Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Coat In A Jar?

The New York Times reports today, but Boing-Boing got there a few days ago--a recent art exhibit at the MoMA had to be... euthanized. A coat made of "living leather", a growing garment of mouse stem cells, was growing too fast and had to be put down. Yeah, it's worth following the links and reading.

My mom complained I grew too fast--
Or else, my clothes were shrinking.
I couldn't make my clothing last,
Until I did some thinking.
I couldn't make a coat to fit
With any fancy sewing,
And so I got a science kit
And started something growing--
A leather coat (size extra small)
From stem cells of a mouse,
With stylish collar, sleeves and all,
To wear around the house.
At first, it seemed a simple task
(They all do at the start)
I'd use the erlenmeyer flask
In which I grew my heart.
But all too soon, a snag arose:
My coat grew much too fast!
No more would I outgrow my clothes--
It's me that would not last!
My coat grew larger all the while,
I really don't know why;
So out of safety, not for style,
The garment had to die.
I pulled the plug, then stood and watched,
Expecting it to give.
But some procedure I had botched
Allowed it still to live!
The flask I'd used, I now surmise
(I did not, at the start)
Contained some cells--surprise, surprise!
My coat had grown a heart!

So now, I'm hiding from my coat
Behind a stockroom shelf;
If you should chance to find this note,
Just run! Go! Save yourself!


Image from Boing-Boing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

*snorfle!!*

Unknown said...

To the evil art curator who committed heinous jacket homicide…


How could you do it? How Satanic!
You fill my fundie soul with panic.
You killed a coat! Perfidious crime!
God’s mouse coat gone before its time.

If God can make a living coat,
Then how can man God’s will outvote?
From Jesus, where God’s coats come from
Upon art’s altar did succumb.

Coats’ lives begin right at conception,
Not at fashion sense perception.
Murder ‘tis when art denies
Their perfect right to grow a size.

I wonder, did you crucify
Each little cell to make it die?
You’ve killed God’s living mousey fur,
Wicked artist saboteur!

I pray your sleep is quite undone.
With diarrhea I hope you run.
Your man-stuff should all shrivel up
So that your wife won’t let you stup!

You turned your arsty-fart museum
Into a mousey mausoleum.
Oh fie upon you, evil man!
To kill this coat, yet spare Cezanne!

Monado said...

Euugh! Sounds like a SF story I read once.