2014 SpinDizzy Mayoral Candidates’ Debate

The sole debate among the candidates for Mayor of SpinDizzy for 2014 was held Wednesday at 7 pm Pacific time in City Hall. Kefan, centaur, as host asked all the questions, though after the first three questions were provided by the audience. The candidates were, in alphabetical order: Chitter, a gray squirrel; Elandra, a wallaby-like creation; fluffy, a humanoid critter; Guy, a scarecrow; Jukka, a deer; Kandra, a foxlike ball of light; Morticon, a wallaby; NBC, a peacock; and Strain-113, a pack of rats.

To facilitiate reading of the candidate responses comments from the audience are omitted and only candidate answers are provided. Guy, being an inanimate object, had no statements to provide and so the motions it was put through are provided. NBC, being unable to speak but possessing the ability to provide audio and video clips, is similarly described by his actions. Strain-113 is a telepathic horde of rats and only its/their verbal answers are provided; most of its/their responses were preceded with apparent telepathic consultation amongst its mass and perhaps the probing of audience minds.

There were neither opening nor closing statements from the candidates provided. Jukka was late in arriving and had no chance to answer the first two questions.

[ Kefan’s questions. ] Q. We’ll start with a question that should help the voters gauge how you think of yourself. There are, of course, many great artists, such as Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Dr. Seuss. If you are elected mayor, who should paint your official portrait, and why?

Chitter : I don’t know. Oh, there’s a guy who does sketches at the amusement park, that’s fine. He’d probably draw me holding a giant peanut or something, but that’s fine.

Elandra: Well, I can’t quite get the original, but somebody in the style of Claude Monet. The art conveys more in that style, while focusing less on me.

fluffy: Who does the title cards for Adventure Time? I think those do a good job of conveying what I’m all about.

Guy: [ Sways on its ropes, head tilting naturally towards GreenKai, who assembled the scarecrow and is always carrying a CrayolaPad around. ]

Jukka: [ Was not yet present. ]

Kandra: Probably someone with a very nice, fluid, expressive, sketchy style.

Morticon: Why, I would divide the canvas into quarters, and commission each to paint a section. I cannot be easily represented in a single style. Just how one dimensional do you think I am?

NBC: [ Opens his train to present images. Colors swirl and coalesce into video which is eventually recognizable as the late Andy Warhol. ]

Strain-113: A hypothetical genetic chimera of Banksy and Maurits Cornelis Escher. Thus to Inaugurate, Instigate, and (most importantly) Tesselate.

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Q. A question submitted by a concerned feline: How do the candidates propose to secure supplies of balls of yarn for entertainment purposes?

Kandra: Balls of yarn! Hm! I would planes-jump until I found the ULTIMATE ball-of-yarn factory and offer to give the owners eternal life for it. You can do that pretty easily around here these days. OR, if that didn’t work, I’d find a good wizard and ask them if they could summon a truly prodigious amount of yarn. Enough to satisfy anybody and start a fire the size of Mount Everest!” chirp! Or I’d try to do it myself and possibly Doom Us All. You never know.

Elandra: Well, for me, that answer is easy enough. My campaign revolves around trying to bring more magic to the world, so that – magic – would be precisely the right tool for that job. Why just provide yarn, when we could provide yarn that just begs to be played with?

NBC: [ Tunes in a cartoon showing a sweet old lady working on her knitting while a cat plays with the ball of yarn. He nods. ]

Guy: [ Focuses its gaze, such as it is, on Valleyminks. There’s plentiful supply of material in the audience! You’d just need to spin it a little. ]

Chitter: What the heck kind of question is that? Tell Patchy he can find his own damn yarn. There’s my answer!

Morticon: Considering I have an army composed partly of tigers, I have extensive experiance in this topic, with regards to feline needs. I already have access to yarn suppliers throughout SpinDizzy. It would be trivial to set up yarn dispensing machines, of various sizes, some with embedded catnip. Even whole yarn playing rooms, where one could get tangled up with friends. Seyae would be standing by with scissors in case it ceases to be fun. Why, there would even be a Yarn Holiday.

fluffy: First, I’ll genetically-engineer some yarn trees. Next, I’ll clone the heck out of them. Finally, automated harvesting robots. Think of the possibilities! And nothing could ever possibly go wrong with any portion of this plan! [ She gets a little twitch in her eye that lasts for a few seconds, before she suddenly looks around, seeming a bit lost. ] Wait… what was the question?

Strain-113: The breeding and engineering of longer, thinner sheep, thus expediting the shear-to-yarn process. Failing this: knitting a single mobius strip scarf and creatively redefining the measurement process. Efficiency!

Jukka: [ Was not yet present. ]

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Q. If you could smoosh anyone in this room — a fellow candidate, a member of the audience, or your humble moderator — with a cream pie, who would it be?

