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Weekend Cat Blogging #194

We at CatSynth welcome everyone to Weekend Cat Blogging #194! We’re excited to be hosting again, and have been busy getting prepared.

To participate, please leave you link in the comments, and we will include you in the big roundup on Sunday.

We are dedicating this edition to Socks Clinton, the former “First Cat”, who passed away this week at the venerable age of 20.

(February 20, 2009) Word tonight that Socks Clinton, the one-time Arkansas stray adopted by the Clintons who rose to international prominence and literary fame as sole feline inhabitant of the White House, died today.

Butch, Jules, and Vincent use their Weekend Cat Blogging to pay their respect to Socks.

 

Meowza shows some leg this fine Caturday. Meanwhile, Cece feigns innocence at iInfidel.


LB and Breadchick Mary have been lazy this weekend. But not really, as time away from work for ourselves is important. LB enjoys relaxing by the sofa and subwoofer. And we at CatSynth really like the header for the The Sour Dough.


Most of us are eagerly anticipating the transition from winter to spring, and for Smudge of sidewalk shoes, that means patiently waiting for the catnip.


Maruschka poses elegantly (and sleepily) at Rosa’s Yummy Yums, with an accompanying quote on being a cat.

Babeth presents Happy Hour, a tale of cats’ sleeping habits, at House of Chaos.


We go from sleeping habits to playing habits at Gattina’s, where Rosie has adopted a toy turtle as her new doll.

Samantha and Tigger are basking in the sunshine at Life from a Cat’s Perspective. Together with Granddaughterbean, they are a quite a trio, enjoying the warmth. We could use a bit of warmth here in the midst of our cold rainstorms – but we do need the rain in California.

Kashim, Othello and Salome are feeling a bit neglected this weekend, as their mama has been out celebrating her birthday as well as other human social activities. Clearly, those are lower priority than spending time with kitty cats. On a happy note, Kashim’s paws have nicely after his unfortunate accident a couple of weeks ago.

Tillie is being lazy in the sun over at Mickey’s Musings. Meanwhile, Mickey and Georgia are being lazy somewhere else, and their mom is “laziest of all”, as she hardly helped the cats blog all weekend. However, she did help them participate in WCB, and we’re glad to have our friends from Nova Scotia join us!

That concludes this Weekend Cat Blogging for now. Thanks to everyone who participated, and we will continue to post entries through Monday as we receive them.

This weekend, you can also visit the Carnival of the Cats at When Cats Attack, and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos with Samantha and Tigger at Life from a Cat’s Perspective. And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Jackson Pollock’s Birthday

Yesterday (January 28) was the birthday of the artist Jacskon Pollock.

Regular readers know that we at CatSynth are big followers of modern art, and Pollock was one of the most well-known and influential artists from the rich period of American art in the 1950s and 1960s. He is most often associated with the large and diverse movement abstract expressionism, but his work is quite distinctive even with in that context, and his large “drip paintings” are instantly recognizable.

I first encountered Pollock’s work at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and later at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). I did have an opportunity to see a major retrospective at the MoMA in 1999, which brought together not only his large iconic paintings, but his earlier works that mixed abstraction with Native American and folk influences – although these works were “modern” they were more conventional for contemporary art of the time. I managed to find this article from the News Hour (PBS) discussing Pollock and the 1999 retrospective.

Although Pollock is held in high regard by those who follow and care deeply about modern art, he is often treated derisively by people who simply don’t like modern or abstract art. He is perhaps the most associated with the phrase “my five year old could do that.” The idea is laughable. This is unique and skillful art, especially on such a large scale. Such paintings were not seen before the 1940s, and centuries of five-year olds never produced anything like it.

Google has a tradition of honoring major artists on their birthdays with a themed home page, and yesterday they did so for Jackson Pollock:

Thanks to The Madville Times for capturing the above image.

The Miracle Cats that survived a wildfire

I had planned to post the story of Adam and Abe, the cats that survived a wildfire for Thanksgiving after reading their story on Monday. That was before more of the world started burning – some of the fires are natural, some human-made, and all are tragic. But perhaps this story is still appropriate, to know that these beautiful and much-loved black cats both survived the terrible wildfires in southern California and that small joys are always possible.

Marriage Equality (aka "No on 8") Rally, November 15

On Saturday, demonstrations were held throughout the country in support of marriage equality and against the recent passage of Proposition 8 here in California (as well as similar measures in other states). Of course our local event in San Francisco was one of the more prominent.

It was an exceptionally warm and sunny weekend here, considering that it’s the middle of November. It was already getting hot when people started gathering at City Hall ahead of the 10:30 start time.

