A Respite from the Doldrums
events in LA and NYC + zine and plant offerings galore
Greetings reader,
It is enchanted to encounter you once again at these digital crossroads.
As we enter the doldrums of the summer, we have a few fun things lined up in both New York and Los Angeles and some other goings-on that we wanted to tell you about.
We are back and fully recovered from our travels East and come bearing invitations, speculations, and news at this tail end of a full quarter millennium of American imperial folly.
More on all this below, if you wish…
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPDATES
Join us next week in Los Angeles at the CS Studio/Greenhouse for a bat-centric evening with conservation ecologist Iroro Tanshi.
The 2026 season continues in New York with the next ‘HORT/CULTURE’ happening featuring the Gotham Coyote Project, artist Lady Pink, and photographer/filmmaker Henry Chalfant. Tickets are available now!
We’re excited to be joined by the fine folks at the Interspecies Library for a series of pop-up installations at the remainder of our NYC events this summer.
With the doldrums of summer comes the Doldrums of Summer Sale on Saturday July 25th in the CS Studio/Greenhouse parking lot. You know the drill…
IRORO TANSHI IN LA JULY 16
It is our great pleasure to welcome conservation ecologist Dr. Iroro Tanshi to the studio for an evening dedicated to the only flying mammal here on planet Earth, the beautiful yet bewildering bat.
Dr. Tanshi is one of this year’s recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, colloquially known as the “Green Nobel Prize”, for her indefatigable work with endangered West African bat populations and their ever-shrinking habitats. Among her numerous other accolades, she is also the co-founder of the Small Mammal Conservation Organization where she serves as co-executive director alongside her husband Dr. Benneth Obitte.
Their work at SMACON seeks to protect the less-sexy and often overlooked small-to-medium sized mammals at risk of extinction – bats, rodents, pangolins, et. al. – from the increasing anthropogenic threats of habitat destruction and bushmeat hunting.
If you’ve been to our events in Los Angeles before, you’ll know that space is somewhat limited in our humble studio, so be sure to get your tickets ASAP.
We are asking for a suggested donation of $20, but please pay what you are able – no one will be turned away for lack of funds. And if you are not able to make it but would like to contribute in some way, please consider supporting Dr. Tanshi’s work directly with a donation to SMACON.
The bats, rodents, and pangolins, etc. thank you.
TERRITORY: GOTHAM COYOTE PROJECT + LADY PINK IN NYC JULY 20
It is somehow already July in this, the strange annum of 2026, which means we’ll be returning to New York soon for this month’s installment of our east coast ‘HORT/CULTURE’ series. This time around we’ve organized a celebration of sorts for some of the OG residents of our wonderful host city with the help of the Gotham Coyote Project and artist Sandra “Lady Pink” Fabara. Tickets for the evening are available now!
Please note that this event was originally scheduled for July 15th but has been moved to Monday, July 20th due to scheduling conflicts. That said, if you’ve already purchased a ticket and can no longer attend due to this date change, please request a refund and we’ll be sure to get you sorted!
Also, we are continuing to offer a tier of pay-what-you-will tickets for this and all other events this season. If you can afford to give more than the General Admission price, that is both wonderful and very much appreciated, and if you can’t, pay whatever is comfortable for you. Again, no one will be turned away for lack of funds!
One additional note: the event is scheduled from 7PM - 10PM. This means doors open at 7PM and we typically start with the presentations at/around 8PM. Do with this information what you will with but please, any eye-rolling or foot-tapping at 7:30PM can no longer be attributed to a miscommunication of the schedule!
We’re trying our best here!
With the plight of small-to-medium mammals on the mind, we were curious about exploring the very primal concept of territory. Who owns what and by what means? Who belongs where and why? Who knows?
The histories of both New York and Los Angeles, our home bases, are a rich tapestry of territorial squabbling, both intra- and inter-species. Whether it’s the overacted human drama of ye olde Five Points or the NIMBY feather ruffling of Fifth Avenue, space is a hard fought and hard won asset in the Big Apple and the same goes for the City of Angels, devilish as it may be.
Following the Knickerbocker’s incredible finals run and the celebratory outpourings across all of Gotham (including the most obnoxious New-York-or-Nowhere chest thumping of finance bros barely three months into their first $4,000/mo LES 1BR) we’re honored to be joined for the evening by a handful of individuals representing seminal eras of New York City’s storied past.
