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At first I was just a few random lines on a white background, a doodle actually.  Not really random, no.  I could sense two eyes looking down.  I could feel the tug of the pen.  Something, I had no idea what it was, had power over me.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sterling artist

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sterling Artist

From the beginning there was flexibility.  Not that I was free.  No, it was never like that.  I guess you could say there were freedoms within certain boundaries, if you know what I mean.  And, you do know, because you’ve been in that same place even if you can’t remember.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sterling Artist

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Ko Ko artist

Intelligent design?  An oxymoron.  These … “artists” … sadists … Oh, what they can do with a pen!  Yes, just a few random lines, but it was a stimulus to their feeble imaginations.  Little did they know I was watching … closely … from inside as they … outside … played at omnipotence with their silly sketches.  It was, to say the least, very embarrassing.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

Of course they invented a Playboy bunny and a Stormy rabbit.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

Specificity emerged from variety of attempts without these fools ever wondering how or why.  A facsimile of the true form.  No one, not even I, has seen the True Rabbit, the universal Rabbit.  We mortals have only the rabbit-duck illusion made famous by that philosopher/Rabbit Wittgenstein.

“Kaninchen und Ente” (“Rabbit and Duck”) from the 23 October 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter

So embarrassing were the first feeble attempts that many were destroyed or lost.  It’s my suspicion that the creators, prone to mistakes, tortured us rabbits for no good reason other than their own amusement.  The human race is pitiful and mean and destined to self-destruct.  We will all be much better off when their comedy comes to an end.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

Let me tell you the story of rabbit creation as it was told to me. [loosely based on Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship in Italics]

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

The endless praises of the drinkers had begun to grow wearisome; for, after all, did the napkin artists not deserve their praise? Had they not given them endless joy? Would it not be more amusing to obtain undeserved praise, to be worshipped by creatures whom they tortured? The artists smiled inwardly, and resolved that the great drama should be performed.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

For countless ages the hot nebula whirled aimlessly through space. At length it began to take shape, the central mass threw off planets, the planets cooled, boiling seas and burning mountains heaved and tossed, from black masses of cloud hot sheets of rain deluged the barely solid crust. And now the first germ of life grew in the depths of the ocean, and developed rapidly in the fructifying warmth into vast forest trees, huge ferns springing from the damp mould, sea monsters breeding, fighting, devouring, and passing away. And from the monsters, as the play unfolded itself, The Napkin Artist was born, with the power of thought, the knowledge of good and evil, and the cruel thirst for worship. The Napkin Artist saw that all is passing in this mad, monstrous world, that all is struggling to snatch, at any cost, a few brief moments of life before Death’s inexorable decree. And The Napkin Artist said: `There is a hidden purpose, could I but fathom it, and the purpose is good; for I must reverence something, and in the visible world there is nothing worthy of reverence.’ And so, The Napkin Artist stood aside from the struggle, resolving to create harmony out of chaos by inventing The Rabbit. And when The Rabbit followed the instincts which the napkin artists had transmitted to him from his ancestry of beasts of prey, it was called procreation. The Rabbit asked the Napkin Artist to allow him free reign which the Napkin Artist did. The Rabbit was consumed by guilt. He invented a Divine Plan of abstinence by which the Napkin Artist’s wrath was to have been appeased and this gave rise to many strange things. Seeing the present was bad, The Rabbit made it yet worse, that thereby the future might be better. And he gave The Napkin Artist thanks for the strength that enabled him to forgo even the joys that were possible. And the Napkin Artist smiled his wily smile. When he saw that The Rabbit had become perfect in renunciation and worship, he sent another sun through the sky, which crashed into The Rabbit’s sun; and all returned again to nebula.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, artist unknown

“Yes,” the Napkin Artist murmured, “it was a good play; let’s have it performed again.”  And, the napkin artists went on with their rabbit heresies.  In a just world these pornographers, these demons of silliness so ignorant of the pain they cause the True Rabbit, in a just world they would be burned at the stake.  But no, these crimes against rabbit hood occurred in that den of iniquity known as The Sea Gull Cellar Bar.

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Roy Hoggard artist

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Roy Hoggard artist

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Roy Hoggard artist

The drinkers at the bar laughed and clapped.  The napkin artists went on working.  Who knows what rough rabbit, its hour come round at last, slouches toward that watering hole to be born?  (apologies to WB Yeats)

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sandra Lindstrom artist

And so it goes, one embarrassment after another. Oh yes, there were some sweet, cuddly hopping rabbits but they laid eggs. Can you imagine?

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sandra Lindstrom artist

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sandra Lindstrom artist

Sea Gull Cellar Bar Napkin Art, Sandra Lindstrom artist