Kat Su (Hachette) 2014, 95pp, RRP $14.99
Oh jeez! This really is one of those times – or the first of many, depending how often you pick this book up – that you can’t help but laugh at the misfortune of others. Or, indeed, at the poor taxidermy skills (and I use that term loosely) of some people. Based on the original and official crap taxidermy site – www.crappytaxidermy.com – this is page after page of deceased animals, preserved for life – or a second life – with a few unfortunates looking nothing like they did in their living years.
Crap Taxidermy is a hard cover book with many bizarre examples of this. Some are beloved pets that they couldn’t let go of, others are something entirely different!
From boggling creepy eyes, bizarre poses, grimacing grins, strange anatomy extras, some even stranger additions to nature that verge on the humorously disrespectful (seriously, who would turn their pet squirrel into a beer bottle cooler or put a duck coming out of a lamb’s bum?) and an entire section on the anthropomorphic side of life – which is just another way of saying that they have added poses and human characteristics to animals or inanimate things: smoking frogs, card-playing mice, a gun-wielding rabbit and a ‘mermouse’. The pièce de résistance comes with your very own set of instructions on how to stuff a mouse, with a stern warning to NOT rupture the poop sack at any cost! Makes perfect sense, really!
Not all of the works in this book are technically and aesthetically dreadful, but they are all very wrong and I doubt any of them would make it to any National Museum around the country. They have, however, been collected from around the globe. Strategically place this book of animal oddities on your coffee table for the next time friends come around. They will either laugh or squirm – or both.
Catherine Blanch
Click here to order your very own copy of Crap Taxidermy from Hachette Australia.
