Baby Animal
As democracy falters, our yearning for creature comfort hits its furry-belly peak
I need a duck. I need a duckling with a tiger kitten. I need a duckling with a baby tiger on a bale of hay, blowing kisses in the air.
The algorithm knows what I'm thinking.
“Please cleanse my timeline.”
Me and my teacup Newfoundland baby, Cody Bumpkins, Big Sur
Have you, fellow hardened cynic, succumbed to the need for animal memes to wash your cares away? I have. I think it started with “Maru,” although those now seem like halcyon days. I joined a Facebook Anarchist Cat group.
As the American regime grows grimmer, I search for another and another puppy moment. Anthropomorphize me, please.
The animal sentiment-mongers are not created equal, of course. How do you find something that truly touches your cold, dead heart?
I may have found a momentary answer. In a coincidence found only in cinema life, the two most affecting movies I've seen this year are based in two South American countries where the U.S. sponsored fascist coups in the 1970s: Brazil, and Argentina.
Masked men scooping people off the streets. The grief of Los Desaparecidos. Thousands of them. You will find similarities today.
The first film I fell in love with, was released last year and is now streaming: Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here. No animal stars, only the most deadly species (us).
The other film I’m newly crazy about stars a penguin. —A really cute penguin named Juan Salvador. He upstages actor Steve Coogan at every turn, and I think Steve likes it that way.
“The Penguin Lessons”
— Directed by Peter Cattaneo, screenplay by Jeff Pope, based on the memoir by Tom Michell
What an improbable story!
Tom is a disillusioned English professor, drinking himself to death as he bums around procuring mediocre teaching jobs in South America, landing in a posh boarding school which safeguards the sons of the Argentinian ruling class. He is nonplussed by the privileged scions’ bullshit, and they could say the same of him.
One day Maestro Tom tries to get laid— and ends up going home with a penguin. This really happened! An accident leads to greater truths.
What unfolds is a love story — not just interspecies— and a political exposé you won’t soon forget.
My heart melted like a little puddle at the last standing glacier.
The Penguin Lessons is currently in selected city theatrical release. Yes, it’s worth a big screen; it’s gorgeous. I bet it will be streaming within a month or so.