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Delicious Fat Babies

So, I finally did it. I got a tattoo. I’ve wanted to for a while, but it’s hard to decide what you want to display on your body for the rest of your life. I settled on an icon that has lasted nearly a hundred years: The Hungry Tiger of Oz.

My tattoo with Esm?'s tattoo

He first appeared in 1907 in L. Frank Baum’s Ozma of Oz. With the Cowardly Lion, he pulls the royal chariot of girl monarch Ozma. Dorothy meets him in chapter eight.

“Oh! Are you hungry?” she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.

“Dreadfully hungry,” answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.

“Then why don’t you eat something?” she asked.

“It?s no use,” said the Tiger sadly. “I’ve tried that, but I always get hungry again.”

“Why, it is the same with me,” said Dorothy. “Yet I keep on eating.”

“But you eat harmless things, so it doesn’t matter,” replied the Tiger. “For my part, I’m a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies.”

“How dreadful!” said Dorothy.

The Hungry Tiger of Oz
“Isn’t it, though?” returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. “Fat babies! Don’t they sound delicious? But I’ve never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No; hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I’ll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for.”

“I think you are a very good tiger,” said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast.

I got the tattoo at Redemption Tattoo in Cambridge. Erick Lynch did a fantastic job! I highly recommend him, if you are in the market for a really good artist.

My friend Jamie went with me to get a Chinese symbol meaning “peace” on the back of her neck, which took all of 10 minutes. Even mine took only about an hour, which I found really surprising. But the best part was when the guy from the front desk popped in to deliver a message to Erick.

“Your mom called. She’ll call back later.”

How can you not love a tattoo artist who gets a call from his mom at work?

I was really surprised that it didn’t hurt all that much. Sure it was like a constant pricking, but not even as bad as a shot at the doctor’s or getting blood taken. And the vibration of the pen was kinda nice. So, my advice is: if you want to get a tattoo, get the size, design, and placement right. It really doesn’t matter how little it hurts if it’s all wrong, so don’t get a tiny one just to avoid the pain. It’s still a pretty damned permanent commitment.

Just don’t ask Erick to draw a straight line around your leg. Apparently, the stencil is a pain to mold around body parts that aren’t perfectly cylindrical.

“You’re not a can of Coke!” he told one young customer. “Why do I always get this geometric shit?!”

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Recent Reads

After writing about films for the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film, it’s fun to have another outlet to talk about some other things that I have recently enjoyed. Two books that I’ve finished in the last week couldn’t be more different. Nancy Kress is an award-winning science fiction novelist and short story writer. Beggars in Spain was published in 1993, a novel expanded from a previously published novella. It is an insightful near future tale that examines our society through a simple lens: what if people didn’t need to sleep? Genetic modification is all the rage, and in 2008, a new breed of genetically enhanced infants do not sleep. Instead they use all 24 hours in each day to learn, eventually excelling in what they pursue, leaving their sleeping brethren behind. As the Sleepless grow to adulthood and become fortune-making success stories, the dark prejudices of society loom their collective head. Most of the Sleepless resent the animosity directed at them, but one of the first, Leisha Camden, fights against the creation of Sanctuary, a space that is created to be a haven for the Sleepless; where they can live and prosper separate from the rest of humanity. Shunned by both the Sleepless and the Sleepers, Leisha must find her own path while somehow preventing an irreparable rift in humanity.

Kress creates plausible scenarios that are painfully familiar to many present day issues. Beggars in Spain reads very quickly, and while it examines many ideas that are traditionally the realm of the science fiction, its characters remain grounded in reality. It’s a fascinating read.

Men and Cartoons is a collection of short stories by best-selling author Jonathan Lethem. I enjoyed his 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn a detective story about a man with Tourette’s Syndrome, but stalled out on his 2003 best-seller Fortress of Solitude (I will try again another time). Men and Cartoons is a collection of fantastic and original stories that traverse a wide range of styles. I was hooked with the first tale, “The Vision” about a man who becomse reaccquainted with a former high school classmate who used to pretend he was the Marvel comic character The Vision. Being the fantastic comic book geek that I am, and growing up with The Vision as my favorite male comic book character, this was a surefire way to get my attention. Other stories include the inventive tale of loss, “Vivian Relf,” where a man meets a young woman at a party and is sure they have met before, but they haven’t. As the years pass, Vivan continues to pop up in the most unusual circumstances ultimately coming to define his life. “Access Fantasy” is an intriguing combination of the mystery and science fiction genres. In a world where most of humanity lives caught in a never-moving traffic jam, separated from the privileged residents of apartment building, one man manages to piece the barrier to investigate a possible murder. The stories are continuously surprising and moving.