Before we understand our hands are a part of our body, they seem to be independent creatures that interact with us somehow. Here the hand and the baby are still figuring each other out by interacting. The mother laughs, the baby comes out of what seems to be a state of creative concentration into awareness of something else, sees her mother watching her, looks a little startled, then laughs and turns her face away.
What just happened?
Why does it remind me so much of being snapped out of my groove when I’m writing?
Unthinkable Mind Student, Natalie DeCheck [AKA Brain Stem] with her book in the form of a board game. She’s graduating this week with a major in both genetics and creative writing.
Students in The Unthinkable Mind wrote over 40,000 words this semester, by hand, and drew hundreds of pictures, but everyone in the class knows that Natalie went beyond all expectations, and this is why Professor Old Skull has crowned her class valedictorian. Because. She. Is. AWESOME.
Photo by “What It Is” alum, Angela Richardson
Meet the man voted “Mr. May” down here in The Near-Sighted Monkey Lounge…
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the super fluidity of super cooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics (he proposed the Parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, together with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams
Coming On Strong Staying Long - The Sensational Five (Coming On Strong Staying Long / It’s Hard Out Here, 1968)
BEFORE YOU PRESS PLAY HEED THIS WARNING If you already suspect that a video that features an Oberlin student rapping about masturbation might be offensive to sensitive souls, and you feel you have one, do not click play.
Here is a happy song about chronic masturbation by one of The Near-Sighted Monkey’s Oberlin God-Student cartoonists Sam Szabo. Other god-students and members of the Oberlin Comics Collective are in this video as well and Auntie Monkey-Glasses is so glad to see them supporting their cartoonist brother in his musical time of need.
I am very proud and very ashamed to present the new music video from my shame-rap masterpiece, “The Chronic Masturbator.” Directed by Gabe Freed and Max Mueller. Not for the faint of heart. Musical psychotherapy for the soul.
Unthinkable Mind Student Medulla Oblongata / Jake Kelley’s final project, an illustrated story written by hand in tiny letters on one large sheet of paper. The book comes with a large magnifying glass. The story made Professor Old Skull cry.
Photo by Angela Richardson at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
Uptown - The Chambers Brothers (The Time Has Come, 1968)
Who are the students in The Unthinkable Mind? Here they are posing with Professor Old Skull and all of the composition notebooks they filled this semester. Missing are classmates Pons, Spinal Cord and Corpus Callosum.
Photo by “What It Is” alum, Angela Richardson
Some of Limbic System’s images for her final project
Amygdala working on his final project for the Unthinkable Mind Class.
Here is a poem Professor Old Skull wrote for her students during The Unthinkable Mind class.
Here are some of the illustrations Brain Stem was working on during The Unthinkable Mind Studio Hours on Saturday and Sunday. Professor Old Skull is a huge fan of Brain Stem’s drawings. She’s about to graduate, majoring in Genetics and Creative Writing.
What it looked like on Saturday during the Unthinkable Mind Studio Hours in 6261 Humanities
First three pictures: Motor Cortex, Limbic System and Amygdala finishing their books. “What It Is” alum Dawn Wing dropped by to work on her book along with us.
What goes on during The Unthinkable Mind studio hours? Here is Hippocampus finishing the illustrations for her book. Ink and watercolor on plain old notebook paper.
Dear Unthinkable Mind Class,
What goes on during ‘studio hours’? If you’ve never been, you have just FOUR MORE DAYS to find out!
Step One: See above, and hit PLAY.
Step Two: Meet me in the classroom. Bring your non-photo blue pencil.
