Tag Archives: zoonooz

#PandaSatireIsNotACrime

Well, at least it’s not a crime YET…

I hope everyone who had either a primary election or a special election in your state/district went and voted. It is important that everyone who can vote does. Yes, I meant everyone. If you have to cheat to win an election, well, then it’s not really winning, is it?

Because if you don’t vote, we might end up with something like this:

Things are about as real as they can get.

Oh. Yeah. We did. Well, you should vote anyway, ‘kay?

It’s Fabulous Furry Friday!

For those of you on the east coast, you are probably wondering where your pandas are….um…I’m pretty sure they are around here somewhere…and while we are on the subject of bears and cuppycakes…(see Wednesday’s shocking expose)

Wait! Here they are now!

another cartoon inspired by real news! (and cuppycakes!)

Thanks again to Henry Nicholls for alerting me to this story

yoga for pandas

All salute the sacred cuppycake!

What makes a panda run? Cuppycakes, of course!!!!

inspector panda and cuppycake pushers

Inspector Panda says, “Know the signs of cuppycake dependency”

pandas in the laboratory

Can you calibrate the cuppycake?

I have extra frosting!

If I have but one life to live, let me give it for a cuppycake.

Panda On through the fall of the western empire….
Bob T #Resist Panda

Speaking of a Cuppycake Trap

Wait? WERE we talking about a cuppycake trap? Well, cuppycake trap, perjury trap, it’s kind of all the same thing, isn’t it? Thanks to one of my alert readers, who was the first (yes, Lora, several people brought this story to my attention, but you were the first!) to tell me about this story. Even though we all know that bears that get habituated to humans, always ends up being bad for the bears, who doesn’t love the idea of a bear doing this:

“If they didn’t want me to eat the cuppycakes, they shouldn’t have left them there!”

“I’ll have one of these, and one of these, and one of these, and one of…”

The bear was not caught this time, but the sad fact is, this bear now has a taste for frosting and he will probably come back for more. I don’t know what the solution is. We have expanded where we humans live and so bears are being crowded out of their habitats and the collision (as opposed to collusion) is inevitable. In Colorado a bear who recently broke into the Post office was euthanized because it was his third human encounter. More than 160 bears have been killed because of people/bear encounters in Colorado in 2017.

Um…is it okay that he ate all the cuppycakes because they were vegan?

Panda On!
Bob T Panda

Literature of the Panda and then some…

Fasten your seat belts, get a bootini and a cupcake because this is going to be one of those long posts.

Do you like my new book?

I want to take a little side trip from all things panda today, (mostly…except for The Literature of the Panda!) and talk about a book I’m reading. Today’s post is not completely devoid of pandas, since pandas and storytelling go together like, um…cuppycakes and frosting. I’ve been reading: This is What a Librarian Looks Like by Kyle Cassidy.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, this book is written by another client of my agent Gordon, over at Fuse Literary, and he has been yammering on about it on social media since it’s recent publication. “What’s the big deal?” I thought. “It’s pictures of librarians? Why would I want to read that?”

Everything I know

Oh, but now that I am reading it, I see that it is that and so, so much more. To understand why I think this book is so significant, I need to share a little bit of personal history. I was a library kid. While my family owned some books, most of my reading material came from the public libraries in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. We mostly went to a smallish branch library not too far from home, but sometimes we’d go to the big Carnegie Library over in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. This was one of the grand libraries, that only a robber baron in good standing could provide to the little people of Pittsburgh.

Panda Satire Made Easy

Panda satire explained for you!

I didn’t have the happiest childhood, and one of the best ways to escape my families dysfunctional dynamics, was to stick my nose in a book and transport myself somewhere else. Anywhere else, by whatever means possible. I can tune out so completely while reading, you can stand in front of me and yell, and I won’t pay any attention. (Trust me, this has been done.) While I also loved to draw, there is no escape from reality like a really good book.

I don’t remember interacting with the librarians, beyond taking my piles of books to the counter and getting them stamped with the due date. I was a very shy child (why are you laughing? I really was) and I can’t imagine I would have started a conversation with an adult on my own initiative. But whoever you were, you librarians in Pittsburgh in the 60’s, you saved my life.

