Cats

Halloween Weekend Cat Blogging Round-up

Well, it's time for the big Halloween Weekend Cat Blogging Round-up. We're celebrating black cats this weekend (of course, we do that every weekend here at CatSynth). But we welcome all cats and cat-lovers for the Halloween festivities. Indeed, we open with a holiday graphic from our British-shorthair-tabby friends Kashim and Othello:

They also have a video this weekend. Check it out.

Across the Pacific (aka, the “other pond”) in Malaysia, we have a black kitten standing proudly among its ginger siblings at Of course, no celebration of black cats would be complete without a visit to the House of Mostly Black Cats. This portrait of Boni Maroni (left) is certainly appropriate for today, but we also think it would be great for their Peace Globe, which they are preparing for the next Peace Globes blog event on November 7. We'll be there, too!

We also have black-cat laser eyes at Sleeping Mommy, along with Sara Blue, who was recently found and rescued. Sounds like she is adjusting to her new home. Just watch out for those laser eyes.

Sadly, homeless kitties abound, and at Very SEDAP!!! they are doing their best to help some wary homeless kittens in their neighborhood. More spooky laser eyes give way to a family of kittens learning to trust humans.

With so many homeless kittens and rescues this weekend, we think this is a good time to pause and think about all the pets and homeless animals affected by the wildfires in southern California this week. As things appear to be calming down, we continue to hope for the best.

Boo wishes everyone a Happy Halloween with his own festive graphics at Manx Mnews. A mixture of traditional Halloween black-and-orange, cats, and modernist texture (can't resist a moment to dip into art-critic mode). Nicely done.

Meanwhile, Upsie and sher get into the holiday spirit by featuring Sydney the Spider. Fine dining, spider-style, brings new meaning to the title What Did You Eat?.

And for our Halloween celebration of black cats, Stasia cedes the spotlight to Petee at Zazen in the Moonlight. Sounds like the little guy has had a tough life, but it sounds like he has a nice loving home now.

A beautiful black cat can be a princess. But over at Life from a Cat's Perspective, Samantha wishes her mom wasn't quite so literal about it. Don't worry, Halloween will be over soon enough…

Izzy may be exonerated, but it seems like trouble abounds at Mind of Mog. Seems like an episode tailor-made for the Bad Kitty Cat Festival.

Meanwhile, our friend Kitikata-san is dealing with some unwelcome scents in the form of CJ (right) and another “scardee cat.” And she didn't get to partake in the smoked chicken. Hope she gets some Halloween treats as consolation…

Over at A Byootiful Life, we find one of our favorite “Luna look-a-likes” Puddy is trying to get out. Hopefully getting to hang out with all your WCB friends and celebrating black kitties is reason enough for Puddy to stay inside with us.

Meanwhile, the cats at Rosa's Yummy Yums are looking bored, in a tragically hip sort of way. Now we look this way. Now we look that way. What else is there to life?

No…really…what else is there?

More black cats this weekend! Big black Kamikazee is ready for the holidays. He wishes everyone a Happy Halloween at I Got Two Shoes.

The folks at Music and Cats invite you to guess “what part of the (black) cat is this?”

Over at cuisine guylaine, we are treated to un petit tour dans le jardin! and more.

We at CatSynth join our fellow weekend cat bloggers in offering our thoughts to Miss Peach, who is seriously ill, and her family.

WCB Apocrypha. Andrée of Meeyauw has begun Sunday lectionary readings from the LOLCat Bible. Daisy has a Sunday comic reminding us not to judge others by their skin (or lack thereof). Megan at the Bad Kitty Cats Journal reflects on kitty cats, children, and memories after a difficult year.

Other Weekend Cat Events. Friday Ark #162 is at the modulator. The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is at Live from a Cat's Perspective with Samantha and Tigger. And Carnival of the Cats is going to Missy Blue Eyes' and KC's on Sunday. (And we're hosting the Carnival right here at CatSynth next Sunday).

Weekend Cat Blogging #125: The Halloween Edition

Luna and I welcome everyone to Weekend Cat Blogging, Halloween Edition. We are happy to be hosting this event.

This is difficult time for cats, especially black cats. In North America (U.S. and Canada), some continue to view cats as “bad luck”, such as in this article, which fuels neglect and sometimes abuse which can spike around Halloween.

Many shelters continue to suspend adoptions of black cats around Halloween (sometimes for all of October). And while this is to protect them, it is unfortunate because black cats already have a harder time getting adopted.

So we at CatSynth want to celebrate black cats this weekend. Black is beautiful!

We invite all our feline friends to participate, but we want to especially welcome black cats. Households with multiple cats are encouraged to let their black siblings enjoy the spotlight this weekend.

To participate, regardless of fur color, please leave us a comment, or contact us. We will be posting the big round-up later this weekend.

