Good evening; I'm James Lipton, and I'm privileged to bring to you five of the most interesting persons it's ever been my pleasure to interview. To begin with, I need to explain that what you're about to read concerns the discovery of a home, a house, unique to my experience in every way. Quite apart from its apparent ability to be larger on the inside than on the outside - something that those of you familiar with the long-running British television series Doctor Who will no doubt recognize - it also seems to be able to choose its inhabitants, as well as to grant them, when inside the house, a metamorphosis into their true forms. I'm referring to anthropomorphic animal forms, what is referred to as "furry" in the vernacular. Neither wholly human nor animal in these forms, each is a combination of him- or herself and his or her particular animal expression.

To those unfamiliar with this concept, much less the idea that it actually occurs, I will suggest that you meet my guests today, to hear their story of how they came together, and how they have become... all that they have become. Welcome, please, the inhabitants of their own Natural Habitat.

Lightfoot

James Lipton: We welcome first Lightfoot, a Cheyenne red fox who was, in fact, the first of the five to find this amazing house and its rather magical qualities. You were born Gordon James Stevens, at least on the birth certificate.

LIGHTFOOT: Yes; tribal names are always given later.

James Lipton: So you weren't named in some way for the singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot?

LIGHTFOOT: (laughs) No, although I will admit to enjoying many of his songs. I was named for some relatives who, if you believe the rumors, were - perhaps still are - the Cheyenne tribal equivalent of royalty. I don't know nearly as much about them as I'd like to; our part of the family became somewhat persona non grata at one point, for reasons that I'm still unclear about.

James Lipton: Is this something like a shunning, in the Amish tradition?

LIGHTFOOT: Nothing that formal. They seem to act like we simply don't exist. I know we exist, so I'm not much concerned about it.

James Lipton: You weren't born on tribal ground.

LIGHTFOOT: No, I was born in San Francisco, grew up there. Loved it.

James Lipton: There are some who find your general attitude one that would hint at an upbringing on the reservation--your reverence for your native beliefs, customs, and so on.

LIGHTFOOT: My parents are proud of who they are and where they come from, and they passed that on to me. We travelled to various powwows and gatherings over the years, and for a while at least, we kept in touch with our clan in northeastern Texas. I learned a lot of the language, the old stories, the oral history that is still a great part of our people. The rest, I picked up from the Internet.

James Lipton: Tell us something of your childhood.

LIGHTFOOT: In a lot of ways, I was an ordinary sort of kid. A little small for my age, to start with, then a minor growth spurt made me somewhat lanky for a few years, until I filled out. It made playing dodge-ball a little difficult for a while; I was a nimble target until that growth spurt, and then it seemed as if every time I moved, I stepped right into the path of one of those red rubber balls.

James Lipton: That seems an unlikely beginning for someone who became known by the tribal name of "Lightfoot."

LIGHTFOOT: There are probably several reasons that I was given that name, including the fact that it just sounds cool. My parents tell me that, even as a child, I could go quietly, with a very gentle step. I never seemed to make much noise when I moved. But perhaps even more than that is that I tended to go places as unburdened as possible. I always traveled lightly. In Spanish literature, I would probably have become a picaro, someone who travels freely and lives by his wits. A bit of a rogue, perhaps. There may be some tribal equivalent, but I haven't found out what it is yet.

James Lipton: I feel certain that you will qualify, with honors. We spoke, before the interviews, about your time growing up in San Francisco. It seems that you spent a lot of time on the street.

LIGHTFOOT: Not as a juvenile delinquent, mind you! No, I was always curious about all of the various cultures that mix and swell in the city by the bay. Any public place could become my theater, or my classroom. I've always been fascinated by the way people behave, singly, in pairs, in groups... however they might come together.

James Lipton: You were the solitary type, I gather.

LIGHTFOOT: I was on my own a lot, yes. That could get me into trouble, sometimes, if the wrong person thought that I was watching them, and misunderstanding my motives. It often helped to be light on my feet in those occasions!

James Lipton: And as with most solitary children, you were quite a reader. I've been told that you could often be found in one of the local libraries.

LIGHTFOOT: My love of libraries started early, when I discovered that it was a lot more difficult for people to start fights in a library. You know the myth that children hold, how their blankets, their covers, are magical? Monsters can't touch you if you're under the covers. Libraries are sort of like that when it comes to bullies: Kids with more fist than brains are repulsed by the atmosphere of considered thought that exudes from a library. As I grew up, I found that it works much the same way on NASCAR fans.

James Lipton: This, then, is the beginning of your self-description as an autodidact?

