Cats

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…










Weekend Cat Blogging #70: Cat in a Box

This weekend's hosts, Boots, Tess and D at The Hidden Paw, have challenged us to produce Cat-in-a-Box submissions for WCB 70. That's not too hard for us, as Luna is quite fond of boxes:

In the photo above, she is caught in the act of chewing on pieces of her favorite box from Ikea. This is one of her guilty pleasures in life.

Here, we have Luna encountering an Amazon box in the hallway. I wonder how that got there…


Visit the round-up for more adorable pictures of cats in boxes, bags, and other sundry containers.








Weekend Cat Blogging #69

WCB 69 is being hosted by the crew over at The House of (Mostly) Black Cats. We at catsynth heartily approve of the black-cat concept, and encourage readers to check it out.

Meanwhile, things continue to be foggy, grey and a bit chilly on the California coast, but that doesn't keep Luna from surveying her domain:

I have another gig coming up tonight that I need to prepare for, with electronics and simple acoustic instruments. Luna of course is in the studio to help with the equipment:







Weekend Cat Blogging #68: Luna and Cats of India

This week, chefsarahjane hosts again. We wish her a happy birthday, and say hi to Tiggy as well. Do visit them and check out this week's round-up.

Meanwhile, Luna poses with Ganesh for our special WCB feature on Cats of India:

Inspired by masak-masak's street cats from last week's round-up here at catsynth.com, I present a few cat photos from my trip to India last winter. We begin with this feline and bovine duo from my father's hometown north of Delhi:

As many readers are probably aware, cows are considered sacred in Hindu culture, and a family cow is treated in many ways as a prized pet. Cats in India don't quite have the same status. Not only do most Indians not consider them as appropriate pets, but some also regard them in a suspicious, even superstitious manner (as have many cultures throughout history, sadly). Thus, most cats are street animals that generally must fend for themselves. As many of us know, cats are supurb hunters and scavengers, so many do manage. I tended to see cats near food establishments, this near-white cat was wandering the dining area of a dormitory in Delhi we stayed at for a couple of nights, begging for scraps (which I of course provided). The grey-striped fellow in the photo below managed to find a good location at the cantina in one of heavily touristed palaces in the city of Jaipur. That probably accounts for its more healthy appearance:

I did come across this article from IndiaTimes that discusses the state of cats in Indian society. Unfortunately, the HTML seems to have come thru as plain text, which makes it difficult to read.

Ultimately, I plan to create a photo-essay featuring these and other photos/videos from my trip.







Thoughts on last night's performance

In this article I review my performance last night at the plug:dos headphone festival in San Francisco.

First, the venue itself. 5lowershop is in a warehouse near the junction of highways 280 and 101 in San Francisco. It’s at the edge of the Bernal Heights neighborhood.


The venue and its surroundings have that seedy edge-of-the-city feel that I probably wouldn’t want to live in but nonetheless often find intriguing and romantic. It’s just another part of the quintessentially “modern” world.

The interior matches the exterior, a jumble of areas within the warehouse, including the main performance area. The space is quite porous with the outside, and I noticed several cats wander though, including the grey fellow and a small black-and-white kitten. They were presumably feral cats attracted by the warmth, activity and possibility of food. Feral cats are an inevitable part of urban environments, but it’s still heartbreaking to see them this way. I was also concerned for them because of the dogs that were present, fortunately the dogs seemed to be pets and quite mellow.

The atmosphere of people crowded in a warehouse listening to headphones was quite unusual to say the least. Some of the performances were quite interesting, including a serinate for voice and hammer-dulcimer, and of course several acts mixing guitar, analog synthesizers and turntable. The analog synths didn’t strike me as a good fit for headphone performance, and thus avoided them myself (as described in my article on the preparation), but they did a good job of keeping the sound within a reasonable range.

Despite the best efforts of the organizers, whom I liked and thought did a good job overall, things tended to run rather late, and I ended up going on 9:40PM, two hours after my scheduled performance. But I think it went well musically, pretty much meeting my expectations for mixing ambient and rhythmic/punctuated material while keeping things mellow for the headphones. I did bounce around and repeat elements more than I expected, but such is the nature of improvisation, reacting as things unfold.

The equipment (Dell Laptop, Emulator X, E-MU 1616m, E-MU Xboard 25) performed flawlessly. I did make a direct recording on the laptop, and will be posting that shortly. I am also planning to make that the first release in my planned podcast series.

UPDATE: you can now listen to the audio from this performance. Enjoy!

Cats after the war

This photo from the Haifa-based Israeli Cat-Lovers Society is an interesting juxtaposition of cats and the recent war:

In Lebanon, BETA continues its work in the suburbs of Beirut:

We stayed with them and we will never leave them. They are those who cannot speak, those who cannot comprehend what is happening around them, those who never had anything to do with this war, and those who were left behind.