What a Librarian Looks Like does indeed have pictures of librarians from all over the world, but it also has statements about what they do, what they provide in this age of vast amounts of information flying through cyberspace, but also why what they do is so important. The passion they feel for their calling (because it is a calling) comes through in every sentence. The book tells some library history, as well as wonderfully thought provoking essays by writers who also have deep emotional histories with libraries. One of my favorites is by that rock star of the library world, Nancy Pearl, of Seattle Public Library and NPR fame. She is such a rock star that she even has her own action figure. Her essay about wanting to live in her childhood library rang so true. What better fortress to resist the world’s evils than the fortress that is full of the knowledge of all time?

What do you mean by “was?”

One of the stories that Kyle tells of a librarian’s personal history, moved me so much that I burst out in tears. Really! I think it was the idea that there was something she wanted desperately as a child, that she knew her family could not afford to provide, and she never forgot it. It stayed with her until she became a librarian herself and she found a way to provide this, and fought for the money to make it come true for other children.  I want you to read this book for yourself, and find the stories that reach in to your heart. I want you to find the stories that whisper in your ear and say, do you remember this?

I always wanted to be a painter, and I am immensely grateful for all the forces in the universe that allowed me to become one. I didn’t realize at the time, that I also really wanted to tell stories both with my paintings, and now with pandas. Through telling made up stories I hope to share the universal truths that bring our mutual humanity into being and focus.

You say sumi-e, I say Tsunami

Libraries are more important than ever. They are at the heart of community, in towns and cities, small and large. Librarians help people make sense of all the vast information that is out there, yammering for our attention. I hope every library in the country brings this book to live in their collection. Thank you Kyle, for thinking about this subject, and for bringing this book into the world.

What cats are reading at the beach this summer!

Panda on (right to your local library!)
Bob T Panda

and Now, Back to COOKIE BALANCING

I know you were all waiting for me to pontificate on all things cookie balancing, weren’t you? I thought you might have been! But what with one thing (Pinky and Bubba’s story) and another (my response to the slander from Foxxy News) well, my dissertation on cookie balancing just got pushed back again and again.

But now, with no further ado, The Panda Chronicles brings you…

The truth about the fascinating sport of cookie balancing! (Soon to be an Olympic event!)

Did I mention I broke the world record in cookie balancing?

Panda on!
Bob T panda

I’m Late! I’m Late!

WHAT TIME IS IT!?!?!!? CWAP! I FORGOT TO SET UP A POST!!!!!

Ahem…

Fortunately, the panda kindergarten is always available to assist in your preparations for the weekend! Join us for this weeks salute to Bears Behaving Badly!

Fabulous Furry Friday Presents…

Who says real life can’t be funny?

well, if I can’t carry it through security, can I eat it now?

Is this a film of the pandy kindy?

pass the cookies, okay?

Huzzah! Misery bear!

To the moon, Alice!

Fart jokes!

OMG! Not a SINGLE ‘toon with Pinky! (She’s resting up for her appearance on Sunday!)

Panda On!
Bob T don’t let the door hit you on the way out Panda

A bear by any other name: a story…

In which, we discover new books about our favorite bear

I’m working on a new book project, not ‘toons but a non fiction book about…wait for it…PANDAS!!!!! Are you surprised? More will be revealed in due time. But as I haven’t read much non fiction for kids, I thought I better do a little studying over at the Freeland Branch of our public library.

The irony of Mehitabel criticizing Pooh Bear for his wardrobe, does not escape me.

I went into their online catalog, got some suggestions from my agent and other writer friends, and generally started rooting around and ordering big piles of books from the library. I found two books that were about the true life story of the actual bear who inspired Winnie the Pooh.  The first is Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie the Pooh, by Sally M Walker and illustrated by Jonathan D Voss. The second is Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s most Famous Bear, by Lindsay Mattick and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. (Lindsay Mattick is the great granddaughter of Harry Colebourne)

Both are wonderful books, with very different illustration styles, but they both recount the quite accidental finding and adoption of a black bear cub by Harry Colebourne, a Canadian Army veterinarian traveling by train, heading to a posting during World War 1. I’m not going to go into all of details of the story. Head to the library or your favorite bookstore and read them for yourself. One point I will let you in on, in advance, is that after traveling across Canada and the Atlantic Ocean with Harry and his fellow soldiers, Winnie eventually ended up living at the London Zoo, where she met her good friend Christopher Robin. Yes, that Christopher Robin.

