Boing Boing

Today on TokyoMango, and I'm out!

Lisa Katayama — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:16:56 -0500

Today on TokyoMango, I wrote about real live Pokemon that sold for nearly a billion dollars on Yahoo! Auctions; a new web meme that spawned from the prime minister's exit speech; and the first professional gamer geek ever.

Also, this is my last post as a Boing Boing guest blogger. I had a lot of fun sharing wonderful things with you guys—thanks very much for reading!

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Amazon reviewers clobber Spore DRM

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:06:54 -0500

Fred sez, "I just discovered that dozens of Amazon users have given Spore 1-star ratings because of it's aggressive DRM. The game's average review is now around 2-stars. Are users acting in concert as a centrally organized boycott, or are the ratings a natural market-based reaction that proves DRM is an 'anti-feature'?" Spore losing the DRM Fight (Thanks, Fred and everyone else who suggested this!)

A profile of actor Henry O

Lisa Katayama — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:47:37 -0500

I didn't realize how important family history was until after my grandmother died. She was a reporter/actor in pre-Communist China who quite unwillingly moved to Japan right after WW2, but I never asked her anything because most of the time, as a kid, I was too impatient to listen—and I didn't think she wanted to talk about it anyway. Now, nearly a decade after her death, there is one relative left who can tell me about the family's history in Shanghai.

A couple months ago, I flew to Seattle to do a lengthy video interview of my great uncle Henry O. Henry is probably the only actor in Hollywood who survived Mao's Cultural Revolution. Before he came to the US, he was an actor for a national troupe in China for thirty years, and was detained by the Communist regime for being from a wealthy family. He moved to the US in his mid-sixties and has since sustained a successful career as an actor in Hollywood. At age 81, he's still picking up roles—he just came back from filming 2012 with John Cusack and Thandie Newton in Vancouver. I wrote a short article about his life for Giant Robot Issue 55.

Regarding Henry (Giant Robot)

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Album covers made with Japanese food

Lisa Katayama — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:31:41 -0500

Japanese food is famously colorful, and people often pack creative, artful lunches for their kids and spouses. The Jacket Lunch Box blog belongs to a designer/DJ/food enthusiast who likes to make American album covers out of food. Here's a replica of Public Enemy's Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age, made of seaweed, fish cakes, sour plum, and rice.

Weezer's Green Album is made with cabbage, seaweed, ham, fish cakes, paprika, and rice.

The Jacket Lunch Box blog (in Japanese)

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Polar bears turn green with algae

Lisa Katayama — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:52:33 -0500

Three polar bears at Nagoya zoo in central Japan turned green this summer from swimming in a pond infested with algae. The zoo staff had been changing the water less frequently to save resources, and the hot weather had induced algae overgrowth in the pond and safety moat. The same thing happened at Singapore Zoo four years ago, and at the San Diego Zoo back in 1979.

Algae-dyed polar bears puzzle Japan zoo visitors

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Photos of Godzilla on set, circa 1955

Lisa Katayama — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:26:33 -0500

Patrick Macias has a couple of rare photographs of the original Godzilla, circa 1954/55, at a photo shoot at Toho Studios in Tokyo.

Link

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Apple solved touchscreen copy-and-paste 15 years ago

Mark Frauenfelder — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:48:28 -0500

Video by option8 shows "how Apple could (or should) implement copy and paste on the iPhone: a demonstration of how they got it right 15 years ago on the Newton MessagePad."

(via del.icio.us/tag/mbwideas)

Britain spends more on cops and locks up more people than any other developed nation

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:25:22 -0500

In today's Observer, columnist Henry Porter lays out the dismal facts of Britain's rush to authoritarianism and the failure of the big brother, surveillance state to make a civil land:

