MERCURY SONGS by Yanka Glowniss

a 12 song album of songs dealing with grief at losing my bunny Mercury. She passed away on August 1st 2022, I got covid the day after, and recorded this album 10 days later over one week's time.

the tape sound is essential to this album's intimate nature, as these songs are sad, soft, minimalist, and earnest and sound best that way. So I am trying to mainly distribute it through tape (though some song samples and a download option are available).



MERCURY MEMORIAM:


On August 1st, 2022 I had to say goodbye to my best friend Mercury. It’s taken a while for me to find words but I wanted to take the time to memorialize the deep impact she had on my life. She was the one stable fixture getting me through the hardest times of my life; every time another friend of mine passed away Mercury was there helping me through the grief. She was also constant through my early transition. She was so scrappy, so loving, so intelligent, so talkative, so adaptable, so curious, and so sweet. And for 7 years we both gave each other all the love we deserved.

I don’t know too much about Mercury’s early years except that nothing was easy for her and she managed to survive purely by her scrappy adaptability. Likely bought as a baby bunny Easter present and subsequently dumped on the streets of east Oakland after a short time (it being a common misconception that domesticated rabbits can survive in the wild), a person from the rabbit shelter saw her darting about the alleys for 6 months before finally pinning her in under a parked car to take to the shelter. This is a remarkable amount of time for a domesticated rabbit to survive ferally on their own, and based on her personality traits I’m certain she was punching lettuce out of fallen burritos (there being nothing but taquirias and concrete and grass in that area) and fighting for the contents with feral cats and dogs. This is where I'm sure she developed her aggressive fighting presence (punching and biting at any cat in her territory since) and remarkably loud voice for a rabbit (I’ve heard her make a tiny roar while chasing a cat from her food).

After being rescued she languished in the no-kill shelter for a year and a half. No one was willing to adopt her due to her traumatized and aggressive nature. When I was looking to adopt a rabbit over several months she remembered me and would immediately push her face through the bars for pets whenever I went in, an instant connection that felt rare and special given her complex personality.

After adopting her, every move toward gaining her trust felt like a major epiphany, going through the steps of her tolerating my pets, then sitting beside me, then climbing into my lap, and then cuddling me in bed, with many frightened bites given between. I understood this came from her previous traumas and always responded calmly and with gentle kindness to these reactions until she stopped biting entirely. (At most, in her later years, she might give a punch if startled. But ever complex, she would immediately kiss the spot she had previously attacked once she realized it was one of her friends, as a way of expressing her apologies.) I treasure the tiny bite mark scars I have left on my hands as signs of our process of growing to trust each other entirely.

Eventually she became the sweetest bun imaginable, loving visitors, loving to cuddle in bed, and any moment she wasn’t being pet she would equally smother whoever was near her with kisses. She taught me so much about patience in overcoming trauma, and in communicating one’s needs for affection.

Her adaptability to new environments can be summed up in all the places we lived together: Richmond, CA; Oakland, CA; New Orleans, LA; Asheville, NC; Spanish Fort, AL; Los Angeles, CA. As long as she had her bed (an ikea doll bed at the foot of my bed where she slept), her babies (stuffed toys she lavished kisses on), a cardboard house, hay bin, and me, she would happily flop out wherever I took her. We spent 7 years together, which were my personally most difficult and mentally unstable, and I always felt her gentle presence, love, and acceptance in each situation.

In 2019 I adopted a second rabbit Leonora (found wild on the streets of New Orleans) as a potential bonding match for Mercury. Their relationship was complicated. While Mercury never shook her traumatized territorialism enough for them to be left together unsupervised, nearly every spare moment they got together they were cuddling at each other's side with the ex-pen bars between them (to prevent bites) but their fur touching. I know Mercury ultimately appreciated the extra company within her capacity to accept it. Leonora grieved at Mercury’s passing and has really stepped up her sweetness and affection towards me since then.


Here are some assorted memories I’ve been writing down which I think help to encapsulate Mercury’s personality:

-Rabbits love rattling toys. Mercury loved to play and throw around a small wooden tambourine, and would perform it whenever friends were over. I recorded her playing it on the Blotchouts song “Murky” which is about her.

-Nicknames included Murky, Murkazoid, Murker Berzerkers, Murky Meercat, Chaos Bun…

-My fave way to wake up was when Mercury decided I had slept long enough and would get the zoomies all across my sleeping body, then cuddle up alongside my pillow and kiss my face til I woke up.

-Multiple times Mercury, hypersensitive to my changing states (she would cuddle me immediately anytime I was crying for instance), woke me up in the middle of the night when I had undetected low blood sugar.

-If the blankets on the bed weren’t perfectly flat, she would make the bed, pushing and smoothing them out. She would similarly sort piles of clothes on the floor.

