies enough rats for a lot of cats, as does a modern lady with a big bag of frisky bits, so it would be a waste of time and energy for any one cat to try and stake the entire foodsource out for exclusive use. less fighting means more eating and resting which means a longer, nicer life and a lot more kittens. 

so this stray cat, she obviously has no colony if she’s wandering around and sneaking into zoo enclosures, so she’s like ‘hey! there’s food here! what up, other cat, let’s be friends, let’s be friends and share that food’. and the bobcat is like ‘??????’ because actually wild cats are pretty cautious about initiating hostilities and anything new and aggressive makes them very worried. and the domestic cat is like ‘haha cool, ok, we’re friends now, big guy. no problems.’ and the bobcat is like ‘????? well…?? ok?’ and then they are friends. 

the super interesting thing about most wild cat species is they don’t really have the capacity to make friends on their own, especially outside of sibling bonds, but, if someone comes along and does all the friend-making themselves, they’ll totally roll with it. zoo cats can get really attached to their caregivers— or, in this case, a very confident little calico demonstrating exactly why her species has been so darn successful over the last nine thousand years .