To put these figures in perspective, we spend more on law and order than any other OECD country including the United States, France, Germany and Spain. It is fair to say that Britain is in the grip of law and order obsession, yet we seem incapable of putting police officers on the beat to patrol our streets, investigate crimes and keep order with an eye to proportionate and sensible use of their powers. By that, I do not mean three officers on mountain bikes pursuing a colleague on his racer through crime-ridden Hackney to issue him with a £30 fine because he had avoided dangerous roadworks by briefly using the pavement. I don't mean texting the victim of a burglary, as happened to a friend of mine, to see if she had anything more to report.
Despite crime figures going down, we continue to spend more and lock up proportionately more people than any other free country. The most recent figures for London show falls of 14 per cent in both knife and gun crime and a 7 per cent reduction in violent crime generally. Since 1997, the official figures for the country claim a drop in the crime rate of 35 per cent. Academics suggest this figure is hugely inflated, but the downward trend is undeniable and could be claimed by Labour as a victory for its policies were it not for its sinister need to keep us in a state of permanent fear about crime.
The estimable Cherie Booth put her finger on the problem and inadvertently (perhaps) provided a grand analysis of her husband's cynical use of crime to push his authoritarian programme. On the release of a very good report from the Howard League for Penal Reform attacking the government's policy of building Titan prisons, which will hold 2,500 brutalised souls, she used the word 'punitive' a lot and referred to 'the hysterical rhetoric of politicians attempting to ride the tiger of public opinion'. Or what is perceived as public opinion, she added.

Our obsession with crime is crushing our freedoms

International day of protest against surveillance Oct 11

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:41:30 -0500

Tom sez, "An international protest against undue surveillance is being held next month on the 11th of October. It is 'a broad movement of campaigners and organizations is calling on everybody to join action against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses'. We need to get this on the radar for the elections in the USA this year, the EU parliamentary elections next year and many more."

Surveillance mania is spreading. Governments and businesses register, monitor and control our behaviour ever more thoroughly. No matter what we do, who we phone and talk to, where we go, whom we are friends with, what our interests are, which groups we participate in - "big brother" government and "little brothers" in business know it more and more thoroughly. The resulting lack of privacy and confidentiality is putting at risk the freedom of confession, the freedom of speech as well as the work of doctors, helplines, lawyers and journalists.
The manifold agenda of security sector reform encompasses the convergence of police, intelligence agencies and the military, threatening to melt down the division and balance of powers. Using methods of mass surveillance, the borderless cooperation of the military, intelligence services and police authorities is leading towards the construction of "Fortresses" in Europe and on other continents, directed against refugees and different-looking people but also affecting, for example, political activists, the poor and under-priviledged, and sports fans.
People who constantly feel watched and under surveillance cannot freely and courageously stand up for their rights and for a just society. Mass surveillance is thereby threatening the fabric of a democratic and open society. Mass surveillance is also endangering the work and commitment of civil society organizations.

International Action Day "Freedom not fear - Stop the surveillance mania!" on 11 October 2008 (Thanks, Tom!)

Genome quilts

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:37:44 -0500

Artist Beverly St. Clair uses quilts to encode genetic information: it's beautiful and comfy!

My idea for genome quilts grew from the juxtaposition of two experiences at Wesleyan University in November 2001. First I viewed an exhibit of work by Anni Albers, an artist I have admired for many years. The show included her serigraphs of triangles arranged in a grid. I was struck by their similarity to quilt patterns. The next day I attended a lecture about the Human Genome Project and was impressed by the beautiful shapes of the proteins illustrated and the interesting patterns made by the microarrays. I realized that I could use a simple quilt block to represent each of the four bases in DNA: cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine. A square bisected into a light and dark triangle is rotated in four orientations to resemble the letters C, G, A, and T. These blocks are placed in sequences determined by the base sequence, so one can read the genetic code by looking at the quilt. The color and fabric choices influence the overall design. The quilts are visually pleasing, with their strong colors and seemingly traditional design, but they hide and reveal an entirely other construct of information.

Genome Quilts (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Furniture made out of used books

Lisa Katayama — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:00:09 -0500

Designer Laura Cahill wanted to make art without wasting new material. She did a bunch of research, and found out that used books are the most common unwanted objects; they're also notoriously hard to recycle because of the kind of glue bookbinders used to use. So she took her second-hand book collection and turned it into beautiful pieces of furniture.

The bench is pretty self-explanatory, but for flower vases and lamp posts, Cahill uses a band saw to cut the books into desired shapes and sizes, and then wraps the spines around test tubes to make the cylindrical core. It's such a cool, eco-friendly concept.

via Dezeen

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Satellite launches for Google hi-res imaging; can we track humans by shadows?