Guy: [ Leans towards Zen. The mouse could do with some feeding up. ]

Strain-113: Us! Us!–But we would share upon request!

fluffy: That sounds like a waste of a perfectly good cream pie to me. I’d rather just serve it with dark-chocolate cookies and a nice dessert wine, ideally by a warm, crackling lava pit.

NBC: [ Puts his wing over his eyes, then gestures throwing wildly with one foot, and laughs. ]

Elandra: It seems a bit more fun to give the pie a mind of its own, and send it up in the air! Whom it hits, we’ll see – the fun’s in not knowing until it drops!

Morticon: That’s easy. It’d be Ka—– –[T]ash-Ki’ira. With a highly edible pie, of course, double-sized.

Chitter: Definitely Morticon, but only if I could be assured of nonreprisal.

Jukka: [ Arriving. ] Ah, yes. Well, cream pies are pretty dang tasty, and so I’d be tempted to smoosh myself with it, but they say that sharing is caring, so… I’d like to honor former Mayor of SpinDizzy, Jax E. Neurocyon, with an official smoosh of mayoral cream pie, to thank him for his hard work and his legacy as mayor. [ After some noise. ] And of course, Beltrami was well, for her hard work initiating the position. [ Another pause. ] Azure too. A mini cream-pie. My apologies for the oversight; it’s a very large room. Cream pies for all!

Kandra: I’d make it a charitable act. Lace the pie with Wheatley’s 99% Genuine Intelligence Serum and slip it to Morticon. Goodness knows he could use a few extra smarts and then I’d give more cream pies to EVERYONE. Everyone who was biologically compatible with cream pies, at least.

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[ Audience Questions. ] Q. Are there holidays you would like to celebrate better and/or differently, and how?

Morticon: I think Expanding Horizons Day is undercelebrated. That’s a day when you can go anywhere, be anything. Other worlds… other dimensions, other lives. And of course, all in fun. It should be a day of door opening.

Elandra: Expanding Horizons Day needs a proper ritual – perhaps opening a portal and doing several organized trips through it. By the same token, Love Day should be expanded into celebrating tolerating the ideas of others, and about overcoming differences in general.

Jukka: There’s a lot of holidays here for which I’m unaware of the rich traditions underlying them, so perhaps this is a place of learning for me. I’ve always been fond of Mecha Day and Horizontal Day, the latter of which I recently learned is a tribute to those who perhaps are more prostrate in stature, walking on four or more legs. Those are fun to celebrate. I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that we need a holiday honoring our hard-working and patriotic ungulate population, but I’d certainly entertain the notion should such a suggestion cross my desk as mayor.

NBC: [ Swirls his colors on his spread feathers and lets them form into an image of a calendar flipping through the entire year of pages. He sweeps his wings widely to encompass and frame it. Then brightens all his colors by a few shades. ]

Strain-113: Dangerous ambition: We would like to leverage additional surprises in events for approximately a third of the holidays, involving unorthodoxly structured or exploration RPs, similar to certain Christmas Tree plots down the years. Alloying tradition with the unexpected. Everything Day is an obvious candidate for annular variation! But Groovy Day has potential for psyche exploration as well! We would like to work with the Vice-Mayor to achieve this as cooperation is fun. Also… there is a strong electorate desire for… Pancake Tuesday.

Kandra: I really do think we should celebrate Hugging Day. And Expanding Horizons day, muchly! In a vastly disorganized fashion! I like the idea of making it easy for everyone to explore other realities, universes, and modes of existence. Perhaps a save and restore functionality could be implemented so that people could try something totally new and drastic and, if they didn’t like the way it turned out, zip back to the way they were before! Of course that might be technically difficult, but we ought to be good at technically difficult stuff with all these labs and things we have. Or maybe we could introduce planet-wide opt-in body-swapping capabilities… or something…

fluffy: I would love to celebrate whatever holidays anyone wants to bring to the table! Just earlier today, one constituent asked me if I would consider instituting a celebration of Dreams of Reason Feast Day on April 14. That seems like a good a place as any to start! I suppose it would begin with Axiomatic Pancakes in the morning and work its way up to Godel’s Incompleteness Pudding at the end. I’d also like to celebrate colors and patterns and have a day where everyone changes their coloration in some way. Also deer appreciation day.

Chitter: BunnyHugger was really sad that Morality Day was one of the ones that didn’t get celebrated last year. So I’d make sure it got observed this year so she would get it out of her system and hopefully feel less inclined to hit me with the Sternlooker the rest of the year.

Guy: [ Its arms sway sway gently forwards in a hugging motion, and are then thrown wide apart as someone’s foot catches one of the ropes holding it. It’s not clear whether this means that Hugging Day should be followed by Backhand Day, or whether it’s just excited about the concept of hugging and thinks everyone should participate. Hopefully not while it’s on fire. ]

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Q. Where should we steer this flat little speck to next?

