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:
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.
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!
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.orgHaifa 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…
As a follow-up to my earlier post about cats in Lebanon, I present the Cat Welfare Society of Israel. They provide the usual cat-welfare services, including spay/neutering for strays, adoption, advocacy programs and a sanctuary for cats.
I did not see any news or information about the current conflict, although they do have some about the withdrawal from Gaza last year. There is a bittersweet story as well as a video about cats left behind in the Gaza settlements. 
Although video is in Hebrew, it still pulls at heartstrings.
While the story of cats left behind doesn't change my view that evacuating the settlements in Gaza was the right thing (one wonders why Israelis would live there in the first place), it does leave some questions. Were people ordered not to take their pets with them during the evacuations, or were these simply communal animals left behind? Did the violence and chaos caused by some of the more militant settlers and activists make an orderly rescue of the cats more difficult? Did any of the people who poured into Gaza to protest stop to help? Very naive questions, I admit. This article about CWSI and its founder Rivi Mayer discusses a prevailing view among many in Israel of cats as “pests not pets”, and though changing, this article from CSWI documents more recent animosity to cats. I can't say I've really done a lot of independent research on any of this. Nonetheless, for those who support Israel, whether for nationalist or reglious reasons, or something a little more enlightened, a little soul searching never hurts. Especially now, given the recent tragedies surrounding the current war.
I end this post on a more upbeat note, with a photo of this little resident from CSWI's sanctuary:
Tonight, I just have a photo of Luna to share. I am pretty sure the original was taken by my dad last July (i.e., 2005). I was just playing around and did some work with the contrast and lighting, and converted to black and white. I am quite pleased with the results. Quite the artsy urban kitty, don't you think?
It's been a nice evening. Quiet and clear, and warm – it usually doesn't stay this warm at night around here. A great night to go for a walk…and then come home, sit on the couch and manipulate digital photos.
