Say "hello" to Drittens

Posted by Pinky.

This is Drittens. Sometimes we call him T.C. We just had his graduation ceremony (and party) yesterday and now he’s officially a working member of the Pinky Show team.

Drittens and Bunny, on one of their walks in Tümpisa, a.k.a. Death Valley.

After several years of training under Bunny, and then more time with Daisy & me, today is Drittens's first official day of  work at the desert studio. (He started with... vacuuming?) Tonight I will interview him so that all of you can get to know him better. As soon as I'm done transcribing it I will post it in the Dialogues area. Kim and I are very happy and excited for him to be working full time on Pinky Show stuff. (Mimi is finally 100% back to her doctor-work; her leg is much better now, thank you for asking!)

I know the coming year will be a good one! I wish all of you, our dear friends, a wonderful year.

Please take care,
pinky

We have internet again

Posted by Kim.

It has been a long time but we finally have an internet connection again! A guy from the telephone company came yesterday and ran a cable from the highway telephone pole thing to our little studio. Yay!

What have we been doing the past few months with no internet, you ask? Well, we are not lazy. Pinky has been working very hard to create a structure that will allow the Pinky Show to continue even after we all get old and die. That means we need 1) something that generates more income and 2) we need replacement cats to keep doing our work.

Pinky has a couple "new" cats that she's been training. She's still looking for more. It's not like we're trying to become a bigger group, it's just hard to find 1 cat that knows how to do all the things Bunny knew how to do.

Also, most cats are not so strong and maybe pretty easily distracted, so it's happened a few times that Pinky spent a lot of time training a cat and then after a while they'll start feeling overwhelmed or stressed out or whatever and then they'll just give up and wander off to who-knows-where. It's hard to find cats.

Actually, even me, I can't work as much as Pinky does. She just works and studies and trains cats day and night. I like to fly kites and read comic books and also in the afternoon I get sleepy.

Anyway, now that we have internet again I will start adding some of the new Pinky Show material we've been working on to the Project Archive.

Also when she is satisfied with them and their work, Pinky will start introducing the new Pinky Show cats, here in the diary.

~k.

Q: How do you get new books?

Posted by Kim.

After posting the diary entry about the new Truth is Concrete book yesterday, I received a weird question about it.

Dear Kim,
Congratulations for the new book. I'm curious though, how did you get that book? Did you buy it at a bookstore? Are salesclerks at stores willing to sell to cats? Did you have to jump up onto the counter? Or did you order it online? Do you guys have a mailing address with a little mailbox? btw I really love the comic!
Best wishes,
India

In all the years we've been doing the Pinky Show we've received thousands of e-mails with many, many questions in them, but I don't think we've ever had anyone ask if we have to jump up on counters to get service at a store. That's silly!

Anyway, we do have a P.O. Box at the Post Office near our non-profit's office - it's actually located in Hawaii, where Pinky is originally from. But us cats live and work here in the desert and the book editors know this so they just sent our complimentary copy directly to us. Very kind.

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The "address" sometimes confuses the postman, especially if they are new.

Because of the not-very-exact nature of our mailing address here in the desert, sometimes we find our mail and sometimes we don't. I imagine that sometimes a coyote will eat our mail, or sometimes our mail just blows away if the postman doesn't put a heavy enough rock on it. But really, who cares if some of your mail never finds its way to you? It's not the end of the world.

If you have to send us something really important, just mail it to our P.O. Box in Hawaii. Lisa the office girl checks the mailbox “sometimes.” That's what I hear.

~k.

Pinky Show in TRUTH IS CONCRETE book

Posted by Kim.

The Pinky Show is in another book. This one is orange and the fabric cover feels really good. It's called Truth is Concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics (336 pages, hardcover, published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, GERMANY). There are entries by 99 artists, theorists, and activists in the book, but of course my favorite part is Pinky & Bunny's part. The first two pages look like this:

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This is the publisher's description:

This handbook is a stand-alone publication, emphasizing the “usefulness” of the different artistic approaches collected. It is a toolbox and a manual with contributions by key protagonists in this field. One hundred texts describe very different strategies and tactics, written by their inventors and/or practitioners from all over the world, mapping the broad field of engaged art and artistic activism today. Additional essays focus on the philosophy, structures, and modalities behind the many battles to make this world a better place.