-Every morning when receiving her breakfast greens, she would punch them out of your hands in the air, then stand on top of them while eating so no one could take them away.

-She loved to shred paper and completely cut out one tape insert of “Slop the Hogs”, chewing all sides. I frequently gave her my food stamps rejections letters to destroy.

-In our house in New Orleans, Seraphine the cat was stalking a roach, & Mercury rushed between it and the cat, punching and standing her ground as if to say “no hunting allowed!!” She’s done the same thing to me when I’ve been trying to catch a bug in a jar. I marvel at this level of empathy shown by an animal.

-If my legs were exposed and I walked by her house she would immediately pop her head out and give me kisses as I passed by. She’d get visibly frustrated if she couldn’t kiss my legs because I was wearing tights, and bite at my fishnets.

-When she would eat blackberries she’d get lipstick from the messy juice dribbles, and, very bothered, wash her face afterwards.

-She loved sunbaths and would always make it a point to hunker down in the afternoon sunbeam. She loved the sun so much she would try to kiss the beams– licking the ground where they touched.

-All I had to do was get down on the ground and she would immediately run over to be close to me and tell me about her day (lots of little “boopboop” noises and grumble sounds). She was a total mama’s bun and always wanted to know where I was and what I was doing.

-She hated and would attack all shoes (so I didn’t allow shoes in my room), would punch at long dresses and at the handbroom when I’d try to sweep her area.

-She would hop up to steal food from me which included putting her paws on the side of the cheerio bowl to push it down, licking my lips if I was eating a popsicle to try to get me to open them (I’d often give her a bite and she’d make a brief brainfreeze face), and frequently sharing apples by both biting at opposite sides. She could tell an apple was being eaten in a room purely by the sound, and since it was her favorite food it was impossible to keep it secret from her or keep her off of the bed where I was.

-She was very responsive to music and would loaf up with one ear up and attentive whenever I’d play bass, keys, or acoustic guitar. Her favorite album was “Remain” by Them Are Us Too (she also seemed to like Crass, Viper, Frankie Lymon, & The Chantals). She hated electric guitar and drums.

-Most rabbits don’t make any sound, but she had a wide gamut of noises which each meant something specific: displeased growls, communicative excited boop boops, snorts to let you know she hated being picked up, little grumbles while cuddling, tiny oink sounds while eating, and even one tiny roar. Her voice was small and medium high but scratchy and gruff.

-She was a true guard bunny, always alert to any sound outside of our door and could tell I was coming if I was down the hall. She made the rounds each day to various self determined posts in the room, and would unwillingly fall asleep at such posts, slowly leaning to one side while trying to stay awake.

-Every night she would snore, making tiny gruff musical snorty sounds. This was my most comforting sound, a signal of her presence and contentment.



TW (death discussion without intense details):

“My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” - Watership Down, Richard Adams
Her death came about fairly unexpectedly and suddenly. One morning, she was unable to walk (due to having had a seizure and broken her leg, the doctors theorized) so I swiftly took her to the vet. On the ride there I made a playlist of her favorite songs and sang them all to her (songs I sang to calm her many times– “Angel Bunny” by Rosie and the Originals, “Terrapin” by Syd Barrett, etc, mostly girl groups and doo wop). She spent the day in the incubator and continually worsened so I hurried back, made sure she had adequate pain meds, played her favorite album for her (Them Are Us Too’s “Remain”; I’ve never seen a bunny both so calm yet with fully attentive ears as she was every time to that album) while cuddling her in a blanket, and she passed away in my arms to the last song as I pet her, without need for euthanasia. Having lost so many friends I tend to differentiate between better or worse deaths and I’m grateful I was with her and everything happened as peacefully as it did.


I don't know if I will ever again meet a bunny who was quite so highly intelligent, determined and fiercely loving as Mercury. I feel immensely grateful for all of the part of my life we were able to share together, and for her essentially giving me my much needed fixed point to hang onto this world during my grieving chaotic years until I found some stability through my transition, mental health help, and stable home in LA. Mercury meant and means so much to me and I’m glad she always knew how loved she was. If you have any memories of Mercury, as always I would love to hear them, and I recommend shelter rabbits as a companion animal to anyone with a stable living space and willingness to do research. I’m so lucky to have met Mercury and we were exactly what we both needed while we were together. Thank you for reading about her.

No Wave Punk project started in 2016 and variably based in California, Alabama, and Louisiana. Recordings are primarily Yanka Glowniss (she/her) on all instruments with occasional collaborators. Live lineups vary and rarely repeat. Yanka is also a member of Ginchy Gayjacket & the Flushable Wipes, ICBM, and Scrapies. Pre-2015 related music can be found at the Albacore Records bandcamp.