Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
This lovely and relaxing 22-minute film. “The Private Life of a Cat“, was made in 1947 and is described as “Alexander Hammid’s intimate study of a female cat and the birth and maturation of her five kittens.” The YouTube video adds this (this version has sound, though the original was silent):
This film has four chapters. Chapter one contains footage of a cat giving birth. The original film has no audio. Picture contrast amended, score added. Chapters with music credits in brackets:
00:00 Intro (John Foxx & Harold Budd – ‘Raindust’)
6:57. Five of them! Now the family needs some food and some rest (Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd – ‘Brian’s Nightmare / The Unknown, Part One’)
11:04 After two weeks (Cliff Martinez – ‘Breaking The Waves’)
15:02 A better place for them to learn to walk (Harold Budd & Bill Nelson & Fila Brazillia – ‘Adrift Amidst Les Odalisques’)
One tabby that looks like mom, and four white ones that look like dad!
The film is entirely silent and shot from the cat’s eye-level; “He”, an all white short-haired male cat, grooms “She”, a fluffier female. After two months they find a spot “for the family”, and soon after the mother goes into labour. The film shows graphically the kittens being born without the help of human hands, and then getting nursed and washed by their mother. The kittens grow, and the parent cats roam freely around their owners’ apartment (Hammid and Deren). The kittens learn how to walk and begin to get more active, playing with each other and clawing various furniture. The film then ends by showing the same scene from the beginning where “He” courts “She”.
Reputation:
Top Documentary Films rates The Private Life of a Cat 7.70/10 stars, saying that it is “very touching”, and that it is “[b]eautifully photographed and executed. With subtitles, no dialog, and a refreshing absence of human beings on screen.” Dangerous Minds wrote “[t]his beautiful 1944 silent film from husband-and-wife team Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid is quite possibly the only evidence we need that cats are the ultimate well-spring of creativity.”
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Several readers sent me article and tweets about this incident, and I’ll put one article from boing boing here (there’s also a news report).
Click the headline to read. This is one reason that you should always microchip your cat, even if it’s an indoor cat:
A quick summary:
A Utah cat named Galena was playing in a large box, when suddenly things got dark.
Meanwhile, Galena’s human parents didn’t know where she was, and grew frantic as they looked everywhere for their pet. They even put up “missing” flyers and recruited their friends and family to help search the neighborhood for their lost kitty.
But it wasn’t until six days later that they got a text from Amazon in Riverside, California — more than 600 miles away — telling them that Galena had been found (thank goodness for microchips). Apparently, the couple had accidentally shipped their cat, along with five pairs of boots, in a large return package, which happened to be the box Galena had been playing in. (See video below, posted by CBS Miami.)
Miraculously, although the cat had no water or food for nearly a week, she somehow survived the long journey and was doing well.
Thanks to Nervous System, herding cats is no longer guaranteed to be a catastrophic failure. This 224-piece jigsaw puzzle comprises 43 different felines as they lounge, stretch out their paws, and jump in the air, all based on photos of real cats submitted to the team. Try your hand at rounding up the rambunctious creatures by picking up one of the puzzles.
Technicolor cat artwork by Anne Sullivan
224 pieces
Digitally painted on 4-millimeter maple plywood
Laser-cut in Palenville, New York
It’s not cheap at $75, but I suspect that the market is limited and it was hard to make. I suppose computers and 3D printing are necessary to make something like this. It’s now available if you want to treat a jigsaw-puzzling-loving ailurophile.
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Lagniappe: A one-minute video of a kitten with paralyzed rear legs. The lovely woman who cares for it finally got it not only walking, but climbing! Everything always ends well in Dodo Land.
The notes from the video:
No one thought Milou would walk again, but Sandra wouldn’t give up on him ❤️ We spoke to her about how Milou changed her life!
First, from Cole and Marmalade, we have, yes, a page devoted to chirping cats. You can find anything on the internet.
Click to read:
An excerpt:
People absolutely love it when cats do the funny sound that’s become known as ‘Ekekek.’ We usually call it chattering, the strange sound that cats often make when they see a bird from the window. Others call it chirping, similar to trilling. They often do it when they see another cat outside.
Sometimes, they do it for no apparent reason at all, like Jugg below!
Video by Cole and Marmalade featuring our own Jugg of Jugg and Zig Zag:
The chirping is also known as “machine-gunning,” and is often seen when a cat spies a bird outside the window:
More videos of cats making “that noise”:
. . . and cats chattering en masse:
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Here a cat bullies a husky, going for the d*g’s ears and muzzle. As you expect, the d*g doesn’t like it. But the husky doesn’t try to hurt the moggy.
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The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, a gold mine of Dutch art, is most famous for housing Rembrandt. And I’ll be going there in about two weeks. The museum itself, though, has put up a post showing ten of its most popular cat paintings, which you can see by clicking below. I’ve singled out five.
Detail from “The Fall of Man” by Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem, 1592 (full painting here). This is apparently the most popular depiction of a cat in the museum.
Cornelis van Haarlem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Here from the WaPo we hear about a special area (not really an island) near Shanghai where stray cats are sequestered. If you see the video below, you’ll see they’re better off there–people come to feed them amd adopt them–than roaming the streets. Click to read (archived free here, or go to a shorter article here).