I’m not sure Mehitabel has anything to talk about.

Now, If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I have an everlasting devotion to and affection for the Pooh Bear himself. There is a lot of the bear of little brain in Bob T. I had heard of these books, (Winnie, and Finding Winnie) but hadn’t yet gotten around to reading them. I’m so glad I have rectified that omission!

One thing both these books have in common, were actual pictures of Harry and his bear as they traveled across Canada and the ocean, at the post in England, and then at the London Zoo. There is a photograph of Christopher Robin, looking just like you would expect him to look, playing with the actual Winnie, as his father A A Milne, watches from above. It was taken in 1925, the year before the original publication of Winnie the Pooh.

31 days

Mini Bob, hanging out with Pooh Bear at the Prints and Drawing Study Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. And yes, this is an actual sketch by Ernest H Shepard.

I have to quote this paragraph from the introduction of Winnie the Pooh. I had always assumed that it was part of the fiction, of a bear and his boy, but the photograph puts that thought to rest forever.

“You can’t be in London for long without going to the Zoo. There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there. So when Christopher Robin goes to the Zoo, he goes to where the Polar Bears are, and he whispers something to the third keeper from the left, and doors are unlocked, and we wander through dark passages and up steep stairs, until at last we come to the special cage, and the cage is opened, and out trots something brown and furry, and with a happy cry of “Oh, Bear!” Christopher Robin rushes into its arms. Now this bear’s name is Winnie, which shows what a good name for bears it is, but the funny thing is that we can’t remember whether Winnie is called after Pooh, or Pooh after Winnie. We did know once, but we have forgotten.
~AA Milne; Winnie the Pooh 1926

What it made me think about more than anything, is this question:

How much of our lives turn on chance? On that instant where if we had looked the other way, we would have missed the turn, missed the face in the crowd, missed the small black bear cub on the ground under the bench when the train stopped at the station, and changed the course of literature? I guess we’ll never know, speculative science fiction, notwithstanding.

Thank you for stumbling onto The Panda Chronicles and sticking around to see what happens next.

Be the Bear…
Bob-Ther-Panda

is it….

…time for….

…a little something?

The Truth About Pandas 3

I think this just about wraps it up! Next week we’ll get back to our previously interrupted story about Pinky, Bubba, and Ping. Just how DID Pinky get there so quickly?

In case you want to read the other two ‘toons on this subject, you can find them here:
The Truth About Pandas 1
The Truth About Pandas 2

And now, our most strenuous rebuttal of the idjits at Foxxy “News”!

When the truth is found…
to beeee lies….

Do not, I repeat DO NOT make pandas mad. Do I have to say it again?
Be sure to tune in on Sunday, when we return from this interruption of an interruption, to our previous story. Now what was that about????

Panda On!
Bob T Panda

The TRUTH About Pandas 2

We’re back with the next installment of our response to the Foxxy “News” blasphemy about pandas. I’m listening to The Rachel Maddow show Podcast as I write this, so please excuse me if I break into incredulous cries of outrage as I hear what Mittens and his minions are getting up to.

Has the truth gone on holiday? Is it coming back? WHEN??????

truth

Pandas COULD bite your head off if they really wanted to.

We shall Panda On!
Bob T Panda

PS Happy Earth Day every one! remember: We ARE Endangered! (from so many directions!)

Pandyland Security on Fezbook

I have been writing about privacy issues on Fezbook for YEARS! It’s no surprise to me that they are trying to look into your panty drawer. Oh. You didn’t know about that????

It’s 10 O’clock. Do you know who’s in your panty drawer? 

social media for pandas

Don’t Touch My Stuff!

Privacy Policy Implementation

What happens in the panda kindergarten stays in the panda kindergarten.

And it’s not just our panty drawers! They are looking into our brains!

Keeping you safe from evil cuppycakes….

Happy Fabulous Furry Friday! Have things been getting interesting or WHAT??????

Tune in on Sunday for the next installment of our response to Foxxy “News”!

Panda on!
Bob T Panda