With further contributions by Jonathan Allen, Udi Aloni, Corina L. Apostol / Artleaks, Hector Aristizábal, Saki Bailey / Teatro Valle,  Artúr van Balen / Tools for Action, Katherine Ball, Andy Bichlbaum / The Yes Men, Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping, Leah Borromeo, Andrew Boyd, Tania Bruguera, Santiago Cirugeda / Recetas Urbanas, Collective Authorship, Corrupt Tour, Gabriella Csoszó / FreeDoc, Minerva Cuevas, Neil Cummings, Diedrich Diederichsen, Charles Esche, Noah Fischer, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius / raumlaborberlin, Sérgio Miguel Franco / Pixadores, Andrea Fraser, Isabelle Fremeaux, Christine Gaigg, Ganzeer, Federico Geller, Guillermo Gómez-Peña / La Pocha Nostra, Marina Gržinić, Núria Güell, Erdem Gündüz, Hans Haacke, The Haircut Before The Party, Stefano Harney, Carl Hegemann, Justin Hoffmann, Khaled Hourani, Iconoclasistas, The Institute for Human Activities, International Institute of Political Murder, Janez Janša, Khaled Jarrar, Jeudi Noir, Anna Jermolaeva, John Jordan, Janice Kerbel, Jisun Kim, Omer Krieger, the laboratory of insurrectionary imagination, Kalle Lasn / Adbusters, André Lepecki, Lexxus Légal, Lawrence Liang, Liberate Tate, Geert Lovink, Matteo Lucchetti, Lucifer / Church of Kopimism, Oliver Marchart, Leónidas Martín, Joana Mazza / Observatório de Favelas, Tomislav Medak, Thomas Meinecke, Jasmina Metwaly / Mosireen Collective, Antanas Mockus, Jean-Luc Moulène, Rabih Mroué, Michal Murin, Marina Naprushkina / Office for Anti-Propaganda, Neue Slowenische Kunst, Occuprint, Robyn Orlin, Ahmet Öğüt / The Silent University, Sibylle Peters, The Pinky Show, Srđa Popović / CANVAS, Public Movement, Raivo Puusemp, Richard Reynolds, Irit Rogoff, Ned Rossiter, Philipp Ruch / Center for Political Beauty, Yekaterina Samutsevich / Pussy Riot, Florian Schneider, Frank Apunkt Schneider / monochrom, Susan Schuppli / Forensic Architecture, Shared Inc., Inna Shevchenko / Femen, Gregory Sholette, Stevphen Shukaitis, Toma Sik, Kostis Stafylakis / Kavecs, Mladen Stilinović, Kuba Szreder, Claire Tancons, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Ultra-red, the vacuum cleaner, Dmitry Vilensky / Chto Delat?, Marina Vishmidt, Joanna Warsza, WochenKlausur, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jacob Wren, Stephen Wright, Kàddu Yaraax, Wu Yuren, Salam Yousry, and Slavoj Žižek.

I put this big list here so that you can see who we are family with in some way - very useful for internet searching and learning new things. For example many people may already know Pussy Riot or The Yes Men or Slavoj Žižek, but maybe you don't know Minerva Cuevas? Or Antanas Mockus? Or Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping? Please look them up. All of us have something in common with each other.

By the way, Pinky & Bunny's entry in the Truth is Concrete book was created specifically for the book. It's also in our Project Archive though - here - if you can't wait and have to read it NOW.

~k.

Japan notes : people who don't know anything

Posted by Pinky.

This is another diary entry that I wrote in January or February but didn't post until now. I apologize for the delay... :

I had a kind of sad conversation the last day I was in Japan.

One of Mugi’s human friends - Ogawa-san - dropped by the house to say “hi” and to bring some sticky rice (sekihan) that she had made for Mugi and me. (Delicious! Thank you Ogawa-san!)

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Sekihan & fancy Japanese sweets.

Ogawa-san is an older woman, maybe around 80 years old (human years), who lives nearby with her daughter and grandchildren, and somehow we started talking about how crazy everyone seems to be for “technology” in Japan. I mentioned to her that when I ride Japanese trains or buses, no one seems to talk to anybody and instead they spend their time staring into the tiny screens of their mobile phones - playing games, reading comics, or who knows what else. I think it’s becoming more like this in the United States too, but it’s not as much as what I saw in Japan.

Mrs. Ogawa agreed - she told me that many Japanese parents really want their children to “succeed” in life so they make computers available to their children as early as possible. She said it’s even common nowadays for babies to know how to control a computer (using graphical interfaces and hand gestures) before they’ve even learned to walk or talk. Just the day before, she had seen her youngest grandchild, who is isn’t even a year old yet, crawl to the TV in their living room and start swiping at the screen with her tiny hands in an attempt to control it like it’s a big tablet computer.

At first I thought this was just a cute baby story until Mrs. Ogawa became very serious and said to me that while the baby already wants to use computers, she herself doesn’t know how to use one at all. Of course all her other grandchildren already know how to use computers and so she feels bad that she can’t help them with computers. She even told me that her grandchildren think that Grandma is worthless because they know how to use computers and she doesn’t.

