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Worthless Kitty Backfill: "Not a catsynth pic" and other diversions

There are real catsynth photos, and then there is this submission we received this week:

It came from a rather odd site with copies of the same picture over and over again, with long biblical quotes. The trackbacks were rather suspicious, indeed the whole thing seems kinda sketchy. Thus I am not providing a link to the original source to order to protect you, my loyal readers (hey if you're reading this post you must be pretty loyal).

Speaking of biblical spam, this seems like as good a time as any to note (as so many have already) the resemblance between the new Pope Benedict XVI and the Emperor from Star Wars:

You can google “pope star wars emperor” for plenty of earlier and more authentic references. While the metaphor for the imperial past of the Church is obvious, I wonder what it says about the future? Perhaps the ultimate fate of the Church is to be overrun by dancing ewoks…

We'll have to wait about the ewoks, but in the meantime, the cats are invading the Holy See. It turns out that the new pope is quite the ailurophile. If he loves cats, he can't be all bad, though I still don't like this “the dictatorial relativist Left is apoplectic” thing.

Yub dub, erub yub








3000 visits…

Well, like the United States, we hit our milestone of a number beginning with three followed by lots of zeroes…

After 3000 visitors, though, you think a few of them might go and buy the CD or download tracks from iTunes or eMusc. But it seems very few visitors even bother to listen to the free samples.

I take pride in keeping this site and my personal/professional site free of ads save for clean and tasteful promotion of my own work. I would like to keep it that way…

…so, time for a Guilt Trip?. If you enjoy this site, would it really hurt to check out the music, maybe buy a 99-cent track or two? If you're an emusic subscriber, add us to your download queue. And if you like anything you hear (heck, even if you don't), please consider writing a short review at one of these sites. Consider this review from Gloria in Toronto at CD Baby:

Amar has done an amazing job in putting together a very creative ensemble of various electronic instruments. Each song in the CD tells a story. Just close your eyes and you can visualize and hear the stories of love, passion, suspense, and anger. It's almost as if I'm watching a movie. The songs made me feel, and every time I listen to the CD, I get more out of it than before. Amar brings forth what I consider to be an exciting new genre of music.

OK, I better wrap this up before it turns into an NPR pledge drive…





Worthless Kitty Redux: Pyramid

Pyramid
September 19, 2004

Red
It was a red triangle
That formed on the side of the black pyramid
It was the red light curving from the source
Bent around the invisible smoke

It is hard enough to keep things straight
Without adding an extra dimension
But I string them all together
In hopes of something beautiful, something fantastic
For which I will find myself forever grateful
I thank my geometric farm
And turn all of my eyes elsewhere

It is maybe five in the morning,
I look over towards the window of our New York apartment
The dawn of early summer meeting the waning glow of city lights
And see her rising from the bed
In her T-shirt and boxers
Her indefinite-length brown hair irrelevant against her own shadow
This is a safe place
It is us against them
And I think we might still stand a chance

© 2004 Amar Chaudhary

Webs on an autumn afternoon

It's been a rather pleasant October afternoon, warm, breezy, with a clear sky. The mobile sculpture Airborne catches both the wind and the waning October sun:

The garden plants are doing about as well as they have all year. Admist a recent burst of flowers, I noticed this rather impressive spider web:

…not to mention the rather impressive spider that inhabits it:

The peace of the backyard was briefly interrupted by the sound of cats fighting. More worrisome was the sound of an angry dog barking in response. After peeking over the fence to investigate, I was assured by a neighbor that it was “just some crazy cats.” One of the “crazy cats” wandered into view and I immediately recognized him as the friendly grey tabby that often visits my yard (I jokingly refer to him for a while as Luna's “boyfriend”). Foruntately, he seemed to be none the worse for wear.

Cats, or more specifically, cat allergies, have been much in the news this weekend. The New York Times featured an article on a California biotech company that is breeding hyperallergenic “no sneeze” kitties, two of which are pictured to the right. The market for the hypoallergenic cats, which the company says will cost about $4000 USD each, is people who love cats in spite of their allergies. It is certainly a high price tag, but I gather so are the medications for the most severe allergies. Those who seek a more affordable feline companion and want to continue to adopt shelter cats can take heart in a study supporting the theory that having pets cuts allergy risks. Finally, there is this story from Wales about a hospital fighting to keep their cat Tibs, who has chearing up patients for years. While I do my best to avoid hospitals, I know having a cat around would help me during a health crisis.

