The Savannah Giraffic Park Initiative

The initiative was founded by Psylvia Olivie Amore-Fouladi, curator of words and bliss. Their idea is to have giraffes (most likely three) wander around Forsyth Park in Savannah. The Giraffes would be encouraged to stay in the park by using one of those invisible, electric fences you use for dogs, except that it would be for giraffes. If you want to support their efforts, please leave a brief comment on the “ideas board” found here.

Milestones

April 14, 2021: Psylvia said they are very excited that the two SGPI entries on the ideas board have over 400 likes.

May 5, 2021: Due to overwhelming support for the idea of giraffes in Forsyth Park, Psylvia gave a brief presentation to the oversight committee in which they used felt-tipped pens to make drawings of three giraffes with collars for the electric fence and, while pointing to the drawings, said, “We could have something like these three giraffes, except the only thing is that they would be real animals and not just drawings.” The chair of the oversight committee hunched toward the microphone and said, “Would you be satisfied if we painted some giraffes on the walls of the Fragrant Garden?” Psylvia said nothing. A woman near the chair leaned over and whispered to him. He corrected himself. “Would y’all be satisfied?” To this, Psylvia said, “No," They later explained that they were trying to be quotable but concise. Though their friends agreed with them that the meeting seemed awfully inconclusive, everyone later had a wonderful time celebrating their courage and foresight with drinks at The Black Rabbit.

June 5, 2021: It has been a month since the celebration at The Black Rabbit. It turns out that politics can be tricky. Those of us who are supporting Psylvia Olivie Amore-Fouladi in their campaign for the establishment of the Savannah Giraffic Park Initiative are still in the game. It will happen, we hope. They have almost 500 supporters - easily one of the top ideas for how to use the $600K to improve the park. But there was a bit of a snafu today in the follow up meeting Psylvia had with the committee chair regarding future uses of pronouns and visual illustrations of ideas. In the end, Psylvia said that if 1) the committee did not recognize their pronoun with more immediate fluency, 2) felt-tip pen drawings were not respected as art in a more overt manner, and 3) the committee continued to refuse to incarnate the will of the people and just get the giraffes in the park, they would create an alternative Forsyth Park Commission dedicated to a movement called Hermenudism, which they refused to overtly define, but which apparently involves the interpretation of whatever they feel like interpreting, wearing or not wearing whatever they feel like wearing or not wearing. The chair of the committee, who had once read a philosophy book, asked, “Do you mean hermeneutics?” The woman who almost always sat next to the chair leaned over and whispered into his ear. The chair corrected himself. “Do y’all mean hermeneutics?” Psylvia said, “No. Hermenudism.” The others in the city council chambers looked on in silence. Psylvia then wiped their mouth and asked, “Are the bathrooms down the hall?” and walked out. No one is sure what happened after that. No one will be going to The Black Rabbit tonight to celebrate.

June 13, 2021: Psylvia acknowledged that on June 5 they had gone into the wrong meeting, which explained a lot of the confusion expressed by the chair of the meeting. That said, they greatly appreciate the outpouring of support for their initiation of Hermenudism as a moderately vague movement in which a variety of creative expressions are possible. They also regret to inform their supporters that the “her men” portion of “Hermenudism” strikes a dissonant chord, and might also risk gratuitous offense to people, such as Psylvia’s father, who are named Herman. For these reasons, they request that all energy diverted to the exploration of Hermenudism be redirected back to the Savannah Girrafic Park Initiative. Overall, they feel much closer to their goal, and Psylvia has reported that the entire project has unexpectedly yielded several new stories that will be included in their upcoming volume, Psavannah-Psylvia’s Psychedelic Tales for Toddlers. Psylvia will be reading two of these tales at the next ICO meeting (and in response to several inquiries, they affirmed that all ICO meetings will continue to occur at The Black Rabbit until Myrtle’s Crepes has been fully restored).

