My Uncle Had An Ant Farm

Meanderer

Meanderer

Supreme Member
Location
PA
By Kenn Nesbitt
Art by David Galchutt
0306poem_my-uncle-had-an-ant-farm_main.jpg

My uncle had an ant farm
where he raised a lot of ants.
He taught a few to play guitar;
he taught a few to dance.


Another one, or maybe two,
he tutored on the ant kazoo.
He bought them little xylophones,
and teeny-tiny slide trombones,
submicroscopic saxophones,
and itsy-bitsy baritones.
He trained a few to beat a drum,
and all the rest learned how to hum,
until at last they had a band
parading in the ant-farm sand.


And yet no matter where you stood,
or where you put your ear,
those little ants were much too small
for anyone to hear.
 

I had an ant farm once. I liked it. I got to play God.

Every once in a while I'd pick it up and shake it - earthquake.

Every once in a while I'd pour water into it - flood.

Every once in a while I'd put it in the freezer section of the refrigerator - cold wave.

Every once in a while I'd put it on top of the radiator - heat wave.


One day God left the farm door open - multiple bites and a mean rash.
 

A friend likes to razz me about the first time we met oh so many years ago. I had been working at Pioneer Days at an art center I was on the board of and was dressed in a long pioneer dress. The event was over and I was picking up trash from the bushes when I stepped into a mound of fire ants. Before I knew it, they had traveled up my legs and the skirt of my dress and were biting like mad. As he tells it, suddenly a madwoman burst out of the bushes with her dress tucked up under her armpits, clad only in a layer of fire ants and a pair of large white granny-panties, doing some sort of extreme clogging and slapping at herself madly with her bonnet. He did say that it was one of the best performances he had seen that day. He awarded me a 9; it would have been a 10 but he deducted one point for the granny-panties. Men.
 
Well I had an ant farm, all encased in a glass bin with, I suppose, the right amount of dirt and hilled up just right. The ants tunneled here and there. I had it a few months and lost interest in it. My parents gave it to me but I don't know why. Maybe they thought I'd find it interesting. If I was interested it didn't last long. I don't know now whatever happened to the ant farm. To be so busy they didn't seem to accomplish much. Or maybe I missed the point. I did notice they were always busy and each seem to know his job and carried it out. I would have been asking, "What do you want me to do next, or is this all there is."
 
When I first moved to Florida, I was working in my backyard, putting up my little lighthouse, and didn't realize I was standing on a fire ant mound. Many, many bites on my leg was all it took to remind me to keep my eyes open next time.

Never had an ant farm, but sea monkeys made the rounds when the kids were small.
 
SifuPhil said:
I had an ant farm once. I liked it. I got to play God.

Every once in a while I'd pick it up and shake it - earthquake.

Every once in a while I'd pour water into it - flood.

Every once in a while I'd put it in the freezer section of the refrigerator - cold wave.

Every once in a while I'd put it on top of the radiator - heat wave.


One day God left the farm door open - multiple bites and a mean rash.
Click to expand...

Serves you right, God.
 
Yukinori Yanagi | Ant Farm Project

Over the last 20 years Yukinori Yanagi (previously) has been creating a series of artworks with an unlikely collaborator: ants. The Japanese conceptual artist begins by assembling replicas of flags by pouring colored sand into plexiglass boxes. He then pours live ants into them, allowing them to wreak havoc – or order – as they set about tunneling through the sand. The piece is indeed a living, breathing artwork. It’s appearance continues to evolve as ants travel through the maze of flags, mixing sand as they go.
http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2012/08/15/yukinori-yanagi-ant-farm-project/
yanagi-yukinori-ant-farm-2-580x386.jpg
 
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