Rumpus: What happened after September 11?
Barry: The horrible decision to go to war, and then Katrina, and we really saw what the administration was made of. Then, right around that time, I started to have friends that died. A cluster of friends; I probably lost around five people. It got to the point where I couldn’t do anything, except I had this weird compulsion to draw cute animals. Like cute. I mean, I’ve never been about cute, I’m [she adopts a deep voice] “Lynda’s feminine … kind of.” And here I was drawing dancing dogs with tiaras and, like, little buns and what the? Little ducks wearing hula leis, but it was all I wanted to draw! I was very confused by this urge. I drew this monkey, this meditating monkey. I first drew it in an airport because I was on my way to this funeral and I was crying, drawing this monkey. I drew the monkey and I just felt time shifting. It didn’t fix anything, but it made those five seconds or ten seconds that it took to draw that monkey more bearable. So I drew it again, and I drew it again, and I drew it again, and then I thought, “Aw, I’ll do a hundred,” and when I drew a hundred, it wasn’t enough. Then I thought, “Aw, I’ll draw a thousand,” and still not enough. So I’m still drawing that monkey. […] It’s almost like a meditation, but it’s something more than that. What it did was, it allowed me to stand being around for another minute, and then another minute, and then another minute. Then I got really interested in what this could be for people, especially ones that have been talked into the idea that, you know, it’s too late for them. We start hearing that early! You hear, “Oh, if you want to play the piano you have to start at four.