For those of you residing on North America’s north-eastern coast, we’ll be beaming back to NYC later this month with some otherworldly friends for the inaugural event of our most beloved ‘HORT/CULTURE’ series. We beseech you to join us for what surely will be a lovely evening on the Lower East Side.

Tickets available here: ‘HORT/CULTURE’: Olivia Shao + Sun Ra Arkestra.

And if you happen to find yourself elsewhere on God’s green Earth, perhaps you still may enjoy learning about some intergalactic theories of art and life or benefit from a few uplifting stories from New Zealand and beyond. More below, dear reader.

Respectfully yours,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

‘HORT/CULTURE’ RETURNS TO NYC

For the uninitiated amongst this readership, ‘HORT/CULTURE’ is our delightfully dim-witted attempt at salon-style gatherings where we pair artists, scientists, educators, thinkers, and various other lifeforms to bridge disciplines in unexpected ways.

We’re very excited to announce that we’ll be returning to NYC for another season (our third!) featuring five evenings of infotainment and erudition with some amazing guests. Full dates below with links to tickets — space is somewhat limited and these usually sell out, so snap ‘em up while you still can!

𝙼𝙰𝚈 𝟸𝟻: Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Olivia Shao + Sun Ra Arkestra
𝙹𝚄𝙽 𝟸𝟸: Soundscape Ecology: Andrew Farnsworth + special guest
𝙹𝚄𝙻 𝟷𝟻: Territorial Pissings: Gotham Coyote Project + Lady Pink
𝙰𝚄𝙶 𝟷𝟿: Urban Landscape: Alex Wolfe + special guest
𝚂𝙴𝙿 𝟸𝟹: Habitat Loss: Eric Sanderson + Legs McNeil

Also, this season we’re offering a tier of pay-what-you-will tickets. If you can afford to give more than the General Admission price, that is both wonderful and very much appreciated, and if you can’t, pay whatever is comfortable for you. No one will be turned away for lack of funds!

OLIVIA SHAO + SUN RA ARKESTRA

For the inaugural event of this season, we are out-of-this-world honored to be joined by curator Olivia Shao, whose recent UFO-themed show at the Drawing Center blew our simpleton minds, and the living legends of the Sun Ra Arkestra for an exploration of extraterrestrial intelligence in its myriad forms – from the peculiar ways it pops up in the visual arts throughout history to the Saturnalian origins of Sun Ra’s music. More musings on this below.

This evening also happens to be the birthday of the Arkestra’s 102-years-young bandleader Marshall Allen, who began playing with Sun Ra in 1958 and leading the Arkestra in 1997. He is, perhaps, the coolest man on planet damn Earth and it is our distinct honor to be in his presence on this special day. Gifts are, of course, not required, but certainly appreciated.

SUN RA: VOICES OF SPACE

As we were putting together this season of programming for ‘HORT/CULTURE’, we had a lot of Sun Ra playing in the studio. The man was truly a singular force and the story behind his music is one of the richest in American music history.

One of the more delicious bits of Sun Ra’s mythic lore is the early visionary experience he had as a young man in Alabama. It was there in 1936 at the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University that a young Herman Poole Blount (he would later legally change his name in 1952) was transported to the planet Saturn. In an oft-quoted passage from John Szwed’s seminal biography Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra, Blount-later-to-be-Ra describes the event:

My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me.

It was many years later and only following a difficult stint in jail as a conscientious objector to World War II and an uprooting from Birmingham to Chicago that Blount officially changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra, Sun Ra for short, and began to flesh out his personal and artistic cosmology. He formed his Arkestra, recruiting prominent players from the vibrant Chicago jazz scene including longtime members Pat Patrick, John Gilmore and Marshall Allen. With a uniquely eclectic take on jazz and a truly otherworldly aesthetic, the group – whose name changed as frequently as it’s lineup – was a genuinely avant-garde presence in American music and culture.

While Sun Ra’s interest in the cosmos and extraterrestrial life was very much the tip of the spear culturally – the American public, largely first introduced to ideas of space travel and alien encounters in 1947 with the Kenneth Arnold incident would later be consumed by a preoccupation with these notions during the Space Race – it followed in a long tradition of musicians looking up from their instruments to the heavens above. From the Musica universalis of the Pythagoreans to the harmonic endeavors of astronomer Johannes Kepler; from the swirling celestial tonality of Haydn to the early electronic experiments of Louis and Bebe Barron, cosmically influenced music is as old as music itself.