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:31:12 -0500

Google is really watching now. John Battelle blogs:

Not content to lease data from others who have satellites, Google today launched its own satellite into space. (Via BeetTv, thanks Andy.) Talk about web meets world....this is yet another indicator of the integration of virtual and physical. And it brings Google one step closer to what I think could be the company's Waterloo - a viral meme that Google is sensing too much, knows too much, and is too powerful. It may not be rational, but no one ever accused humans of being entirely rational.

And via the linked AP article:

A Delta 2 rocket carrying the GeoEye-1 satellite lifted off at 11:50 a.m. Saturday. Video on the GeoEye Web site showed the satellite separating from the rocket moments later on its way to an eventual polar orbit. The satellite makers say GeoEye-1 has the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system. It can collect images from orbit with enough detail to show home plate on a baseball diamond.

And snip from a related article by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides on Wired News:

In a speech last month to a security conference in the UK, Stoica explained that by using shadows you can read the length and rhythm of someone's gait and do an identification, even from above. He has written software that isolates the shadow from video, and adjusts for time of day and camera angle to deal with elongated and foreshortened shadows. Stoica shot video from the top of a six story building to test out his software and was able to get usable gait data on his subjects.
Now going from six stories to satellites in low Earth orbit is probably a stretch. The best commercial low Earth orbit satellite (GeoEye- launching this Sunday to power better Google Maps) will have 41 cm resolution. The best known military spy sat can see at least down to 10 cm (though who knows what classified hardware can do). GeoEye is also only taking stills as it flies over, not the kinds of video footage that Stoica was using. To do that, you might need to go up to geostationary orbit which is much farther out and according to one expert, just wouldn't have the resolution. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying overhead, on the other hand, might work just fine for this.

Either way, you may want to practice skipping from place to place when it is sunny out.

Spy Software Could ID You By Your Shadow (Wired Science)

Clarification, 725pm PT: One anonymous BB commenter was among several who took issue with the implication that Google actually owned the satellite, the launch vehicle, or exclusive usage rights to all resulting data. That's not accurate. In the discussion thread for this BB post, "anonymous #27" said:

Google is the "exclusive online mapping site" customer for GeoEye-1 data; it is not the exclusive customer for the imagery. Many other customers, including and especially the NGA, will be using GeoEye-1 data. Also, the Google logo was on the launch vehicle, not the spacecraft, and Google did not pay for the placement.

This Reuters item released a few hours ago covers those ownership/exclusivity matters, and is a helpful read. Here's a press release from GeoEye about the launch, also released this afternoon.

And in related news, Google is evidently planning offshore data barges, to avoid property taxes and keep hard-workin' servers cool with the power of the ocean. (via Tim O'Reilly/Twitter)

Angry Tyra Banks Godzilla, Angry Tyra Banks Chipmunk.

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:11:15 -0500

I can't quite put into words why these two YouTube videos of a high-drama moment with Tyra Banks are so fun to watch over and over and over again. Maybe you can figure it out. Top: slow-mo rage-out. Bottom: Chipmunk version of same. Serving suggestion: watch them both at the same time and flip out. (via clayton cubitt)

NYT on "ambient awareness," ethereal intimacy, and internet ESP

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:58:21 -0500

I'm reading and re-reading a NYT Magazine piece that explores ambient telepresence, as made mundane by Twitter, Facebook, AIM, and the like. The writer, Clive Thompson, has riffed on this before in Wired. In both, he really nails a number of things I've been struggling to put into words for years. It's a terrific read.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life.
“It’s like I can distantly read everyone’s mind,” Haley went on to say. “I love that. I feel like I’m getting to something raw about my friends. It’s like I’ve got this heads-up display for them.” It can also lead to more real-life contact, because when one member of Haley’s group decides to go out to a bar or see a band and Twitters about his plans, the others see it, and some decide to drop by — ad hoc, self-organizing socializing. And when they do socialize face to face, it feels oddly as if they’ve never actually been apart. They don’t need to ask, “So, what have you been up to?” because they already know. Instead, they’ll begin discussing something that one of the friends Twittered that afternoon, as if picking up a conversation in the middle.

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy (NYT)

Mad Magazine on Sarah Palin

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:13:42 -0500

Mad Magazine has leaked its satirical Sarah Palin spread to the HuffPo -- a good 'un, too. Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin Edition

Retro double kitchen-timer

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:28:25 -0500

The Twice as Nice Double Timer is a great-looking and practical little gizmo:

Now, were you supposed to boil the pasta for 10 minutes and simmer the sauce for 30? Or was it the other way around? Keep track of all the dishes in your kitchen with this handy timer that lets you time two dishes at once. With a wonderful retro look, these standing timers can be set for up to 55 minutes. Available in mint or red.

