Weekend Cat Blogging #88 Round-up!

Luna strikes an elegant pose a la Bast for the big Weekend Cat Blogging 88 Roundup.

We're up bright and early – well, I guess it's about 10:30 and with the rain it isn't all the bright – to get started. Lying on the couch with both Luna and the laptop, we're an all black trio – and there's nothing like a purring cat to put the gloom of this past week into perspective. And between WCB and the RPM challenge, we've got a lot to keep us busy…

…so we better get started. If you want to join in, you can either leave a comment here, on the WCB call, or drop us a note.

First up, we have a blast from the past with Toonces the Driving Cat. This was one of those recurring skits that was funny because it was so obvious, with the same disaster happening over and over again. It's a “laugh at,” more than a “laugh with”.

Turns out Taboo at Jelly Pizza is a distant relative of Toonces. Let's just hope she stays on her royal thrown and doesn't get behind the wheel…

Kitikata-san is looking quite…um…furry this week. No, you're not fat. Cats look so soft on sweet spreading on the ground, though the camera can play tricks…

Our friends Upsie, Sundance and Sher send their regards from whatdidyoueat. Like us, they are experiencing some serious rain this weekend, but Upsie manages to stay dry while Sundance investigates a stuffed dog.

Kazon is the fearsome panther this week over at xenogere. Kazon and Luna have some similarities, don't they…

While we at CatSynth are whining about the cold California rain, our friends in the middle of the country have a real deep freeze. Over at Champaign Taste, Louis resorts to veggies and carbs in a desparate attempt to stay warm. That fettucine is looking really good, though. Maybe Louis and Lisa can save some for us…

Bustopher, Harmon, and Kate are also dealing with the extreme cold this weekend. I think Harmon has about as good a strategy as I can suggest…

Over at kross-eyed kitty, Mr. Mao and Ramona are enjoying a blissful sleep, last week's nightmare forgotten…

Kashim and Othello send warm wishes (and big hugs) our way from Austria, and also share with us their secret to extra soft fur.

Extreeeeeme closeup of a photogenic Fridolin can found at Rosa's Yummy Yums.

China Cat and Willow are two lucky cats who are keeping warm indoors from the midwest deep freeze. They also share with us a rather tempting recipe for Lucky Cat martinis. I might have to give that one a try one of these days…

Masak-masak presents a lovely marble stray cat who often comes by to visit. He is a neighbor and rival of the often-featured ginger stray cat, and the two have an uneasy truce. Hey, can't we all just get along?

To many of us, our cats are our babies. However, that does imply that they can grow up to be our disgruntled teenagers, as Puddy demonstrates in this exchange with his human Kate over a tablecloth. I have to admit, I'm with Puddy on this one, it's February, time to lose the Christmas decor!

Dragonheart just returned from Switzerland and has a great slideshow of his trip.

Coca and Mysri meet the new neighbor baby cat at Café Créole (from French Guyana). That new baby has lovely multi-color fur, reminds me a lot of the kittens we say last week playing with the Waldorf Pulse.

Ellen has five adorable foster kittens, all girls, at scamperdude. Those are some amazing cat photos. We hope all the girls find the permanent homes they deserve…

Ooo, another gatita named Luna!. Glad to have her joining us here.

Remember, it's never too late to join in Weekend Cat Blogging…well, at least until Monday. We'll keep posting more WCB fun throughout the weekend, and making improvements, perfectionists that we are. It doesn't look like we're going anywhere for a while…






Weekend Cat Blogging #88

Well, as the weather turned dark and stormy this week, so has life turned a bit darker, and a bit lonelier. It's been another rough week. But Luna is always here to bring some brightness and love into the dark places. Coming home to see her waiting and happy is one of the simple joys in life, one of the few things I can count on.

And on that note, Luna and I are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging #88. Please send us a note or leave a comment on your happy, funny or otherwise amusing feline experiences, and we'll post them in the big round up this weekend while trying to stay dry and warm.

(PS – we love your trackbacks here at CatSynth, and we've made some changes to get those working better, so WCBers are encouraged to give it a try).





