Ape Shit the zine

@monkeywire.bsky.social

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Primate news, with a bent toward the troubled relationship between humans and other primates. Zine #1 available: orbooks.com/catalog/ape-shit/

An old b&w newspaper photo shows a chained capuchin monkey feeding a bearded man in a wheelchair. The image is superimposed over a collection of actual newspaper articles, with headlines such as "Monkeys help the disabled" and "Monkeys deliver safety message to over 1500 students." The caption for this collage reads: "In 1979, Crystal's placement with William Powell, who had quadriplegia, was widely reported by the Washington Post and major U.S. wire services. However, like most monkeys that Helping Hands place as 'helpers,' the relationship was short-lived."
A collection of images, one featuring a female macaque monkey mounting a male and another of a female mounting another female. Another pair of pics shows a single macaque using stones. Jargon scattered throughout.
An adult female chimp sits alone in something approximating a fetal position, curled up on a fake tree stump in a zoo enclosure. She has a "lost" expression on her face, and is self-grooming the hair on her head. Photo is credited to F.W. Bond
A screenshot of Google News results for "monkey" shows a number of stories about the same press release: a chimp predicting England will beat Argentina in the World Cup semi-final. But one of those headlines [indicated with a hand-drawn red arrow] is different and reads "Adorable chimp abandoned at birth predicts England will win World Cup semi-final"
Photo is of a book page that reads: "Literature, particularly early literature, is full of references to the sexual behavior of apes and their desire to have sexual contact with human females. But any woman who believes this would be a thrill would undoubtedly be disappointed by the penises of those animals. A woman ravished by an ape would scarcely feel a thing."
A photo of 4 hot air balloons on the beach, each with monkey-sized baskets beneath them. This event was a promotion for the coconut market.
Photo of a macaque monkey in the basket of a hot air balloon, holding on to the ropes and staying put.
Text from the Center's obit: "When he first came to the Center, he was introduced to several of the resident chimpanzees, but Marco was frightened by most of the much larger chimps (females, too). We then tried him with Butch, also a former wild-caught circus performer and small in stature. During their first two weeks together, Marco and Butch occupied the same larger habitat, but did not interact in any way... no contact at all.    "Then, one day, we had a visit from a group of senior ladies who walked past the habitat, and I think their sudden presence startled both Marco and Butch! Each chimp let out a little scream and raced into the other’s arms for a comforting hug… and then they began grooming each other. From that point on, they have been best friends for over two decades, spending their days together playing, grooming, and resting." Photo: Marco and Butch playing together in their enclosure,
A very sweet-faced, happy chimpanzee with slightly silver hair and a warm smile
A scowling, bright orange monkey stares down at the photographer, presumably ready to let loose. Apologies to the photographer -- couldn't find the online source for this pic.
Many captive apes develop a sort of Stockholm Syndrome with their captors. Not this little gorilla, who eyes medical researcher Geoffrey Bourne warily as Bourne grips him tightly in a forced embrace. This photo is on the back cover jacket of Bourne's book _The Ape People_ (1971)
A young gorilla, John Daniel, poses lovingly with a 3 year old white girl with a bowl haircut, in this b&w studio photo from December 1920. John has one arm gently embracing the girl around her shoulder.
A text excerpt from Earnest Hooten's 1942 primate textbook, Man's Poor Relations, includes a subsection titled "How Howlers Behave Toward Human Beings" Highlighted text in the paragraph quotes Ray Carpenter: "I would usually be sitting quietly observing the animals as they in the trees above me. Either seen or unseen, an individual would slowly approach to a place directly above me or as near-by as possible, and then would release excrement, either urine or fecal matter or both." The first sentence reads: "The commonest reaction of a group of howlling monkeys to the presence of man is to howl at him."
Black and white photo of a bizarre-looking, stuffed spider monkey holding an egg and sitting on a log. He wears a vapid expression, with eyes half-closed and his mouth agape, revealing crooked teeth.
Yellow and blue book cover, titled "Raccoons are the Brightest People" by Sterling North, author of Rascal (a memoir about raising a young raccon that was later adapted and turned into a dreadful Disney movie).
A baby gibbon and mother (at a sanctuary) hug
Black and white photos of a young, terribly unhappy chimp in poses similar to that of a human toddler. In most photos, his mouth is wide open (in a couple of cases, with eyes closed) and his hands/arms are stretched out all over the place.
Photo of a monkey with very dark body hair but a face encircled by an off-white mane. He is chewing on a broken tree branch and looing up toward the sky. His eyes are brown and look very human, owing to the white sclera.
