Amy Goldwasser - All Black Cats Are Not Alike

Chronicle Edition text and illustrations
2016 by Amy Goldwasser and Peter Arkle
Studio Goldsparkle Edition text and illustrations
2015 by Amy Goldwasser and Peter Arkle

Design by Martin Perrin, Perrin Studio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-5871-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5884-6 (epub, mobi)

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107

AllBlackCats.com

The (round) face of this book, Mimi Goldsparkle was born somewhere near Hudson, New York, circa 2005. Goldsparkle rose to fame after landing the lead in a short film (The Pop Star) for the Modkat Litter Box. She currently lives in downtown Manhattan, where she has two people, Amy Goldwasser and Peter Arkle (aka Studio Goldsparkle), and avoids an angry, stripy velociraptor of a cat, May Mayday Goldsparkle.

In a rare sit-down, the performer turned author and advocate for the All Black Cat (note: singular) talks about her journey and her first literary endeavor.

When were you happiest?

When that other cat (and the other cat before that cat) didnt live here and it was just me.

What is your greatest fear?

Not being able to provide for myself.

What is your earliest memory?

Nipples.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I cannot seem to gain weight.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Sneezing.

What was your most embarrassing moment?

Being caught faking a broken legall the way to the vetsin order to get attention.

What is your most treasured possession?

All of Amy and Peters PIN numbers.

Who would play you in the film of your life?

Alan Cumming or Idris Elba.

What is the worst thing anyones said to you?

You look just like my [name of other black cat here].

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Tinder.

When did you last cry, and why?

When Joan Rivers died.

Whats the closest youve come to death?

I was alone and starving, in the middle of a baseball diamond in the pouring rainjust four months old, pregnant and homeless and nothing to live for.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?

To Hello Kitty (she knows why).

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?

Guerlain Divinora lipstick in #480.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Corners.

What does love feel like?

Corners.

How often do you have sex?

Have you ever seen a cat penis?

What is your most unappealing habit?

Sharing.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Anna Wintour.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

The 2000 presidential election.

What was it like to cross that personal-professional lineto both live and work with Peter and Amy?

Dinner was late.

Most challenging part of making this book?

For a brief stretch it seemed my collaborators were entertaining the idea of including 49 other ABCs. Other ABCs! We had a good laugh over that one. [Ed note: Shhhhhh.]

And your favorite part?

May hates it.

A Note on the Depiction of Cats:

All characters appearing in this work are somewhat fictitious, as they are cats. Any resemblance to real All Black Cats, living or dead, is purely intentional. Names were not changed. Portraits were drawn from photographs; bios were inspired by true stories. The authors made every human effort to maintain factual accuracy surrounding subjects who cannot speak with humans.

So that we may now talk freely about All Black Catsor at least the 49 other All Black Cats in this bookwe waited for Mimi to leave the room. She has now climbed her ladder and retired to her emo loft, high up at Home Goldsparkle, where she is literally positioned above all other creatures.

She likes it that way. Mimi is an odd little alien in a black fur coat. Shes entirely unique, entirely eccentric, entirely inscrutable.

Just like every one of the one-of-a-kind All Black Cat (ABC) characters youre about to meet.

In the case of Mimi, we had rare access to our subject, an inside perspective on the inside of her big, round head. To uncover the most extraordinary and charming qualities in each of the 49 othersincluding our late loverboy ABC Sonny Goldsparkle, unavailable for interviews since Valentines Day 2005, see we relied on the interpretations of their humans. It was up to these embedded reporters what they chose to highlight, what they chose to ignore, what they chose to admit or omit, reject or project about the All Black Cats they know best.

Meaning we like to think this book is about people as much as it is about cats.

We also like to think that this book is the closest we could bring a cat book to non-fiction. These are 50 real ABCs and their 50 true ABC stories. They live all over the world, from New York City to the countryside of Grossaflloltern, Sydney to Scottsdale, the Netherlands to the top of the cable box. They live for cheese, plastic, French bread. Up a tree, in a beard, on the Big Island, on a sailboat, on their own terms. At war and at peace. With a goldfish, a German Shepherd. One kidney, two dads, three other ABCs.

Every ABC in this book came out of our 2015 Kickstarter campaignwhich is how nearly every one of them came to us as well. Of the 50, weve only had the pleasure of meeting three in person (in cat?): Mimi, Sonny, and Vano (), who was kind enough to invite us over one night, ostensibly for dinner but really to show us how he works the icemaker built into his refrigerator.

See? Odd little aliens.

Aliens and individuals, as confirmed by the collection of personalitiessome may say personality disordersyou see here.

All black cats are not alike. Who could possibly think otherwise?

The answerand the inspiration for this bookis that there are people out there, even people we adore most, who, on the receiving end of our Have A Spectacular 2015 New Years card (see right), accused us of featuring not Mimi, our ABC, but their ABCs. (Of the four of us, only Peter regularly wears spectacles.)

All Black Cats are not alike, people. To illustrate this for one household, Peter assembled a quick identification guide: