a cat post i did not expect to do

You know, this morning I was thinking I'd find some winsome cat portrait or sculpture to post upon, as I'm still in a reflective mood. So I went looking this AM - and what did the InternetGods throw in my search results?

A furry cat art car from Burning Man. No fooling. And there's no way I'm not going to link to that.

hot diggity dog!

The sweet demeanor of yesterday's Strasbourg dog stayed with me till today, and I was still in a dog mood as I sat down to bring you today's post.

And wait till you see where that spirit has led me: a sizable collection of dog metaphors, all collected up at metaphordogs.org! "Dogs in metaphor and idiom, illustrated." Here you may learn how we came to let sleeping dogs lie, double dog dare ya, go see a man about a dog, lick one's chops, thow him a bone . . . ah, such a nice long list, and such a pleasantly organized site.

Very good work, and all about dogs! Hooray.

a soulful dog

(Thanks, WikiCommons.)

This dog sits and reflects in the Museum of Notre Dame Strasbourg. Though it was created during medieval times, when animals were not formally considered to have souls, I feel sure that the sculptor believed otherwise.

The head is, I find, quite sensitively modelled for medieval work, though the elongation and simplicity of the body is very much of the time.

Notre-Dame de Strasbourg was constructed from 1176 to 1439, and for two centuries was the world's tallest building. Here is the website of the Cathedral Museum. (In French, of course!)

photo break: featuring elizabeth (again)

The curatorial spouse being not at all well, I find I must resort to what basically amounts to a nonpost - the glorification of Elizabeth.

(Above) In "night vision" on the handy phone-cam.

And here, sleepy and wishing the "ape" (as Whicky W. would say?) would get the phone cam out of her face already.

the cat cabinet amsterdam

John Pierpont Morgan lived from 1966 to 1983, and lived happily in Amsterdam.
No of course not THAT Morgan. I mean the orange kitty who was the close buddy of Bob Meijer, and the inspiration for Meijer's Kattenkabinet, a museum devoted to cat artworks, established in Morgan's memory.

Here's the sort of English version of the Kabinet's homepage.

The collection includes work by Leonor Fini, Picasso, and Foujita (yay!), to name but a few. Also five resident cats, and Bob Meijer himself, who still lives up on the top floor. Here's a travel article telling more about the museum.

not only a film monster but also a poodle

There is an entire wiki on Frank Zappa. This delights me. There is no end to the detail, commentary and sheer frolic in Zappa's lifework.

Plus, he did some pretty great riffs on poodles. Including the family pet called Fruney that morphed into Frunobolax, the unstoppable monster of the song "Cheepnis." Some lyrics...

Ladies and gentlemen,
The monster,
Which the peasants in this area call FRUNOBULAX
(Apparently a very large poodle dog)
Has just been seen approaching The Power Plant
Bullets can't stop it
Rockets can't stop it
We may have to use NUCLEAR FORCE!

What's the point? Well to know that, you should read this Zappa Wiki article about old, rather shoddily made monster movies...

rent-a-neko

A cat cafe.
A cafe where you can plunk down some bucks for an hour of hanging out with kitties, maybe have a beverage. Mm. What a brilliant idea.

Yes, and the Japanese have done it. Owning a cat in Japan isn't easy due to housing constraints (no room, rules against). And unfortunately there are many pets dumped in Japan every year - but at the Cat Cafe Calico, they'll put up posters for abandoned cats seeking homes. The owner, Takafumi Fukui, just wants everyone to forget about everything and relax with some kitty lovin' - and they DO. Read about it here.

The word for "cat-cafe" in Japanese is "Neko-Kissa."

Want to go to the Cat Cafe Calico? Here you are.

a last verse from victor hugo

On May 9, 1884, Victor Hugo wrote what would be his last scrap of verse - about the family cat:

I bid the cat good morning;
I offer my paw, he gives me his claw;
We are good friends.

From Graham Robb, Victor Hugo: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998), p. 521.

feline photography

Oh my! Such a treasure trove I have for you today. This is the result of another fortuitous stumble -- I was searching "philosopher cat" and then "Wittgenstein's cat," and up popped a page entitled
Cats: Four Legs and a Tail
or (The Semiotics of Feline Photography in the Age of New Media)
or (Neo Feline Enlightenment as a change from Post Canine dogma)

And its compiler writes,

I've decided that there is no point in just another site with cat pictures,
no matter how cool. One needs an encompasing vision to take one's mediocre
imagery to the level of proper Art. So this site is no longer a set of images,
rather an exploration of discovery into the psyche of some really wired
felines...

Where does Wittgenstein come in? From this set of a couple cats rolling on his grave - rolling I say!

There are cats from Romania, cats from Rome. Cats from Paris, Amsterdam, and Luxor. Cats from Venice and Istanbul. From Wales, Potsdam and Bristol.
There is a squirrel. It is an honorary cat.

The commentaries alone are worth the trip. But don't take my word for it. Save half an hour and feast your eyes.

can you love your dog too much?

That's the question asked by this Slate columnist, observing a cross-section of folks who admit they love their dogs more than they do most people. But why?

Part of the reason?

For everyone—dog owners and non-dog owners alike—loving human beings is
difficult, unpredictable, and often disappointing. Dog love is safer, perhaps
more satisfying: Dogs can't betray us, undermine us, tell us they're angry or
bored. Dogs can't leave.

Well, there is that. The writer, Jon Katz, goes on to list some of the variants of puppy love he's noticed over the years: the dog as working partner, the dog as rescued victim, the dog as surrogate for spouses or kids. (I think this all mostly works for cats, too. I know my crew thinks they are being an enormous help when they sit all over my manuscript and bite my pen while I'm writing.)

What's the ending conclusion on why this love exists? The column's here.

And Happy Valentine's Day to all pets and their people everywhere!

what's in a (greek) name?

I find lists of names interesting. I have almost always tried to name my pets something truly indicative of their characters. That wasn't the case for Sally, the "staff member" in the Blogger pic, but she came pre-named. And Elizabeth? Trust me, that WAS an appropriate choice (she's called after a departed grandmother who was a bit of a handful). Zozo was named after a character in a Creole children's book, a baby bird that scrappily refused to go to bed.

All that yakity yak is an intro to a great name list find -- Check out this HUGE list of Greek pet names! I see they have Eos, "Dawn," which was the name of a beloved dog belonging to Prince Albert (see Eos here). There's Medusa, Medea, Pandora and Priam - and some great mouthfuls like Erechtheus (an ancient king of Athens) and Telemachus (the son of Odysseus and Penelope).

Since they don't give the stories behind the names, that could keep you busy all day.

**Super special bonus! Native American cat names here.

pocket beagle update

That's right, look, a couple new pictures of the Utah puppies.

Ms Winnie - though I think that's not a new pic?

And the little fella christened "Mr Dexter Johnson."

antique toy dogs

I found these at YouTube. They seem much better made than the same sort of toy would be today.



Disclaimer - if these were your images, and you'd rather I not have them here, let me know. And tell me where you find these cute toys!

cold nose. warm heart. the proof

Wanna see what a puppy looks like in infrared? Thanks to The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech and their Infrared Zoo, we can observe that yes indeed, puppy's nose is a lot colder than the rest of him (but his eyes are warm!).

Horses look spiffy in infrared. A cat looks a bit spooky and leaves little warm pawprints. And the rabbit - well, that still looks cute. And apprently they're warm pretty much all over! Can you find a cold spot on the rabbit?

And in late breaking excitement - there's a new chapter of CAT TOWN! In which the Animal Hat Gang departs Alaska under a cloud - but are things back totally to normal? Of course not.

quantity? quality? kittens!

Brian of Brian's Culture Blog offers up a sweet pink pic of two Elizabeth-looking kittens and points out, "Obviously cute photos of sweet kittens are too nice and too wholesome to be art, viewed individually."

He might or might not be right.

But he continues on to say,"But the 14 by 14 rectangle of all of them in miniature that you get by following the (link) is momentarily confusing enough to be artistic."

He's right about that!

i made a sea kitten

And I have to link to it because the webpage won't let me paste. It's an awesome sea kitten - named "Ahi Vicious."

As you'll see, Ahi Vicious is a fish. Why for Pete's sake am I calling it a sea kitten? Because PETA had a stroke of genius for its don't-fish-any-more campaign: would you stick a hook through a kitten's mouth? Would you drag 'em around in nets all crushed and suffering? No. No you wouldn't.

