Marko the Rat

Remy and Rattus cook up a treat in the kitchen. This photo shoot happened during my last visit to the US back in June/July when I had the good fortune to visit nicodemusrat, who has built his own unofficial Remy. When I first saw Remy at FC last year I almost hyperventilated from the excitement! I was better able to contain myself this time and this photo shoot was the result.

For those who are interested, I have finally gotten around to uploading the rest of my photos from my trip to America. These photos chronicle my adventures exploring the east coast and then Anthrocon 2009 and then further inland, courtesy of savant_da_rat. Highlights include meeting Remy at Disney World, meeting Ziggy at Anthrocon, and meeting wolves at Wolf Park.


(I recommend starting at the bottom and working your way up so you get the photos in chronological order.)

The indomitable rapidtrabbit has finished putting together the interview Rattus did for Rapid, which includes a special guest at the end! I think it came out pretty well this time; I was much happier with my performance than I was the first time I appeared on the show as a puppet.

Please share and enjoy!

The inestimable rapidtrabbit has pointed out that the episode of Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends featuring he and Rattus at the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island is now available online. Only the first five minutes features rat action but there are lots of clever costumes there in keeping with the theme. Unfortunately, mejeep wasn't there to capture it but while we walked past a stand with commentators, they asked why there was a rat marching with Rapid T. (for Transit) Rabbit and then they got it--the subways are full of rats!

rattus_t_rat has finally done an update on his adventures in America after Califur, including photos! You should check it out. I will do one too in due course.

It's time I made some sort of retrospective on my trip and so I start with the most important event first: The highlight of the whole trip for me was when tarah_rosemoon gave me a con badge at Califur. I don't really know why. I think it was to thank me for wanting to have Rattus's photo taken with her in honour of her parody of Rats Can Cook. Tarah, it was my pleasure. I was so pleased to see you and Conejo there, especially when you came up and gave me this. I was moved almost to tears.

( Tarah's con badge for me )

Also, at Coffee Night, which formed the tail end of RivFur (unfortunately the only official RivFur event I was up to attending), kibaswiftpaw did this lovely sketch of me on a Coffee Club napkin:
( Kiba's sketch )

Thank you, to the both of you. These gifts I do not take lightly.

I just wanted to reassure people that I am safely returned to Australia and once more in ristin's loving arms. I will post more later, but for now I am feeling under the weather.

It's been a hard few months for me, there's no denying. The worst of it was when Izza passed away last Friday. But I've cried for him, harder than I can remember, and I'm not here to share my private grief.

Instead it's my public joy I've come to celebrate. I'll be in America in less than 24 hours! As I've flagged before, I'm coming for Califur and then staying for Anthrocon. Two cons in one trip, but the biggest challenge will be my extended absence from Ristin. We'll stay in touch, as much as we can, but it won't be the same as holding him every night. Anyway, come say hello if you're going to either of those cons. I don't bite.

(DISCLAIMER: I love Australia. I firmly believe it is the best place in the world to live. Paradise on earth; "godzone" (god's own) as we like to call it. But I thought the lead up to Australia Day might be a good time to reflect on some of the differences between Australia and America and what gives the United States such a special place in my heart.)

I've just finished reading Death Sentence by Don Watson. In it he decries the decline of public language--the language used by politicians, governments and large corporations in talking to (it could hardly be called talking with) the public and how that is affecting our own language. I found the first chapter tiresome, where he was ranting about the slow strangulation of public language. Save that for your blog. :) (I admit I found that chapter depressing because I'm mired in public language myself and sometimes expected to write in it.)

But the chapter on Australian history moved me. Not because of the stirring events in our past but because of how the lack of them meant we didn't have the rich stream of oratory to drink from that the Americans did and then how it was revived and mythologised in popular culture:

Australia's native language bloomed in late-nineteenth-century popular literature, but it was not recast and regenerated in Australia as it was in America by film and music. Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael and George Gershwin seemed to take as much pleasure in their mastery of language as they did in the genius of their music. Australians, like the rest of the world, took pleasure in it too. To that extent the tin-pan alley lyrics belonged to the world, but they came from American life and were as purely American as the choreography of the frontier in a Hollywood western, or of a street in an American noir film. When Fred Astaire and Judy Garland sang 'Walk Down the Avenue' it could be no avenue but a New York avenue, and when Billie Holiday sang 'The Man I Love', the man who would one day come along could only be American.

(Interestingly enough, the man who did eventually come along turned out to be American.)

And it shows even in our respective national anthems:

Advance Australia Fair	The Star-Spangled Banner
Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free We've golden soil and wealth for toil Our home is girt by sea	Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?

(Do you get goosebumps from those few lines just like I do?) Even if I get death threats from self-proclaimed patriots for saying so, our anthem is dry and dull by comparison. (Mr Watson correctly notes that "few surpass [it] for passivity, monotony and banality.") Maybe this goes some way to explaining why America is such a magical place for me, why it has burrowed so deep into my psyche. For as much as I love Australia and call it "home" (that most magical of words) a part of me will always yearn for the star spangled banner. At AC, when we furries celebrate the the 4th of July, I will be among the proudest.

To clarify some misconceptions and outline a broad road map for the future:

Even though I attended the last two Further Confusions (and loved them) I will not be able to attend the 2009 FC.

I will be attending MiDFur.