Guy: [ Is pointed in a twirling motion and all directions as the result of Hand’s manipulation. ]

Morticon: That’s easy! It is a spaceship! I think using the many telescopes we have here, and looking for the most unusual and/or fun planet nearby we can find is in order. Then, we coast over to it and go from there.

Chitter: Last time we landed, we picked a new destination for our next refueling and as far as I know we’re still headed for it. There’s no reason to mess with that. I sure don’t intend to start grabbing the controls.

Jukka: It would be my pleasure! I trust the abilities of those who pilot this planetoid, if any do, and trust the navigators to keep us from harm’s way! But if they wanted mayoral advice, I’m certain we could set our sights on a strange and fascinating place that would be well-worth exploring. And when we get there, I pledge to you as mayor of SpinDizzy that I will be ready with a pair of giant novelty scissors and a great big ribbon to cut, to inaugurate our presence in this new world.

Strain-113: We did not know there was much beyond the Home Place until recently. But it is good to meet new Things! So we should find a world with many Things and place ourselves between them and their star, providing shade and unprecedented tidal recreation! When it is night here, we may look up and wave hello. Alternative, time permitting: second star to the right, and straight on till morning.

Kandra: Personally, I don’t see why we have to restrict ourselves to planets. Lousy things! They’re round, they have air, we get it, it’s been done a thousand times! We should visit a gigantic organic tangle of roots and limbs stretching across the light-years! Or a megajunkyard sculpted into a massive sphere with an artificial microsun suspended in the center! Or a really, really HUGE ball of … y’know, that stuff ocean’s made out of! Inhabited by aquatic sapients and innovative low-mineral ecosystems.

NBC: [ His collar gem flashes brightly and emits a voice. It says “-to seek out new life and new civilizations.” He snaps his head in a bobbing nod and waves his wing expansively. ]

Elandra: I’m not sure I should have bashed planets so badly. There’s nothing WRONG with them, they can be lovely! They can also just get… samey, especially from high up. Properly shielded, I’d like to see us steer through some of the wonderful things out there – perhaps through a nebula, or near a glorious ring-system around a brightly-hued a planet that could fill our skies for a month or more. There is too much out there to see to not wander off the path. We shouldn’t just consider where we land, but what we can see on the way.

fluffy: We should see about landing our spaceship on SpinDizzy! Think of all the crazy recursive adventures we’d have! Or, failing that, I’d love to visit my Earth, and the many homes of the other residents who come from Earths, Grounds, Dirts, and other suchly-named worlds.

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Q. If you were to create and star in a children’s education television show, what would it be like?

fluffy: suppose that I’d love to be on a science show where I can demonstrate interesting principles of SCIENCE!!! to people. Both mad and otherwise. And there can be fun plots and stories where SCIENCE!!! can be used to save the day! Like the ravenous monster is destroying the city, so let’s splice a lizard and a moth and use a growth ray to fight back against the monster! Again, nothing will go wrong with this plan.

Guy: [ Is inactive while GreenKai races up and shoves onto it her CrayolaPad showing an episode of Worzel Gummidge. ]

NBC: [ Spreads his fan and in cheerful contrasting colors prints the letters of the alphabet across the feathers one by one while playing the Alphabet Song on a chiming xylophone. He waves his foot side to side to conduct everyone in song. ]

Strain-113: There is no need to disseminate education via archaic modalities of transmission! We could instead visit each Progeny Thing directly and broadcast education directly into them. Taking care of a part of the mayor will also teach responsibility to the Progeny Things.

Morticon: Considering wallabies are much loved, the children’s show would star me, and my group of friendly tigers and foxes, my companion, and all my friends and associates. Together, we would educate children on the wonders of the world, on having fun, and some mischevious stuff as well, like how to set up a parent trap. We would almost certainly be embedded in the psyche of the children, and when we return many years later, they would remember, love us, and vote me into office where all those dreams would become reality, forever and ever. We would also try and overrun competing children’s TV shows via crossover plots.

Chitter: My show: cancelled, quickly.

Jukka: I do not think it would be a good idea for me to star in a children’s show. I might say a cuss accidentally. But I’d like to have a show about maths. One of my favorite educational programs as a fawn was about maths and I think sharing the love and wonder of maths is awesome. Maybe get a more kid-friendly hoofer to star in it, though. Thank you.

Elandra: I’d like to do a show that makes alchemy something that little kits can get their claws around. We could teach them to let their stuffed animals sing, or let them make hide and seek more interesting with an invisibility elixir.

Kandra: I would deputise Azure and tell him to do whatever he was excited and fascinated about. If he didn’t mind. That, or I might do something on magic… since I am studying it… but, well, eh. I don’t care much for the images that come to mind when I think of children’s educational shows, they sound like they have the possibility of being horribly condescending practically built into them. … I admit that I haven’t watched much television.

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There were no further questions, owing to the lateness of the hour.