Cats

Weekend Cat Blogging #82: Black Pride

This New Years edition of Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by Champaign Taste. We wish all our WCB friends, feline and human, a happy and healthy new year!

Our contribution this week continues our tribute to James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, who is a hero of ours here at CatSynth; he passed away this past Monday. In addition to his music (which is playing in the background as I write this), he made contributions to civil rights and the “Black Power” movement, through his efforts to promote African American ownership of the distribution of music on records and radio, and of course his classic anthems such as “Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.” It is in honor of this anthem that Luna strikes a proud, stately pose this week, reminiscent of the iconography of the Egyptian goddess Bast:

The connection between black cats and civil rights isn't entirely gratuitous. Consider the well-known symbol of the Black Panther Party. Although founded in Oakland in 1966, the story goes that the party took its symbol from the Lowndes County (Alabama) Freedom Organization:

We chose for the emblem a black panther, a beautiful black animal which symbolizes the strength and dignity of black people, an animal that never strikes back until he's back so far into the wall, he's got nothing to do but spring out. Yeah. And when he springs he does not stop.

Getting back to James Brown, I would be remiss if I did not also recognize one of my former cats Morty, the original “Supa-Bad Kitty”:

He got his nickname for his constant mischief, like sitting on the dining room table, but remainingly devilishly lovable. Plus, he could shake his money maker like no other kitty I've met. I miss him – he was taken by a former girlfriend and although I haven't seen him in many years, I hope he is doing well.











Weekend Cat Blogging #81: A CatSynth Channukah

Here at CatSynth we get into the holiday spirit with the traditional lighting of the channukah candles in our not-so-traditional music-inspired menorah:

The astute observer might see Luna in the background of the photo above. She keeps a good distance from the candles, as is appropriate. However, we'd like to remind everyone not to take any chances with candles this holiday season, especially with animal friends. Please make sure all candles are lit on safe, non-flammable surfaces (such as granite) and observed at all times.

For safer holiday kitty fun, Luna got some new toys in the appropriate blue and silver colors:

Not exactly a dreidel, but still fun!

Our family has a tradition in which we try to guess which candle is going to last the longest. In the photo below, the likely candidate is number six (third from the right, the center candle doesn't get numbered).

Sure enough, in the end the sixth candle was the last one alight. Watching the candles go out is fascinating. The flame dims to just a point, then sometimes flares up again in a last push before flickering and going out in a beautiful puff of smoke.

Hmm, this is starting to sound a little depressing, isn't it? Better hop over Tiggy the Tiny Tiger for some more feline holiday cheer!

Catsynth pic: cat in Serge

From m/n/m/l we have a cat under a Serge synthesizer kit. Looks like a comfy little spot.

m/n/m/l has some interesting music available on CD and for download. Judging from the quote on the website, I am guessing m/n/m/l shares my frustration with low CD and download sales:

June 2006

people from all over coming here. USA, Germany, China. But why?? read, look at pictures? download a couple tracks?

sales from downloads and CD's was up during the winter, lately it's dead again. don't really feel like spending all my time doing marketing marketing marketing,too much else going on now anyway.

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Weekend Cat Blogging #79: from the archives

For this weekend, we go back to the archives for this artistic sepia-toned closup of Luna:

The poster behind Luna is of a stabile by Alexander Calder, among my favorite artists. Calder is famous not only for his monumental abstract stabile sculptures, but also his abstract mobiles – his mobiles were influenced in part by the paintings of Mondrian, another of my favorite artists.

I think Luna's profile and sculpture complement one another quite nicely.

Check out more WCB fun over at belly timber Angry Cat Blog. I figure it's best not to ask…







Catsynth pic: actual cat with Octave CAT… and Kitten in Emulator X

Well, here's another cat sitting next to an Octave CAT – wonder why that comes up so much.

Actually I am quite interested in the Octave CAT and Kitten synths, I'm trying (yet again) to bid on one on eBay.

In the meantime, I have been trying several methods to emulate them, including building an Emulator X patch. The Kitten is definitely more feasible because it only has one oscillator and thus no FM – FM is nearly impossible to do on the Emulator platform. However, I did one out of MIDI controllers. So the end result is a “Kitten lite” that contains all the oscillator waveforms (Saw, Triangle and Square/PWM), the two independent sub-octave waveforms, square and sine LFOs, filter with realtime cutoff and Q and envelope mod, and of course ADSR envelope.

While not a real Octave Kitten, it's a nice little playable instrument.





Feline Alzheimer's disease

News of a studly on Alzheimer's disease for readers with ageing feline and human friends:

Ageing cats can develop a feline form of Alzheimer's disease, a new study reveals. Scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California have identified a key protein which can build up in the nerve cells of a cat's brain and cause mental deterioration.

