Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

It's no mistake that virtually every culture in our history has used body modification and body ritual (or as Fakir puts it, body play) as an integral element of an individual's development, either as a part of childhood growth, or as a coming of age ceremony. Only this small and recent amoral Western culture has forgotten that.

Many of the exceptional qualities attributed as uniquely human are not. Animals also build and use tools. Animals also communicate using language, teach ethics to their children, use first and family names, and some animals may even be more intelligent than we are. But they don't practise body modification or body ritual… It's that single thing that differentiates us.

Body play makes the fundamental statement that we — the individual — have the moral power to control our biology; that we are MORE than it. Even a rose tattoo on an ankle or a navel piercing makes that statement. Even the extremes of athletics do. I've said it before, and I'll say it again now: A person who has never modified their body is nothing more than an animal.

What did I eat for supper?

First I fried some extra firm tofu in Absolut Vodka. Then I chopped up all the veggies I had in the house (onion, green pepper, zuccini, and mushroom) and threw those in too. Then I poured half a bottle of leftover “green monster” juice, and covered that with sprouts. Then I added a package of scallops and covered it with soy sauce. Then I had to transfer it to a bigger pan to fry it up with chow mein noodles. I sprayed it down with garlic spray and then poured on half a bottle of Dave's Island Stinger (a rum cooler). Finally I poured on a bunch more soy sauce and then let it sit.

I went to go and do work in the other room — just for a few minutes in theory but I forgot I was cooking… Until, of course, I was alerted by a burning smell. Thank god I'd cooked a lot — even though the bottom half was burned beyond recognition, the top half was still VERY yummy.