Cats

CatSynth pic: Hohner Electra Piano

Cat with Hoehner Electra Piano

From Michael Van Dijck via our Facebook page.

Here is an example of the Hohner piano in action:

In this video, Chick Corea plays a Hohner Electra piano with Miles Davis. (Keith Jarrett is playing a different electric piano.)

Electric pianos are of course not strictly synths, as they are electro-mechanical rather than electronic. But these instruments are favorites of ours here at CatSynth.

Weekend Cat Blogging with Luna: Day of Rest

Luna resting

It’s not unusual for Luna to spend most of her day napping in sun puddles, but it’s a rare occasion when I get do so as well.  This month has been rewarding but also exhausting, with work, the Portland trip, multiple shows and sundry other events and obligations.  Fortunately, this weekend is largely free and thus a good time to rest as well as attend to health and home.    And of course to spend time with Luna.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at Mind of Mog.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Black Cat Appreciation Day

Today, August 17 is officially Black Cat Appreciation Day. Of course, that could apply to any day here at CatSynth.

luna_sphynxing_c

My black cat Luna, who was originally adopted from a shelter, certainly gets a lot of appreciation and love.

luna_emerald_eyes_c

Black cats are sleek and gorgeous. And I have often found them to be among the most sweet and affectionate of cats. Luna is no exception on either front.

20130622-IMG_9656-540x359

Sadly, black cats are still among the last to be adopted from shelters in the United States. Whether it’s lingering superstition or plain bias is hard to say. I see way too many heartbreaking stories of abandoned black cats in kill shelters reaching the end of their time. Black Cat Appreciation Day is an effort to highlight the plight of black shelter cats but also to celebrate them as wondrous companions. This video, from the Meadow Lake Humane Society of Saskatchewan, Canada, always gets to me:

There are numerous local groups on Facebook and elsewhere dedicated to helping black cats, and I encourage interested readers to check them out.

Feline welcome to Portland

My trip to Portland for BPOW!!! (the Battery Powered Orchestra Workshop) is over and it’s now time to reflect and report for the blog. Overall, this trip very much in line with the things I write about on CatSynth: electronic music, synthesizers, mathematics, urban landscape, photography, architecture, and even cats. Indeed, I know things were off to a good start when I arrived on Friday night and was immediately greeted by this cat:

Athena the cat from PDX

It turns out this is Athena, one of the cats that lives with Travis Feldman, creator of the Molecule Synth and the host of BPOW!!!.

Look for a few more BPOW- and Portland-related posts on these pages in the coming days.

World Cat Day

World Cat Day

Today many of our friends from Cat Blogosphere and elsewhere are celebrating World Cat Day. It was founded in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and other animal rights groups. Of course, it is a bit redundant here at CatSynth where every day is a cat day, but it is good to set aside a date in the greater society to recognize the contributions of cats.

While we haven’t done much per se to mark today other than lifting the graphic displayed above from Ann of Zoolatry, several of our fellow bloggers have fun posts for today.

The Island Cats have some cat proverbs.
Animal Shelter Volunteer has a collage of colorful and adoptable cats.
Georgia, Tillie and the rest of the cats from Halifax have a special card. They also agree with us that “cat day” is a bit redundant.
The Opinionated Pussycat has some basic facts about the date.
Purrchance to Dream has a world graphic with the whole gang (it seems like they’re always growing in number).

We can’t post everyone here, but you can hop over to the Cat Blogosphere for more festive links.