And when we zoom out from music to the arts in general, we see that extraterrestrial life has been present throughout the history of human cultural production. It goes without saying that here we begin to dangerously toe the line between conspiracy-addled clickbait, which, in and of itself is extremely fun in a boomer-coded-hotel-TV-watching kind of way, and a more thoughtful examination of how we as humans have always looked upward and outward to better understand ourselves and and our lives here on planet mf’ing Earth.

Ms. Shao’s recent curatorial effort, Voice of Space: UFOs and Paranormal Phenomena at New York’s Drawing Center, was an astoundingly comprehensive survey of extraterrestrial imagery in the visual arts that explored how UFOs and paranormal phenomena play a shape in our understanding of the universe, and how they challenge and expand our beliefs about humanity’s place in the cosmic order.

So today as these keys click-clack and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra plays on the speakers and millions of by-the-wind sailors (Vellela vellela, such a beautiful name) wash up on the beaches of California, it feels totally understandable for humans to invent extraterrestrial explanations when confronted with such confounding scenes, whether they be a rare beaching of alien-like sea creatures or a total solar eclipse.

When we see strange, otherworldly shapes and figures show up in primitive cave paintings in Australia or Renaissance frescoes in Italy, perhaps their presence is nothing more than the misunderstood renderings of a mundane natural phenomenon like the Vellela colonies being blown to shore. I mean look at these things, they certainly don’t look like they’re of this world, right? And the same goes for the many other hydrozoans and cnidarians and cephalopods that quietly populate the unknown fathoms of the world’s oceans.

But beyond the obvious and overwhelming aesthetic otherness of certain species, there may actually be reason to believe that some forms of life here on Earth actually did originate from outer space. Despite the Rare Earth-pilled mockery of a few geocentric colleagues, a group of 33 scientists published a 2018 paper entitled “Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?” suggesting that life on Earth has been significantly affected by biochemistry of an unknown origin.

The paper itself is a furthering of the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe thesis of Cometary (Cosmic) Biology, a flavor of Panspermia with a surprising amount of evidence to back it up. The thesis here is essentially spelled out in the name, but professor Wickramasinghe​ walks it out a bit more, suggesting that "comets are the carriers and distributors of life in the cosmos and life on Earth arose and developed as a result of cometary inputs." This paradigm-smashing idea continues to not sit well with many scientists who derided this paper as “insane” (they especially didn’t like the idea that octopus and other cephalopods arrived on Earth via eggs cryogenically frozen on a comet in some kind of an intergalactic DoorDash) upon its arrival.

Of course truly new ideas seem crazy at first, but over time we eventually learn to accept the best of these new models and the march of enlightenment moves haltingly forward. Maybe octopus eggs were delivered to Earth on a comet, maybe aliens did zoom over to witness the baptism of Christ, and maybe Sun Ra really did transport to Saturn one day in 1936. Some things will always lie beyond the limits of our knowing while others may eventually be borne out through advanced research, but either way, these avant-garde ideas offer new perspectives on what it means to be a part of this big cosmic soup.

So put on The Night of the Purple Moon, cue up an ep of Ancient Aliens, order something depraved on DoorDash or whatever the fuck horrifying app is in your area and enjoy the short breath of your time here on Earth as this bizarre conglomeration of atoms, at least for one episode.

THE GOOD NEWS

We all need some levity in these increasingly dark times. Thanks for reading and hope to see you out there in the soup.

• New Zealand Proposes Bill to Recognize Legal Rights of Pacific Whales

• More miles of the country’s rivers were reconnected last year thanks to dam removals than at any other time in history.

• Kitten Rescued From Bucket of Glue

Adios,

CS / NHT

Dearest worms,

We hope you are well and springing forth from the dark soils of winter. Scroll down to check out some new designs from our latest edition of the Fundraiser Shirts Initiative and some news from the plant world.