To be honest, this really shocked me, and I could see that Ogawa-san felt sad and hurt by this.

Isn’t it strange how when you meet someone and you don’t know something they know, sometimes they’ll start treating you as if you’re a newbie, ignorant, clueless, a lower intellectual being? Why wouldn’t they assume that you just know many other things instead? Because really, in your whole life, have you ever met anyone that didn’t know an infinite number of important things that you don’t?

~ pinky

Mimi's surgery went well

Posted by Pinky.

The surgeon said everything went well. She was able to put a metal pin in there and wrap some wire for around the bone reinforcement. So hopefully if Mimi rests for a while and does all her rehabilitation, she should be able to bend that joint/move that leg again someday. For right now though, her whole leg is in a hard splint and she's wearing the cone and taking pain killers and antibiotics. And it's going to be like this for a while - total estimated time of recovery: 4 months. I asked Dr. Wendy "How come it's going to take so long to heal?" and she said, "Because she's old."

I didn't know we're "old." I'm actually a year older than Mimi & Kim. We're all old?

Take care!
~p.

Mimi fell down and broke her leg

Posted by Pinky.

Last night at around 8pm Mimi was doing her usual after-work routine (jumping and climbing, it's kinda like her hobby) when she somehow fell off a tall stack of containers and broke her leg. We took her to the emergency room where she got an x-ray and the doctor explained to us that her break is in a very difficult-to-repair place. The part of the leg bone where her achilles tendon is attached to completely broke off, and now it's just "floating" there. We won't know if the surgeon can wire her bones back together until she actually gets in there and tries to do it. If she can't, all the bones that comprise that joint will have to be fused together, which means Mimi would not be able to bend that joint from now on and she'd basically have to walk around with a peg-leg for the rest of her life - "like a pirate" the doctor said.

This is actually the second time Mimi got a bad injury from falling off something while climbing. I don't know if I blogged about it last time but a couple of years ago Mimi's tail went limp and was just hanging there for a few weeks when she fell off some stuff (I forget what already) and hurt her back/spine. It eventually got better after Dr. Wendy gave her acupuncture and laser treatment (?). Mimi's actually very good at jumping-climbing, maybe these things are just happen once in a while if you're doing it every day. I dunno.

Anyway, for now ER doctor just bombed Mimi with a bunch of pain medications and will keep her leg immobilized until her surgery, which is scheduled for Monday. And since doctors are famous for being the WORST patients (Mimi is a doctor), they even put a large plastic cone around Mimi's neck to prevent her from touching, biting, poking at, and otherwise fussing with the large splint they put on her. It looks pretty pitiful - Kim wanted me to put a picture of her coned sister in this blog entry but actually I don't think anyone needs to see that. No picture.

I will post an update after the surgery.

Take care everybody. I think this is a good reminder that we all need to be extra careful when climbing on unstable things. We need to clean up around here - this probably wouldn't have happened if we were more organized and didn't have so much junk piled up everywhere. ~pinky

---

Japan notes : Bunny self-narrative on schooling

Posted by Pinky.

One of the things I was doing in Japan was organizing the thousands of pages of notes that Bunny and I had written or transcribed on the subject of education. Although we had been working on our book for quite some time, much of the material has yet to be organized properly and there's even some sections that still require more thinking and clarifying. I'm confident I'll do a good job putting everything together and eventually I'm sure I'll get it published, but to be realistic now that I'm doing most everything by myself I'm guessing this is probably going to take a while. It's a big job because this book will have not just words, but also many drawings and illustrations and photos. But it will be fun to read. :-)

Anyway, in the meantime, I'm really enjoying re-reading some of Bunny's materials. I'll try to remember to post some of them here in this diary from time to time. Here’s an unedited transcription of some Bunny-talk:

"When I was young I was very violent. Basically I had this idea that I could solve any problem with some kind of violence. If someone made me upset I'd quickly find myself yelling at them. If someone looked at me funny I'd just bite or punch them. Even if, say, my tape recorder wasn't working properly, I'd just shake it hard. Obviously I wasn't getting great results from all this. So after a while I found myself thinking that there had to be a better way; the anger and violence thing wasn't working for me. This is around the same time I decided to become a teacher. For a little while I was a teacher in schools - did you know that about me? Anyway, that's what I was doing - "teaching" - until slowly I began to realize that the school system that I was a part of, is actually itself one of the most important components in the transmission of the Logic of Violence - society-wide violence, state violence, structural violence - violence on a much more massive, broader scale than anything I could've ever been able to achieve alone - as a single, violent individual so to speak. When I began to understand how schools are used for conditioning the imagination, and that I'd actually become a functionary, a tool, within this supremely violent system - and that everyday I was doing my part to actively promote control and subjugation, that's when I decided that I had to get out. I had to remove myself as a first step towards freeing my mind and body of the kind of habituated thoughts and actions that a violent civilization demands of its captives..."  ~Bunny

Japan notes : watching movies

Posted by Pinky.

