pets eternal and otherwise: halloween

National Geographic, in time for Halloween, includes in the latest issue an article on Egypt's animal mummies. The article is available here, as is an interactive map of many finds; but the lavish photo gallery you'll find there is the biggest treat. There are cats, of course, and touching and beautiful they are. There are holy baboons, gold-embellished ibises, cattle wrapped up like linen puzzles, and even a shrew gets a cute tiny coffin in pale stone. Don't miss the perfectly preserved hunting dog that was somebody's beloved pet.

This short online "tour" at the British Museum (which has an excellent collection of mummies) includes, of all things, an eel.

And now to Skelanimals, which I have only discovered within the past week. As best I can figure these are sweet, cute animals who are no longer living thanks to mishaps, but want to be loved by someone with a warm heart (as the website says, "after all, they're just bones"). As far as those mishaps go - wow. Quackee the Duck got turned into an entree after irritiating the farmer with her quacking (I could listen to ducks all day). Cecil the Snake got caught hunting for food in the marketplace and was skewered and grilled. Diego the Bat minced himself flying through razor wire. Kit drowned.
Personally, I find this fascinating: the Victorian sentimental take on death in a brand new junior-friendly guise. I keep forgetting death is back in (or is that "undeath"?) And you'd think they would be a terrible downer, but they are adorable.

Last but not least, I bring to you this bonus: the Ghost Chicken of Highgate, sacrificed for Sir Francis Bacon's 17th-century researches in food cold storage. As it happens the chicken took Sir Francis with it, as he caught a fatal chill stuffing it with snow very early one April. Though Sir Francis was taken to the Earl of Arundel's house nearby to warm up and rest, the bed he was given hadn't been aired for a year and was too damp. He died of pneumonia. As for the Ghost Chicken, as recently as the 70's this plucked and displeased fowl was dropping in unexpectedly. See another page on that here.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

dogs with what it takes

(Note: Thanks for the good wishes folks! I look forward to being healthy again. Not exactly yet though)

If you've been a Museum member for a while, you probably recall that I am a big fan of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation and have been since 9/11. Did you know that the dogs would get so sad finding no survivors that volunteers would hide in the wreckage pretending to be victims? Then the dogs would find someone alive and be happy that they had done a good job.

A dog needs a very particular set of gifts to be a good rescue dog. Today in my email I received the stories of two new champs: Riley of Santa Barbara, and Rex of Long Beach. I hope you'll take a look at their stories and at the NDSDF website as a whole. This is an interesting and worthy look at how humans and dogs team together to use what they do best for a most important task.

one-stop, hip cat shop

I regret to say that whatever flu it is I have keeps me from my usual hunting-gathering-curating activities.

But that's not going to stop me from telling you to go look at Moderncat, a source for all things stylish+latest+coolest+cat. Check out the post on cat-o-lanterns!

finian, a welsh terrier

all 3 photos copyright J. Arnel

My dear friend Jill of Caninecopywriter.com submitted these peeks at a certain Welshman she once knew: "This was Finian, a Welsh terrier I adored for 16 years. He had terrible manners, chased cars (and bitches)."

"The ones of me and him are circa 1956 and/or 1957. The solo one is a bit older."

" 'Don’t worry,' said a parent, when he went missing for a day or so. 'He probably found a girlfriend.' He’d eat you alive if you tried to take a bone away from you, he hated all trades people who deigned to come to the door—or anyone who ran away, and he slept on my bed."

And I say: What's not to love?

just elizabeth

She looks so sweet there, doesn't she? And then she woke up. ; )

orange cat, left shoulder: lilla cabot perry

thanks a mill Wikimedia Commons

Oh, I remember well how this feels - a chunky little orange beauty draped over the left shoulder (never the right; never figured out what was up with that). This is Lilla Cabot Perry's (1848-1933) Woman with Cat (date not found so far), oil on canvas.

Perry was an Impressionist painter with a good twist to her story: daughter of the prominent Boston Cabot family, she was 36 before she got formal art training, and became a close friend of Monet's. (**NOTE: I'd originally typed that as Manet. My sincere thanks to the reader who wrote me to correct that.) She traveled widely with her husband and family, learned a great deal about the newest and most dynamic art movements of her time, and turned all this knowledge into intimate personal glimpses of people and situations she loved best.