June 24, 2021: Psylvia wrote a note - brief, but written in impeccable calligraphy - stating that their gratitude for such tenacious and surprising support from so many people warmed their heart and renewed their hope. Will the final plan for Forsyth Park include giraffes? We can only wait and see. Meanwhile, Psylvia is working on replenishing the sold-out RnB shirts, jackets, and cups so that more people outside Savannah can, as they passionately hope, “help spread the words” before the 2022 event actually occurs. They also promise that, though they are avoiding direct advertisement of the event, they will include the usual codes and hints in the tentatively-titled Psavannah-Psylvia’s Psychedelic Tales for Toddlers. The 200ish people who have already figured it out and signed up are in agreement that the only thing that could make the event better would be if a celebration of giraffes wandering Forsyth Park could be included. But even without giraffes, as important as they are, Psylvia has said that the event promises to be a game-changer, not only for the literary community in Savannah, but also for the culinary community … Yes, Myrtle’s Crepes will be reopening on the first day of the event. Many good things are happening, and, according to Psylvia, many more good things are to come …

July 15, 2021: Friends, this will be hard. You have worked so diligently, and this news is heartbreaking … Forget the giraffes. That is straight from Psylvia. Their whole idea has been destroyed by an unimaginative and monstrous tiny-legged warthog - who will now be the newest character in their revised manuscript, Psavannah-Psylvia’s Psychedelic Tales for Toddlers. You cannot imagine the petty and cretinous lies that led to the destruction of a beautiful idea once they revealed that they knew the monster was a monster. More coming soon. Not here. In the other place. The time has nearly arrived.

August 1, 2021: Hi everyone. Thanks for the unbelievable number of e-messages and mailed notes. Y’all are amazing, and the 2022 “help spread the words …” event is on. All the money raised will be used for Myrtle’s Crepes and other great projects, even if SGPI will not work out this round. I am pretty sure the Bananas Baseball Arena will be the location of the event. I join the hundreds of people who found Psylvia’s SGPI idea beautiful. And funny, and interesting, and basically just good. Psylvia described the destroyer as a sad, bland, pancake person who probably could be lovable if they could ever stop merely serving themselves and destroying the good work of others. But Psylvia is safe. We have plenty of funds now to support them. Their writing is accelerating, and I tell you this: their editor is excited in a way I have never seen before. Anyway, I will occasionally post updates here for those who are not yet in the ICO. But most of the interesting stuff will be at the other site.

August 2, 2021: Astounding. You just never know. Last night Psylvia and the man who has been The Great Obstructor of the SGPI had a long conversation by Zoom. They found a point of agreement. During the difficult debate about how (and whether) to restructure Forsyth Park, one central question has been what to do with the confederate monuments. Last night Psylvia pitched an idea, a compromise that allows a giraffe presence of sorts, addresses the monument problem, and supports our local artists. All this good can belong to Savannah if we take this monument, and using whatever materials the artists deem appropriate, turn it into something resembling this. It may not be a living giraffe, but it is still an improvement … They both agreed on this, and together they will bring the idea to the committee. I will let you know what happens. In any case, Psylvia seems much happier today.

August 25, 2021: Apparently there is some progress on this idea of allowing SCAD artists to turn the monument into a giraffe. So far Psylvia and Clem (formally known as The Great Obstructor, who turned out to be little more than the front person for a malignant and unimaginative cretan) have only been able to get permission for a temporary transformation of the confederate monument into a giraffe, using paper-mâché and paint. But it’s a start. Citizens can have time to get used to the change. The amazing thing, however, is that the board is seriously considering having tiny-legged warthogs running around the paper-mâché giraffe since there is a fence surrounding the monument. What a great day for Psylvia and Clem. Let’s see what happens!

September 12, 2021: Well, it’s down to the wire. Psylvia wrote that Clem has a new apprenticeship in the rapidly-expanding field of glass-blowing, so he will have to step away from the SGPI. But they say that everything has already been decided anyway, basically, and not only have the giraffes not been approved, but even the tiny-legged warthogs, which did not get a single posting on the public idea board, is DOA. However, Psylvia wished to assure everyone that some good has still come from the SGPI. First, the 2022 “help spread the words …” event has sold far more tickets than they expected because of the city-wide publicity that came from news coverage about the SGPI. Second, Psylvia just received a four-book contract for a series of children’s books with — Yes! — the Tiny-Legged Warthog as the main character. Readers will be able to follow the malevolent adventures of the Tiny-Legged Warthog, who keeps trying to destroy the beautiful things Ms. Giraffe creates, but who fails in hilarious ways because of how unimaginative and dull tiny-legged warthogs tend to be. The books will be illustrated by Psylvia’s roommate, Winter Wiseblood. Obviously the books will be set in Savannah. So even though Forsyth Park will not, alas, have giraffes, and even though the fenced area around the confederate monument will not have actual tiny-legged warthogs for passers-by to behold, occasionally feeding them pieces of sticky-bun and whatnot, Psylvia and Winter can place giraffes and cretinous tiny-legged warthogs in the imaginations of children everywhere. They are very excited.