While this forum and others have referenced efforts to rescue and care for pets on both sides of the conflict, the following AP article suggests that there is little or no cooperation between groups on either side:

More, the Israeli animal rescuer, said her group [Ahava] had contacted BETA to offer assistance in evacuating animals, “but they are not interested in being in touch with us.''…She said Ahava has proposed meeting fleeing Lebanese in boats in international waters to collect their pets. “Believe me, dogs and cats in Lebanon don't see themselves as political animals. They just want to leave.''

El-Massih said BETA was never contacted by the Israeli animal rights group, although it did receive a sympathy e-mail from a former member of Ahava who now lives in the United States.

If true, this is another sad development in the erosion of civil society amid the tribalism that dominates the Middle East and elsewhere…







catsynth pic: Gingerbread

MIT Media Lab assistant professor Dr. Joseph A. Paradiso includes the above photo of his old Himalayan cat Gingerbread atop a synthesizer cabinet as part of his web page documenting his modular synthesizer. His collection of modules and writings about synthesizers are quite impresesive, and I've spent a bit of time looking through them. That is one of the fun things about looking for these pictures of cats and synths: it often leads to something more interesting.

Dr. Paradiso's synthesizer has received note in Keyboard magazine, and he had a synth rig featured at the 2004 PrixArs Electronic festival. He has some great photos of synth rigs from the 1970's as well.

Actual Cat Synth

jfm3 of Ouroboros Complex posts about as literal a “CatSynth” pic as you can get, featuring his cat Kona and accoutrements as part of his rig. Cat aside, the rig and website include a wealth of personal experiences with analog synthesizer hacking as well as circuit bending (note the mod'ed Speak&Spell). Please give jfm3 and Kona a “catsynth welcome” by visiting their site.

another cat from Lebanon

From AFP: a kitty amidst the rubble in a fishing port south of Beirut. This is essentially the type of image I see in my mind when I think about the situation, or cats in war more generally. It was part of an AFP article that Yahoo! syndicated for their main news page covering the middle east conflict today, right under the news that the Lebanese PM had rejected the cease-fire deal.

I haven't seen or received any updates from BETA or the groups in Israel since my previous article, I will certainly post anything that I receive.

Update on cats in war

This is a follow-up to my previous posts about cats in Israel and Lebanon.

First, the following update from BETA in Lebanon:

On the 28th of July, BETA team re-entered the Beirut southern suburbs (one of the war zones) to feed the stray and abandoned pets. On the way, we encountered an abandoned pet shop and were able to retrieve some of the surviving animals – four cats and one puppy .

On the 2nd of August, and for the third time, BETA team, accompanied by a PETA representative who came all the way to Beirut to help our animals, have been able to enter that same area. Again, we put food and water for the strays and fed the rest of the animals at the abandoned pet shop -pigeons, birds, and turtles- We will come back to pick them up as soon as the pet shop owner unlock the cages.

We also visited the small zoo and made sure that the worker is still there feeding the remaining animals.

People are working to help cats and other animals left behind during the evacuations and attacks in northern Israel as well. A reader of this forum responded with the following information about current situation and the groups active there:

Bashan Shelter is located in Israel near the Lebanese border. They are
taking in animals abandonned by people who fled south in search of safety.
At great risk to their own personal safety they are also making the rounds
surrounding communities distributing food and water to the animals that
remain behind and to people also. This totally volunteer organization has
no income outside private donations.
liz at shay.co.il
http://bashan-dogs.org

Haifa SPCA is taking in large numbers of animal war refugees and like with
the above organization their expenses are growing while their income has
almost stopped. Contact info at
972-4-8729696
hspca at netvision.net.il
http://civilsociety.haifa.ac.il/orgDet. … ;orgid=149


Israel Cat Lovers Society is located in the Haifa area. They have been
affected by the war situation here as many pet owners or homeless cats
feeders fled towards the center of Israel leavingthe animals in horrible
conditions. As so we are in great need of fosterhomes for kittens and
massive food donations as well.
www.isracat.org.il
972-4-8244724

Yes, I am partial to kitties that look like Luna…

One of the things that struck me, in addition to the photographs of the animals and the people with them, was the reference to “civil society” among the resources. I fear the civil society on both sides of the border is one the things in danger in this conflict, and indeed in other conflicts as well. The Civil Society of Haifa describes their mission as “to ensure and further participation, solidarity, tolerance, social mobility, basic human rights and honesty [as] a goal that can contribute to the general welfare of all members of society,” including in this case our small and furry members of society. Sadly, such goals seem quite lost in the tribalism, fear and focus on base needs and emotions that seems to dominate much of the fighting in the Middle East and elsewhere…