And the crowd grew rather quickly.

Indeed, it was hard to see the speakers, or hear them. In that sense, it was a bit frustrating and gave the event a sense of poor planning. At the same time, it was great that the crowd was so large. And it was worth it to be there in support of my friends and all the other people whose marriage rights were taken away. This is part of the way to win them back.

Some more colorful banners, playing on the California and U.S. Flags (we featured the “rainbow Bear Flag” in a past Wordless Wednesday).

After a while of standing in the heat and attempting to listen to speakers, we all decided to march from City Hall along Market Street towards the Castro District.

That is where my participation ended for the day, but this is too important an issue to simply end at a street corner…

Election Day

Well, Election Day is here.

Here is our sample ballot and voter guide for the City and County of San Francisco, California:

Yes, it is a tome! One actually has to read and study in order to do a good job with today’s civic duty. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. The rather large size is mostly because of all our local and state-wise propositions. We have 22 local propositions. Most are very mundane, but we have some “interesting” ones, like naming a waste-water treatment plant in honor of the outgoing president (yes, the “George W Bush Sewage Treatment Plant”).

We also have 12 state propositions, including the most profound:

Those of you with us here in California, please use to your sense of reason and fairness, rather the fear and prejudice, when you consider Proposition 8.

And of course we shouldn’t forget that national election today:

Luna is joining us in absentia:


[click to enlarge]

Her boarding place is not far from our polling place, so I’ll pay her a visit after voting…

Unlike many other civilized (and not-so-civilized) countries, Election Day is not a holiday here in the U.S., and so some of us have to go to work. That includes me, as well as the construction crew here at CatSynth HQ. Making Election Day a holiday one of those things we question every four years and then never do anything about.

UPDATE

Well, the deed is done. It was actually a long line when I arrived late this morning. It seems that they temporarily ran out of ballots. It was a chance to talk to some other people from the neighborhood while waiting. I think all of us in line nearby worked in computer software. And indeed most of the line appeared to be a “blue demographic.”

I did go visit Luna afterwards. It was a wonderful moment of peace and calm amidst the current intensity and excitement and anxiety. I will remember that as part of this day.

Now there is nothing to do except await the results…

Election fun, electronic music, and seriousness

Well, we’re getting close, and things are looking good:

(This is a live link, so it will show the final results, and we’ll see how “good” things really went.)

One delightful election story that is rather apropos of this site involves Brian Dewan. He was in the news this past Saturday because of his performances of historical political folk songs (think mildly irritating songs about Jimmy Carter, Nixon or Eisenhower), but Dewan’s true claims to fame are his unqiue electronic musical instruments, including Melody Gins and Dewantrons, and “Folk Synthesizers.” We at CatSynth are delighted to see politics and our own art form crossing paths in such a direct and public way. As for Dewan’s instruments – we want one!.

This reminds me of how electronic music crossed paths for me during the previous elections, when I attended ICMC in New Orleans in 2006; and in 2004 as well, when my fellow electronic musicians and I watched the defeat at a bar in Miami. Things are looking much better this time.

We at CatSynth have also been quite amused by some of the humorous and well-designed sites that have recently appeared, most notably PalinAsPresident.com. This Flash animation depicts Sarah Palin as President (presumably after McCain’s untimely demise) in the form of an interactive game where you click on different objects (it reminds my a lot of Myst series and similar games from the 1990s). Humor abounds, as you uncover stashes from huge shopping trips, make Palin say goofy things like “Where’s Russia” and variations on “Maverick.” It is being updated every day through November 4th, and it’s always fun to come back and see what’s new. Hours, or least minutes of quality entertainment.

One thing that is not so entertaining: a mailer I received, using Barack Obama’s image and words to support Proposition 8. He is officially against it – though he hasn’t been particular vocal about the issue, mostly because of cultural blackmail in certain regions and among certain demographics. Nonetheless, it is really troubling, hopefully it doesn’t sway anyone in this largely Obama-supporting state.

The ad seemed largely targeted at African Americans, given the images and quotes from black clergy. It made me wonder about my own ethnic hertiges and their support for marriage equality. In particular, the Indian side of my heritage. I did find this survey thanks to Prerna. It suggests a 47% vote against proposition 8, which is far higher than I expected. Given my own experience (as well as the stereotypes of Indian Americans), I would have expected far lower, as we (i.e., South Asians) have an embarrassing track record on social and cultural issues. So on that note, I am somewhat optimistic. But both Prerna and I agree, “We can do so much better.”

And that’s true for the country as a whole, we can do so much better. Hopefully, we will chose that option, both nationally and locally…