It's Cows And Cows And Cows And Cows, And That's A Nice Thing
We're saying we're having a cow, man.
Welcome to another edition of Yr Sunday Nice Things feature, where we take a break from the daily craziness so we can decompress for a little while. Today, we're going to relax with the ineffable mental calm that comes from an oddly rectangular English cow. It's really beautiful to see what can happen when people all over the internet come together to collaborate on a little art project. We call it...
The Bovine Comity
It all got started with a tweet from the absolutely wonderful Museum of English Rural Life , an organization (sorry, organisation ) you should definitely follow on Twitter. Based at the University of Reading, the MERL's Twitter description declares its mission is "Chaotic Good." You may remember them from that time when one of their exhibits, a mousetrap patented in 1861, caught a mouse from 2016 . Talk about a movie anachronism!
On Wednesday, the museum offered some advice:  Be the relaxed cow you want to see in the world.
hello if you are not literally this cow right now but you are this cow emotionally https: //t.co/WTzhOs1jKL
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@The Museum of English Rural Life) 1560933435.0Â
Unfortunately, replied a reader, sometimes it's difficult to be the Peace Cow in a world gone mad:
@TheMERL I feel more like this today : ) https://t.co/oNLxf6keKE
— Mike Cooling (@Mike Cooling) 1560946385.0Â
And then the photoshoops began, encouraged, of course, by the MERL, which helpfully included a copy of the cow, to be inserted as folks might like:
here's a PNG: https://t.co/8GufLl0yA1
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@The Museum of English Rural Life) 1560947657.0Â
(If you want to do your own cow art, you'll need to click on the tweet there; for reasons, the transparent .png file doesn't reproduce on this page)
The responses were, predictably, silly and brilliant. To get around our platform's annoying habit of inserting the original tweet every damn time (it doesn't like Twitter's embed code, which lets you leave out the "parent" tweet), we have reproduced the pics and copy-pasted the tweeters' comments (if any) below, avec linky.
The entire crew ran to one side to check out the rectangular cow floating to starboard. #WhatReallyHappened   https: //twitter.com/HatchTheDog_MR/status/11413560... Â
 https: //twitter.com/epilepticbear/status/114133227... Â
 https: //twitter.com/ROMtoronto/status/114134124060... Â
 https: //twitter.com/TimeTrapEscape/status/11413428... Â
Leonora Carrington - The Giantess (the Guardian of the Cow)  https: //twitter.com/CatFinnie/status/1141423987458... Â
Balancing cow (Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance, National Gallery of Art , USA)  https: //twitter.com/mentalmasala/status/1141423112... Â
Cow observes the destruction of the empire.  https: //twitter.com/raquelxmoss/status/11413255669... Â
A painting by Mooonet  https: //twitter.com/sithiaditu/status/114139248929... Â
Edvard Moonch  https: //twitter.com/tomcolmans/status/114132890451... Â
This person neglected to say the painting is by Rene Moooogritte, so we have rectified that omission -- Dok ZÂ Â https: //twitter.com/mad_davenport/status/1141414560177512454Â Â
hello can I have a latte  https: //twitter.com/NEHumaneSociety/status/1141361... Â
Another missed opportunity: Whistler's MOOOther -- Dok ZÂ Â https: //twitter.com/LynneKelly/status/1141339483608145920Â Â
The Nightmooer... By Henry Coo-seli  https: //twitter.com/strawberrythief/status/1141328... Â
Millet, The Gust of Wind  https: //twitter.com/NatMuseumArt/status/1141377176... Â
La condition bovine  https: //twitter.com/ianm_hull/status/1141356788178... Â
@TheMERL I'd never forgive myself if I didn't finish the job. Creation of the Unit. https: //t.co/KnCfPx3n59
— Rob Newstead (@Rob Newstead) 1560950273.0Â
We really like this big-eyed Margaret Keane cow. In a follow-up, the perpetrator says, "I won't say how much of the morning was spent tweaking the size" of the cow's eye.
https: //twitter.com/robcruickshank/status/1141350370435842048 Â
 https: //twitter.com/MadoOlivera/status/11414017026... Â
I call this Abstraction of a Unit  https: //twitter.com/OdelayOwl/status/1141340142730448896 Â
@TheMERL @OdelayOwl My Calf Could Paint That
— Lanie Treen (@Lanie Treen) 1560961664.0Â
There were a lot more, but we think you get the idea.
Wonkette's own Robyn Pennacchia got into the game, too!
Robyn's work won high praise from the exhibit's cow-rater:
@RobynElyse I like this one. One dog goes one way and the cow goes the other. And this guy's saying, "Whaddya want… https: //t.co/Ho0FIXC88N
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@The Museum of English Rural Life) 1560956622.0Â
But it occurs to us that the replies to the original tweet are missing out on a rich vein of artistic culture! Where are the works of America's Greatest Artist, Jon McNaughton? Consider that oversight corrected.
OK, folks, get to the cow puns in the cowments, which Yr Wonkette does not allow .
Yr Dok Zoom overslept, and so that's it for this week, YOU'RE WELCOME!
[ Museum of Rural English Life on Twitter]
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I absolutely love QLD. We have been 4 times now and also spent some time in Melbourne in Feb this year. I am trying to persuade hubby that we should move there if shit gets really bad in 2020 but he needs seasons and snow. Maybe NZ then
Sure, in the same way pigs would be invited to a pulled pork cook off.