When I was flying to Japan this last time the flight was sooo long I had time to watch quite a few movies (or just parts of the really horrible ones). I wanted something funny so I watched Bridesmaids (Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, the guy from IT crowd) and The Hangover (unfunny people except for Zach Galifianakis), but... mieh. Can't recommend those. But I did watch Louis C.K. doing standup - I'd never really seen him before, but wow, he is an amazingly good performer, and some of his jokes (do people call these things jokes?) are just brilliant. People around me must have been wondering, "Why is that cat laughing? What's she watching?"

The most interesting movie I saw on the airplane ride was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith). If you're like me and you've been thinking a lot about aging and death recently, watch this movie. It will make you cringe (brace yourself - Indian people not portrayed nicely in this movie) but there’s also some very nice writing going on. Somehow I like this quote:

"Everything will be alright in the end... and if it is not alright then it is not yet the end."

Nice.

For most of this trip I was staying with Mugi (I like to call her Mugiko) and she loves Hollywood action movies.

Mugi: "American movies look so expensive. How do they pay for so many explosions???"

We watched - together - all the something-something Bourne movies (spoiler alert: Matt Damon kills many, many people) and all the Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movies. They were SO BAD! It's fascinating to me how these movies with all their fake politics and gallons of special effects blood can be so popular when the real world - which happens to be a thousand times more interesting and a million times more savage - tends to creep by largely unnoticed... ~pinky

Albert Einstein on honeybees

Posted by Pinky.

I am finally back from Japan, happy to be back in the California desert with Kim & ants. I got super busy near the end of my stay and wasn't able to do some of the diary entries I wanted to do, so if you don't mind I will keep writing about Japan just for a little while longer.

But not tonight. Today I was cleaning up (Kim is not the neatest) and came across this magazine page that I think Bunny had cut out of a travel magazine. I don't know if she saved it because the photograph looks delicious, the poignant quote, or both, but either way, I wanted to scan and post here to share.

Want to hear more about bees tonight? Click here for NPR story.

Goodnight! I love you!
pinky

Japan notes : Today was rubbish day.

Posted by Pinky.

I never thought I would write a diary entry about rubbish collection but here it is.

Here in my friend’s neighborhood, when you get this plastic pouch (below) in your mailbox, it means it’s your turn to clean up the community trash collection area. Every house in the neighborhood takes turns cleaning up and today it was our turn. The yellow armband thing is to wear so that you can feel like you are doing official business while you sweep up.

This is where everybody in the neighborhood puts their trash. You write your family's name on each of your trashbags.

The (tiny) rubbish truck shows up promptly at 8am and two (friendly) rubbish guys get out of the truck and start throwing the bags of garbage into the back of their truck. They’re super fast - the whole thing takes less than a minute.

The bags are literally _flying_ into the truck!

They’re also super neat - here Rubbish Man #2 notices a small, stray piece of rubbish on the ground...

...and then he reaches down to pick it up?!? Wowwow! This really is not the U.S.!

After they drive away Mugi and I sweep up, although in reality there wasn’t much rubbish around so basically we just collected a bunch of leaves and put it in a tiny bag. Not hard work.

Done!

The whole experience reminded me a little of how when I was in kitten school we had to clean up the cafeteria after lunch, clean our own classrooms & bathrooms, and so on. I wonder how come in the U.S. this kind of shared-cleaning duties stops when we become adults?

Anyway, I kind of enjoyed rubbish day.

Take care,
pinky

Japan notes : manga kissaten

Posted by Pinky.

Since my friend doesn't have internet access at her house, when I want to use the internet I've been going to a nearby manga kissaten. Manga (comic book) kissaten (cafe) are really interesting - for a fee, you can read comic books and magazines for hours and hours, drink coffee or eat snacks, or use the internet. (The one I go to is about $3.80 per 90 minutes including coffee or tea.) It's kind of like a library, except is has a huuuge selection of Japanese comic books and of course you can talk and eat and drink while you read, which of course I'm not supposed to do at the library.

I’ve always liked the aesthetics of Japanese comic books and movies but have never really looked at them carefully before. But on this trip - largely because of manga kissaten - I've had a chance to spend more time with them and now I find the artwork in them beyond amazing...