Everybody wants to be Somebody in the Big City and the various territorial pissings used to stake out a private piece of this baffling hellscape – whether it’s with scat or spray paint – is an integral part of being a New Yorker.
The Gotham Coyote Project is a community organization dedicated to studying one of the city’s newer mammalian residents, the eastern coyote a.k.a the northeastern coyote, coywolf, or the southern tweed wolf, depending on who you’re asking. These canines are a genetic grab bag that mixes a bit of wolf, a touch of coyote, and a Salt-Bae sprinkling of domesticated dog to create the elusive omnivore that has been spreading its paws throughout the boroughs.
Although the eastern wolf was once widespread throughout the eastern United States prior to European conquest and the species’ subsequent near-eradication from much of the region, it’s distant coyote relative is somewhat of a newcomer to the neighborhood. Migrating east from the wind-swept plains of the American Midwest in the 1930’s, coyotes are fresh faces in the city itself (it’s pronounced House-ton) with the first recognized sighting coming in 1995 near the Van Cortlandt Parkway in the Bronx.
So while not technically NYC OG’s per se, they have deep New York roots and did at least see the Towers fall, Wall Street implode, Sandy flood and blackout the city, and then COVID empty it, unlike Brant, this summer’s intern at Citadel.
In recent years, they’ve even achieved a certain celebrity status, the odd mammal among an inspiring cast of mostly avian non-humans that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in the concrete jungle: Pale Male, Flaco, Barry, et. al. May they rest in peace.
Modern graffiti, too, first entered New York via the Bronx, this time by way of Philadelphia, another well-tread artistic pathway to the big time in the Big Apple. Though the underlying urge and the practice itself is as old as any form of human mark-making, the modern style was codified by its city-wide practitioners in the 1970’s and 80’s, giving birth to a new international language of resistance and artistic expression. Born in Ecuador but raised in Queens, Sandra Fabara, better known by her nom de plume “Lady Pink” was an early practitioner in New York and notably one of the few women in an overwhelmingly male-dominated practice.
Her work, as well as the atmosphere of the larger scene, was stunningly captured by several photographers of the era – most notably by the astute lenses of Martha Cooper, Henry Chalfant, and Jim Prigoff – and features heavily in two of the undisputed masterworks that documented this vibrant time in the city: Wild Style and Style Wars.
Attendees of this lovely evening will surely be tickled by and enormously privileged to be additionally joined by photographer extraordinaire Henry Chalfant, who produced Style Wars alongside director Tony Silver. Mr. Chalfant will kindly offer introductory notes ahead of a rare screening of his seminal film and perhaps take some questions.
An esteemed Monday by all measures – we hope to see you there!
INTERSPECIES LIBRARY: ZINE ASSEMBLY
We would be remiss not to note that all of our remaining NYC events, and potentially some unannounced/TBD dates, will also feature a mobile zine pop-up with extensive reading materials via the Interspecies Library.
This project, dubbed the INTERSPECIES LIBRARY: ZINE ASSEMBLY will feature non-specist publications from a heady range of sources and is organized by longtime Cactus Store and Nonhuman Teachers contributors Kayra Viezcas and Miguel Gajdos as well as Interspecies Library founder Oscar Salguero.
Come by early (whether by accident or on purpose, see note above) to peruse the materials and sip on a sippable.
CS PARKING LOT SALE JULY 25TH
It’s hot and the 4th of July holiday has come and gone. These next few weeks are typically the doldrums of the summer season: essentially the warmer equivalent of the holiday-less morass between January 2nd and … Memorial Day? But thankfully not as long and not as depressing.
So if the above events are not enough to provide a bit of structure to this shapeless heap of time, we would like to additionally offer an opportunity to come and adopt a plant from our overflowing greenhouse collection in Glassell Park.
This is about as good as most of these summer-loving plants are going to look this calendar year, so admire them while you can and don’t fret when they begin to take on their haggard winter appearance.
ONE DAY ONLY! Saturday July 25th 11AM - 3PM, once again in the parking lot of our studio/greenhouse in Glassell Park, City of Angels, 90065.
Well that was quite a lot a bit of infotainment, so if you’re reading this, thank you. We hope to see you at any and all of the above and wish you a tremendous Wednesday, July the 8th, 2026.
Admirably yours,
Cactus Store and Nonhuman Teachers