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OTD in 2015—PFO head’s remark hints at new attitude to tourism promotion

July 3, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

2015 Budget

 

In an interview yesterday with reporter Alfonsina Cavalletta of the Serangga Star Adviser, the head of the Park Finance Office (PFO) said she believed that tourism is “organic” and may not require much help from officials.

In response to a question about the promotion of tourism in The Park, Valentina Abeja said she believed that “tourism is an organic force and it builds on itself and from itself.”

Later in the interview, Abeja, who took office in February of this year, expanded on her views regarding tourism and its importance to The Park.

“I’ve listened to many of our shopkeepers over the past few months and they say they believe strongly that tourism is irrelevant to their bottom line. In some cases, I must say that I agree with them. In other cases, I think we could improve on our past ventures. I think we need to promote ourselves to a different kind of Human, as well as to domestic Animals. I think we missed the mark there. Perhaps if we bypass the Humans altogether and go directly to their Animal companions, we will attract a more profitable tourist. As it stands, however, our attempts have not yielded significant gains. I believe we need to revisit this area entirely,” she said.

Abeja will present the 2016 Park Budget in August.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy and Business, On This Day, Park Life, Politics/Law/Crime, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture Tagged With: 2015 budget, tourism promotion

OTD in 2014—It Could Happen to You: Park Museum exhibits tools of enforced domestication

June 29, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Museum display

Park Museum exhibits some of the  tools of enforced domestication

Review: “It Could Happen to You” at the Park Museum June 1-30, 2014

Balls, biscuits, bones. Bowls, boxes, beds. Collars, cages, leashes, toys. The list goes on. And they are all on display until midnight tomorrow at The Park Museum’s month-long exhibit marking Enforced Domestication Awareness Month.

Entitled, “It Could Happen to You,” the exhibit is the first of its kind in The Park and the first ever hosted at The Park Museum.

“We felt it was too important an event to wait for the museum’s completion,” says Sukuta Rhinoceros, as she guides me through the display cases. “We didn’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight this issue.”

One of the museum’s founders and a member of its Board of Governors, Rhinoceros spearheaded the campaign to open part of the main building’s ground floor wing for the exhibit. But come July, the construction workers will be back and if all goes well, the museum will officially open at the end of the year.

We stroll through the space together and as she details the provenance of many of the artefacts, it becomes clear that this is a deeply personal issue for Rhinoceros.

“Enforced domestication isn’t only a problem for small Animals,” she tells me later. “We were overwhelmed after we put out a call for personal items [of domestication] and I wasn’t surprised to find that the majority came from our Canine, Feline, Avian, Piscine, and Reptilian communities. But when some of our other citizens offered traps, harnesses, saddles and the like, our curator said we should put them at the front of the exhibit, so that attendees could see right away that no Animal is out of the sight line of the domesticator.”

The issue of domestication, of course, is much bigger than any museum exhibit can communicate. But “It Could Happen to You” is at its most poignant and effective when it deals with the tools that are used to entice Animals to give up their independence. The sadness and the pain lie in understanding the attraction of those tools. So many of our compatriots have suffered extreme difficulty and it is not hard to imagine succumbing to the promise of a nice meal, a warm bed, and some physical comfort.

If this exhibit accomplishes anything, let that be to remind us that we are responsible for each other and that we must work diligently to make it impossible for our fellow citizens to be tempted away from their lives in The Park.

“It Could Happen to You.”
The Park Museum
June 1-30, 2014 (10:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m daily.; until 11:59 p.m. on June 30)

Filed Under: Breaking News, Education, Enforced Domestication Awareness Month (EDAM), On This Day, Park Life, Politics/Law/Crime, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture

OTD in 2013—New “Beats of Burden”music fest will aid Park refugees

June 22, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

What a difference a letter makes!

Despite having decided months before that their comeback would include an annual charity concert in aid of The Park’s refugees, the Beasts of Burden found themselves putting off an official announcement. Stopped dead in their tracks by their inability to find an appropriate name for the event, they even considered shelving the project, worthy though they thought it was.

