Filtering by Category: 2016-2024

Sick in Japan

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Posted by Drittens.

When we went to Japan I got so sick. The night we arrived my throat was already starting to feel tight and scratchy, and by the next day I was having difficulty breathing, coughing a lot, and had a fever. So instead of doing a lot of forest-walking like we had planned, I ended up spending most of my time in Japan horizontal and half-sleeping. I should have been more careful!

One good thing, though, about the whole experience was that I was able to take a little peek at the healthcare system in Japan. Going to the doctor in Japan - even without “insurance” - was really fast and cheap. The doctor’s exam plus all the prescription medicine (including a nifty inhaler-thing) cost altogether around $40. I shudder to imagine how much it would’ve cost if I’d gotten that sick back here in the U.S.

In fact, my doctor’s visit was so cheap that Pinky decided to go to the dentist while we were there. Also cheap!

Oh! I also got a new pair of eyeglasses - $35, including the eye exam.

Kim met some kite-flying cats on the banks of the Kiso river, and before we left they gave Kim a really beautiful kite made out of wood (bamboo?) and some kind of paper. She already crashed it but she’s fixing it.

Pinky Show cats in Japanese Forests

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Pinky, Kim, and I are going to Japan from October 31-November 13, so we won’t be able to reply to emails or run the Pinky Show Store during that time. I’ll be back in the “U.S.A.” on the 14th; Pinky and Kim will stay in Japan a little longer. We are going to learn a little bit about Japanese forests while we’re there.

Take care,
Drittens

The Haunani-Kay Trask _We are not happy Natives_ interview is online.

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This video interview was originally released almost 25 years ago on CD-ROM; finally here it is on the internet:

www.pinkyshow.org/projectarchives/2024/2/19/haunani-kay-trask-we-are-not-happy-natives-education-and-decolonization-in-hawaii

It’s an “old” interview now, but everything Dr. Trask was fighting for in 2001 has only become even more critically important today. I sincerely hope many people will watch & read the whole thing, and allow themselves to reflect deeply on what she is saying.

We want to send a special thank you to Tim Sakamoto at in-D press for making this project possible, and also for allowing us to re-present these materials online. Kēhaulani Pu'u, Shane Pale, and Healani Sonoda - all ex-students of Haunani-Kay Trask - graciously allowed us to include their commentary. We also want to thank media revolutionaries Joan Lander and Puhipau of Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina, who gave us permission to include the footage of Haunani-Kay Trask’s January 17, 1993 sovereignty speech at ʻIolani Palace. They’ve actually helped us out many times over the years, always so much generosity and kindness.

After working on these January & February projects, I really feel like I’m ready to re-think what it is I should be doing with the last part of my life here on Earth.

Haunani-Kay Trask project: done!

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Wow, that was really difficult project! So many technical problems, and it just turned out to be way more work than I thought it’d be. But the great part was going through the material over and over again as I was putting everything together. I learned a lot. The more I think about what she’s saying the more amazing she becomes.

I just have to track down a couple more people for the sake of permissions - hopefully I can reach them on the telephone soon. I’ll make an announcement here when it goes live.

February project: Haunani-Kay Trask

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I’m in the middle of working on our “February project.” I’m guessing a lot Pinky Show friends probably already know Haunani-Kay Trask (1949-2021) as a political leader, activist, writer, poet, and so on. But the material I’m working on focuses more on her work as an educator.

Daisy gave us a few boxes of notes, files, and video tapes from a project he did with Haunani-Kay Trask over 20 years ago. Part of what makes it a difficult project for me is because there’s a lot of technical issues that have to be overcome - for example, lots of the source material is on tapes, CD-ROMS, and (dead) hard drives that can’t easily be accessed. But the information is very important, so I’m trying to get it out there.

Wish me luck! :)

Book: _Elements of Indigenous Style_ (2018, Gregory Younging)

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I don’t usually recommend books because, well, what’s the point? It’d almost make more sense for me to make a list of which books I think people should avoid. Anyway.

