While we were mocking Japanese bi-porn star dolls just the other day, another thing the people of Japan excel at is books of pictures of kittens in boxes:
The Kittens of Boxville answers the vexing, age-old question: what would a city constructed by cats look like? Biteable cardboard, of course! Originally published in Japan, this quirky and adorable book features more than a hundred photographs of an energetic group of kittens romping around dozens of miniature cardboard houses, cafés, and restaurants. Here, a daring cat explores an abandoned farmhouse; there, a lonely kitten knocks on a friend’s window; and what’s that over there? Two kittens hugging!? Appropriately, the book features a die cut cover that reveals an irresistibly cute little kitten peeking through the front (his tail pokes through the back).
Irresistibly cute. Indeed, this book will attach itself, lamprey-like, to your eyeballs, sending you into spasms of cooing, oohing, and other toxoplasmosis-esque symptoms.
BTW, Chris Butcher characterized me as having “been in kind of a doom-and-gloom funk for the past few months.” Which contrasts with the other, anonymous fellow who said I was a “rah-rah cheerleader.” So which is it? Am I just bi-polar?
After I wrote my last doom ‘n’ gloom post, I actually got private correspondence, telling me not to lose the faith because people need hope, I guess. I actually think alarmism is very destructive right now. So with that in mind, for all you folks out there who have been looking up to me as a beacon of sunshine over the years, I’m going to try to keep my pecker up. I’m a clear-eyed realist, sure, but who doesn’t want to get Obamafied?
There’s always the new U2 to pick up yer spirits….
Yep, kittens in boxes, people losing jobs, and should we be happy or sad. I think we want words that are optimistic, but not unrealistic. Well, okay, we also want comics that are optimistic AND unrealistic, ha ha.
your pecker?
Does Future Mr. Beat know about your pecker?
The only thing better than cats in boxes? Comics about cats in boxes! And it’s educational, too!
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=comic&id=5441#6543
(Hmmm… wouldn’t be too hard to construct… An old smoke detector for the radioactive source, Geiger counter hooked up to an electronic switch which mixes a binary nerve gas… Would have to rigorously test it…)
That Oba-Me graphic seems more 60’s-hippie than Millennial-prognosticator. What happens when I look at it with 3-D glasses?
“I actually think alarmism is very destructive right now.”
I know it’s hard right now, but we love you, Heidi. Half the population are currently thinking that their credit score is the new world order, an unobtainable goal, designed to keep the masses oppressed by big business, the banks, and the government, and they’d be right, but it’s not as insurmountable is these monsters would have you think. The thing to remember is that this country has been governed by fear for so long (first is was the war and now it’s the recession) that friezes like, “it’s the economy” have become a kind of excuse as to why we can’t get things done, or why it’s okay for someone to screw another person over. You go to WaMu to ask them how it is that they can charge you twice as many overdraft fees as the amount you became overdrawn, and they tell you that times are tough for them, too. Really? So, my tax money bailing your bosses ass out, while they go on million dollar vacations is your idea of tough times? That’s just one example, but the fact is that people keep shoveling these ideas on, until you can’t see past it anymore. It takes everyone to say together, “Hey, that’s bull shit!” before we can start to turn things around. It starts slow, with one or two people, and then it starts to catch on. It’s difficult at first, because there are a lot of negative people for some reason, who just don’t want to believe that anything can ever be good again, and they’re going to shout it from the highest mountain top, but all it takes to put a stop to that, is not to listen. Then those one or two people start to sound really good, and they’re positive thinking turns to some positive doing, as David Mack would say. From there, just like the panic, dishonesty, and distrust that led to this mess, it starts to snow ball. People start to feel better. Things start to turn around. Then, others see it happening, and the same thing starts to happen for them. This thing I’m talking about. It’s really real. It really can work, and it can start with any one of us, or all of us.
Optimistic: There’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!
Pessimistic: You think it’s bad now, wait until Summer…
Pragmatic: Let’s heat the house with it.
Opportunistic: Let’s bag it up and sell it to gardeners!
Dadaistic: Kaka poo poo splort
Oblivious: Where is that smell coming from?
Fetishistic: Mmmm… I love the way it feels as it squishes between my toes!
It’s so much easier to be a pessimist.
Re “pecker”: In the U.K., the word is unisexual when used in the sentence, “Keep your pecker [chin] up.”
SRS
I figured that, like Phil Sheldon, you just had seen too much to keep being happy about everything.
(Geek reference for geeks. )
I have a friend that is really nosey and he wont stop looking at my past when I specificly told him not to and he dose anyway and he wont stop!
i held myself back from growing up because i watched that lion king movie when i was 5 the cub simba and timon and pumba walking on the long log scene and i notice that simba grew and that mad me afraid because i tought that i could do the things i do and now im 20 listing to every one i care about and i got so much to say but all i here is the same thing im just a empty shell