Displacement Activites

” Once the situation has become manifestly hopeless, a mouse that is cornered by a cat will stop running around and around in circles and will start thoroughly cleaning it’s whiskers. This transfer of nervous energy from escape into a random, disassociated action, is known as displacement activity…”

Anxiety and Humour
Over the next few weeks this page of images will begin to build into a collection of whisker cleanings that you will want to treasure and return to again and again in these times of terror and general nervousness.

Update: hello. It’s 09/09/2007.

It is time for some whisker cleaning.

a play for two voices: Jeff and Janet.

Janet (calling from another room): What are you doing?

Jeff: I’m looking for something

Janet: What are you looking for?

Jeff: Have you seen my spanners?

Janet: What do you need them for?

Jeff: Have you seen them?

Janet: They’ll be in your toolbox

Jeff: They’re not

Janet: What do you need them for?

Jeff: I’m just going over to Mikes.

Janet: … Mikes?

… What for?

Jeff: He’s got an emergency.

Janet: What sort of emergency?

Jeff: It’s this thing with a mechanical owl

Janet: Jeff… Mike’s a nutter

Jeff: Mike is not a nutter. He just lives an exciting lifestyle

Janet (now in the same room): Mike doesn’t lead an exciting lifestyle, love.

He just makes things up.

Jeff (scoffing): He DOESN’T. no… My hacksaw isn’t in my toolbox either.

Janet: Mike does make things up. You spent hours looking for a mechanical badger in the dark and you never saw anything

Jeff: There was markings.

Janet: Mechanical Badger Markings?

Jeff: Yes. As far as I could tell. Mike had a scar.

Janet: Mike fell down a ditch chasing after things that were Foraging

Jeff: Mechanical things

Janet: Not mechanical things

Jeff (to himself, leaving the room): It’s unnatural, all these Mechanical things…