Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Opinion

May 19, 2014

Renegade fursuiting is BEST fursuiting: chat with Sakura Fox – Part 2

by Patch O'Furr

sakura3

Continued from Part 1: Sakura fox tells more about “renegade fursuiting” in public. I’ve previously written about those unique experiences of “Street fursuiting”. Sakura’s convention panels and journals about it are recommended reading (see bottom.)

Patch:
Your suiting tips practically scream “go do this”, to anyone who has a fursuit and is tempted to try public suiting but hasn’t yet dared. You give an impressive list of your local Texas-based places to try it, from shows to festivals to random neighborhood exploring. You even rate them from best to worst. It shows a lot of dedication! How often do you go? Can you say more about starting- was it just doing cons with others, making plans, or did the character naturally lead you out on your own?

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May 18, 2014

Renegade fursuiting is BEST fursuiting: chat with Sakura Fox – Part 1

by Patch O'Furr

Interview series:  Artists, animation directors, DJ’s and event organizers, superfans, and more…

Left: Mercury - Right: Sakura

Left: Mercury – Right: Sakura

Sakura fox and Mercury are huge inspirations. They’re great fursuit performers, cool people, and way cute. They’re the kind of furries who make this subculture awesome. They’re Texas-based but well known around cons.

I’ve seen them present con panels about “Renegade Fursuiting.” Sakura has a series of FA journals about it that are recommended reading. Without comparing notes, we have come to similar conclusions that taking it to the street makes a unique experience beyond the usual. (I’ve called it “Street fursuiting” and the “theatrical soul of furryness”.) Whatever you call it… let’s find out how fabulous foxy friends bring the magic.

Sakura’s journals:

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May 15, 2014

Forecasting the Future of Furry

by Patch O'Furr

Reddit’s r/furry community was asked about the fandom’s future over the next 5-10 years. Visions appeared, and I slipped into a trance. (Wait… that was just my usual unhealthy internet habit). Here’s what the future holds.

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May 8, 2014

“Nerd culture” debate reveals agendas

by Patch O'Furr

A spiky debate! – Us vs. “Women” – Princesses to save – “Nigerian princes” who represent us – Yes Virginia, Santa Claus has problems too – Please put down the clipboards

Us vs. “Women”

The always dependable writer for [adjective][species], JM Horse, has a point/counterpoint about “Furry Fandom: All Humans Welcome”. His answer, “Dogpatch Press on Women,” rolls out dishonest agendas in the title. It’s nicely written mischaracterization. It divides us into opposing camps of arbitrary identity, rather than self-chosen participation. It pushes “white knighting” for a subset of us, presuming to speak for that one, with misguided intentions that condescend to ALL of us. (Sorry for that term I’d rather not use. It’s no more respectful than “sexist”, but no other fits.)

“All Humans Welcome” isn’t about women, but everyone who makes a culture. (It also doesn’t respond to specific sources, as much as address “nerd culture” in general.) It’s about how we choose to be. Nobody’s passive, when we’re glued together by interest and DIY creativity. We’re accused of being “inherently sexist”, but is it true? Not any more than we’re inherently evil. Sexism is just one human state of mind… like greed, self-serving protectionism, or tolerance. Whatever you are, speak for yourself.

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April 17, 2014

BLFC’s little snags and big success

by Patch O'Furr

Part 3 of 3

Reno, NV used to be the Wild West. It reminds me of bison, cowboys, cattlemen and sheepmen. Freedom had a lot to do with animals and boundary fights.

On frontiers of culture, furries have a colorful little corner where lines are pushed between normal and weird.

(Pic by PictureNV)

(Pic by PictureNV)

When I started to write about BLFC, I felt sorry about including some gossip in my last year’s con report. I’d love to balance it with pure positivity. It mostly related to locals from Reno, and the way they looked at the con. It was mild conflict between grey conservatism, and colorful, younger, wilder furries.

Unfortunately I saw reminders of the same issues this year. Oh well, let’s be honest, and talk about security. But don’t worry. The con was wonderful.
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April 15, 2014

More from Reno – Biggest Little Fireside Chat

by Patch O'Furr

Part 2 of 3

(Pic from Hahul.)

(Pic from Hahul.)

You’re at a smarty-pants club that smells of leather bound books and rich mahogany. The wisest animals are here. On a perch, Archimedes Owl thinks egghead thoughts. In a corner, The Great Mouse Detective gives him an eyeball and orates about the rat race. By the bar, a beatnik goat sips espresso and beardily strokes his beard. A sniffy elephant waiter serves a snifter of spirits. Your armchair is waiting. Bring your favorite tweed jacket, and rest your elbow-pads and paw-pads. Have a chess game by the fire and let’s converse.

Now switch the scene to a con hotel room. There’s cartoons everywhere, fursuiters chugging Monster energy drinks, and party music thumping thru the wall. Ooontz oontz oontz. Shove some stuff off the bed, play video games and hang out.