And don't forget the other Weekend Cat Events ™. Friday Ark #162 is at the modulator. The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is at Live from a Cat's Perspective with Samantha and Tigger. And Carnival of the Cats is going to Missy Blue Eyes' and KC's on Sunday.

Seabright cats, a warm day, and remembering those in harms way

This was an amazingly warm and clear day here on the California coast.

The early part of the day was in the Seabright neighborhood of Santa Cruz, mostly reading and working, but also enjoying wandering the streets and the area by the beach. I got a glimpse of this cat in one of the apartment complexes near the beach.

This photo is actually from a previous encounter with the “Seabright Kitty”, he/she wasn't in the mood to be photographed today…

Someone else, on the other hand, was quite photogenic:

This is Bella, who resides with my friend and colleague Synthia Payne, whom readers may remember from the UCSC DANM exhibition and Ninjam performances.

Luna of course continues to enjoy her favorite indoor activites:

I actually did take Luna outside briefly yesterday on her harness, and all she wanted to do was head back to the door and go inside. I'm not going to argue.

Like I said, it was exceptionally warm today:

Great for us here in Santa Cruz, but it part of the same warm, dry weather in which the fires in Southern California continue to burn out of control. This years fires in San Diego and the areas in and around Los Angeles might be even worse than the devastiing fires in 2003, with so many people and animals evacuating (over half a million so far) and so many more in harms way.

We at CatSynth want to take a few minutes on this Tuesday to send out thoughts to all the humans, cats, and other animals threatened by this disaster, and hope they make it through safely.

Portland

I am reporting on Portland after Astoria, even though we visted and played a day earlier. That’s just how things sometimes work.

We did have some time to spend in the Rose City before our show at Rotture:


Click to enlarge

We experienced Portland’s famously variable weather. Fortunately, many of the city’s attractions are indoors. This includes Powell’s Books. I could have spent the whole day in the Pearl Room, which contained the art and architecture offerings, as well as their extensive rare book collection.

Portland also has abundant public art. Across from Powell’s is this “brush,” a noted landmark:

And this “recursive elephant” was quite intriguing:

This sculpture includes other animals besides the elephants. I think I see a cat on the trunk:

It always comes back to cats, doesn’t it.

The show that evening was at Rotture, a club on the waterfront, conveniently located next to a construction zone. Although our audience was small, the show went well; and I did like the space, a converted early-20th century industrial brick building.


Click here to enlarge

They also had an interesting mural in the main audience area, and a nice large stage. We shared the bill with Emily Hay, who also does improvisation with flute and voice (although with a very contrasting sound and style from Polly); as well as Tim DuRoche and Resolution 51 (free jazz improvisation). So it was definitely worth sticking around after our performance to hear everyone else – although the entire evening was probably branded as “experimental night” or “improvisation night”, there was a great variety among the three groups, and I think the ordering worked well with us first, both musically and energy-wise.

More on Portland, our show at Rotture, and the trip up from the Bay Area can be found here.

Weekend Cat Blogging #124 and more: Away

Luna is looking out her favorite window…and waiting for someone to return from tour…

Weekend Cat Blogging #124 is at the *New* Tuxedo Gang Hideout.

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos will be held at Pet's Garden Blog, while the Carnival of the Cats will be at our friends The Bad Kitty Cats – we hope things are going a bit better for them now. And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging #123 and more: An Old New Favorite Spot

After a major clean-up in the studio, the bean bag chair reemerged from hiding. And Luna immediately reclaimed it as one of her favorite spots:

In addition the great black-on-black styling, it's a comfy place to “nest”, whether just relaxing and watching me work, or taking a nap:

Indeed, Luna spent quite a bit of time on the beanbag yesterday, even well into the evening (while I was working on the headphone festival performance):

Cats can remind a lot about simple joys, like a comfy spot to nest.

Weekend Cat Bloggin #123 is being held by Upsie and Sher at What Did You Eat. Upsie is learning about the US healthcare system, and also featuring the “sight formerly known as ScamperDude” at their new home at CASPCA (Charlottesville, VA ASPCA).

The hardworking “cat boys” Kashim and Othello are hosting this weekend's Kad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos (it's already edition #14, tempus fugit). The Carnival of the Cats will be happening this Sunday, hosted by Grace and the Kittens. And of course the Friday Ark #160 is at the Modulator.

CatSynth pics: Niki Fried Rice

Remember Niki? Well, she has some more gear photos:

Looks like a Nord micromodular in the first pic. And in the second, is that an E-MU Xmidi? Well, at least someone bought one. I wonder if that is a standalone unit, or the one that comes with Emulator/Proteus X2? (The fact that it's not connected to any MIDI cables suggests the latter)

sigh