In humans with Alzheimer's disease, this protein creates 'tangles' inside the nerve cells which inhibit messages being processed by the brain. The team says that the presence of this protein in cats is proof that they too can develop this type of disease…

…”As with humans, the life expectancy of cats is increasing and with this longer life runs the greater chance of developing dementia. Recent studies suggest that 28% of pet cats aged 11-14 years develop at least one old-age related behaviour problem and this increases to more than 50% for cats over the age of 15.”

Perhaps one of the things that makes cats and other companion animals so endearing is that they go through many of the same life stages as humans, from kittenhood/childhood to old age. Having recently observed a 96-year-old relative and a neighbor's 20-year old cat who recently passed away, one can see similarities in both the strong and the sad qualities. The old cat liked to simply rest in her favorite spots in the neighbors garden, staring out into the world. Her physical state deteriorated very quickly towards the end, but I believe she crossed the rainbow bridge quietly and peacefully. My relative is still with us (saw her on my recent New York trip), though her health and mental state has deteriorated quite a bit as well. Again, I find myself thinking of the similarities between humans and cats in this stage of life – though just as with human infants in comparison to kittens, older cats seem to on the whole do a better job of staying independent than their elderly human counterparts.

I wonder if any of the stem cell research on Alzheimer's in applicable to cats…



Meow Chow (WCB follow up)

I mentioned in the most recent Weekend Cat Blogging that we got a book of recipes for both cats and humans for Luna's birthday: Meow Chow: Hearty Recipes for Happy Cats.

I decided to try the crabcake recipe from the book because it seemed like something we both might enjoy – Luna's favorite human food to date seems to be turkey, but I'm a bit turkey'ed out myself. I bicycled down to the fish market on the Santa Cruz wharf for some fresh crab meat, and procured the other ingredients from various stores around town. The one substitution I made was matzoh meal instead of unsalted “saltine” crackers (isn't that an oxymoron). The preparation was pretty straightforward, mixing the batter, forming it into small patties and dropping them in the frying pan. Here is the final result:

A little overdone perhaps, but I do like the crust and at least for my own consumption I wanted to make sure the inside was well cooked. Luna had one half of a crab cake for herself:

She managed to eat most of it (which I cut into smaller pieces after this photo was taken), but I suppose it is quite filling for such a small cat.

I'm guessing next time she might prefer the sardines in the silver tray.

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Weekend Cat Blogging #78: Luna's Birthday

This weekend, D and her lazy co-hosts are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging #78. This is also the weekend of Luna's birthday, which was officially on November 30 (last Thursday). She is two years old now – the ketzelas grow up so fast, don't they…

Of course, what birthday would be complete without presents? Luna had plenty from her human friends (click on the pictures below to see larger images):

Her favorite seems to be this little blue mousey, she's been playing with it all weekend:

There's still more birthday fun in store. A friend gaves us a copy of the book Meow Chow: Hearty Recipes for Happy Cats.

Doesn't the kitty on the cover look a lot like Luna?

We're going to try the crab cakes this afternoon, if I manage to get my act together. I know a lot of WCB'ers are foodies, so please do check in again later to find out how the feline culinary adventure goes!

Thoughts on animal-abuse tragedy in Tampa…and police shooting in New York

At about the same time I found that last article on cats from Lebanon in Ohio, I came across this horrific story of animal cruelty from Tampa. One of the victims is in the photo to the right. The details of this case are pretty bad, and many of this forum's cat-loving readers would do best not to read the original articles. As for me, once I find out about something like this I feel compelled to “bear witness” painful as it may be, read follow-up reports and hope that some sort of justice or good comes out of it.
Indeed, one of my main motivations for posting is to expose the sick excuse for a human who allegedly committed these acts of cruelty. Apparently, he just doesn't like cats and was mad that they would sometimes climb onto his car. As a cat lover, it is hard to comprehend the level of anger/hatred he must have felt towards them, but even so there is no excuse for his cruel executions of these helpless creatures :(. He has confessed to the killings, and has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty, carrying a maximum five-year sentence. I will respect the justice system and not pass sentence on him myself, though many participants in a local online forum have their own creative punishments in mind. It is somewhat satisfying to see a unified front of anger and revulsion, with not one person coming to his defense.

Apparently, this guy took shots at a police helicopter not so long before this incident. That's pretty serious, one wonders why he wasn't already in jail. Indeed, why didn't he end up riddled with bullets? Certainly, that would have saved the cats whose lives seem more worthwhile. But it also raises some interesting questions in light of the recent police shooting in New York – I was actually still in New York for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend when it happened. The cases are of course quite different, but nonetheless I think they are worth comparing. In one situation we have 50 shots fired at three unarmed men who apparently struck an undercover police van – one of the men was killed, on the day of his wedding. In the other case, we have a man very openly taking shots at a police helicopter, and not only escaping the incident unhurt but free to kill three cats days later. Is it just the different locations and circumstances? Is it that black men are invariably more likely to be treated as threats and shot than sick white trash with a known record of cruelty and violience?

I intend to follow both of these cases to see what happens…