Twice As Nice (via Cribcandy)

More copyright for European sound recordings will net performers a whopping $0.50/year

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:18:55 -0500

Glyn sez, "In response to a consultation on the European Commission's proposal to almost double the term of copyright protection on sound recordings, the Open Rights Group have responded that for the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as "much" as €26.79 each year. That's because most of the gains (89.5%) will go to the top 20% of recording artists. Meanwhile the major labels will be dividing up millions in extra handouts every year."

Our submission shows that for the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as “much” as €26.79 each year. That’s because most of the gains (89.5%) will go to the top 20% of recording artists. Meanwhile the major labels will be dividing up millions in extra handouts every year.
What’s more, performing artists will make no extra revenue from radio airplay and other income streams arising from so-called “secondary remuneration rights”, and may even make less. The Commission assumes that fees paid by users of recordings, e.g. broadcasters, will remain constant. That means the amount of earnings available to performers will not be any bigger - it will just be sliced more thinly and distributed longer to more rightsholders. Performers will not earn any more over their life time, and are likely to earn less, as money will be transferred from the living to the estates of the dead.

Performers likely to get as little as 50¢ a year from increased term of copyright (Thanks, Glyn!)

HOWTO Make Tetris brownies

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:13:12 -0500

Fraske Design's got a great, simple tutorial for making your own Tetris brownies for hours of fun and pounds of flab:

Since I made these brownies thinner than normal, I also cut down the baking time. The baking process would have normally taken around 30 minutes, but this batch only took 10. I just kept an eye on the pan and took it out when it looked about right. The trick is to not let them bake too long.
Next, while the brownies were cooling, I mixed up my tetris color frostings into seven separate bowls. It turns out that Tetris colors have varied over the years, so I settled on matching the colors to the tetrads in the Free Tetris game online. My colors included yellow, orange, red, magenta, cyan, blue, and green. I achieved these colors mixing white vanilla frosting and food coloring accordingly.

How to Make Tetris Brownies (or Tetris Cookies) (via Craft)

Today on TokyoMango

Lisa Katayama — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:58:09 -0500

Today on TokyoMango, I wrote about a newly found stack of Occupation-era letters written by an American woman in 1940s Japan; a robot that will help you find cool t-shirts at Uniqlo; and a guitarist from a famous heavy metal band who now lives in Japan. I also celebrated my blog's two-year anniversary and revisited some of my first blog posts ever.

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Update on CIA drug plane owned by “Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc”

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:18:45 -0500

Here's an update on the strange story of the Gulfstream II jet filled with 3.7 tons of cocaine that crashed in the Yucatan last year. The Mexico City newspaper El Universal reports that European Parliament was investigating the circumstances surrounding the plane, which had previously been used by the CIA for "extraordinary rendition" flights.

The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects." It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.

Last October, the Austin American Statesman reported the plane had previously flown to Guantanamo Bay.

Here's a Chicago Public Radio story from October 31, 2007 about the crashed CIA drug plane.

The crashed drug plane also has been linked to a Bush fundraiser.

Mad Cow Morning news has been covering stories about the CIA and drug smuggling. The plane was owned by Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc.

Mad Cow visited Donna Blue's offices and took photos of what appears to be a sham company. Here's a photo of some unmarked police cars parked in front Donna Blue Aircraft's empty suite:

Drug plane used for US rendition flights

Is this a video of the plane? (from this German website)

SF artist makes a temple to science

Lisa Katayama — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:36:12 -0500

Do you feel like biology and physics have done more for you than Allah or Jesus? Observing that "the essence of religion is stained glass and song," San Francisco-based artist Jonathon Keats is transforming a two-story Berkeley building into a makeshift temple for people who worship science called the Atheon.

Instead of telling the story of baby Jesus, the Atheon's stained glass windows will show cosmic microwave background radiation made from NASA satellite data. And since the interior of the building is still under construction, templer-goers will have to either pray from the sidewalk or in front of a glowing web site from their computers at home. Keats even made a song of worship; he collaborated with Virginia astronomer Mark Whittle to come up with a canon of sounds from three hypothetical universes called Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? They won't be playing it live at the temple, but you can listen to it on your cell phone by calling a special phone number. Church service starts on September 27.