September 15, 2021: It was difficult to decipher the note Psylvia just dropped off in the mailbox, but it is easy to understand why their scrawl was nearly illegible: they were tremulous with excitement! Just a couple of days after learning about the contract for the Tiny-Legged Warthog children’s book series, Psylvia and Winter were offered a second contract for a Christmas series called Elf-Help Books. They are beside themselves with excitement (and a tad of trepidation). The first Elf-Help Book will showcase the ways Nervous-Elf overcomes fear and prevents the knavish and evil Ms. Titmouse from replacing Christmas with a new holiday called Alternativity. Can’t wait to find out how Nervous-Elf does it! The book is due to come out in late November. In Psylvia’s words, “Hurdy-gurdy, purty birdie! That’s right around the corner!” As usual, they will be doing their work in the back booth of the temporary location of Myrtle’s Crepes. They hope their fans will not think it’s rude if they ask folks to avoid their table while they are doing these projects. It’s just that they have a lot of work to do. But they are so grateful for everyone’s support, and so excited about everything that is happening.

October 2, 2021: Good news from Psylvia and Winter! They have successfully outlined the second book in the Elf-Help Books series. It will be a sequel to Alternativity. I don’t want to give too much away, but they said I could mention the general arc of the story. Basically, when the evil and knavish Ms. Titmouse begins to advertise her proposed replacement for Christmas, which she calls Alternativity, Nervous-Elf is told that Santa refuses to seek revenge against Ms. Titmouse, because that contradicts the very spirit of Christmas. Santa tells Nervous-Elf that good will triumph in the end. He encourages Nervous-Elf to focus on his toy-train-assembly skills and to work on the upper registry of his voice, since he will be needed as a contralto in the Christmas Carol Choir, and he cannot yet hit the needed high notes two octaves upward from the F below middle C. In any case, Nervous-Elf, despite his deep respect for Santa, decides to counter Ms. Titmouse’s evil and knavish plan by usurping Alternativity with his own alternative to Alternativity. He calls it Usurpmass. Psylvia and Winter are crafting a working list of songs Nervous-Elf will write as Usurpmass Carols, and they said they would be grateful for any suggestions from their fans about potential titles for songs. These can be sent to yumyum@myrtlescrepes.love. Join me in wishing Psylvia and Winter (as well as Nervous-Elf!) good fortune and great luck.

December 10, 2021: Psylvia and Winter asked that I update their fans. They continue to work on the Elf-Help Books and the Tiny-Legged Warthog children’s book series, and they are grateful for the hundreds of suggested titles from fans for Usuarpmass Carols (keep them coming!). Unfortunately, these projects will likely be delayed until 2022, in part because Psylvia has been asked to consider writing a memoir (the working title is Memoir of Me, Noir), and in part because the two SGPI suggestions on the official ideas board (go here and click on popular) have over 500 likes. Even though placement of the giraffes might not happen as part of the initial plan for Forsyth Park, they feel like it is still might be implemented in the slightly more-distant future, especially when they become famous with the publication of the children’s books and the memoir. Winter agrees. Meanwhile, feel free to say hello anytime you see them at Myrtle’s Crepes. Now that they don’t have a December 25 deadline, they have more time to hobnob with their beloved fans.