Respectfully yours,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

QUICK UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENTS

1.) The newest edition of our Fundraiser Shirts Initiative just dropped. Look like a freakass and support the great work of our friend Woody Minnich!

2.) The kind humans of KCRW visited our greenhouse, the Nonhuman Teachers Botanical Archive, to meet some of our rare and unusual friends.

3.) Earlier this month the botanical world lost one of its great sculptors, the incredible Pearl Fryar. Check out the wonderful documentary on him A Man Named Pearl. RIP!

4.) Our seasonal Spring Cleaning Greenhouse Sale will return to our parking lot on April 24-25 with an impressive haul of new plants for adoption and various duds and doodads looking for their forever home. Mark your calendar!

5.) Spring is springing throughout Los Angeles and thanks to a wet weekend, we are currently enjoying some lovely wild blooms. Call the Thomas Payne Foundation’s Wild Flower Hotline to find out what’s blooming throughout the southland.

FUNDRAISER SHIRT: CACTUS DATA PLANTS

We’ve just released our newest batch of designs from our Fundraiser Shirts Initiative earlier this week. This entry features a collection of reprints of shirts illustrated by our dear friend, the legendary cactus explorer Woody Minnich.

Woody is known internationally for giving presentations on his extensive field work in the diverse terrains of the places he has traveled - from the fog deserts of Namibia and Chile to the wadis of Socotra and arid grasslands of Western Australia. We decided to honor Woody’s commitment to exploration with these international editions of his original designs.

Originally made for his New Mexico nursery, Cactus Data Plants, the illustrations often were used for the annual Inter-City Cactus and Succulent Show & Sale here in Los Angeles.

50% of profits from this shirt go to Woody to support his continued research of the worlds’ desert biomes. Long live Wendell Minnich!

RIP PEARL FRYAR

Sadly, this missive also marks the passing of another titan of the botanical world, the great hedge wizard Pearl Fryar.

For the uninitiated, Fryar was a master topiary artist: the Calder of shrubs, the Miró of bushes, Fryar carried on the millennium’s old tradition of topiary from his humble home in Bishopville, South Carolina with a creative whimsy and playfulness unmatched by his predecessors.

Thankfully, the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden lives on under the stewardship of fellow topiary artist Michael P. Gibson. With over 400 living sculptures, many of which first came to the garden as orphans found at local nursery compost piles (be still our green hearts), Fryar considered the garden “his gift to the world.”

From the cypress animals in the gardens of Pliny the Elder, to the conical shrubbery of Versailles (Le Nôtre was a bit more of the McCarthy of topiary), to the IP-focused grotesqueries of the Epcot Center, the history of topiary offers a twisted reflection of the history of human civilization. Fryar boldly brought this tradition into the 21st century with characteristic verve and a great generosity of spirit, creating remarkable organic shapes that reflect the quirked up absurdity of our times.

While our little obituary here is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to Fryar’s work, the wonderful 2006 documentary “A Man Named Pearl” is a touching remembrance of this great oak of a man and we highly recommend you check it out.

May he rest in peace!

In the words of Pearl himself: LOVE, PEACE + GOODWILL.

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

Hi friends,

We haven’t forgotten about you, and have some fun things to share. Scroll down to check out some new clothing we designed, our Fundraiser Shirts initiative as well as some other doodads and tidbits.

Wormly,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

1.) New clothes just dropped! Get your best friend the dorky long sleeve they have been dreaming of…

2.) We continue to love the herbal pre-rolls we made with Pure Beauty, and they make a wicked stocking stuffer: find em here

3.) Carlos sat down with Architectural Digest again, but this time to give a tour of our greenhouse, the Nonhuman Teachers Botanical Archive

4.) Our Mondo LA Holiday Parking Lot Sale will be taking place the weekend of December 13th and 14th. Mark your calendars, and more details to follow!

Since time began, we’ve made shirts for causes we love: jaguar corridors, peyote rescue, living soil, …

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Hi friends,

When the world is feeling even more insane then usual we find it helpful to remind ourselves what local change can look like — that’s why we are so excited to be working with Joey Santore on his badass conservation nonprofit, the Thornscrub Sanctuary in South Texas. Scroll down to check out clothing we designed, which all goes to support his efforts, plus other new merch etc.

