The close of the Tiger Year and entry into the Rabbit Year has brought a tide of positive news. I hope I can be forgiven for all this self-tooting! (But, clearly, this is one of the main points of having a professional blog, in lieu of don’t-make-me-go-back-to-FB!)

YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Assoc.) puts out a list of 99 selections of books that they consider high quality literature and appealing to teens. <widecatgrin>

 Here’s the full list. There are other Canadian titles on this American list! Hurrah!

I wonder if Metal Rabbit’s augury has had an impact upon me. Japanese Canadian multi-media artist, Cindy Mochizuki, sent me this delightful short film to welcome the New Year. Sooo appreciated how she kept the rabbit “un-cute”, instead of opting for the typical rabbit convention of cuddly wuddly. 

Speaking of cuddly wuddly, all those Telus commercials are actually ruining animals for me. Their selective use of cute and/or “personable” animal creatures, many of them babies (so under the neotonous umbrella), is searing into my brain so strongly that when I see animals outside of the context of commercials, I actually frickin’ think of Telus. They are screwing up my preferred neural associative connections and I deeply resent it. When my contract with them comes up I’m switching to another server. A server that isn’t ruining my appreciation of animals.

Oddly, the same doesn’t seem to be happening for my mum (bless her heart!)…. She’s clipped the images of the animals out of the brochures, and put them on the fridge with magnets. Hahahahahahahaaa! I’m going to phone her and ask her what her secret weapon is.