Slap the name "kitten" on it and there's half the battle won. It sucked ME in, people! And to make it an even surer sell, it's a candy-colored cute site! But I would advise against the "Sea Kitten Stories," which will mess with your head. Oh boy.

no sir, i am a real horse

That's one of the taglines of Mr Horse from the truly great Ren and Stimpy. It's been running through my head ever since I stumbled upon a page about one of Napoleon Bonaparte's horses: Le Vizir, who trotted off this mortal coil in 1829, 8 years after his master. Taxidermied, he stands enshrined in a case at the Musee d'Armee de l'Hotel des Invalides in Paris -- where Napoleon is entombed. You may see him here, and note his spiffy brand. Though I don't much care for how that probably hurt him.

Napoleon's most famed horse was Marengo, it seems, whose actual name was probably something else. Napoleon had a habit of nicknaming his horses after battles. Little and fast, he yet was captured after Waterloo, brought to Britain, and lived to old age as a stud. So that's not so bad. His skeleton was preserved and stands today in London's National Army Museum.

There's a BBC page that tells a lot about Napoleon's various horses, with lots of interesting facts. Take a look.

the dogs of tibet, from 1908

Some very weird specimens of dogs came down from Tibet; there is one living
close by, which has the head, coat, etc., of the Mastiff but the body of a
Basset, crooked legs, low to the ground, long body-all complete. It has gone
through two hot weathers already, and still survives. It is a funny looking
animal; so also are many of the rest that were brought down.

I found this quote in a page full of info at the Tibetan Spaniel Network; it's a selection from the 1908 issue of The Kennel Encyclopedia. The Tibetan Mastiff, Lhasa Terrier, and Tibet Spaniel are all discussed. I always find the immediate feel of scholarship from this time to be appealing - for example:

The Lhasa Terrier has a love of locality as well as of the person. He likes to
guard not only his beloved master, but like his right royal countryman, the
Tibet Mastiff who guards the flocks and homes, this little busy body of the
mystic land delights in protecting his master's room, clothes, or any of his
possessions. He has a habit that appears to be hereditary, of sitting up on his
little short hind legs and moving his front paws up and down very quickly, in a
sort of begging attitude, that is very quaint and engaging.

Would we write that today? No. And it's a little twee around the edges, but still fun to read.

a movie i should see? "when the cat's away"

In 1997 a French film premiered about a lost cat. Well, mostly about a lost cat. No, mostly about how the lost cat symbolized a way of Parisian life that was gentrifying itself out of existence. The film was When the Cat’s Away (Chacun cherche son chat).

Spoiler: the cat is found. But not until after the cat's owner, a shy young woman named Chloe whose life is largely empty of anything vital except her cat, pushes the small envelope she's sealed herself within. (I'm not sure how one comes to such a pass living anywhere in Paris, but what do I know from Paris.) She goes on vacation, leaving her cat in the care of a local-color catlady, and comes home to find the cat gone and the great city hiding Kitty somewhere. Shy girl, big city: it would take a lost cat to get her moving, and that's what happens. But what else does she find and lose? Here's a review of the film, and here is another (with another film discussed - very thought provoking).

I have only spent 4 hours in Paris. Does a cat symbolize it justly? I know Florence somewhat and it's overrun with cats . . . I find myself thinking, would this plot have worked there? Probably not - the cat would never get lost, just head for the Boboli and get free English cat lady meals like all the other ones do. I'm being flip but the Florentines do seem to like cats a lot.

a phenomenal cat in the land of idiot boys

On The Kinks' 1968 album The Kinks Are The Village Preservation Society you'll find a tune penned by Ray Davies about a cat and his appetites.

A long, long time ago,
In the land of idiot boys,
There lived a cat, a phenomenal cat,
Who loved to wallow all day.
No one bothered him
As he sat, content in his tree.
He just lived to eat 'cause it kept him fat,
And that's how he wanted to stay.

Was that all he'd ever done? No, he had done many things, and you can read the lyrics here.
Curious as to how that turns into a song? Listen to the tale of Phenomenal Cat right now.




The Kinks rule.