Look again at the painting above: if the young woman were turned round, it is she you'd reckon with, and the kitty would be only an accessory. Instead the green-eyed, alert face of the cat is featured, along with the cuddling arm that nestles it close. And look at that fine fur next to the glossy brunette hair. This is an understated portrait of tenderness.

The Wikipedia article on Perry is a very good one, so here you go.

the clockwork pet: roullet and descamps

A prim white kitty in spectacles fans herself. A basket of pink flowers holds a bunny surprise. And a kinda disreputable lion can still leap, though he's a hundred and nine years old.

All these fantastical things are late 19th - early 20th c clockwork toys - automata - from the Paris firm of Roullet & Descamps. Roullet had opened a tool-production workshop in 1866 and shortly after switched to automaton toys with his first partner. Descamps, the shop foreman, married into the family in 1879, and descendants ran the company till 1995. Their productions mirrored the fancies of the France they lived in: cute pets, dolls in the latest fashions, clowns, clever monkeys. The quality and poetic cleverness of their creations have been honored by a museum in the village of Souillac.

You may find more of the firm's history here. And here's a bunny in a cabbage. And a walking, meowing cat. All examples from Britain's Automatomania.

axis bold as mutts

If you're a Mutts fan, as I very much am, perhaps you've wondered at Patrick McDonnell's title panels every Sunday. There's something. . . familiar about some of those panels, though they often have little or nothing to do with the rest of the cartoon.

There's a reason for that! McDonnell often bases his Title Panels on works of art and design that we've all seen through the years - for example, my current favorite, from the 1967 cover for The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Axis: Bold as Love.

You'll find a selection at the Mutts website here - click on the panel to see the inspiration. Can you find the "Magritte," or the "Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica" ?

the coolest building in riga

Or at least so far.
I'm talking about The Black Cats' House, built in 1909 in Riga, Latvia. Legend is that about 100 years ago the owner of the building was excluded from the local guild. He didn't find this fair, and to express his displeasure he topped off his lovely Jugendstil (the German variant of Art Nouveau) building with a couple of black cats, rumps pointed unmistakeably at the guild building opposite.

I'm not saying that's classy, but I am saying that's entertaining and I wish people would express their disappointment that creatively nowadays. In any case it seems to have worked. The owner was eventually admitted to the guild, and the cats were turned round to a more decorous orientation, as seen today. Want to see? Some great photos here, that came from this travel page.

from 1883: thoughts on dogs

In 1883, Verson S. Morwood ("Lecturer to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals") put together a volume of musings on the facts and phases of animal life, suitable for edifying the minds of the young.

The writing is appropriate to the time, carefully phrased and stilted, but honest and kindly for all that. This is how he ends his preface:

The writer may add, that while this volume may contain something to inform and
entertain the mind, his object has also been to show that, as animals are
members of the same creaturehood as ourselves, and in various ways contribute so
much to our pleasure, profit, and convenience, it is our duty to be humane to
them, as far as it may be in our power to be so, and to remember that 'Sweet
mercy is nobility's true badge,' and that it confers real dignity upon those who
wear it.

That's so Late Victorian, isn't it? The chapter titles are nothing short of marvellous. Though I was sorely tempted by entries such as "Story of a Living Bee-Dress," "Song of the Fly," "Alleged Vices of Birds," and "Rats Unpopular, and said to be Useless," I headed for his thoughts on dogs. Here is a bit of that. Enjoy.

* * *
The Pug Dog.
The true English pug is small, of a sandy colour, with dark muzzle, and a curly tail. Although he is not the most attractive looking of our pet dogs, and has been often called a sort of miniature bulldog, he is cleanly in his habits, very sensible, and affectionate.

The Poodle Dog.
This dog possesses a good temper, and is very docile. His imitative pow.ers are considerable, and his capabilities of education are superior to those of many dogs. He can be taught not only to perform a number of different tricks singly, but to take his part in a stage performance with many other dogs. He belongs to the spaniel family: has white curly hair, which is frequently taken from every part of his body, excepting the head, neck, feet, and the end of the tail, which gives the dog a grotesque appearance.

