Cats

Weekend Cat Blogging: Portrait

Today we are keeping it simple, and sharing a portrait of Luna.

With all the recent fun with Hipstamatic and other iPhone-based photography, it’s good to remember what the DSLR can do. Over the last couple of days, I have been working with the fixed-length portrait lens, which I rarely use. But it quite good for taking portraits without much distortion. Especially for a cat like Luna with dark fur, it’s nice to be able to capture so much detail and expression.

Weekend Cat Blogging is at Mind of Mog this week.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Kashim, Othello and Salome.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator

CatSynth pic: Video on a Wurlitzer Electric Piano


“Video” the Cat takes a stroll on a Wurlitzer 200e electric piano. Submitted by The Wiggly Tendrils via our facebook page.

One may argue that a Wurlitzer electric piano isn’t a “synthesizer” per se. But electromechanical pianos (Wurlitzer and Rhodes) are among my favorite instruments and feline pictures with them are always welcome here!

Me too. I bought this one in Oshkosh Wisconsin years ago at the music store that time forgot. The guy was renting them out to piano students who didn’t have pianos at home. (their original purpose) I eventually talked him into selling me one. I love it. I also briefly had a Yamaha CP-70 but had to sell it when I moved from Philly to Berkeley.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Play with Me!

On sporadic mornings, I have been taking Instagram photos of Luna like the one above. She is often basking in the sunshine on one of the dining-area chairs, but on this occasion she was rolling on the floor with one message: “Play with Me!”

And it was a good message for her to give. Like many mornings, it was a bit frenzied with things pulling me in multiple directions. Luna made it clear what I should be doing, which was to drop everything and come play with her, even if only for a few minutes before work. And so this is a very roundabout way of interpreting this week’s Photo Hunt theme of DROP. Weak, perhaps, but it means something to us.

Weekend Cat Blogging #352 is hosted by Pam at Sidewalk Shoes.

The Weekly Photo Hunt theme is DROP.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Nikita and Elivra at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat. We also wish Nikita and his dad a Happy Birthday this coming week!

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth Video: Arp Odyssey Strange noises and drones, using sample and Hold modulations

From our friends at polynominal.com, another video featuring images of Mimi. The modulated sounds are quite interesting as well – lots of rich noisy timbres.

“For more info, longer demo and more, please visit the arp odyssey page at this URL:
http://www.polynominal.com/site/studio/gear/synth/Arp_odyssey/index.html”

Weekend Cat Blogging: Luna encounters the Skatchbox

Those who read yesterday’s review of Music of Invention concert encountered Tom Nunn’s musical invention, the Skatchbox. Today, Luna discovered this instrument for herself:

I chose this model of the limited-edition mini-Skatchboxes made specifically for the concert because of its visual aesthetics. It reminds me a bit of paintings of Kandinsky. As for the sound, it can make a variety of loud noisy timbrally rich sounds. They were a bit new to Luna’s ears:

I literally just scratched the surface (no pun intended). I wouldn’t yet play this in a formal musical setting. But it is loud, and a somewhat sneaky way to participate in this week’s Saturday Photo Hunt on the theme LOUD. Here is another image of Luna with the Skatchbox using the new America pack in the Hipstamatic app.

Those who have regularly seen my photos know I tend to prefer crisp images with high contrast, whether from the Hisptamatic or the DSLR. But this one seemed to work best blurred. And Luna was not going to cooperate for another take.

Weekend Cat Blogging #351 is hosted by The Bengal Business.

The Saturday Photo Hunt is up with the theme of LOUD.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by When Cats Attack!

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.