It’s kind of shocking that I didn’t know this book existed until about a month ago - Elements of Indigenous Style, by Gregory Younging (1961-2019). This is part of the summary from the back cover:

“Elements of Indigenous Style offers Indigenous writers and editors - and everyone creating works about Indigenous Peoples - the first published guide to common questions and issues of style and process…”

Depending on who you are, you’re probably thinking right now, “Wow I really need that…” or maybe “Wow that sounds so boring…”

If you think you might need this book, then yes, I promise you need it even more than you already imagine. And if you think it’s probably boring, you’re going to be thrilled at how wrong you are as soon as you start reading it. It’s not only exciting because of how useful it is, it’s also fascinating because of how the author chose to present the information. It’s filled with excellent teaching. I’m learning so much about colonialism, history, epistemology, writing, and more. I send my sincere gratitude to Dr. Younging for this important treasure.

We don’t have any good bookstores around here. I had to walk almost 200 miles to get this book. Totally worth it, though.

Posted: Pinky's interview with Dr. Patrick Wolfe: What is settler colonialism?

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Pinky interviewed Dr. Patrick Wolfe back in 2009. That interview sat on a hard drive, for almost 15 years. But recently Pinky & I have been talking about doing work on the internet again, and we decided that putting Dr. Wolfe’s interview online would be a good thing to start with. So, long story short, I posted it to the “Dialogues” section of our PROJECT ARCHIVE a few minutes ago.

I hope a lot of people read this interview. Settler colonialism is one of the most important things settlers living in the U.S.A. could ever learn about.

You can read the interview here.

Happy New Year! Minizine #1 of 2024 : )

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Good morning! It’s a new year - “2024.” I wish everyone - all animals, plants, rocks, waters, and even germs a good year. Pinky, Kim, Susie, Nora, and even Daisy are all back at the Pinky Show office to reconnect, which is just another way to say we’re going to be eating a lot and relaxing together for a few days. This is my favorite time of the year.

Unless something disastrous happens we’re planning on 2024 to be an “internet year.” Today we’re starting off small with a new mini-zine. We made this one with college students in mind. These mini-zines line up and fold nicely if you print them at 100% size on standard letter-sized (typical “U.S.A. size”) paper. I hope you like it.

[ go to the mini-zine ]

And, in case you forgot:

[ How to fold the mini-zine. ]

Here comes 2024

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Our computer died last year but we finally saved up enough money to buy a new one. I set it up and installed the software yesterday, so I think we are ready.

>>> MY “NEW YEAR RESOLUTION” FOR 2024 IS TO POST SOMETHING NEW TO THE PINKY SHOW WEBSITE EVERY DAY. <<<

o.O I get very anxious reading that sentence. Pinky & Kim made me write that so that I will feel publicly humiliated (?) if I don’t follow through. Sometimes the thing I post might be a very, very small thing, but I will try my best to not miss any days.

New 4 panel comic: 200 rains?

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I guess we’ve been thinking a lot about rain lately? Here’s another comic with rain in it.

https://www.pinkyshow.org/projectarchives/2022/12/9/200-rains

By the way, in the comic Kim is looking at a review of this book: Hānau Ka Ua – Hawaiian Rain Names, by Collette Leimomi Akana.

New 4 panel comic: I think it's raining

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We hardly had any rain at all this year - life without water is really brutal. We had a tiny bit yesterday and Friday, though (.01 and .05 inches respectively), so to celebrate we made this little comic about rain watching, one of our favorite things.

https://www.pinkyshow.org/projectarchives/2022/12/4/i-think-its-raining

We love rain. :)

Thank you, Sardines

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Posted by Kim.

It’s November 24 - you know what that means! Yes, it’s National Sardine Day!

If you’re lucky enough to live near an ocean, don’t forget to find some sardines and let them know how much you appreciate them!

