We have three—count them, three—cat videos this morning. Two of them are from Russia, which gets my award for the country producing the best cat videos.
Remember Nora, the piano-playing cat? She was a gray moggie who somehow decided to sit on the piano bench and hit the keys. She became an internet sensation, and now has her own website, where you can see and hear her many videos. But this is the best one—the Catcerto, where Nora on video is accompanied by an orchestra in a five-minute original composition. It, too, has its own site, and here are the notes:
CATcerto is the a project created by Lithuanian conductor, composer and artist Mindaugas Piecaitis. The world premiere was first performed on 5th June, 2009 by the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra in Klaipeda’s Concert Hall (Lithuania). It gained recognition in international media: BBC, Lithuanian TV, Baltic TV and the First Baltic Chanel (russian).
Mindaugas Piecaitis composed and directed the Catcerto for Nora The Piano Cat™ and orchestra, where Nora, the soloist, was brought in via video.
On this site you will find interviews with Mindaugas Piecaitis and Nora The Piano Cat. We also present a selection of videos from the rehearsal, the premiere and links to the people that made this a sucess. [sic]
Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the Catcerto (which I’m sure I’ve posted before), starring Nora on the keyboard:
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“Staff, staff—let down your towel!” Here is a Russian Rapunzel cat, whose owner has figured out a great way to bring it in from outside. The Russian and translation from YouTube:
Таким образом наш кот Мэйсон попадает к себе домой.
Подписывайтесь на наш канал, ставьте лайки и пишите комментарии))
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Thus our cat Mason gets to his home.
Subscribe to our channel, put the huskies and write comments))
Huskies?? I ask Malgorzata (who speaks Russian) for an explanation, and she said this:
You are absolutely right, “huskies” it is not. Funny, Lajka was the name of the dog which went into space a long time ago. But “lajk” is phonetic for English “like” and the author wants people to click on “like” on their channel. But the translator must have had an association with the dog Lajka and somehow ended with “huskies”. Hilarious!
What makes it even more bizarre is that Laika wasn’t a husky! But I digress—the video:
And a screenshot:
Curiously, reader Su found an identical solution in this gif from the Cheezburger site:
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Yep, it’s turtles and cats all the way down. Who knows if the turtle is playing (do reptiles do that?) or being aggressive toward the cat?
h/t: Todd
What a great concert and what a clever solution for bringing in your cat – the cat likes it so will come in & it’s easy to get your cat inside!
Poor space dogs. It was only recently revealed, once the documents were released, that Laika died within hours from overheating. Laika, like all the Russian space dogs, was a stray captured in Moscow. I have a Belka and Strelka Russian stamp – at least their story was a happy one with the two stray dogs returning to earth and with Strelka having puppies later. One of the pups, named Pushinka (Fluffy) was given by Khrushchev to JFK’s daughter.
As for the turtle – my ~37 years with my tortoise gave me some experience with how tortoises behave. They don’t play (at least they aren’t in on the game) but they ARE very curious. My tortoise once got out of his yard and ventured down the sidewalk to a construction site to check out what was going on there, then came back. Of course, we were worried sick, looking for him when a neighbour told us of his adventure. Also, the turtle could be ready for breeding – my tortoise, as I mentioned before, was horrible to live with during mating season as he humped shoes and chased toes!
Smart cats, they have theit humans trained well.
If the turtle is a male, then I bet it is wanting to.. well you know. Male turtles (and tortoises) get like that.
Sub
I wept at the cat’s use of dissonance to evoke the helplessness in face of cans and can openers, but the fateful lack of thumbs.
Of course, later in the composition, who could not feel the remorse for the hairball in the slipper?
In fact, layka is also a d*g breed, similar to husky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika_(dog_breed)
I suspect that it was an automatic translation…
Definitely. The word “layki” (лайки) in that text above is a bastardazed Russian plural for transliteration for “like” so I don’t think it counts as a word. At the same time, “layki” is plural for “layka” (a breed name – thus “layki” = “huskies”) and most definitely a word.
Well, I don’t get into a linguistic debate here, but if there is a string of sounds/characters that people use in communication and it has a concrete meaning(s), then it’s a word—what else it would be?
Of course it’s not a word found in a dictionary, so the translation software understandably gets confused.
Yes, that’s what I meant – not a dictionary word.
I have several step-like arrangements in my home for the couch, bed, etc. to try to avoid torn up furniture by my 3-legged cat Thomas. Or sometimes I will go and lift him to the desired spot- he has trained me well.
“do reptiles do that?” – Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology has discussed that question, and there are fairly definite examples in crocodilians and, less certainly, turtles (e.g. here).
Baihu has been known to use me as a towel, in the same sense that the towel is being used in the video….
b&
Were you then clothed with something that kept the claws from entering your skin and flesh? I had the doubtful pleasure of a cat’s paw getting stuck in my uncovered thigh (august in Rome) as the cat was jumping off my host’s kitchen counter, scared by something or other, and had misjudged the distance. A well-sized cat’s weight hanging off my bare skin was very unpleasant. Kitty was in such a panic, it didn’t exactely appreciate me taking hold of it and trying to untangle our combined selves.
I hope Baihu leaves his slave intact.
I’ve several times had the “pleasure” of rear paw claws digging into my unclothed thighs for better traction when performing a sudden feline take-off