LIGHTFOOT: I love that word. I love words of all kinds, actually, which is why I'm so familiar with, and fond of, George Carlin's work. I enjoy finding and using words that are under-used, almost forgotten. I had an opportunity to tell a young lady that her callipygian charms were not enough to forgive her ill manners. She had no idea what I was talking about.

James Lipton: Shall you share with the rest of the class?

LIGHTFOOT: It's spelled correctly; they can go look it up. It's more fun that way. In one of his televised lectures, Leo Buscaglia spoke of learning something new every day. If he has trouble falling asleep, because he can't think of something new that he's learned that day, he can hear his father's voice whispering, "Encyclopedia!" Buscaglia would pick out a volume at random, open it to some unfamiliar page, and read something new, whatever it might be. I like that idea a lot.

James Lipton: With your love of learning, may I assume that you received excellent grades during your school years?

LIGHTFOOT: I hesitate to sound a little too much like my cynical friend Caedmon, but I have to agree with him on one important point: Today's grade schools, and I include all grades from K-to-12, have little to do with really learning. So much emphasis has been placed on doing well on the standardized tests that teachers don't have the latitude to bring in the really interesting things, the ways to make history and science and math and literature relevant to the real world. (small laugh) I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get on a soap box. I only mean that my grades were good enough to provide a diploma and a dubious B-minus average. Forgive me for bragging, but I managed to do that without reading a single textbook. It's not really bragging after all; it's very sad. It's part of why I strive to learn so much more on my own, even now. Especially now.

James Lipton: Why especially now?

LIGHTFOOT: Having discovered this house... well, it's like discovering that everything is magical. It's not just the house that has magic; everything does, if we want to pay enough attention. I may be stepping up on the soap box again... stop me if I get too sudsy! Finding myself, as I have, and finding that I really am what I think I am... this only encourages me to become even more of what I really am. This is why learning is so very important. Learn everything that attracts your interest and attention. Don't worry if it may or may not help you earn a living, or impress your future in-laws, or give you a hedge against inflation. Just learn. Try things. Explore. You never know what you might find.

James Lipton: That's about the best segue that we'll ever find to turn the conversation to the house itself. By the way, I should ask: Does the house have a name?

LIGHTFOOT: It hasn't given us one, or led us to find some sort of name that it may have chosen for itself. We didn't give it a name, either, perhaps because we felt it might be presumptuous. It's our home, and it has given us all so very much, and we love the house as we might love a nurturing parent, or an older sibling who has given us all the chance to learn more about ourselves. However, as I said earlier about tribal names - they come with time. Perhaps the house has a name not yet known to any of us.

James Lipton: Then we'll simply have to call it "the house" for now. How did you find the house?

LIGHTFOOT: Through a series of accidents that - as I think back on them - probably weren't accidents at all. This is how the world works, in case you've not discovered this: All that you think of as accidental will almost certainly have some impact on your life, and sometimes it will be significant. In my case, the accidents were almost comically like a set of falling dominoes. The shortest form is that my application to the university here, which included a request for information about on-campus housing, was shunted around to several departments before finally being read fully. The person who stopped passing this proverbial buck was Mrs. Tuttobene.

James Lipton: This would be Mildred Tuttobene, the head librarian of the branch where you now work?

LIGHTFOOT: The very same. You see, I was hoping to find some sort of work-study program, where I would be working in the campus library as well as taking my classes there. I wasn't aware that Library Science, in and of itself, was considered an exclusively Masters-level program, and as such, there would be no work-study for undergraduates.

James Lipton: Did Mrs. Tuttobene have connections with the university?

LIGHTFOOT: Oh yes; one of their finest teachers, at one time, and she still consults with the faculty there. That was how my application letters found their way to her. She read over my essay - most colleges want applicants to write an essay concerning the reasons for their interest in college, or a particular field, or their particular college, or all three - and she found it "charming," to use her word. She took the papers to the Admissions Office personally, spoke with the Director of Admissions, and things happened very quickly after that. She was able to arrange work for me at her branch library on a provisional basis, pending my scores on the county examination. I scored well, by the way, and my position became permanent.

James Lipton: That explains the admission to college, and your work. How did you find the house?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, to anticipate one question, I don't think that Mrs. Tuttobene knew about the house's powers, at least not then. She didn't even know that any rooms were to let in the house. Let me go back a bit. Before I began my work at the college, I came to visit the town, and to meet with Mrs. Tuttobene, to get a little orientation regarding my new job at the library, which was to start the following month, shortly after classes started up. We met in the morning, before the library opened, so that we could have a little quiet for me to tour the rooms and offices. We were near the front desk, talking about my housing situation - at that point, even the campus housing office hadn't gotten back to me yet - and we heard a small noise behind us. We turned to look at the bulletin board near the door, and I noticed that an index card had fallen off the board and onto the floor. On it was a brief description of the house, its location, and a phone number to call about obtaining a room.