Simplified spelling lesson from former president of the American Literacy Council

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:54:14 -0500

Ed Rondthaler, age 102, gives a very cool lesson about how odd the written English language is. Andy Cruz of House Industries says:

We had the privilege to spend a day filming Ed Rondthaler, the founder of Photo-Lettering, Inc., former president of the American Literacy Council and author of The Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling. Another living legend, writer/director Erich Weiss, is in the process of editing down all of the film we shot. Click here for the “trailer” he put together for us.

Ed Rondthaler

Mr. Bus' bus buzzer collection

Lisa Katayama — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:53:32 -0500

In Japan, when you want to get off a bus, you press a little button with the words "will stop next" on it. The button lights up, a beep goes off, and a robotic woman's voice says: "We will stop next." Mr. Bus is a quirky guy who dedicates all his free time to collecting these bus buzzers. He started 25 years ago and now has over 200 different ones, some of which he has wired into this giant billboard so he can light them up. He finds them at bus depots and by scavenging through discarded vehicles at dumpsters.

"It's a very Japanese thing, the polite exchange between passenger saying 'I pushed it' and the bus buzzer saying 'I have received your request,'" he says. "It's such a thoughtful invention."

Mr. Bus' web site (via The Almanac of Weird Hobbies)

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Kevin Kelly on the history of Wired

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:31:29 -0500

Wired magazine went around to interview the founders of Wired. Here's Kevin Kelly talking about Wired and HotWired. (In this video, you can see the back of my head at 1:32. Boing Boing manager John Battelle is in the blue t-shirt across from me.)

To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Wired sent a film crew around to some of its former co-founders so we could reminence on tape. They came to my studio this spring and I talked about why the magazine was started and why I still read it and write for it. They edited the footage as a commercial for their ad sales efforts. I just noticed it was up on YouTube. (Louis Rossetto's is here.) Naturally they cut out the interesting stuff, but I did enjoy the little fragments and glimpses of the early Wired days.

History of Wired

Blab! art show in Los Angeles, Sept. 6, 2008

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:16:36 -0500

(Click image for full size)

The preview images for the new Blab! show at Copro-Nason in Los Angeles are up. I'm fascinated by Ryan Heshka's work (he has 19 pieces in the show, including the one shown here), which borrows themes from old science fiction pulps and takes them in new direction. Link

Baby Tattooville artist and collectors retreat, Oct. 3-5, 2008

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:57:37 -0500

(click image for full size)

The publisher of Baby Tattoo art books is holding its second weekend retreat in Southern California with many of our favorite artists. I heard that the first one was tremendously fun.

The 2nd annual Baby Tattooville provides a unique opportunity for a small group of celebrated artists and enthusiastic collectors to spend time together in a relaxed yet creatively stimulating environment. Without the time constraints of a typical personal appearance, or the crowd control issues of a standing-room-only event, artists and collectors will have a weekend-long opportunity to discuss and explore their mutual interests.
Original work will be created and celebrated around-the-clock. No one will leave empty handed. Only 18 out of 50 event packages are still available, and they are selling fast. The event takes place October 3-5, 2008 at Southern California's architectural masterpiece The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. This year's Featured Artists are Ana Bagayan, Glenn Barr, Dave Cooper, Bob Dob, Joe Ledbetter, Brandi Milne, Daniel Peacock, Shag, Any Sol and Michael Whelan.

Baby Tattooville artist and collectors retreat, Oct. 3-5, 2008

You suck at Photoshop #16

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:46:12 -0500

Here's the latest episode of the funny (and educational!) You Suck at Photoshop. You Suck At Photoshop #16: Define Brush Preset

Serialization of The Deal, Chapter 14

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:27:54 -0500

My friend Joe Hutsko contacted with the intriguing offer to serialize his novel, The Deal, on Boing Boing. I jumped at the chance. I read The Deal when it first came out in 1999 and loved the thrilling story about a Apple-like company's undertaking to create an iPhone-like device.

Here's a link to Chapter 14 as a PDF or a text file. (Here's chapter 1 and an introduction to the book, and here are the previous chapters)

To buy a paperback copy of the book, visit JOEyGADGET or purchase directly from Amazon.