Wormly,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

1.) New clothes just dropped! Get your great aunt the t-shirt she never knew she wanted for Christmas.

2.) A little project with Pure Beauty is finally out: follow the smoke signals here

3.) Carlos sat down with Architectural Digest to answer readers questions about landscape design…

If you aren’t familiar with Joey Santore a.k.a. Crime Pays Botany Doesn’t, please do yourself a favor and check out his Youtube and Instagram. …

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Hi friends,

We know we’ve been quiet on here recently, we have been trying our best to focus on the physical world… but we promise to start checking into the virtual world to say hello more frequently!

We just got back from a 2 week trip looking at unreal plants in South Africa — scroll down to see a quick field report. Also we put some of our favorite T’s back in stock — take 20% off with the code NAMAQUALAND at checkout.

Wormly,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

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Howdy Earthworms!

We wanted to give you our dear readers a sneak peak at our new installation at DSM LA…. It doesn’t officially open until this weekend, but it might just be unlocked if you stop by tomorrow or Friday…

Also, after many requests, KIDS SHIRTS!

Wormly,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

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Hi again, Earthworms!

It’s Black Friday—scroll down for treasures, everything is 20% off today (and all weekend)!

This edition of The Specimen Monthly is about our friend Cass Marketos. If you don’t know who she is, then you’re in for a real treat! If you’ve landed here via Cass and don’t know who we are, The Specimen Monthly is a reader-supported rag made by Cactus Store Studio and Nonhuman Teachers 501(c)(3). It’s where we share our thoughts and feelings, and updates from our studio in Los Angeles.

Yours,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

1.) New clothes just dropped! Get your great aunt the t-shirt she never knew she wanted for Christmas.

2.) Black Friday sale is live: 20% OFF the whole dang lot, discount taken at checkout.

3.) Our Holiday Party Lot Sale is Dec 7th & 8th in LA. Gifts galore, we are breaking out the good stuff for this! 3209 Fletcher Dr. 11a-3pm.

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Welcome back, Earthworms!

This edition of The Specimen Monthly features an autumnal excerpt from Felix Salten’s immortal Bambi: A Life in the Woods, as well as some updates from our studio over the past handful of weeks.

Ever Yours,
CS Studio

1.) A small batch of our new clothing collection with ours friend at Union Japan is now on our site. Check em out!

2.) October in California is splendid! GO OUTSIDE!!!

3.) Happy Halloween…..The first inaugural Nonhuman Teachers costume contest has begun: send all costume pics to info@nonhumanteachers.org or DM us!

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Big autumn energy!

With cold-nose season on the horizon, what better way to call in transition than with a piece by Sophie Strand?

Sophie is a self-described compost heap who writes at the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Give Sophie a salamander and a stone, and she’ll write you a love story. She was raised by house cats, puffballs, possums, raccoons, and an opinionated, crippled goose. In every neighborhood she’s ever lived in, Sophie’s been known as “the walker,” believing that thinking happens interstitially—between beings, ideas, differences, and mythical gradients.

Do your brain a kindness and follow her Substack, Make Me Good Soil. And pick up one of her books: The Flowering Wand, The Madonna Secret, or The Body is a Doorway. She weaves a wondrous web!

1. NEW SHIRTS ALERT: GO HERE to see a coupla new tees, including a special one for Sophie.

2. IN LA: Our next Greenhouse Parking Lot Sale is this weekend, Saturday - Sunday September 7th and…

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Yes, we've been up to more mischief—are you surprised? This time in the form of wearables and time-lapse videos of flowers that have never been captured on time-lapse before… UNTIL NOW! We hope this brightens your day!

Love & Guilt-Free Carbs,

Cactus Store Studio

1. To jump straight to the new clothing, click here!

2. LOS ANGELENOS : Mark thy calendars for our September Greenhouse Extravaganza Parking Lot Sale and Show: Sat & Sun September 7th-8th 🎪. Gonna be lots of goodies for the whole family at this one!

3. Welcome back, we’ve missed you a bunch!

Our friend Mars finally (!) got us going with a time-lapse video setup in the greenhouse, and the results have been truly wonderful. Enjoy some of our favorites below.

Haageocereus tenuis
Possibly the only …

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Listen up Earthworms!