James Lipton: You're not making this up, are you?

LIGHTFOOT: (laughs) As I said, coincidences--or maybe not. Anyway... I wasn't sure if I could afford to rent a room on my own, but I ran the numbers through my head quickly, and I thought that it was at least worth a look. Mrs. Tuttobene vouched for the part of town that the house is located in, so I called the number and made an appointment to go have a look.

James Lipton: Okay. This is the part that all of us have been waiting for. We know that you and your roommates all become your anthropomorphic selves when you enter the house. This means that there had to be a first time for each of you to experience this, and it would seem that going for a look inside the place is almost certainly that first time. So here's a question: Did the landlord go in with you, and does he change as well?

LIGHTFOOT: None of us met the landlord, meaning the actual owner, when we first looked at the house. All of the rental stuff is handled by an attorney who also holds a Realtor's license. What's funny is that he never goes into the house.

James Lipton: He's never been inside?

LIGHTFOOT: Not to my knowledge. Our joke is that his anthro self is a shark, and if he changes on dry land, he'll suffocate.

James Lipton: A lawyer joke which, perhaps, we'd best not tell Ophelia.

LIGHTFOOT: She's the one who made it in the first place!

James Lipton: I must remember to ask her about that! So... you meet this attorney at the house, and he lets you in to go look around. Did you know that you'd be only the first to move in?

LIGHTFOOT: The story that I got - forgive me if I use the term "fishy" to describe it - was that all of the most recent tenants had moved out after classes ended the previous spring. I was not expected to pay the full amount of the utilities necessary to keep a house of that size going; the landlord, said the attorney, would take care of the slack until more people moved in. The idea of being the only person in a big house, even if only for a little while, was strangely attractive, so I was willing to let the story stand on its own dubious merits.

James Lipton: The moment has come. You walk into the screened porch area, go to the front door to the house, and cross the threshold. Tell us.

LIGHTFOOT: You're going to hate me. The truth is, I really didn't notice anything at first.

James Lipton: Hate, no. Disbelieve, perhaps.

LIGHTFOOT: Something you need to understand about the transformation - it has no real sensation to it. I've become so used to it that... okay, the closest thing that I can use to describe it to you is like taking off a coat or sweater that's just a little bit too tight. There's a certain sense of freedom, of loosening up, of being... well, more somehow. I guess that's about the only way to describe it. But when it happens... it's not like the werewolf movies, with all the growling and screaming and bone-crunching agonizing. It simply happens. When you let yourself be yourself, what you feel most is relief. Comfort. Wholeness.

James Lipton: So you really didn't notice anything when you first changed into an anthropomorphic red fox?

LIGHTFOOT: Not really. I should point out, however, that - in my case, at least - I've always identified with a red fox, even when I didn't realize that I really was one. Some of my mannerisms and movement in my human body mimic my anthro self. To that degree, then, I already have an idea of what it feels like to be a red fox even before I became one. So what I noticed when I first crossed the threshold into the house was that I truly felt as if I'd come home.

James Lipton: You were welcomed.

LIGHTFOOT: That's it! Exactly! I was quite amazed by the appearance of the house. It's furnished, for the most part; each person's individual room begins empty, although there's a small selection of furniture in the basement, if someone needs a chair, a small table, that sort of thing. So I was looking at more than merely a house - it was a home, right from the beginning. A large living room, a dining room off the kitchen, and a small breakfast nook area in the kitchen itself. Laundry facilities in the basement, as well as extra storage space. And the stairway is wide, open to the entryway with a beautiful wood railing. I was so taken in by it all that I didn't even notice that it was bigger on the inside than the outside.

James Lipton: Lightfoot, you're making us think that you're not very observant!

LIGHTFOOT: I know; I guess I'm trying to describe the wonder of the house itself. The real magic isn't in how it makes us into anthromorphs, or how it's larger inside than out. The magic is how good it makes us feel, how protected, how free. And that's why it took me a while, after I'd dashed upstairs, to realize that I'd not asked the attorney which room I should be looking at. Perhaps he thought I'd just pick one, and we'd work out the rent after that. After all, I didn't imagine that all the rooms would be the same size. I looked in one after another, just amazed at how spacious and cozy it all was.

James Lipton: And through it all, you didn't notice your change? There were no mirrors anywhere?

LIGHTFOOT: That's another point. I think the house was waiting for a moment, before showing me a mirror. For example, I know that there must have been - and that there certainly are now - mirrors in the bathrooms, but I didn't really look at them. Somehow, I just brushed by them. And then, as I got toward the end of the hall, I noticed a full length mirror on the outside of an open door.