CatSynth pic: synth studio, with cat

Another from our friend Knox Bronson at SunPopBlue:

This is a rather abstract representation of his “almost all-analogue synth studio.” Mars kitty can be seen in the bubble at the lower right (and in the enlarged clip to the right). The overall composition suggests a blend of the CatSynth banner with my Music of the (Blue) Spheres graphic artwork.

The original photo is from 2002, and Mars has since passed away. You can also see a close-up video at the original SunPopBlue posting.






RPM 2007: Twista Dilemma

Latest from my RPM 2007 blog:

I have been playing around with some of the loop-based sound sets that come with Emulator X2, including the “TwistaMania” bank – mostly just looking for some inspiration for the techno and beat-based sections of the album, but I found I really liked what I was playing. Plus, it's got that really addictive funky disco thing going. You can hear a brief sample here. This could be the kernel of a track for the album, possibly even the first full track after the intro – but it leads to what I am calling my “twista dilema.” Anyone else with Emulator X2 could easily do something similar, and more abstractly a 4/4 techno-dancy thing might sound trite in the context of my work.

UPDATE: since the original post on RPM, I heard an interesting, and quite timely, program on radio open source. Between the discussion in praise of creative appropriation, and my own sense of energy and enthusiasm for the funk disco sound, I think this track will be a part of the album – and it will be titled “Twistadilemma”, probably the second full track.









Hercules Revisited

This morning we revisit our favorite fat cat in the news.

Local TV in Porland, Oregon, paid a visit to Hercules at home, and found both the generously proportioned cat and his human friend Geoff Ernest doing well. Lots of pictures, like the one to the right. Not surprisingly, they have been approached for promotions, such as Purina's diet cat food…

In addition to happy and heartwarming photo-ops, the follow-up news coverage included this opinion in The Oregonion about the importance of spaying/neutering pets:

Let's consider the other side of this heartwarming story: that of a nice cat, who because he was not neutered and was let outdoors, acted with predictable behaviors of fighting, mating and becoming a stray.

The heartache of Hercules' ailing person thinking “he was dead” would have been prevented had Hercules been taken care of as a beloved pet by being neutered and preferably kept indoors. How many unwanted kittens were produced because of this one stray tomcat's life on the streets?

Although Hercules' story had a happy ending, it easily could have ended much worse. I can't imagine what it be like to come home and find Luna potentially “lost forever.” That's why she enjoys her warm spring afternoons safely indoors…




CatSynth pic: Freddie chilling on the Serge

Submitted by Knox Bronson at SunPopBlue:

Bronson has collaborated with Gustvo Lanzas (who provided the recent video of Apu the “Acid Cat”) on an interesting improvisation featuring the Serge (and an E-MU SP-1200!) called Where The Bees Are. Check out the free mp3.

And there is still more fun with Freddie at SunPopBlue. Check out his video Sleep (An Homage to Andy Warhol):

Ah, wasn't it only a day or so ago that we were again reminiscing about New York in the 1970s?






Weekend Cat Blogging #87: Let's crack open a window!

The warm weekend here in California continues, and that's enough to give anyone a happy tail!

Actually, Luna often has a happy tail. But it's still extra fun when she gets to take in the sights, sounds and smells of a warm “spring” day through an open window. In fact, we at CatSynth are having a serious case of spring fever and opening all the windows today. Trying to rid our abode of the stale and bitter airs of this exceptional winter. Begone with ye, cruel season of pain and dispair!

Scamper over to Rosa's Yummy Yums for more Weekend Cat Blogging with fellow black kitty Maruschka as well as Fridolin and Rosa.

We're up for hosting next week here at CatSynth, so we'll leave all the windows open for our feline friends…






Crack open a window!

on civilization and it's ragged edges

It's been a lovely, warm day, one of the best since our recent deep freeze. Lots of patches of grey haze (probably fog rather than smog) amidst the blue. The melancholy beauty of California “summer,” except it's February.

it's starting to feel civilized again.