There wasn’t actual fire in the hotel, but when you hang out with furries… you never know…
After Part 1, here’s how smarty-pants it got with Dane, a fur con newcomer.
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May 8, 2013

Book review: ‘Freak’s Amour’, by Tom De Haven.

by Patch O'Furr

Flayrah News, 5/8/2013:

FreaksArmorFreak’s Amour, by Tom De Haven, is simply a masterpiece. This is some of the best weird literature that few seem to have heard of or remember. It’s been out of print for 27 years. I started it once, long ago when I was just getting into science fiction and weird genre stuff. It was a bit arty and demanding for a teenage reader, and my interest wasn’t up to the challenge at the time. Now, I have to give it very high recommendation after finding it again.

I suggest that anyone into classy lit as well as furries and pulp/pop culture go get it now, even if it takes your last two bucks. It’s one of those obscurities that could be worth quite a lot if it was less available – but it earned enough acclaim to get several printings, so it’s cheap and easy to get secondhand. (In fact, I’ve noticed a new comic/graphic novel version: info below.)
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May 3, 2013

Opinion: Street fursuiting is the most fun furry experience

by Patch O'Furr

Repost from Flayrah, 5/3/2013:

San Francisco hosted the 14th annual How Weird Street Faire last weekend, with the theme “WEIRDI GRAS: Carnival of Peace.” An informal fursuiter outing was organized through Meetup.com and its active Bay Area Furries group (independent from the mailing list), which runs many local events each month. I offered changing space at a nearby apartment, and scored a pair of “Disco Pants” for costuming, direct from the office of local web-based fashion startup company Betabrand. Afterwards, Betabrand was cool enough to post photos of modeling the pants on their “Model Citizen” section. (There’s more photos on Reddit.)

2013-4-28-howweird3_0-288
Left to right: Kitten, Meerk, Patch. Background: Ty Cougar.

Any news media story that covers furries is likely to focus heavily on fursuiters, and their striking visual appeal and fuzzy glamor. Fursuiters can’t represent the whole of furry fandom, when “furry” is a vague and broadly defined umbrella over anything related to anthropomorphic animals- but I think it’s OK to consider fursuiters the expressive, theatrical soul of furrydom. There is an element of “ambassador” role to their hobby. Without the 15-20% of furries who wear fursuits and costumes for role-playing, you’d just have regular unglamorous nerds saying “meow! I’m a cat”. That’s what crazy people do.

Of course, I’m kidding: Call me the most crazy of all, but I prefer the term fabulous. I like to put on silver disco pants and a Husky partial, and get on the subway to go dance and hug random people, under the influence of blasting techno music and magical substances in the air. They get so entranced by a giant sparkly talking dog, that they hand over their babies for photos. That actually happened several times this weekend at the How Weird Street Faire. I didn’t know where those babies had been, but I let them touch my paws anyways, even more carefully than when I pick up my chihuahua (who gets super confused and never knows whether to trust me when I dress up.) As far as I can tell, everyone loved the experience, even the astonished babies. Those photos might provoke some interesting questions when they grow up.

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March 7, 2013

Opinion: Indie web series ‘Fursona Files’ looks a little mangy

by Patch O'Furr

Flayrah News, 3/7/2013:

I haven’t seen this shared around until I noticed it on the Bay Area Furries mailing list.

Admit One Productions presents – Fursona… A SNEAK PEEK from Courtney James.

(EDIT: video down, try here.)

According to their website:

What’s your Fursona? Thats [sic] the million dollar question asked in this fast paced black comedy web series about the adventures of Virginia Blake – a successful investigative journalist – who is writing an expose on the FURRY underworld to save her tarnished career!

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March 5, 2013

A famous experiment in anthropomorphism and psychology

by Patch O'Furr

HarlowMonkey

Flayrah News, 3/5/2013:

Anthropomorphism is often imagined from our human point of view (attaching human characteristics to something non-human). But the concept can exist apart from ourselves, when animals see themselves in objects. The way it works for them can reveal more about us.

Harry Harlow was a psychologist who experimented with monkeys. In the 1950’s and 60’s, he gave his subjects “surrogate” mothers built from different objects, to see how they would behave, and learn about care-giving and companionship in social and cognitive development. PBS says about his famous experiment:

He took infant monkeys away from their real mothers, giving them instead two artificial mothers, one model made of wire and the other made of cloth. The wire model was outfitted with a bottle to feed the baby monkey. But the babies rarely stayed with the wire model longer than it took to get the necessary food. They clearly preferred cuddling with the softer cloth model, especially if they were scared. (When the cloth model had the bottle, they didn’t go to the wire model at all.)

Here’s an image gallery that illustrates the concept of “anthropomorphism” in monkey terms. To understand the experiment as a powerful metaphor, this web art project/essay says a lot with few words: Chicken Wire Mother.

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