Purple Monkey

I like to take my son to the mall for a walk in his stroller. Most times when I'm out women come up to me and say, "Ohhhhh, how cute!" I say, "Thanks, he's a good boy." If I'm in a bad mood, I think it's funny to say, "So when are you due?" Even when it's obvious that the woman isn't pregnant.

On Easter I went over to my parents' house. They had an Easter egg hunt for the kids and then after that we all decorated Easter eggs.

I made an egg that was a tribute to Golden Globe award-winning actor, writer, entrepreneur and musician William Shatner.


I dyed my egg purple using a water-soluble dye. Before lowering the egg into the dye solution, I made the inscription on it using a clear wax crayon. I wrote the words: "Shatner Golden Globe" on the Easter egg.





I wasn't sure what to do with my egg, and I thought some people might get a kick out of seeing it, so I decided to sell it on eBay. I listed the egg, with the pictures of it you see here, with the following description:

Thank you for your interest in this one-of-a-kind piece created by the internationally little-known multimedia artist and writer Scott Boyan.

This beautiful work has been created in the folk-form style known as "Easter Egg." The base medium is a white hardboiled egg. After boiling, the artist carefully scribed the tribute text upon the egg's surface using a clear wax pencil. When the inscription was complete, Scott Boyan dipped the egg into a solution of water-soluble food dye and water for a period of nearly five minutes.

The result is a stunning and unique purple tribute to renowned author, entrepreneur, and Golden Globe Award-winning actor William Shatner whose effigy serves as a personal talisman and spirit-guide for the artist himself.

The inscription reads: "Shatner | Golden | Globe" which at once summarizes several facts surrounding the creation of this piece, including the fact that the piece is a tribute to William Shatner and that William Shatner has won I think at least two Golden Globe Awards for playing the same character on two different shows.

Bid soon and bid high for this stunning and unique piece worth as much for the artist who made it as for the artistry itself, and worth much more for the man who inspired its creation.

Good luck on this auction. I sincerely hope that you, personally, win this piece.

Scott Boyan

I thought the people who might be most interested in something like this would be William Shatner fans, since the egg says Shatner on it, so I posted this to the discussion forum at WilliamShatner.com:

I don't know if anybody is interested in this, but I made an Easter Egg as a tribute to William Shatner. It was the only Easter Egg I made this year. I don't care if you bid on it or not, I just thought somebody might get a kick out of seeing the pictures of my work.

The egg did not go over well at all on the William Shatner site. The people there got mad because they thought I was trying to scam them in some way. One woman wrote:

That guy is a CHEAT and a CROOK.

She decided that based on the fact that she noticed that the only people who had bid on my auction were my friends and family. I explained to the nice people there at William Shatner's site that my auction was only a joke, and that I didn't expect anyone other than my friends and family, particularly my sister-in-law Beth, to bid on it. Things settled down and I ended up making friends with the people on the forum.

The auction finally went for about $20. My sister-in-law was definitely in the running for it, but she was edged out by my friend Nathan who lives in Hawaii. I packaged up the egg as carefully as I could before sending it off to Hawaii. Nathan received it intact a few days later and this is what he had to say about it, reprinted without permission:

Fabulous prizes!

That Shatner-egg was so thoroughly packaged, I bet I could have stomped on the box without cracking the shell!

The purpular sheen is compelling, but the bonus prizes put this egg into the stratosphere of spectacular eBay victories!

included in the package were several unexpected bonus features:

• innumerable foamy crunch-snacks (non-delicious)


• several representational card-board abstractions representing the essence of Shatnastic Eggnittude


• CompUSA gift card, which must be activated before use


• 2004 National Parks Pass (nontransferrable)


• corrugated box receipt (valued at $4.28 USD)


• several important phone numbers (including an ambassador!)


• my favorite Japanese gum mantra


• a signed original yellow sheet by the artist


• gravy


• an enigmatic statement


• some sort of a death donkey


• a reminder to call Barry (probably about his memory vitamins)


• and best of all, my old friend GHOTI fish!

It's been a long time since I seen me that GHOTI fish.

A couple of funny things about that are 1) the CompUSA gift card actually had money on it, but I didn't tell Nathan, and 2) it wasn't a "Death Donkey" at all, it was a pale unicorn and the name it said on him was "Death."

In the end everything worked out. The William Shatner folks ended up not being so irate, Nathan liked his egg, and all was well with the world.

Labels: Shatner

Happy Easter!