Cover of issue #1 of a new print zine called Ape Sh*t: The Zine for Primates. (The asterik in the title is intended to look like poop splatter.) "The Bizarre History of the Service Monkey" plugs the main feature. The image is of a tufted capuchin (a tiny brown monkey) with her tongue hanging out and her teeth revealed. She is cut out and placed over a background of blue vintage wallpaper.
A screen shot of the text from the lead of AP's story, with leads with "In Mexico, a baby mopnkey is growing up clinging to a plush toy after being rejected by his mother."
A circa 1940 black-and-white photo shows a young chimpanzee wearing a soldier's cloth bag, shoes, and a gas mask. Photo via Osaka Tennoji Zoo.
Photo of an adult chimpanzee withdrawing her lips into a grimace that highlights her gums and teeth. The caption on the photo reads: "Fully adult chimpanzee may lapse into childlike behavior when upset. This female begged for food from another female but was rejected. She is screaming in frustration, hitting herself with spasmodic arm movements. (Yerkes Primate Center)"
Video of a macaque hugging and standing watch over the dead body of a woman, who is covered in colorful flowers.
Top: 3 b&w headshots of different woolly monkeys. Bottom: 3 b&w headshots of 3 white men, who all kinda look alike. --from Man and Monkey by Leonard Williams
Logo for our new zine, Ape Shit. In place of the "i" in "Shit" is an asterik designed to look like splatter.
Pic of page 62 of a book by Vicki Croke with highlighted text that reads: "A drill at the San Diego Zoo finds human females—particularly blonds—sexually appealing, and the zoo capitalizes on this to collect semen samples." From _the Modern Ark: The Story of Zoos: Past, Present, and Future (Avon, 1997)
A newspaper article headlined "Monkey That Killed Boy Is Destroyed" along with a photo of a macaque monkey in a metal cage. https://www.newspapers.com/image/181286704/
Two macaques groom a gorgeous male langur in Papanasam R.F., Tamil Nadu, India Photo by Ambareesh Sridhar at www.pexels.com/photo/playful-macaques-in-papanasam-forest-india-34058950/
A generally relaxed adult macaque with a markedly human-like countenance occasionally expresses a look of surprise.
Video clip taken from the stream archive provided by the Prairie Village, KS, City Council here: https://www.pvkansas.com/governing-body/city-council/city-council-meeting-streaming It shows a blond woman speaking at a microphone at a council meeting, with a fully closed stroller behind her. Instead the stroller is a spider monkey -- a long-limbed animal evolved to move through trees -- who appears to be desperately trying to get out, as it pulls and punches the stroller enclosure.
Photo of a lactating adult capuchin with surprisingly large breasts nursing an infant. Photo source: www.istockphoto.com/photo/south-american-cappuccino-monkey-in-ecuador-gm1421154482-466884906
Video clip shows a giant swarm of monkeys outside of a residential building running downhill in leaps and bounds
An impossibly cute juvenile capuchin named "Sai" is the protagonist in _Amazonia_. He is shown here sitting on a fallen tree.
A screenshot of text from "Beyond the One-Male Group" by T. E. Rowell in Behaviour (March 1988): He found that, although a high-ranking male could always separate a lower-rank male from his consort, he rarely gained an opportunity to mate as a result. Instead, the female typically avoided him and went to rejoin her consort behind the next rock or bush. As a reproductive tactic, disruption of consort pairs seemed to be ineffective."
Cover of Gorilla by Todd Gott and Kathryn Weir (Reaktion, 2013) features a green-and-black duotone photo of a lowland gorilla. The book was part of an animal studies series, each title focused on a different animal. See also Monkey and Ape. Fun reads, all!
The color cover of a "classic" children’s book, The Gorilla Hunters by Robert Ballantyne. The cover features a painting of a white man with a rifle aimed toward an aggressive gorilla. An excerpt from the book’s text is superimposed. It reads: “It is impossible to convey in words an idea of the gush of mingled feelings that filled our breasts as we stood beside and gazed at the huge carcass of our victim. Pity at first predominated in my heart, then I felt like an accomplice to a murder, and then an exulting sensation of joy at having obtained a specimen of one of the rarest animals in the world overwhelmed every other feeling.”
Wall painting of a seated baboon with his penis aimed forward, from the tomb of Tutankhamen, not a wall clock, but you get the idea. Hanna-Barbera vibes.
Clip of a text-only newspaper article (SF Chronicle, 2/8/1970): "They got our smell and suddenly, making noises exactly like a train, they burst out headed toward us. We had nowhere to go. The ranger made 'people' noises by rattling chains and keys. Finally, they halted, turned and ran off."
