The Wormlips Scrapbook

I know, I know. I should be working. But one has to prioritize: make a living, or write about pigs. The choice is clear.

A hundred years ago, before people could avoid reality by playing on the Internet, a favorite pastime was putting together a pig book. I don’t think I’m making this up, the way my friend made up that there used to be sugar in toothpaste.

You’d sit in your dark Victorian parlor (smoke-stained wallpaper with big pink flowers all over it) and ask your friends to sketch a picture of a pig. The only catch was that they had to draw without looking.

Since 1978 I’ve been asking people to do these blind pig drawings. And while I don’t frequent Victorian parlors much, last week I got some great pig drawings at a tattoo parlor. You can see it and more throughout this Blind Pig Drawings category.

— Ginna

Postscript: I was just going through some of my old pig books and found I’d pasted in this column from the May 8, 1978 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. Now I have someone to credit for having inspired me all these years.

Excerpted from Autograph Hound by William Hogan

Around the century’s turn, [author Ray] Rawlins explained, many people kept “pig books,” albums filled with drawings of pigs done blindfolded …

My pig book began on that very same day. Thanks for the years of fun, William and Ray.

Bookmark this post to...

December 3–6, 2006

This dog’s given name, “Cha-Cha Charlie,” is beneath my dignity. I call him “Dog.”

Dog is what they call a “puggle.” Designer dogs — hybrids of papered breeds — are a big deal these days: cockapoos and labradoodles and shepradors, bogles and beabulls and bockers and basstons. I’m not kidding.

Dog, as you might imagine, is half pug, half beagle.

At three-and-a-half-months old, Dog is small enough that his head can fit into Stella’s mouth. I know this for a fact.

Out in the open yard, Stella definitely had the upper “hand,” but in smaller enclosures it’s Dog who seizes control by humping Stella. It’s not very effective, though, due to the discrepancy in their relative elevations.

M was unusually fond of this dog until he peed on her bed.

Bookmark this post to...