I had an opportunity last night to jam with some friends and acquaintances I have not seen in a while. I played keyboard, with primarily piano, electric piano and organ sounds, though I did add a Moogerfooger pedal to the mix. Musically, we did a mixture of jazz standards, some 12-bar and 16-bar “headless” jams, and several trippy free-jazz experiments with keyboard, guitar, bass and drums. The latter reminded me of how I would like to get together a standard “quartet” at some point that freely moves back and forther between jazz/funk and experimental improvisation. It would be quite a contrast to my recent performances, but still consistent with my musical vision and sensibilities…

…in another example of slipping back and forth between disparate musical styles, I was listening earlier to alternating tracks from Ethiopiques, which I described in an earlier article, and the rather dark, political, and vaguely Middle-Eastern electronic music of Muslimgauze. The two albums could not be more different in geography, style, production and social context, yet they seemed to work well together. The dark electronica of Muslimgauze worked for me, dispite an implicit political view I probably don't share, and the gritty funk of Ethiopiques brought me back to reality. Perhaps here is the seed of another musical project…

…or just idle thoughts on a warn autumn day…










Day of Atonement

Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement has ended with the setting sun (which actually appeared out there for a moment this evening). Most people know this holiday as the time when their Jewish friends fast or disappear altogether. As someone who is not religious or all that observant, I have fasted only a fraction of the 33 times this holiday has come around, and then primarily for “tribal” and identity reasons. Fasting is only a part of the holiday, the primary focus being the reflection upon and owning up to the good and bad from the past year, letting go, and resolving to do better for the next year. For the most holy day of a major religion, this is remarkably reasonable and realistic, and something worth doing.

However, this year it is the idea of “fasting” itself that perhaps suggests my atonement for the next year. I didn't really think about fasting per se when I ate nothing except a small bowl of cereal Sunday morning, before going out on a major hike in the Santa Cruz mountains in the afternoon.

The hike was a wonderful experience, physically, aesthetically and socially. I left ready to enjoy and quiet, restful and reflective evening. However, on the drive back I started to feel quite nauseous, and then noticed my limbs shaking, and soon found myself in tremendous pain, unable to drive or do anything except complain about my situation. Fortunately, my friend was able to drive the rest of the way, and also recognize the symptoms of extreme low blood sugar among other issues – and eventually I made it home safe but quite ashamed and embarrassed. Needless to say, I did not fast between sundown yesterday and today – indeed, I have found myself eating even more than usual and feeling merely sated.

If such breaking of fast is met with scorn by the more orthodox, I really don't care, because it has been an opportunity to explore the deeper concepts of holiday. This experience in retrospect seems like a serious wake-up call, a “Katrina moment” if I may wax popular-media for a moment. I have considered myself healthy, and indeed in increasingly better shape in mind and body over the past couple of years, but there is clearly a lot of work to be, and indeed I've probably slipped a bit in recent months.

Thus, it seems a renewed focus on body and mind are in order for this new year 5657. I expect such a focus to not only allow me to get in better shape and enjoy improved health, but to spill over into the other areas of life in which I usually spend my energy, such as music and creativity, work, and my relationships with the people and animals important in my life.

I think it is quite fitting that Luna is here sitting on my chest and purring as I type this piece.


Worthless Kitty Redux: April 24, 2006

I am upset by the names of her brothers.
It is not clear where they belong,
where she belongs.
Close to the family,
to their heritage,
or off on the mean streets of cities
or nestled among the trees
barely out of Nature's reach?
Does history begin in a stranger's room
with dyed red hair
and a black dress
and words that no one wants to hear?
It doesn't seem finished
It doesn't seem to have begun
The eyes are all around
And I am tired.

Sick days, the mighty hunter and "this hole in the ground"

I've been a little under the weather the last couple of days. Actually, more than a little. Mostly just resting and recuperation, with Luna?s help, of course. That is, when she?s not too busy looking out the window or hunting bugs, which she spent a lot of time doing yesterday and today. There was one large fly in the window that she became quite obsessed with, tracking it and swatting. Took a while for the mighty hunter to finally catch her quarry.

I did read some more from Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas (which I briefly discussed in an earlier post). I would like to share some interesting thoughts from that as soon as I feel up to the task.

Of course, one can?t spend the entire time on intellectual pursuits, however recreational; so Luna and I also caught up on some DVDs:

I pretty much use the TV as a DVD viewer, I don?t have any television service. So I?m not really up on either current popular programs, nor what?s going on in TV and cable news. Aside from the occasional good drama that I can rent on DVD anyway, it doesn?t seem like I?m missing much, especially when it comes to television news. However, TV news does intrude into other domains however, for example, I found several references online to this commentary by Keith Olbermann. As a follow up to my [post from a few days ago], I provide the following quote which mirrors not only what I have been thinking with frustration not only about the big empty space in New York, but about what happened (or failed to happen) politically in the past few years:

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

I strongly recommend reading or viewing the whole article in its entirety.

Like I said, I'm pretty out of it when I comes to TV and cable news personalities, so I'm reading a lot of this for the first time. Seems like he?s a bit of an anti-O?Reilly but a bit more civilized. His recent commentaries have earned him a fair amount of praise at several internet outlets that I read; but not surprisingly a lot of flak from the right. He even has his own anti-fan site, though who doesn't these days?.

I'm also curious about this whole “worst person in the world” thing…does he take suggestions?

cat
kitty
hofstadter
9-11
September 11
New York
olbermann

Worthless Kitty Backfill: Mana-Mana!

This mashup of gritty anime with the Muppet Show is just too classic to pass up:

Apparently it has been making the rounds online, and was even picked up by a PBS Online article. I wonder if that somehow gives the clip a left-wing bias…

For those who are not familiar with the original sketch for the Muppet Show, here it is:


I actuallly remember this scene and probably too many others from this classic show. It really had an edge that keeps it fun well into adulthood. How many contemporary children's shows can say that?