Cats

Theremin Cats

From Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now:

The context for this picture is Sacawa's lament that early theremin virtuosi concentrated on trying to get the instrument to play traditional western tonal music, rather than exploring the radically new ways of organizing pitch and structure afforded by the instrument. This is indeed something that concerns me about many of the efforts going on to “de-experimentalize” computer music and simply turn it into another tool for traditional classical or popular forms. The great promise of electronic instruments is to allow people to break with the traditions of acoustic music. But Sacawa concludes:

Maybe if more cats–unlike humans, who are so grounded in western tonal music–played the theremin we might witness the instrument's full potential.

And thus we have theremin-playing cats.

Check out this feline thereminist from YouTube:




CatSynth Correction: The Cats of 5lowershop

Like any publication, we make errors and when appropriate publish corrections. This is one is several months overdue, but I found myself thinking about it tonight. Last September, I played at the headphone festival in San Francisco at the club 5lowershop. It was one of the best live performances I did in the past year. In writing about the experience here at CatSynth, I mentioned a couple of cats I ran across while I there:

I immediately thought they were strays or perhaps neighborhood outdoor cats wandering through, and regular readers know I have a soft spot for such creatures. I am happy to say that I was wrong, as I learned when I received this comment at the end of February:

just an fyi : those kitties are pets too, and very loved. the grey kitty is momma to 6 of those black and white kittens. the kitten in your picture still lives at 5lowershop with mom's identical sister. mom lives with a friend of the family now. the other kittens all found loving homes with close friends. we live a few blocks from 5lowershop and have one of the kittens. they aren't feral, and they get along pretty good with the dogs (only 2 dogs hang out there, and they are quite nice when you get to know them. they pretty much ignore the cats)

seeing that you are such a cat enthusiast, i just wanted to let you know that these cats get spoiled rotten with love and attention. no need to feel bad for them!

It's good to know that those cats are loved, and if anyone associated with 5lowershop is still reading, I would love to come perform there again. I really enjoyed the gritty edge-of-the-city vibe, the people, and of course the cats.

Weekend Cat Blogging #107: Peek-a-boo and Stray Cats

WCB 107 is being hosted this weekend at ScamperDude.com, where Scampy is playing both Rock Star and Super Hero.

Luna has some antics of her own, ratcheting things up in our regular hide-and-seek games:

I noticed that that Luna's eyes appear yellow instead of green in this an many other photos taken in the more earth-tone bedroom. Regular fans of Luna know that she has unusually green eyes for a black short-hair cat.

Her antics and affections have been quite welcome of late, it seems like a bit of a melancholy week despite the beginning of summer, and the brightness and warmth in abundance.

On a recent series of morning walks I saw several cats, most of whom were probably strays, like this rather thin character with a striking coat and photogenic appearance:

He/she was one of several cats taking up residence in the large vacant trying separating a large residential neighborhood (my neighborhood, actually), from a Safeway parking lot and strip mall. I hope they get enough to eat.

A few weeks ago, I stopped at the semi-annual rummage sale for one of the main local groups that helps stray cats in our community, Project Purr.

Picked up a few books while I was there, some summer reading. I was mildly tempted by a full set of “Left Behind” paperbacks, but thought better of it.

Also check out Friday Ark #144 (Saturday is the new Friday), and of course Carnival of the Cats.

CatSynth pic: lissajous (chaos link)

Via matrixsynth:

Originally from gerald:

My cat loves the Lissajous this thing generates

So what is a “Lissajous”? it is actually short for Lissajous curves or Lissajous figures, a class of 2D (and 3D) curves describing complex harmonic functions, or more simply multi-dimensional sine curves. The following equations describe a general Lissajous curve on an x-y coordinate plane:

x = A sin(at + φ)
y = B sin(bt)

Most of the time, one leaves out the A and B, which case all the curves fall on a convenient unit square.