“I understood the problem, but I couldn’t help. They didn’t just want to put their name on it and call it ‘The Annual Beasts of Burden Charity Concert.’ They wanted the name to have more meaning than that,” said the band’s manager, Ignatius Herder.

“So, we had a meeting at The Draft (the band’s pub) to strategize. Alfredo (Ox, the band’s lead singer) started filling out some forms that we needed and then Haimo (Maultier) noticed he’d left a letter out of the word ‘Beasts,’ so it read, ‘Beats of Burden.’ We all laughed, then we looked at each other and we knew we were all thinking the same thing.”

And that is how the annual “Beats of Burden” Music Festival was born.

“It was pure genius and one hundred per cent serendipitous,” laughs Ox. “If I’d been more careful, we’d still be sitting there planning, instead of announcing the biggest charity music festival ever in The Park.”

With almost every Park band and singer signed on to the event, the new festival promises to be something truly out of the ordinary.

“A concert can only do so much, but a festival, with all sorts of different music and events and other things tied in…we can really make a difference to the lives of The Park’s refugees,” says an excited Ox.

The festival, which is scheduled to begin at sunrise on September 14 will go on for three days, with the music expected to last late into each night.

“The way I see it, they’re [the audience] going to have to ask us to go home. We’re not going to want to stop playing. Nobody is,” says Maultier.

Just the facts

What:    The Beats of Burden Music Festival
When:   Every year from now on; September 14-16 inclusive, sunrise to whenever
Where:  At venues across The Park; expect more details in the coming weeks
Why:     To raise funds in aid of The Park’s refugees
Who:     Almost all Park bands and singers; expect some “surprises” as well

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, Park Life, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture

OTD in 2015—Lottery will decide who gets tickets to Barkettes’ free Memorial Pond concert

June 20, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Barkettes #4 ticket
Tickets to Thisbe and the Barkettes ‘ free concert at the Tartan Crab Memorial Pond will be assigned by lottery, it was announced today.

In a joint statement released this morning, the promoter, Iglu Entertainment, and the group’s manager, Hilde Blaft, said the decision to hold a lottery for the tickets rather than sell them on a first-come, first-served basis was made “to add a degree of fairness to the process.”

“The event will be a very emotional one for us in The Park and we felt that adding a rush for tickets would make it even more emotional for those who wish to attend. As a result, we have taken the decision to hold a lottery for the tickets, which are free of charge,” the statement said.

In addition, the statement confirmed that no tickets will be held back for Archons or Park celebrities and that only a few tickets will be held for the Tartan Crab’s immediate family. That decision was made at the request of the Barkettes, the statement said.

The group will be wrapping up The Park’s portion of their Bring Your Own Bone tour in August, with one final concert at the Ancient, Open-Air Theatre. The date for that concert will be announced next week.

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, Park Life, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture, Thisbe and the Barkettes Tagged With: Barkettes, concerts, tartan crab

OTD in 2013—Fish make big splash at Chitter Radio Literary Awards

June 17, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

The Park's Fish population made a big splash at this year's Chitter Radio Literary Awards

While it may be stretching it a bit to suggest that The Park’s Fish population might be in ascendance, it is safe to say that our aquatic kin made their presence felt at this year’s Chitter Radio Literary Awards.

For the first time since the awards were established eighteen years ago (as The Park Literary Awards), almost every category included at least one entry from our Piscine population.

The humour category overflowed with Fishy fun and foolishness, from the darkly humorous, “Roll Over and Stare” to the somewhat frothy “Flash Fish.” While neither netted first prize in the category (that honour went to “Trooping the Collar” by Clement Samuel Tervuren), their nomination served notice to both the judges and The Park’s readers that aquatic humour has evolved.

Indeed, in her book, “Brevity and the Wit of Sole,” which was nominated in both the humour and memoir categories, Evangeline Solea writes with poignancy about her early career in comedy and humour writing and her fight against the “Flatfish stereotypes.”

“Everywhere, the view was that Fish weren’t funny…particularly Flatfish. And, in the first few years of my career, I was baited constantly, but I refused to give up,” she writes in Chapter 3 of her book which she titled, “Swimming Against the Current.”