Today’s specimen is in honor of World Listening Day, which includes a complimentary playlist for your aural pleasure.

If you haven’t already, hit the “subscribe” button. A free subscription gets you the goods, but five bucks a month gives you goddamn wings! Help us keep this little freakshow going.

Exuberantly,

CS Studio

Subscribe now

1. If you missed ‘em the shirts we designed for the Koyoto Cactus Club are still available in our little bazaar in the cloud. Buy your grumpy neighbor a gift!

2. Our next LA Parking Lot Sale is happening next Saturday, July 27! Mark thy calendars, will have some funs surprises at this one…

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Kon'nichiwa Earthworms,

A few months ago, we were asked to design tees celebrating the legendary Kyoto Cactus Club’s 60th (GO HERE for the full collection)… which is why we’ve dedicated this newsletter to our favorite botanical nook this side of Orion… Japan!

If you haven’t already, hit “subscribe.” A free subscription gets you tons, but five bucks a month gets you more. Both are juicy options, so…

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you love.”

-Rumi

Love, Light, and Lemons,

CS Studio

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1. Scroll down for new summer duds to don at the pool.

2. LOS ANGELENOS (this weekend): Come to our annual summer greenhouse cleanout parking lot sale extravaganza! Dirty details below.

3. NEW YORKERS (this weekend): We’re throwing the first-ever KINGS COUNTY FAIR in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, with Nonhuman Teachers and a bunch of other eco-freaks living in Sin City. More info HERE!

4. Welcome back, we’ve missed you a bunch!

The Delphic directive to "know thyself" takes on new meaning in a recent conversation we had with living chimera Erik "The Lizardman" Sprague. This tp coincide with the release of our new book, CHIMERA WORLD (Apogee Graphics), for which Erik wrote the epilogue. And we’re hosting an event in NYC next Wednesday (6/19) where Erik will perform after a psychedelic PowerPoint we’re doing on chimeras and biological creativity. (GO HERE to snag tickets before they disappear!). This interview was mysteriously cut short, like…

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Welcome Back Earthworms!

If you haven’t yet, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. For a measly $5 a month, you get perks and help to support something necessary! Eternal thanks!

Subscribe now

1. BANANAS OF BORNEO: A couple of months ago, we made this tee for an event that we hosted with Anthony Basil Rodriguez. We still have a few left. GO HERE to score one while you can!

   

   WEIRD FRUITS: A Conversation w/ Anthony Basil Rodriguez

Bananas are among the world's most popular fruit. Yet despite their ubiquity, they are sorely misunderstood misfits. Indeed, the fruit known as an international phallic symbol is, in fact, nothing more than an asexual, sterile clone, at least in terms of the banana that you and I are familiar with. But when you peel the ol’ banana, you discover a dizzying variety of species—some the size of Bocce balls that bear no resemblance to the curved oblongs of Warholian fame, others that taste richly of custard-filled pastries, and others still whose colossal β-Carotene levels will turn your pee antifreeze-blue. So, we decided to get into it with our friend, banana nut Anthony Basil Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is a Renaissance man of the banana world: a storyteller, photographer, and filmmaker multi-hyphenate documenting the plants and varied ecologies and cultures of the Musa genus in habitats around the world, from the damp rainforests of Borneo to the snow-covered foothills of the Himalayas. We caught up with Anthony last week, fresh from a trip to Grenada, to talk all things banana. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Specimen Monthly: What was the banana species that first got you hooked?

Anthony: At first, it was a fe'i type from Papua New Guinea. It was just so massive and round, like a ball. I couldn’t believe this was a banana, and from there, I was like, “What the fuck?”

SM: What’s it taste like?

A: It’s like a custard, almost like a cream-filled donut, with a ripe plantain flavor.

SM: It’s beautiful.

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Hey Earthworms,

Welcome back! If you haven’t yet, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. For a measly $5 a month, you get perks and help to support something cool and weird! Eternal thanks!

Subscribe now

1. NEW RAGS: Some CHOICE NEW THREADS have arrived at our little bazaar in the cloud! Click the link or scroll to the bottom of this page to check ‘em out!