James Lipton: Outside?

LIGHTFOOT: I thought about that too, for a moment... and then I saw the reflection. My first thought was that it wasn't really a mirror but a picture; then I realized that it moved as I moved, and I gave a crazy thought to the idea that it was some kind of trick mirror. It was only then that I actually looked at my hands and arms, and then, in the mirror, the rest of me. I had become an anthropomorphic red fox.

James Lipton: What happened?

LIGHTFOOT: I heard a voice - probably in my imagination - that sounded like one of my old tribal uncles, a man who was called Coyote Feather. And before you ask: No, of course coyotes don't have feathers. You may know that Coyote, in tribal thought, is the trickster, the bringer of chaos and surprise, and the creator of the world. "Coyote Feather" is in itself a contradiction in terms, and the man who enjoyed that name was very like the heyokahs, or sacred clowns, of the Navajo.

James Lipton: So, what did Coyote Feather say?

LIGHTFOOT: "Lightfoot," he said... "When something really strange and unreal happens to you... relax and enjoy it!"

James Lipton: I suppose that, as a mantra against fear, that would do as well as many others I could think of. Were you afraid?

LIGHTFOOT: I suppose that I should have been. I think that I was more afraid later than I was just then. It's like being in any other situation that shakes you to the core - you deal with what's in front of you first, and it's only later that you remember to be frightened.

James Lipton: What did you do?

LIGHTFOOT: I stood and stared at myself for quite some time. It wasn't vanity, or at least I don't think it was; I was just absorbing it all. I looked at the colors and the design of the fur, and the feeling of having a tail, and the strange realization that my clothing was exactly the same as the clothes I'd been wearing outside, yet they were somehow slightly different. My feet felt different in the shoes - when I'm bare-pawed, I know that I walk differently, because my feet are genuinely different from human feet - but the shoes themselves were somehow altered, and they were comfortable enough. The rest of my clothing changed as well - there was space for my tail, for instance, and the pants and shirt weren't too tight, even though I now bore a layer of thick fur.

James Lipton: So the house actually changed everything, not just your body?

LIGHTFOOT: Exactly. It was a lot to take in, and if I hadn't heard Coyote Feather's voice again, I probably would have stood there for as long as an hour, just in the wonder of the changes that had occurred.

James Lipton: What did he say?

LIGHTFOOT: He said, "Don't just stand there, furry-boy, go sign the lease."

James Lipton: He sounds like quite a practical fellow.

LIGHTFOOT: I can't argue the point! Anyway, I did finally get myself downstairs, but just before I was to walk out the front door, I had the sudden thought: How can I go back out into the world like this? I'm a red fox, I'm really a red fox, and there's nothing like this anywhere out there. What will happen to me?

James Lipton: How did you reconcile this sudden realization?

LIGHTFOOT: It was easier than I thought, because I only had those thoughts as I was already careening through the door and back outside. By the time I really had absorbed the idea, I was standing on the steps that lead up to the front porch, and the attorney was looking at me as if nothing at all had happened, asking if I wanted to take the place. I glanced quickly at my arms and feet, discovered that I looked human again, and began to wonder if that hamburger I'd had at lunch had some peyote buttons instead of ordinary mushrooms. I looked back at the attorney and said that I'd forgotten to look at the kitchen, and could I go back in for just a moment? He smiled and told me to take my time. I went back into the house, where I was once again a red fox, and after about a minute, went back outside, where I was in my human form again. I looked at the attorney and said, "I do so love a gas stove. I'll take it."

James Lipton: Do you think the attorney knows?

LIGHTFOOT: That smile was what I'd call a "knowing" one, no doubt. He knew something, I was sure of that. Just how much he knew, well, that's another story. You'll probably hear it soon.

James Lipton: So you moved in shortly thereafter.

LIGHTFOOT: I did. I had the entire house to myself for about a month or so, during which time I spent a great many hours learning about my vulpine self. The transition period was strangely quick.

James Lipton: Was there any one thing that took more time or adjustment than you expected?

LIGHTFOOT: I discovered that I needed a lot more than just one towel after a shower. I should add, though, that scientists have discovered that water tends to cling to animal fur by surface tension, so the best way to get rid of it... care to hazard a guess?

James Lipton: Is that why dogs shake water off of themselves?

LIGHTFOOT: Every furred mammal does, and at different speeds, did you know? It's as if each animal worked out, mathematically, how fast to shake themselves.

James Lipton: So, do you have a magic number?

LIGHTFOOT: Only for one of those fancy beds that they advertise late at night.

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Next up: Jybian, a white tiger whose randomness is more than most can really deal with!