Photo from Wikipedia: harum.koh from Kobe city, Japan - Japan fish, South American pilchard (Sardinops sagax)

~kim

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Posted by Drittens: I don’t think this is how these “National X Day” works...

New video: 100 Years of Planetary Caregiving

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I just posted the new video. So far I think we have 8 videos in this series; I’ll be posting them soon. (We discuss the final version of each one as a group before they get published online.) Anyway, I hope you like it. I think this is the first video we’ve put on the internet in around 10 years? Comments are always welcome!

In other exciting news, our PINKY SHOW STORE received its first order! Thank you Pam!

Back in the desert; Susie; new video; U.S.A. "Thanksgiving"

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We just got back home yesterday, just in time to celebrate Susie’s birthday. We call Susie “Best Cat” because she’s better than all of us. Better at hunting, better at drawing pictures, better at climbing trees, better at everything I can think of, actually. And she has the best personality too, so we just all call her Best Cat. We celebrated by having (non-dairy) ice cream and failed cinnamon rolls (Kim), and then took turns brushing.

Last night, after talking about all the crazy things we saw and heard at WILD COP27, we decided that we’d just go ahead with publishing our environment/ecology video series as-is, never mind re-editing anything. Our videos are broad enough that nothing in them contradict any of the new stuff we learned over the past couple of weeks. So, right after I finish posting this diary entry, I’ll go ahead and post the first video in our new series, “100 Years of Planetary Caregiving.”

Tomorrow is “U.S.A. Thanksgiving.” There’s so many conceptual and historical reasons why this holiday is very stupid and harmful, and an annual catastrophe for turkeys, obviously. The only part about it that I like is every year our friend Lady mails us an apple pie a few days before “Thanksgiving”, and if it arrives before “Thanksgiving” (it almost always does), we eat it that morning. Every year the U.S. Postal Service medium-WRECKS the pie on its way here, but that’s part of the fun! Still yummy. :)

Wild COP27 is almost half-over

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Right now Kim, Pinky, Daisy, and I are attending Wild COP27 (Nov 6-18), Land Animals section. This is the first time I’m attending and it’s a lot crazier than I had expected, borderline terrifying actually. I’m not used to having to interact with Polar Bears and large owls, so several times in the past few days I’ve been close to freaking out. It’s all very educational though, we’re all learning a lot and we’re glad we made the journey here. Some of the data and perspectives we’ve heard during sessions have really forced us to reconsider some of the things we put into our latest videos (the environment and ecology videos I was finishing up right before coming here), which means I may have to re-record or edit some parts when I get back to the desert. It’s sad that the people version going on in Sharm el-Sheikh won’t hear any animal perspectives, or even have any (human) animal representatives present. I know that there are scientists and activists at human COP27 but it’s not the same thing.

This morning an elephant became so upset watching a recap of one of yesterday’s Egyptian sessions that she tore a large video monitor off the wall and trampled it. Everybody ran out of there so quickly. Funny to say, though - at the moment it was happening I also ran out of the room because, well, ANGRY ELEPHANT - but at the same time i felt like, “Yes! Thank you!!”

I bet no one at the Egypt COP27 will be smashing TVs.

~d.

October 17 is Nora Day

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Today is the day we celebrate Nora Cat’s arrival to planet Earth. Like a lot of us, since her birth was undocumented, nobody knows the actual date when she was born, so she just chose October 17 as an “okay guess.” Like Pinky, Nora is from Oahu island, HAWAII. Nora has been a good friend and comes around often to read comics (we don’t have a huge collection but she’s ok with reading the same ones over and over), use the computer, play games and fly kites, and basically just make life a lot more interesting for us here in the desert. She’s funny and smart. She doesn’t do any Pinky Show work because “politics bores me.”

Happy Birthday, Nora!

We’re taking the afternoon off to cook, bake, and have a small party together. Everybody will get a balloon.

Posted by Drittens.