The most commonly described Lissajous curves set the phase term φ to π/2, i.e., a standard cosine function, and have a and b at integer ratios, like 1:2, 6:5, etc. You can think of these as natural harmonics, like in musical sounds. You can see a few of the graphs below, first for a=1 and b=2:

Here are 3:2 (a:b), and 9:8, respectively:

As you can see, the higher the ratio, the more complex and dense the figure. If you add all the figures up together, you should be able to fill the entire unit square.

There are all sorts of interesting special cases. For example, if you set a and b equal, you will get a circle. If you additionally set the φ to zero, you will get a straight line. Finally, you can mess with different values of φ, like 0.3 in the first drawing below, or set a and b to non-integer values, to get all sorts of interesting variations:

It is interesting to think about these sorts of functions by relating them both visually and aurally (i.e., synthesizing the corresponding waveforms), but we will leave that as an exercise for interested readers, perhaps returning to the topic in a future article.






Trying a little experiment. Trackposted to Gone Hollywood, Conservative Cat, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, and The Pet Haven Blog, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe. The links here and in the trackbacks do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this site or its contributors.

The CatSynth Eighty-three

It seems like everyone these days has a “top 100 list”, indeed we are listed on a few of them. Well, we at CatSynth like to be different, so we're introducing the “CatSynth 83.” All sites related to cats, synthesizers, electronic music, or any of the other topics frequently discussed on this site like highways, mathematics, software, etc., can apply. We will list to top 83 participating sites. So come and join the only top-sites list based on a neglected prime number.

Worthless Kitty Backfill: Salman Rushdie knighthood protests

Here is a small sample of calm and well-thought-out reactions to the recent knighting of British author Salman Rushdie:

The Senate of Pakistan expresses its strong condemnation on blatant disregard for the sensitivity of the Muslims of the World shown by the British Government by awarding a Knighthood to Salman Rushdie, who committed blasphemy against a pillar of Islam, the persona of Holy Prophet,” said the resolution moved by the leader of the [Pakistani parliament] Wasim Sajjad and supported by all opposition groups. [Times of India].

We will give 10 million rupees (165,000 dollars) to anyone who beheads Rushdie,” Islamabad traders' association leader Ajmal Baluch told around 200 people in one of the Pakistani capital's main bazaars.[AFP]

Not to mention this heart-warming photograph:


(AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)

C'mon, “Biggest Evil of the World”? Did you guys forget about the whole invasion and occupation of Iraq, a (mostly) Muslim country, where lots of people are actually dying? And you wonder why you guys have such a bad rep…

The ironies of course are that The Satanic Verses didn't seem all that blasphemous when I read it years ago – it was mostly about a snooty anglophile from Bombay, with occasional interludes – and that Salman Rushdie has written many other works. One of my favorites was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a childrens book. We did a children's theatre play based on the book while I was at Yale, for which I composed several original works – everyone's favorite was the disco soundtrack for the chase scene. It was a fun exercise in how to make a children's tale something dry and off-beat while keeping it suitable for a young audience.

I think this lolcat is particularly apropos:

Charles Mingus Cat Toilet Training Program

Speaking of Mingus and cats, I might as well post this surprising article from the legendary Jazz bassist himself. Here is the Charles Mingus Cat Toilet Training Program. It ends with the following:

It took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, Nightlife. Most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. Do it very slowly and don't confuse him. And, remember, once the box is on the toilet, leave it a week or even two. The main thing to remember is not to rush or confuse him.

Good luck. Charles Mingus

Yes, I wasn't sure this was for real, either, but it does appear on an official site that includes information about the Mingus Bands as well as the life and activities of his wife Sue Mingus following his death in 1979.

As one other bookmark on del.icio.us states, “I respect Mingus even more now.”

CatSynth Pic: Hey Diddle Diddle Goes Techno

From Stephan71 at flickr:

One day I caught Mingus stomping on various keys of the keyboard I had left on the floor. Funny thing, Mingus was named after Charles Mingus, the jazz bass player. I didn't bother to look what patch he had punched in on the synthesizer, whether it was set to “bass” or “fiddle”. He does also have a Beethovenesque look on this pose, doesn't he? Who knows…

Doesn't Mingus look a bit like Luna?