The Pointer.
There are few dogs more valued by their owners than the pointer. To those who are fond of shooting game this animal is an indispensable companion, because, having such an acute scent, it easily discovers where the game lies, and which it indicates first by stopping and then by moving forward as silently as possible. These cautious movements on the part of the dog suggest to his master to be ready for a shot when the game rises. Should he bring down a bird the dog will appear to be well pleased. Instances, however, have been known of pointers leaving the field in disgust if, after a few shots, their masters have failed to bring down the game, and no persuasion subsequently would ever induce these mortified pointers to accompany such bad shots again.
* * *

-- from Verson S. Morwood, Facts and Phases of Animal Life (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1883) pages 203-04.

artist: nicole zeug - and a beloved dog

Image copyright Nicole Zeug, Arts and Dogs

This is one of my finds on DeviantArt: Nicole Zeug's 2008 aquarelle/watercolor portrait of her own Golden. I was pleasantly struck by the unusual angle in conjunction with her careful naturalism, making not only a rendering of a dog, but The (Beloved) Dog. Who hasn't thought of a much loved pet in these mighty terms now and again?

Her palette also adds to the sense of immediacy, reflecting the pale pure colors of observations made on a fine clear day. Appreciate, too, the fine rendering. Look at the fur rippling with the ear's bend, the soft leathery dog-lips, and the liquid eye (I do love that eye).

it's vintage photo time again: you weren't expecting this

copyright: me, now

Okay. This is not a pet per se. Nobody should have a pet elephant (and that includes the circuses: just Google "elephant circus" if you want to get bummed in a hurry).

(Oh and don't encourage elephant exploitation in Thailand. Google that, too.)

But I mean, come on, somebody a way back got up close to an elephant and took its picture.
You actually think I could pass that up?

(For a look at people who love and heal sad elephants, try going to Elephant Nature Park.)

kitten on the (electronic) keys

Why do synthesizer enthusiasts gravitate towards cats as pets/sidekicks? It's been discussed, with varying results.

This is another one of those niches that took me by surprise - every time I think I surely must have played out (unintentional Keyboard Cat reference) every known avenue of pet culture, something pops out of left field. But looking in from outside, the start of the cat/synth synthesis (ahem) was surely the Octave/Plateau Cat Synthesizer, manufactured from 1977-81. This fortunate naming made for some jolly ads. Then there's the well known attributes cats have of being curious, light on their feet and nimble with their paws. How often does your puppy scramble up to the keyboard? Not so much? You can enjoy a blog all about cats and electronic keyboards at CatSynth.

One discussion thread dropped the name "Wendy Carlos," the Moog music pioneer who scored the movies Tron and A Clockwork Orange. Why? Well, probably that Siamese draped blissfully over her shoulder on her homepage for starters, though she includes much, much more on her cats and other pets.

presidential dogs

Did you hear President Obama retelling how his young daughters took the news of his Nobel? "You got the Nobel Prize, and it's Bo's birthday, and we get a three day weekend." Something like that. I had to smile at the sheer excellence. Of course the dog's birthday is right up there.

And Bo is right at the end of a fine short slideshow of Presidential dogs past and present you'll find at NPR.org. Dogs we know well - FDR's Fala, the Clintons' Buddy, George H. W. Bush's Millie - are in there.

So are a few others I did not know as well. Say what you will about Herbert Hoover, his King Tut was clearly a good friend to him. I had forgotten Gerald Ford's Liberty, who has one of the cutest faces in the lineup. And I never knew Nixon had a Yorkie named Pasha. Have a look at the show.

an unlucky kitten finds a good person

I've been reading Robert Roberts' A Ragged Schooling: Growing Up in the Classic Slum (New edition: Mandolin, 1997). This autobiography of a childhood spent in the poorest districts of Salford, UK during the Edwardian era is gripping, sympathetic, and by some alchemy of Roberts' character and talent, only sad in the shadows. But even many of his grimmer childhood observations and experiences are warmed by the care of the truly great figure at the center of the tale: his mother. A shopkeeper, well read, mother to 7 children (and frankly as well to a charming, alcoholic husband), she calmly kept to her own home. Yet every so often the ugliness beyond would intrude, and she would always have an answer.