Solea’s book won in the memoir category and another Piscine author took home a prize, as well. For her critically-acclaimed work, “The View from Under the Plastic Palace,” Barbara Puntius Everetti was declared the Most Promising Newcomer.

Declan Wolfhound’s critically acclaimed “The Upward Curve” took the prize for best novel, while poet Gwendolyn Slang’s “Locomotion” won the poetry award and short story writer Tedesco Tuatara took home the prize for his twentieth collection, “The Long and Short of It.”

As expected, Tab Tricolore’s most recent volume, “The Feral Roots of our Festive Cuisine,” won in the non-fiction category. It was also no surprise that the award for the best political work went to Dante Reginald Kodiak’s controversial best seller, “If We Chain the World: How Fences Alter the Way We See Ourselves and Others.”

Veteran playwright Imogen Aardeekhoorn, author of the highly acclaimed “Mixed Nuts,” received the prize for her most recent work,”Truffles.” She was also honoured for her efforts on behalf of the Park Repertory Theatre.

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, Park Life, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture

OTD in 2016—”Diary of a Domestic Dog” favoured to win fiction prize at tomorrow’s awards

June 14, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Chitter Radio Literary Awards take place on June 15

Natalia Barboncina’s penetrating and intelligent account of life as a Domestic Canine is favoured to win at this year’s Chitter Radio Literary Awards.

The strange thing is, that award will be for fiction.

Originally published by Kynikos Press under the title, Another Day, the book has leapt off the shelves in recent months. And it’s found an enorormously diverse audience, made up of species that some say are the least likely ever to experience domesticity.

Indeed, the author herself has spoken of her astonishment at the number of readers of species other than Canine who’ve written letters to her, posted on her web site, and attended her pawprintings. Just last month at The Literary Apothecary, the lineup to meet Barboncina was made up of fifty-five different species, according to proprietor Wyuna Winkle.

“Something about that book resonates with all Animals, despite the fact that it’s about a particular species in a particular circumstance,” Winkle says.

Barboncina credits Noreen with bringing her to some of the insights that are expressed by the main character in her book. She says that while she was in the process of writing the book, she and The Mammalian Daily advice columnist had a “series of conversations” about Humans that “opened her mind to the emotional reality of Domestic Canine life.”

“When I started the book, I saw it all in the abstract. But, after talking to Noreen, I was able to put myself in the position of my main character and to actually feel and authentically describe what she experiences,” Barboncina says.

Indeed, “authentic” is a word that has been used in many of the reviews of the book. And it was that authenticity that drew domestication survivor and 2012 Chitter Radio Literary Award winner Hercule Parrot to the work and moved him to write a blurb for the retitled book’s cover.

“Natalia Barboncina writes with great depth of meaning and describes the full spectrum of emotions experienced by the domesticated Animal. This book is a true work of art,” Parrot wrote.

Barboncina and her fellow nominees will attend the Chitter Radio Literary Awards tomorrow at The Park Repertory Theatre.

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, Park Life, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture Tagged With: Chitter Radio Literary Awards, domestic canine life, Natalia Barboncina

OTD in 2012—New prize announced for merging artists

June 8, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Maple Tree Television has established a new prize that is to be awarded every Autumn to honour The Park’s best merging artists.

MTTV President, Tibor Jelen, made the announcement yesterday at the station’s annual stakeholders’ meeting.

Jelen said the station had experienced “an unprecedented increase in the number of viewers” over the past year and attributed the rise in numbers to the station’s change in focus from news to arts programming.

“We have become, primarily, an arts television station,” he said, “and, for that reason, we decided it was appropriate to reward those who have played a large part in our success.”

Jelen said MTTV chose to honour “merging artists” because some station executives felt that The Park’s collaborating artists were “under-exposed.”

“We thought this was a good way to bring them [merging artists] to the public’s attention,” he said.

Merging artists are artists who work in only one field of the arts and who collaborate with one or more other artists who work in another, distinct field.

The first MTTV Merging Artist prize will be awarded this Autumn. The exact date and location have yet to be determined, Jelen said.

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture

OTD in 2013—Stoat calls for more diversity in Park’s dance community

June 7, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

Park dance community lacks diversity

Choreograher Herman Stoat has called for more diversity in The Park’s dance community.

