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History's greatest painters?

The list might include Rembrandt, Renoir and. … Ramona?

Yep, Ramona. She's one of the biggest names among today's painters. And I mean BIG. Hey, after all, she's an elephant!

Ramona is just one of many painting pachyderms featured by the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project (AEACP).

The project started in 1995, when a couple of human artists, Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid, taught an elephant at Ohio's Toledo Zoo how to paint. Vitaly and Alex soon began traveling around the world, teaching more big beasts how to paint, and in 1998, they founded the AEACP in Thailand.

Today, the AEACP is also at work in Indonesia (where Ramona paints), India, and other places, with elephants brushing up on their skills all over the planet. They hold the brush in their trunk, dip it into a can of paint, and slap the colors on a canvas held up by an artist's easel. And voila! It's Vincent Van Dumbo!

The mammoth masterpieces sometimes sell for big money. Paintings by an elephant named Ruby earn more than $100,000 a year for the Phoenix Zoo.

Wanna know how seriously the AEACP takes its ample artists? Check out some of the comments on the Web site (www.elephantart.com):

"Ramona's brush strokes are delicate and measured, and she has a preference for darker colors. She has a true artistic temperament . …"

But the best description is saved for a star artist in Thailand:

"Standing 8' 6" at the shoulder, with the endless legs of a supermodel, Sao is stately, regal, and supremely self-possessed. … Like Paul Gauguin, to whom she is often compared, Sao favors saturated, tertiary colors like mustard, plum, and magenta. … Her voluptuous painting style has a depth and maturity that, for the moment, remains unrivaled in the elephant art world."

I'll bet they never said THAT about Rembrandt!

New units of measurement we'd love to see:

• 1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope

• half of a large intestine = 1 semicolon

• 1000 aches = 1 megahurtz

• 2000 mockingbirds = 2 kilomockingbirds

• 1 million-million microphones = 1 megaphone

Steven Peterson won't be remembered as the world's brightest robber. After robbing the same 7-Eleven store in Colorado twice in one day, he told the clerk he'd come back later to rob the place for a third time.

And sure 'nuff, he did. … and the waiting cops nabbed him the moment he walked through the doors.

Strange-but-true (and mostly out-of-date!)

local laws from around the USA:

• In Hartford, Connecticut, it's illegal to educate a dog.

• In Jasper, Alabama, it's illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.

• In Alaska, it's against the law to wake a sleeping bear to take its photograph.

• In Chicago, it's against the law to go fishing in your pajamas.

• In South Bend, Indiana, monkeys are not allowed to smoke cigarettes.

• In Minnesota, women who impersonate Santa Claus may face 30 days in jail.

• In Providence, Rhode Island, it's illegal to throw pickle juice on a trolley.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Campus Life.

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