2. INTRODUCING GEOPONIKA: For the past 6 years we’ve been working toward building a new type of landscape design studio, one tuned more closely to our relationship with the growing world. 
   
   Named after an ancient Byzantine Greek manual of botanical wisdom, GEOPONIKA embodies our core philosophy: to make gardens that are not just inert backdrops in our lives, but important characters in our story. 
   
   To see more please follow us at @geoponika_

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Howdy Earthworms,

This edition of The Specimen Monthly follows our recent pledge of support for a non-human presidential candidate. ORCA 2024: A better big fish!

If you want the campaign tee, GO HERE and as a thank you for being a subscriber use coupon code WOLFOFTHESEA for 15% off your next purchase.

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Hi-ya Earthworms,

Welcome back! If you haven’t yet, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to this, our digital rag. For a measly $5 a month, you get perks, and you help to support something cool and weird! Eternal thanks!

Subscribe now

1. New rags and plants have arrived at our little bazaar in the cloud. Score your mommys some new duds for Mother’s Day!

2. NYC: Lots of exciting new programming is happening in NYC this spring/summer. GO HERE to see it all on Eventbrite.

3. LA: Come to our 150th annual spring greenhouse cleanout parking lot sale at our private studio/greenhouse in Atwater this Saturday (4/27) from 11 to 3 pm, 3209 Fletcher Drive, 90065.

Glorious April! A time when bees are abuzz and everyone seems to be mating. April is also when we celebrate two of our most hallowed holidays: Bicycle Day and Earth Day.

Celebrated on April 19th, Bicycle Day marks the anniversary of when Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first discovered the brain-bubbling properti…

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Howdy Friends,

If you follow us on Instagram, you're probably already in the loop about our second season of events in NYC, hosted by our nonprofit arm, Nonhuman Teachers. Our inaugural event featured a conversation between New Yorker staff writer Naomi Fry and best-selling author Susan Orlean around Susan’s recent collection, On Animals. It’s wonderful, by the way!

🔊Scroll past the paywall to listen to an audio version of the conversation🔊

In her book, Susan delves into the complex relationship between humans and animals through a series of humorous and tragic essays. One is about a "crazy cat lady" in New Jersey who, in 1999, was hoarding stinking, bloodthirsty lions and tigers. Another explores the campaign to free Keiko, the orca who captured moviegoers’ hearts as Willy in the Free Willy movies. Spoiler alert: the rewilding of this domesticated being led to his untimely demise. Throughout Orlean’s essays, animals serve as a mirror for our own flawed humanity, and we learn that real life does not always promise a Hollywood ending.

Anyway, this issue of The Specimen Monthly is for Paid subscribers and is essentially a rant sparked by Susan’s talk.

Before we jump into it, it’s been some weeks since our last post. This is due to a recent spate of activity at our studio that has made life crazier than normal.

As a token of thanks for your patience and support, here’s a 15% off coupon code for your next purchase on our website: WATERSTRIDER.

During the Q&A portion of Susan’s talk, someone raised the topic of anthropomorphism, which is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human entities. Her response was unequivocal: we should be very suspicious of anthropomorphizing animals. She cited the alarming fact that there are now more big cats in captivity than in the wild, likely because we view them as cuddly and not as apex predators who want to eat our faces off.

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Privet Earthworms!

If you’re here for treats from our studio, just scroll to the bottom of this page where treasures await ye. And if you’re here because you just looooove our digital rag, please like and share this newsletter or subscribe to the $5/ month paid tier. It’s because of you that The Specimen Monthly exists in the first place, so thanks kindly!

Welcome back. We’ve missed you!

Subscribe now

1. Some new exquisite rags and strange plants have arrived at our little bazaar in the cloud. Buy your dogwalker a shirt that will confuse them!

2. Free Shipping! Domestic orders over $150 ship free. Use code COLEOPTERA at checkout.

3. We’re heading back to NYC for more Nonhuman Teachers programming! Our first event will be on April 7th with author Susan Orlean. Plus rarely-screened short films by the legendary merman, George Greenough.

   Snatch up tickets while you still can!

4. Happy National Plant a Flower Day!

   
   

   NONHUMANS ARE PEOPLE TOO

In the US, only humans and corporations are legally recognize…

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