One day she even had an answer for a kitten in a bad way, brought to young Robert by a schoolfellow (you'll find this story on p. 83):

Once, in a narrow entry that ran behind the street, Iggy wandered up to me with a black, snake-like object that jerked stiffly on his hands, then lay still, staring. I stepped back, afraid.
"It's a kitten," he said. "Some rotten pig's rolled it in hot pitch off the road! Now it's gone hard."
"What - What can we do?" I asked.
"Your old lady," he said, "she's the one." (Ignatius, for some reason, held my mother in awe and always assumed I feared her too.) He came with me to the entry end and I took it in at the back door. Face set, Mother examined the dreadful offering. "Put it down," she ordered at last. Then, going into the shop, she scooped up a lump of lard and dropped it into the frying pan. Soon we were kneading warm oil into the kitten's fur, after which she washed it with soap and water.
"How's the moggie?" Ignatius asked later.
"Like a lump of wool now!" I told him. "We're going to keep it," which seemed to please him.

vintage photo

copyright: me, now

Another Ampersand find, this one with nothing on the back to clue me in.

Clearly, someone was proud of their cat and how fine he or she looked on their cement bench in the back yard. (I do believe you can get precast benches in this pattern today.)

dog as officiant: sagdid

In the Zoroastrian religion, a dog steps up to perform an important part of a deceased person's leavetaking of the world. The ritual is called sagdid, meaning "dog-sight," and the dog must be what is called "four-eyed," meaning it has two eye-like spots above its own eyes.

This ritual meant a great deal in the days before doctors could without doubt confirm a death. If the dog looked at the person carefully, they were still alive; if the dog would not look, the person was indeed gone. This was repeated several times, so the dog had more than one opportunity to check, and there was also one final sagdid as the deceased was placed in their tower of silence - the Zoroastrian method of sky burial.

The page I'm referencing for this mentions that the dog is brought in at a particular point in prayers, Yasna 31.4, which if I've made the correct conclusion is this verse:

4. If Asha is to be invoked and Mazda and the other Ahuras and Ashi and Armaiti, do thou seek for me, O Vohu Manah, the mighty Dominion, by the increase of which we might vanquish the Lie.

Just because I always like to give the fullest picture possible, though I do know I must be missing a number of fine points.

The section on sagdid here. Yasnas 28-34 in English here.

let's go to the pet circus

Up up up the fuzzy pole the kitty goes to the pie-sized platform many feet in the air. The pole is being held steady by a strong man, but is that cat really going to jump that far down? Yes, he is. But he will land safely in a fat green pillow held by a red-headed clown. Meanwhile the four white matching Spitz dogs are getting their pretty collars on, ready to dance, and a couple other kitties are persuaded to come out of the flower-bedecked bicycle baskets after their refreshing clown-powered ride.

The clown is Denis Ignatov, and he and his furry friends have created "Performing Dogs and House Cats," an all-pet circus in which feats ranging from daring to sweet (you'll love the "Cat Wedding") are performed for your delight and even education. Ignatov has also added his own acrobatic piece in "Cube." Overview of the performances here. But be sure and see the video clips on the cat page, the dog page, and the mini-"pet show."

Meanwhile, did you even know those cat-lovin' engineer guys had their own candidate for the past election? They proposed their cat Ginger, and I have to say they made a compelling case for her. (The military reenactment alone was worth the time: "Don't buzz the tower! You'll get in trouble!")

momoyo torimitsu: cute as discomfort

Big bright vinyl bunnies, too big for their space, crushed down over you. They ought to be cute and funny. Are they? There's so many of them. They aren't fitting comfortably. Something isn't right here.

Exactly, according to Japanese artist Momoyo Torimitsu. The bunny installation was called Somehow I don't feel comfortable, and it was designed specially to not fit its Parisian gallery space. Torimitsu was illustrating the effect of cuteness used in excess in order to buffer or gloss over issues such as individuality or empowerment.


The gallery show page here. And for an adventure, Momoyo Torimitsu's website here (click on the first page and then try clicking "Projects."

update on that four-legged raving loony candidate

Apparently Lord Sutch's spaniel was named Splodge, not Bob. Gathered from Sutch's obit in the LA Times.