Acclaimed choreographer Herman Stoat is sounding the alarm about the lack of diversity in The Park’s professional dance community.

“We’re a pretty homogeneous group…mostly Mammals…and I don’t understand the reason for that,” he said at a gathering held to celebrate the debut of his new television show.

The Park’s premier choreographer says that, as the artistic director of his eponymous dance company, he has experienced first hand the difficulty in recruiting non-Mammalian species.

“We have auditions eight times a year and it’s such an effort to get them [non-Mammals] out. Several times a year, we advertise in papers like The Avian Messenger and The Ornis Interpreter. We know they have trained dancers; we know there are brilliant amateurs in many non-Mammalian communities…but we can’t seem to interest them in pursuing a professional career.”

To that end, Stoat says, he has initiated talks with members of The Park’s non-Mammalian communities to see if they are interested in partnering with his company to establish a school of dance.

“I see it as a feeder institution,” says Stoat. “We would be training the next generation of dancers, choreographers, and teachers…so that, in ten years, you might attend a performance of the Herman Stoat Dance Company and see Birds, Reptiles, Mammals, Insects…all dancing together. That is the dream that I would like to see become a reality.”

See also:

Herman Stoat named decade’s best choreographer
Reality TV series planned for Herman Stoat dance company

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture

OTD in 2016—Enforced Domestication Awareness Month 2016: Official Schedule of Events

June 1, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

June 2016 calendar with black cat silhouette

The Archons, in conjunction with the Department of Well-Being and Safety and the Department of Holidays, Festivals and Celebrations have released the official schedule for 2016’s Enforced Domestication Awareness Month (EDAM).

To access the Official Schedule, click here: EDAM OFFICIAL SCHEDULE 2016.

The schedule was released early this morning, accompanied by a press release in which all three groups emphasized the importance of the month. thanked all organizers and participants for their “tireless efforts on behalf of The Park’s citizenry”and wished all Park residents “joy, peace, and awareness.”

“The importance of this month cannot be understated. The knowledge that is imparted during EDAM can and will save thousands of lives and will allow those who have escaped enforced domestication to understand themselves and the world better and to lead peaceful and fulfilling lives,” the statement said.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy and Business, Enforced Domestication Awareness Month (EDAM), On This Day, Park Life, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture Tagged With: EDAM, Enforced Domestication Awareness Month, freedom, Park life, zoocracy

OTD in 2017—Hayberry drops diva demeanour, plans pre-gala meet and greet with fans

May 27, 2025 By Imko Oaljefanta, TMD Archivist

MillicentHayberry Renowned actress Millicent Hayberry will not be leaving the building early. In fact, she’ll be there well ahead of schedule.

In an open letter that was published media-wide today, the actress issued an invitation to her loyal fans to attend a meet and greet event with her at The Burrow Theatre on Friday, June 2—one day before the gala opening of her new play, Aracari.

Hayberry, who is best known for her portrayal of the late author Imogen Aardeekhoorn in both the stage and screen productions of Mixed Nuts, is not only the star of the second play of Gianfranco Colocolo’s three-part mystery series, but she is also its director.

Tickets for the gala opening were quickly snapped up after going on sale Monday and, according to Hayberry, she wanted to respond to the disappointment of many of her fans. After The Burrow Theatre gave its permission, she decided to host a pre-gala event to thank her “beloved fans” for their continuing loyalty.

It is a bold and somewhat dangerous move, and one that few actors would make.

“Had I been her director this time around, I would have forbidden it,” says Jean-Luc Briard, who directed Hayberry last year in Godwit, the first of the Colocolo mystery series.

“It’s too risky,” he said. “Too many things can go wrong. Actors need to keep themselves focused on the play and avoid all distractions.”

Nevertheless, Hayberry says she’ll be greeting fans at The Burrow Theatre from ten o’clock in the morning until “the last of my fans returns home.” No tickets are required, but be prepared for a long lineup.

Filed Under: Breaking News, On This Day, Park Life, The Arts, Entertainment, and Culture Tagged With: Aracari, meet and greet, Millicent Hayberry, The Burrow Theatre

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