.. his activities make his like and that of all those around him at once interesting and uncomfortable, and every day he challenges those around him to change and renew their lives. To understand how his behavior itself is and creates chaos, one can just glance at a few of his reported activities. I wrote to him just a few days ago, asking him to tell me a few of his newest stories -- as always, they were full of humor and insight. Once upon a time, he said, not long ago, this little girl came up to him. "Are you a boy or a girl?" He grinned at her, leaned in close, and said: "I'm a radical gender*****." "What's that?" He looked up to see her tourist mother hurrying towards them, "Better ask your mother." As they walked away, he heard her bright cheerful voice: "Mommy-- what's a Rabbinical Gender*****?" Now what possible good does that do, I asked him. He brightly admitted that it may have done no good whatsoever. On the other hand, maybe he made just a tiny blow that day to the binary gender system --one major blow for humorous chaos, one little blow for feminism. Another story he told me involving a fancy restaurant and a pretty Japanese restaurant. In his full attire, he went in for Sushi. He happened to have money that day (he'd sold a short animated film for a television commercial), so it was an expensive restaurant. He went through a thousand whispers and stares and rude comments... And then left a 100% tip. Sure, he looked like a street punk in the black tie restaurant, but he was the only one to tip like that -- so what did that teach...

What about the time he got a temporary job with a children's entertainment business? He dressed up normatively, and tried his best, until the day he was ordered to bring three buckets of chicken to a party. He showed up with three KFC buckets with five or six baby chicks in each one. "What a tremendous lesson about compassion," he said, "to have a chance to explain to those little kids that these were the same kind of chickens they ordinarily ate."
Ki spreads chaos. All his actions work to upset the dominate ideas that build society, the prejudices and preconceptions and moral blind spots. He can be cruel or unusual or bizarre -- and yet in his oddness he can make people laugh and he can also make them think. His chaotic nature brings transformation to everything he touches, and also fuels his own endless creativity. Knowing him, I can understand why people fear the chaotic -- his life is a never ending serious of catastrophes. Yet at the same time, I can also see why chaos is the necessary balancing force of order. If everything that Ki symbolizes and embodies were suddenly removed from New Orleans, the city would be heartless and boring all at once; it would be humid, sticky, hot and wet -- and yet utterly sterile and sexless. It is the chaos in that city, just as it is the chaos in life, that adds drama and magic and a sense of adventure. Though I would never again try living with Ki, even for a weekend, I could not imagine New Orleans without him.