Ruby was Angry: A Short Story

Lisa Katayama — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:09:00 -0500

I'm working on a series of short fiction stories/vignettes that explore real human issues through my dog Ruby, which I'm hoping will be fodder for my next book. I thought I'd share one with you guys before my two weeks as a Boinger are over. I actually wrote this one at San Francisco airport while waiting for a plane to Tokyo—Ruby was really barking like a maniac at a sleeping guy, and my imagination took it from there. Here goes:

Ruby Was Angry
Ruby was angry. She didn’t really understand why—but as she stared at the man sprawled out on the floor of the airport, next to the sign for Gate 82 United Flight 899 to Tokyo’s Narita Airport, she began to realize just how angry she really was.
It quickly became clear to her that this anger was not a temporary function of seeing the sleeping man, but the delayed manifestation of a much more profound and long-existing anger that she had kept buried deep in her soul for a very long time. It was hard to say how long exactly. Her eyes narrowed and she bore her teeth like a rabid pit bull about to take a plunge. The fearsome expression on her face looked oddly out of place paired with her pink braided necklace and silver heart-shaped pendant with “RUBY KEILANA” printed daintily on its curve. Her reddish-brown hair stood on its ends like a cat sprayed with water.
Then a strange thing happened. Random memories started to flash across her brain like a picture slide show on a computer screen. There was Dangercat, glaring down at her as she frolicked in his garden, daring her to come back up the stairs into his house, hissing under his breath, claws gleaming in the sunlight; her mom, picking up all her strategically positioned toys from around the house and throwing them ruthlessly in a trash bag; her friend Xica, her big black body pouncing mercilessly at Ruby as Ruby hid under the table, praying not to be crushed under Xica’s weight; the tall white man who called her a rat as she walked by him on Stanyan Street last week; all her so-called friends who once pretended to love her so much and then one day disappeared without a trace.
Throughout all this, Ruby had kept up her positive attitude, her sweet demeanor, and her unconditional forgiveness. But this time she had had enough!

So she barked and growled and barked and growled until she had the attention of everyone in the departure lobby. The waiting passengers, the flight attendants, the pilot of Flight 899, the cleaning man, the pretty young woman driving a cart-full of elderly people—everyone turned around to see what the ruckus was all about.
“I’m angry!” said Ruby. “My name is Ruby Keilana, and I’m angry!”
An awkward silence followed. Then, an old man in a wheelchair spoke up. “Why are you angry Ruby?” he asked.
“I just AM!” yelled Ruby. “Because I just feel like it!”
All of a sudden, the sleeping man awoke. He rose from his nest on the floor next to Gate 82 and stared straight at Ruby. It gave Ruby a slight shudder. She wasn’t a confrontational girl by nature, and this sudden bout of anger had surprised her too. She didn’t know what to expect.
“I’m angry too.” The sleepy man said in a deep, manly voice.
“And why might you be angry?” The old man in the wheelchair asked the sleepy man.
The sleepy man shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just am.”
Then, another strange thing happened. Voices started to pipe up from all over the departure lounge. “I’m angry too!”
“I’m angry too!”
“My name is Tom Brown, and I am ANGRY!”
“Me too, but I don’t know why!”
“I’m furious!!”
The man in the wheelchair started to clap slowly. One by one, the people around him joined in until there was a steady beat permeating the room, accompanied by a cacophony of voices expressing their inexplicable anger. By the time everyone at Gate 82 had proclaimed their anger, Gates 81 and 83 had joined in…then Gates 80 and 84…and so forth until all the gates in the terminal were thundering with anger.
Believe it or not, this chant went on for a full twenty minutes. There was a lot of anger in the room, and it all had to be expressed. There was such a great communal release that you could see swirls of emotion hovering in the air—reds, blues, greens, all kinds of colors for all the different kinds of anger people were holding in—and as Ruby stared in awe at this amazing phenomenon, the colors swirled together into one huge black cloud that hovered over everyone’s heads.
Then, when an angry airport security guard kicked down the emergency door next to Gate 75B, the cloud saw its chance to escape and flew out the door. The chanting stopped, and the darkness that had overcome the room disappeared. All was silent. Outside, it started to rain. The sky darkened, and thunder clapped.
“I’m not angry anymore,” said Ruby.

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)