Because manga kissaten are open 24 hours a day and have food, internet, and amusements, some people use them as a place to rest for a while, or even to stay overnight. There are private booths and recliners where you can sleep, and some of them even have showers where you can keep yourself clean.

Do I wish there were manga kissaten in the U.S.? Well, yeah, I think they're neat. But one thing I would change is how much the manga kissaten feel so much like a "boy's space". There are sexy girl pictures all over the place (anime & manga posters, magazine covers, etc.) and it takes a lot of effort for me to not be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of boobs, mini-mini skirts, skinny legs, and supercute smiling faces.

Kind of hard to concentrate on drinking my coffee with boobs and panty shots on continuous video loop under the glass tabletop...

I've been asked quite a bit while I've been here if I like Japan. I tell people I love Japan, but I also say that I find many aspects of Japanese society deeply disturbing - one example being the way women are treated here. They ask me what I mean by that and I just tell them Japan seems like an intensely patriarchal, misogynist society, same like the U.S., only different. People look puzzled when I say this but it's hard to explain what I mean in one minute.

Here is a photo of a tree that I like. I've been wanting to ask someone what kind of tree this is but no one is ever around when I pass this tree on my way to town.

I'm so grateful for this time here in Japan. By offering so many layers of contrast and similarities, I feel like I am having a chance to look at my home back in the U.S. with fresh eyes.

Please take care. I love you!
pinky

Japan notes : growing vegetables where you live

Posted by Pinky.

Since I mentioned that I am currently in Japan, I've received a few e-mails with questions like "What kind of things are you doing there?" or "Do you like Japan?" and so on. So I decided to post some random thoughts and observations about some things that have caught my interest while I'm here.

For much of my stay here I've been in a small city/town. The closest big city is actually kind of nearby (Nagoya, only 30 minutes by car) but this area has a very "not big city feeling", though it's definitely not rural either. Every day I've been walking around a lot and I've been very interested in how many of the families around here seem to be growing their own food. Even if they have just a little bit of "empty" land they will grow vegetables on it.

Many vegetables growing even though it's in the middle of winter!

Across the street from my friend's house there is this tiny wooden stand with vegetables for sale. Today the white container has radishes and green onions in it. Sometimes the stand has squash, pumpkins, or Japanese potatoes to buy.

On the way back I bought the cabbage. :)

The vegetables come from the nearby houses and they're always cheap. If you want something you just put some money in the metal box.

I'm sure someone can easily run away with the whole metal box so I dunno why it has a lock on it...

When I get back home I will to see if I can grow my own vegetables. I wonder if anybody would want to eat my vegetables?

I'm sorry that the photos are not good. I dropped my camera and it broke, so now I am just using the built-in camera on my (non-functioning) telephone. But, I will post more photos again soon.

Please take care,
pinky

I just posted a new Pinky Show zine

Posted by Kim.

I put it in the Project Archives. It's called This Cat World Dismantled. Pinky actually made it last year (2013) but I'm just posting it now because I was waiting for Pinky to say it was okay to post it. She finally told me "yes" today. So here it is. Please read it, it's really good. 

I hope 2014 will be a good year for all of you out there. I hope it's filled with good health and happiness and lots of fun!

=^_^= kim

New Year Message from Pinky

Posted by Pinky.

Hi. I want to wish everyone reading this a Happy New Year.

Right now I am in a small town just outside Nagoya (Japan) staying with a friend while I make plans for the future. I have had some time to visit old bookstores, go vegetable shopping, and learn how to do some Japanese cooking and so on, but mostly I have been reading, walking, and thinking about the past and the future. When I look back at our previous blog entries it's easy to see that the past two or three years have been not so productive in terms of making new Pinky Show things. But that same period of time has been a period of tremendous growth for me. Not just because of difficulties associated with caregiving (Wheelchair Lady) or Bunny's death, but because I have had a lot of time to think carefully about many things that I was probably too busy to think about before, or maybe because I was depending on Bunny too much to take care of so many things. I have thought a lot about what I would like to do with the last part of my life, and after much crying, depression, false starts, self-doubting, and wandering around, I've decided that am truly wanting and ready to focus all my energies on Pinky Show things again. I don't want to do things the same way we used to do things before - that wouldn't make sense since I'm different now and everything around me is also different - so with the help of Kim, Mimi, and Daisy, I have been working very hard to shape a new, more appropriate vision of work for where I am in my life right now.

Finally, I wanted to say: yes, Bunny does visit me and sends me messages and information all the time. Maybe some people will think I'm crazy for saying this but I don't think I am.

Much love to you,
pinky