Two patas monkeys, presumably a mother with a juvenile, in a tree, huddled together and looking out, as if on alert. Photo by Scot/flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottummy/16245466018/
Newspaper story from November 12, 1924 has the bold headline: MAN'S DESCENT SAME AS APE TYPES. Subheads clarify with "White springing from chimpanzee, yellows from orang-outang, blacks from gorilla" and "This is theory of Dr. Crookshank, anthropologist, who has data on man's origins. The article is illustrated with photos of a juvenile chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan -- but an editor confused the chimp with the orang and mislabeled them. From the Los Angeles Evening Post-Record (this story was syndicated and other newspapers did not mix the two apes up) https://www.newspapers.com/image/678206838/
A very large brown rodent (a capybara) with a much smaller, similarly colored monkey relaxing on her friend’s back, adorably.
The taxidermied body of an infant chimpanzee with his lips open, as if pant-hooting, while a blond human toddler rides on his back. Before the chimp died, Ladygina-Kohts charted his development alongside that of her son. Joni survived in her care for 2.5 years.
Photo of a book chapter title that reads "8: Benefits of Friendship to the Male" above a photo of two olive baboons copulating. In the book, anthropologist Barbara Smuts defines "benefits" in the evolutionary sense.
Engraving from ~1500 features an illustration of a seated young mother holding a naked plumb ~1 year old. Next to them sits a peaceful monkey (its dark face resembles a vervet).
News clipping with a photo of an orangutan behind bars and text: "Rabu, the male orangutan, initially became so captivated by TV that he ignored his mate. Monika was upset at being neglected. She stood between her man and the TV screen. She grabbed him in an effort to distract him from the set. And eventually, she gave up and joined him, seeming to enjoy cartoons, soap operats, and music videos, but becoming highly excited one day when a nature program showed a lion."
Photo of Tonka, the chimpanzee featured in the HBO documentary "Chimp Crazy" with the text "Vocabulary Builder: Apeism" For more on apeism, see "Apeism and racism: Reasons and remedies" by Edouard Machery in _The Politics of Species_ (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Closeup photo of two monkeys with light (and pink-ish) faces and covered in fur of various shades of gray. These monkeys have two vertical nostils in place of a nose, giving them a strange appearance. Snub-noses monkeys live in freezing mountain in China, and the lack of conventional noses means they have one less appendange subject to frostbite. (Photo: Visual China Group)
Photo (by F.W. Bond) of "a female baboon, with her dead baby in her arms, being groomed by her overlord" as it appears in Zuckerman’s book. Zuckerman sees grooming as an “innate response to fur” and connected to sexuality, but never explains why an "overlord" would groom a subordinate.
Cover photo of the second edition of _The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes_ by Solly Zuckerman (1981, Routledge). It is a greenish-blue hardback with text-only.
Grainy photo adapted from security camera footage shows two small macaques trying to rip a mirror off of a car.
Book cover: The Parrot's Lament: And Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity by Eugene Linden (Plume/Penguin, 1999). Includes a photo of a human rowing a boat that contains a female leopard holding her cub.
Screen shot of a Kawaii quote from Asquitch’s dissertation: This is not illogical. By penetrating the group and sharing its living space, we come to sense the monkeys' f aura! . Our eventual cognitive knowledge of individual monkeys may depend upon this emotional or intuitive awareness which is perhaps based on a natural empathy with the monkeys which comes through sharing the experience of simply being alive. It may sound far-fetched, but perhaps our intuition about animals is sensed by the old cortex rather than the new.” (p.292) For more background on the history of Japanese primatology & the West's response, check out the work of Canadian anthropologist Pamela Asquith: https://www.pamelaasquith.ca Her 1981 thesis from the University of Oxford contained the Masao Kawaii passage and Itani quip cited above. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ced23a88-1ca0-47a9-a3be-a72dbaea1788
A collection of 9 faces of Barbary macaques, a different species than those studied in Japan, Japanese macaques. (Photo: Alyssa M Arre)
Video clip is from a 2016 ABC News segment on Lincoln Park Zoo's Japanese macaques, who seem to enjoy computer tasks for their own sake. Full clip at https://abc7chicago.com/post/lincoln-park-zoo-snow-monkeys-dabble-in-computer-research/1508502/
Photo of a "white-handed" lar gibbon sitting on a wood plank with their hands on their knees, wearing an expression that suggests boredom, as if posing for a professional portrait. The ape has light brown fur with black face surrounded by a halo of white fur, and white hands and feet.
Photo of an adult male Barbary macaque hugging a juvenile. Both animals have their eyes closed, as if napping togeter, adorably. Photo by Alyssa M. Arre