I run a finger and an eye along my bookshelves and despite their numbers I admit I sometimes feel… limited. Not so much in terms of genres or fields of interest, but… look, a whole shelf of Pratchett, some old white guy. Pierre Berton, white guy. Charles Darwin, white guy. Jacques Cousteau, pretty tan, true, but white guy. Harry Harrison… I have no idea what he looks like. Hang on while I look him up…oh hell yeah, he’s an old white guy.

I don’t have a lot of authors from somewhere other than that ‘white guy, Western culture’ viewpoint. Oh, there are a few ‘white guy, Jewish subculture,’ but that’s about it. And some Gabriel Garcia Marques, some Borges, but the rest of it is a solid block of gray hair and pale hands – Nabokov, Findley, Shakespeare, Poe, Peake, a couple of Russian guys, German guys, French guys. Wow. Seriously, wow.

So it came as kind of a revelation the other night when I put down a new book and thought, “Well, that’s it. That’s about the best short story I’ve ever read.”

It’s called ‘Hell Screen,’ and it’s by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin. I’ve got a couple of volumes of Japanese poetry, but holy crap, this guy – this guy writes like he’s possessed by a, a, posse of muses. This story is brilliant, savage, perfectly balanced, satisfying, scary, and vivid. It would make such a good movie that I wonder whether it’s been made into one already under a different name. The other short stories in this book are also very good, and obviously treated with care by the translator (dialogue, etc), but ‘Hell Screen’ is really something else.

I feel weirdly inspired now, filled with the holy fire, burning to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and get some ideas down of my own, and all because I broke out of the comfort zone I hadn’t realized I had. Next time I’m at a Wee Book (tomorrow, most likely), I think I’ll wander out of my ‘usual’ section and challenge myself with some Asian or African or South American or Middle Eastern authors. Innaresting, innaresting stuff.

So I’m not one to be easily swayed by events in the blogosphere, generally. I kept my shirt on for Boobquake and everything.

But when the response to a cartoonist drawing a sketch of a historical figure is to attack him with an axe and set his fucking house on fire, I can remain silent no longer.

So I have decided to participate in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day! This is, in its simplest and most childish form, a “Nyaa-nyaaah” at everybody against free speech, everybody who says “Thou shalt not because my book says so,” everybody who blames their imaginary friend for acts of cowardice, violence, censorship, and general asshattery. (More info, and arguments, here.)

For a Muslim to object to a public depiction of something he finds sacred is, to me, not much different from a rabbi approaching me at a picnic in Emily Murphy Park and saying, “Pardon me, filthy gentile, I object to you eating bacon. Stop that right this minute or I shall retaliate.” (I’m sure you can imagine my short and icy one-syllable response.) Same goes for Christians who object to Elton John saying Jesus was gay, etc. Seriously, KNOCK IT OFF. One man’s religious tenets are another man’s politely-observed cultural sensitivities are another man’s easily-ignored mad ramblings and that’s the way it’s always been.

Here’s what I drew first for Muhammad:

Get it? Mohamed?

Dammit, nobody’s laughing.

Secondly, I thought to scan back through Larry Gonick’s fantastic ‘Cartoon History of the Universe’ for his treatment of the prophet Muhammad. I couldn’t remember what he looked like and that’s because, as it turned out, Gonick chose not to draw him. In the entire section about the beginnings of Islam, there are no depictions.

Which is interesting, but I still don’t have a Muhammad of my very own!

Finally I sketched my own personal blasphemous rendering:

There! Now I just get to sit back and wait for the death threats to roll in.

Happy Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!

So a friend and I were talking today about a proposed co-op garage-sale thingy that my friend LT is planning to put on when she gets back from vacation, and she insisted I sell off some of my crappy oil pastels, so a few days ago I humped my ass over to the Dollarama to get some “frames” (i.e. sheet glass + razor-sharp fixtures) and did like I was told. Now that they’re in frames, I’m actually kind of struck by their cuteness… but now the question comes up, would you pay money for them? I think I suggested $10 and LT suggested $20 but that sounds high for a garage sale.

Here they are framed:

And here are a few others unframed, from an earlier picture (January, if the calendar in the background is any clue). I’d probably frame the fox and the robot but not the octopus. I’m not sure I could give up the octopus at any price point.

There are also a couple of new ones unpictured here (too lazy to photograph them) – pterodactyls, robots, and oddly lumpy hills. So, like, what… ten bucks? Less? More? Thoughts? (For background, LT is planning to frame and sell some of her own photographs for $20 and I think she’s trying to get other people to contribute to some kind of art-specific table, which is why I ask.)