Speaking of civilization, many of us took time to help out friends (who I might through my interests in electronic and experimental music, hence this post noses itself into the “music” category) who were moving, from one side of town to the other. With so many of us coming out to help, we got the whole thing done in a fraction of a day. Would that friends and community got together for one another like this more open.

Below is a map of our home little seaside town.

On the lower left is the “West Side”, our side, of town. It's known for including the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), and scenic West Cliff Drive bookended by Natural Bridges state park and the main city beach. We moved our friends from nearby in the West Side over to the area called “Live Oak” on the eastern edge of the map and beyond the city limits. The area has quite a different feel, a flat patchwork of new homes, commercial buildings, rundown blocks and vacant lots. It might be strange that I like to explore places like this, but I do, it feels like being on the rundown edge of a large city. I have a similar feel when biking through the neighborhood near the main city beach, a mixture of old houses, tourist hotels and vacant lots.

It's easy to wax romantic about a place when you don't necessarily live there. Consider the fondness many artistic and cultural figures have for 1970s New York, a time when the city was verging on bankrupcy, infrastructure was crumbling and the (violent) crime rate was far higher than it is now. Daniel Henninger had a great article in the Wall Street Journal two years ago discussing this idea. Among those quoted:

The actor John Leguizamo: New York in the '70s “was funky and gritty and showed the world how a metropolis could be dark and apocalyptic and yet fecund.” Fran Lebowitz, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair: The city “was a wreck; it was going bankrupt. And it was pretty lawless; everything was illegal, but no laws were enforced. It was a city for city-dwellers, not tourists, the way it is now.”

For me, there is probably also a nostalgia for the images of childhood, like the graffiti on subway cars and crumbling concrete playgrounds (I don't think any of those exist any longer). By contrast, Giuliani's cleaned-up Times Square elicits little more than a shrug and a few seconds looking at the big screen…
Most of my recent trips to New York have been in November and December (though I did go back in June, 2005 as well). New York in winter does have its charm, but I miss the sweltering summers, the terrific oppression of the big city…






RPM 2007: First steps

Report from the first day on the RPM challenge:

The idea that I can spend a month, or even a fraction thereof, doing nothing but working on this album is laughable at best. There will be many distractions in the coming days, just as there have been today. Nonetheless, I made a point to take some first steps this evening..

Based on the “arc” and narrative form I am defining for the album, I went in search of samples to use for the introduction and some beats to use for the first full section. The intro should be an old clip from a big band or jazz recording from the 1940s/1950s – I discovered a really good collection of public-domain big-band radio recordings on The Internet Archive, and quickly settled on my intro.

Next up is selecting some initial beats for the beat-based / techo part of the album. I selected several drum-beat samples, and imported them into Emulator X. Using the beat-analysis (aka “Twistaloop” features), I created several seven-beat loops.

The initial rhythmic section will employ a 7-beat meter and combine drum loops and Proteus patterns inside Emulator X, as well as 7-beat/14-beat Indian thekas for tabla. This will probably also be the first opportunity to use the DSI evolver in a compositional setting (as oppose to live improvisation).

That will probably be all I get done tonite, as I take some time to relax while writing this blog entry and getting some “kitty love” from Luna (she's snuggling in on my chest as I write this).










RPM 2007: Getting ready to begin…

Here's the first entry from my blog documenting my participation in the RPM Challenge to conceive and record an album within the 28 days of February:

Well, it's the eve of RPM 2007. I have taken the organizers' advice and will not begin either composition or recording until tomorrow. But that doesn't mean I won't start planning in advance. I have an overall idea for the structure of the album, with the pieces fitting together as a single unit, and moving in an arc from more beat-based music to more free-form and experimental, though I haven't decided how it should end up. I am also preparing things technically for the project. Most of the work will be done on the computer using software synthesizers and sequencers – I will likely use some hardware instruments and acoustic samples as well.

The goal is to do the creative work (and hopefully much of the recording) in 2 1/2 weeks to mirror the appromixately 2 1/2 years it took to complete my last album Aquatic…

For those interested in following this effort, you can check in here and at my RPM page all throughout February.