The Poop-Up Art Show by J.M.W. Turder

The Anti-Dog lobby of Saanich BC has set up an activist art display by J.M.W. Turder. It features misty seaside paintings (scenes sans chiens, of course), plus a large central sculpture made of dried dog and cat turds. On-leash anti-dog "keep 'em out of parks" activists, joined by "keep cats indoors" activists, have been busily collecting desiccated dog and cat feces. The artist fashioned them into a fetching sculpture -- in protest against fetching by dogs of any sticks on beaches.

Unfortunately for the Poop-Up artist, someone mistakenly donated dried-out raccoon poop. A local turd-nerd noticed and attacked the anti-pet activists for misrepresentation of mammalian identity groups. 

A counter-art show in the style of Whistler is being planned by dog-walkers who dog-whistle their dogs very successfully at parks and beaches, and think it's the City Councillors who should be kept on a leash. 

"I don't want to have to read a 50-page Bylaw every time I take a stroll with Fido," says one citizen. 

She won't have to worry about the Poop-Up Art Show though, because the Health & Sanitation Bylaw has  banished feces from all indoor spaces. Freedom of Expression activists are protesting that one, but it's too late -- droppings-in at the gallery have dropped off due to atmosphere of municipal contentiousness.  

Trouble makers pictured here:       

       

                                  

      

    

My Cat Changed Their Identity

My cat decided to self-identify as human. Human he is, in his own view, whatever the real world might think. The real world (the human-humans with whom he lives) is a nest of wrongthought and denialism, in his view. To be human-identified is his "right", and his most strident miaow repeatedly proclaims it.

Two-spirited and species-fluid, he orders take-out (taken out of the fridge at any time of day or night), and claims ownership of any napping surface (humans' bed, laundry basket, front porch, all keyboards ...). Everyone else is a mere settler on the furniture.

He reserves the right to change his identities and his pronoun-wails at will (e.g. from king-cat to queen-cat, fur-baby to stalking lion, butterfly-batterer to couch potato). It's his right, the wail-miaow reminds us.

When identifying as Hunter, he de-colonizes the garden of rats. When cats of other persuasions enter the garden he avails himself of the right to hate-screech, and then de-platforms them off the fence -- although no other cat is allowed to utter hate-screech. His "positionality" is that the one privileged group is himself. He has no time for any confounding variables, and won't tolerate any concept-creep around it. At least you could never accuse him of micro-aggression, it's macro all the way with him, er ... them.

Perhaps he (sic) suffered betrayal trauma in his kittenhood, we think. Or maybe he has Borderline Personality Disorder due to some early stigmatization while still in the litter. We are committed to being tolerant. There could be a heartbreaking victim-narrative here, a real one; there's no deepfakiness about Chief Cat. 

I think I heard a miaow just now; it was the take-out order miaow. Do we respond too quickly to their demands, we humans ask each other? After all, look how obese they're getting. 

But wait -- sorry -- forget I said that. We don't do fat-shaming here. Fat beings are merely other-shaped ... at least, that statement is as reality-adjacent as we dare to get.