Though I have not yet made firm plans for it (except for charm ratting my way into a room), I am hoping to attend Anthrocon next year.

Unfortunately, though it pains me to say it, this means I may not be able to attend RivFur next year. >_<

At last! Thanks to my good friend taubu_lion I have photos of me in Furry Night Live at FC 2008. These are highly prized because it's only in photos you can see the makeup job I did for the Furry Deanimator skit.

Furry Deanimator 1
Furry Deanimator 2
Furtrix

Oh no! It looks like I have to do a thank you page to everyone who helped me or touched me along the way. What if I miss someone? If you're wondering if you're mentioned then you probably are. If you think you should be and I didn't, give me a poke. I can be very forgetful.

( Avert your eyes )

(To quote the conductor on the train trip from Vancouver, WA to Seattle, and how right he was.)

Well, post-trip wrap ups tend to be poor things and I wouldn't want this one to be any exception. This time I took some chances and while maybe some of them didn't work out, maybe some of them did. There were downs, but I'm not going to hold those close to my heart when I look back on what I've done. I just wanted to say how great it is to be a rat, at least if you're this rat. Good rats go to heaven (it's true!) but bad rats go everywhere. ;)

Especial thanks go to Frynge, JD and Kupok for making me feel loved when I needed it most, and to Ivan for letting me see the otter within and for the valuable part he played in making me feel appreciated. And to Rain for sharing his hearth and his careful rat care during the first part of my trip. Skippy is home, safe in Australia as Rain and Pouch would have wanted. But most of all to Ristin, the raccoon I love with all my heart and soul, for making all of this possible. Going to America would have been unthinkable before I met him.

That's all for now. I have been in transit for over 24 hours and I am a smelly rat. Ristin will be making me a bath so I can get clean again.

Before FC, rainhopper gave me Skippy, a kangaroo fursuit by Pouch Hopper. This gift goes far beyond being "just" a fursuit; Pouch Hopper made Space Roo, the fursuit that changed my life. Rain gave me part of Pouch's spirit to remember him by. And to honour his memory, I need to make sure the suit gets worn and that it gets to Australia. Pouch had always dreamed of coming to Australia, but it was not to be.

Unfortunately, I wasn't ready to go out at FC in Skippy, but thanks to twigmouse I do have some photos for you. Expect to see more of Skippy over time.

In other fursuit-related news, thanks to higgs_raccoon, I have a better video of the fursuit parade to share with you. This was definitely my proudest moment at FC.

It's no secret I love Remy. As those of you who have been following my LJ know, I had the great good fortune to meet Remy at FC. Now I have the photos to prove it! And with my other good muridae friends.

http://images.monocerosmedia.com/gallery/v/furtherconfusion/2008/Rattus/
http://images.monocerosmedia.com/gallery/v/furtherconfusion/2008/Rattus-Remy/
http://images.monocerosmedia.com/gallery/v/furtherconfusion/2008/Pinky-Rattus/
http://images.monocerosmedia.com/gallery/v/furtherconfusion/2008/Bridget-Pinky-Rattus-Remy-Squeaky/

And now The Furtrix is up. ^_^ This one I did sans clothes and makeup. Just cute ratty goodness! Thanks to Magnus Diridian for putting this skit together and letting me participate.

For those interested, the Furry Deanimator skit is up on YouTube now. You can see me getting mowed down by a chainsaw on the left about two thirds of the way through. I was very proud of the makeup job I did for that bit part. I'm sorry it doesn't show up better on screen. Copious thanks to farraptor for putting together such a great skit and for letting me participate.

Here are my photos from Further Confusion 2008. Please enjoy. Of course, I don't have any photos of Rattus. If other people find some they want to share, please feel free. I didn't do meet and greet very much, but there should be plenty of me in the fursuit parade. Photos and videos of me in Furry Night Live will be much prized. I probably should have kept my make up from that so I could show off the good job I did with doing up Rattus as a zombie (much gratitude to Jagafeh and Peta for their assistance in this regard). False modesty aside, I think I was the most zombified fursuit among the extras for the Deanimator skit. Enormous kudos to farraptor for all the work he put into making that skit such a success.

In a few hours we will be off. I admit I was a little apprehensive at first, but rainhopperroo has been wonderful. All of his housemates have been great to me too and I want to thank them for all their kind hospitality. I'd like to say more but I don't really have time.

Rain took me to Blackstar Canyon this evening and we got a fright.It was past twilight and getting quite dark.That, combined with the cold and complete silence made for an eerie atmosphere. We were walking down a decaying bitumen when I came upon the first word: "Putting." Being a curious rat, I naturally eagerly walked further to see if there was more. The next word was "Rats" which both intrigued me and spooked me: why would anyone out here be picking on me? Word followed word, forming the phrase you see above. Te first letter of each word was emphasised. It was at that point that I almost begged Rain to take me back. I eventually decided I wanted to carry on and the rest of the words were illegible from the cracks in the road but the next word looked like "Torture." I was frankly spooked, but we kept going, until Rain came across a Detroit D (he originally came from Detroit). By then we figured we'd seen enough. On the way back I figured out the words were forming an acronym: "PRIVATE," presumably for private property. I was a little less spooked when I realised that, because "Rats" was just there to form the acronym, but I don't think either of us were in the mood to explore further by then.