January 8, 2022: Psylvia and Winter asked me to let their fans know that they are printing out the many lovely emails sent over the Christmas holidays with yet more suggestions for Usurpmass Carols. They are grateful. They are also grateful to the 20 or 30 fans who suggested that Nervous Elf would gain more traction if his alternative to Alternativity was called “Usurpmas” with one “s” to parallel the spelling of “Christmas”. They are considering it. They said that if the total number of votes for the two SGPI suggestions related to the future of giraffes in Forsyth Park reaches 600, they will remove the extra “s” from Usurpmass, and they will use it to spiff up another word by making it plural, for example. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, they have hired a copy editor named John Nmn Smith, who will assist with all the Elf-Help Books as well as the Tiny-legged Warthog children’s book series. They met him when he was singing Beetle’s tunes at the weekly Saturday morning Forsyth Park farmer’s market. He goes by Nmn, which is pronounced “Nmn”. He told me that the name was bequeathed to him by his great grandfather who fell in love with a woman in India after she read a poem to him about a god named Nmn. This god watches over all the delicate flowers that sprout in the garbage dumps used by the great cities of India, ensuring that their transient beauty has at least one witness. I almost cried when he told me the story. His sister, Hulga, was with us at the time, and she said, “Actually, if you read his birth certificate you’ll see that ‘nmn’ just means ‘no middle name’. But John seems to think that his music career will be more successful if he goes by Nmn, the god of small flowers in garbage dumps. He’s probably right.” Nmn rolled his eyes, but he did not seem terribly disturbed by Hulga’s public refutation of his account. Psylvia and Winter both said that they would only call him Nmn, and that whenever they used his name, they would do so with a very intentional inward imaginative reference to the god of small flowers in garbage dumps, who, they both agreed, seems like a really lovely divinity. The final update from Psylvia and Winter is that they would like to invite all members of the ICO to join them at Myrtle’s Crepes where they will do a live recording of the first installment of their podcast called Trans-ponder, in which they will talk with guests from many backgrounds to more deeply understand what constitutes an identity. They are a bit scared since they have never done a podcast before, but they are also excited to add this to their portfolio of things that might sort of make a difference to someone eventually perhaps.

January 8, 2022: Update and Alert: 20 minutes ago, on behalf of Psylvia and Winter, I announced that if the combined number of likes for the two suggestions regarding the Savannah Giraffic Park Initiative went above 600, the extra “s” in Nervous Elf’s alternative to Ms. Titmouse’s Alternativity, namely Usurpmass, would be removed and transferred to another word whose ambition is to be plural. Well, it happened. Over 40 new likes put the number over 600. So the new name is now officially Usurpmas! Please join me in congratulating Nervous Elf, as well as Psylvia Olivie Amore-Fouladi, whose tenacious dedication to having giraffes in Forsyth Park has brought the city to this unexpected and exciting threshold. As our motto always encourages, help spread the words!

January 11, 2022: Everyone is trying to be calm at Myrtle’s Crepes, as though this day is like every other day. But Psylvia and Winter deserve a shout out: The suggestion on the Forsyth Park suggestion website regarding the integration of giraffes into the overall plan IS NOW THE NUMBER ONE SUGGESTION ON THE SITE. There, that will do for excess. If either Psylvia or Winter were capable of blushing, I am sure they would right now. Instead, they are both a slightly less pale shade of pale. But that is enough to say that they are quivering with excitement. Thank you to everyone. Tonight at 9 pm, free drinks (good ones, not dilute, tasteless ones) at Myrtle Crepes. And Lonny has said that he might even come over and eat a crepe or two with us to celebrate. Can’t wait … See you then!

April 1, 2022: This is no April Fool’s joke: Psylvia and Winter wanted me to let the group know that the combined likes for the proposal to have giraffes in Forsyth Park now totals more than 850. They are tremendously excited. Soon after they found out this news about the ongoing momentum for the giraffe proposal, they also found out that the positive response of critics to the Nervous Elf Series and the first two books in the Tiny-Legged Warthog series has led to a new offer. They will be creating five popup books that will document the adventures of El Gregorius, the Cowardly Walrus! They have promised that if the Savanah authorities can finalize a plan for having at least one giraffe in Forsyth Park by next summer, they will include the giraffe in the storyline as an extra tall popup character who will be the brilliant and insightful butler of El Gregorius, the Cowardly Walrus. Since they have promised to use the giraffe’s new name, please cast your vote for your favorite giraffe name on the other site. Again, join me in congratulating Psylvia and Winter for their creative successes and their political persistence!

March 5, 2023: It has been a while, but we are excited to give a shout-out to Psylvia Olivie Amore-Fouladi and her friend Winter for persisting with the Savannah Giraffic Park Initiative. Their two entries suggesting that giraffes be introduced to Forsyth Park as part of the improvement project are now in the first and second places, out of hundreds of suggestions. Click here and go to “popular” to see their success. Maybe now the leaders in Savannah will listen to them. Good luck Psylvia and Winter!

They do not use email, but you can contact Psylvia or Winter by sending a message to yumyum@myrtlescrepes.love or by using the Contact Somebody button below. Since every message has to be written out in longhand before Psylvia or Winter will read it, our administrative assistant will be very grateful if messages are as close as possible to being exactly as long as needed. Thank you.

Please return often for updates.