The Writer at Work
Koko is the gorilla who came as a baby to this special lab in California and now gets by pretty well by signing to make herself understood. I wrote about her in my syndicated newspaper column which anyone at all can see by going here or Googling my name with, say, the phrase “Brad Pitt recently spotted driving around Toontown in Roger Rabbit’s car.” (Never doubt that I am a serious person!)
Stanford-based Dr. Francine “Penny” Paterson is the one who’s done all the heavy lifting to make this happen. She wanted to see if she could be made to understand simple signing and all these years later it looks like the answer is yes.
All I know is I could look at pictures of this gorilla all day long, as of course you can also do by visiting her home page. But I think my favorite place to go is the link where you can read the talk she once had online where an audience writes in questions which Penny then puts then to Koko. Koko signed back and somebody types Penny’s description of what she is saying.
In this interview somebody asks her if she'd like to have a baby. “Pink!” she replies. “They’d been talking about colors earlier;” Penny starts to say but then Koko signs “Listen Koko loves eat.” In other words never mind some baby that isn’t even around yet. Somebody then asks what her favorite food is and she says “I like Drinks” (Smart girl!) Somebody asks what the name of her cat is and she says “Foot.” Penny says “Foot isn’t the name of your kitty” and we already know that because we know that “Foot” is what she calls all male humans. She calls female human “Lips,” which I find really cute. “Hey lips honey! Get that foot-slave over there to bring us some drinks!”
Somebody asks her if she likes people and she says “Fine Nipple,” which Penny tried to gloss over by saying that the word “people” sounds a lot like “nipple” but the truth is she was brought up on sexual harassment charges some time ago. Seems she was always trying to touch the female lab worker’s breasts and get them to show her their nipples. (Doubt me do you? Go to her page on Wikipedia and see for yourself.
“She wants a little refreshment. She just gave a little vocalization,” Penny then says and Koko says “Lips hurry good give me.” She’s got a toy alligator. “She’s playing with her alligator and her lady doll” Penny says, again narrating the action, but then “Oh My!” she exclaims, “She may be doing a little acting out here!“ Then Koko picks up a scrunchie and puts it on her head. “Fake hat that,” she signs.
Someone asks her how she feels about a worker named Michael and she says “Foot foot good.” The she says “Nipple!” again, then she somebody asks her about her ape pal Ndume and she says “Toilet!” “That’s her word for bad,” Penny explains. She is evidently mad at her pal today. “He did something that was obnoxious but I didn’t see what happened,” Penny explains.
There’s a little talk about the 70-acre preserve in Maui that the Foundation hopes to establish for Koko and Ndume and then Koko says “Fake!” again, which Penny says means it’s not happening now; it’s hypothetical; pie in the sky in other words. Then Koko has her alligator bite the lady doll and the whole thing fades to black.
I love her. And I note she’s pushing 40 now and I’m going to try to get invited to the party. Because I believe ALL us older gals ought to hang out more, just for the fun of the drinks, and the trashing of the men, and the Fake-Hat-That wigs alone.