An excerpt:
The happiest place on Earth for cats might just be here, on Cat Island, a feline playground just a few miles from Shanghai Disneyland. While humans whoop and whirl at the latter, the 400-plus kitties who call Cat Island home rest in the shade of specially constructed grass-covered play tunnels or loll about in pagodas. They cross a wooden bridge to stalk through pear orchards, the intrepid among them even venturing into the horse stable.
The pampered residents here were once strays in downtown Shanghai, a city of 25 million people and somewhere between 400,000 and 1.5 million stray cats. But efforts are underway to stem the exploding feral population in the metropolis and find homes for at least some of the newly neutered cats
Cat Island’s entire population is up for adoption. Many at “cat cafes” in the city do a similar thing: Provide a space where people can befriend and potentially take home a neutered, if shy, kitty.
There’s no equivalent of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in China. Instead, it’s left to grass-roots organizations like these to step in to save cats — from the streets, or from people who think they’re better off culled.
“Cat adoption has become quite popular in recent years, especially among the younger generation,” said Erica Guo, owner of all-rescue cat cafe More Meow Garden.
. . . and you can adopt the island’s cats, as (according to the article) cats are becoming more and more popular as pets in China:
At the end of 2022, a few months after Shanghai’s longest lockdown ended, a government-affiliated nonprofit foundation opened the 130-acre Shanghai Pet Base facility, which encompasses Cat Island.
It is concentrating on trapping and neutering strays, then returning them to the communities where they were found. When that’s not possible, they’re rehomed to Cat Island.
“This is what we are able to do, here and now,” said Zha Zhenliang, the foundation official responsible for Cat Island and the Pet Base. “We hope every [apartment] compound can have their own ‘cat island’ of a safe place for the cats to be,” and their feeders can operate openly, he said. Feeding strays can be a controversial activity, resulting in conflict between cat lovers and neighbors who just want them culled.
To adopt a Cat Island cat, people must first trek to the remote, grassy site outside Shanghai — a semirural location chosen to avoid angering neighbors — then complete a pet-care course and have their home inspected by video call for suitability. The precautions mean adoption numbers are barely denting the problem: In 18 months, only 130 cats have moved to new homes.
Here’s a 4½-minute video showing what the “island” is like. The cats seem pretty well taken care of.
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From Bored Panda we find a selection of fifty cat memes. Click below to read; I’ve selected a few for your delectation:
Here’s a heartening tale from MPR News of a lost cat found after going missing for more than a month. Click below to read or click the link in the first sentence:
The story:
“Lost trucker cat. Help me get home, call my team. Leave tuna for me,” reads a poster with a white and gray cat posted around St. Cloud.
At 2 a.m. on Jan. 17, “Tom the lost trucker cat” jumped out of his owner’s semi truck at the Pilot/Flying J truck stop off exit 171.
“He took a few steps, turned back and gave me one last look,” Owner Angel Anthony Garcia said. Tom was gone.
Garcia and his wife, Tom’s other owner Marie Sanchez, searched for him as long as they could without success. Garcia had to deliver a truck full of apples to Virginia and the deadline was approaching.
They made the difficult decision to leave and hoped that someone would find him. Garcia posted about him in a local Facebook page.
Oh, man, I wouldn’t have abandoned that cat. But here’s the poster, labeled as a “courtesy photo”; I like the “please feed” bit:
But he was found!
Jan Peterson was scrolling Facebook and saw Garcia’s post about Tom. She reached out to Garcia and Sanchez and told them she wanted to help. This isn’t her first time looking for a lost pet, she has helped many families through Facebook find lost animals.
She contacted her community and set up a Facebook group for Tom asking for tips. She put up signs, posted on social media and wished for the best.
Forty days had passed with no sign of Tom. At 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Peterson’s husband woke her up.
“I think somebody found Tom!” he said.
She ran out of bed to find the Facebook post and there he was. A sweet, slightly dirty, gray and white cat.
When Garcia and Sanchez got the call he was okay, they were speechless.
“It was devastating to me because he is the light of my life,” Sanchez said. “Knowing he survived, knowing that he was found, oh my gosh, I can’t even tell you, I am so overwhelmed with joy. I can’t wait to get to him.”
Tom was found by Jeremiah Moe at a metalworking shop in Sauk Rapids, 9 miles from where he went missing.
Here’s the FB post asking if this was the right cat. He looks as if he had a rough time:
The end of the tail. But if the owners truly love Tom, why haven’t they gotten him yet?
Peterson retrieved him and brought him to Rice Vet Clinic where Dr. Kayla Schmitz took over. He had lost about half his weight, was dehydrated and a little roughed up. He was given fluids and cleaned. After being missing for more than a month, he showed little impact of the Minnesota climate.
On his journey it is likely he ran into wildlife, including predators, and the Mississippi River. While we may never know what Tom did for all those days, it is clear he was determined to survive.
Now he is staying with a foster home until his owners can come retrieve him. Funds are tight for Garcia and Sanchez. They are trying to get a truck load they can drive that will run through Minnesota so they can get Tom, but they haven’t heard about any opportunities yet. They said they will get to him as soon as they are able to.
“Get to him as soon as they are able to”? Is that love?
A bit more:
Peterson credits the community in his rescuing.
“It was the whole community … they really went out of their way to watch for him at night. They would check and say, ‘I went here today, I didn’t see him, but I look for him every night before I go to bed.’ It was that kind of dedication.”
Sanchez said Tom never would have been found without the residents of St. Cloud.
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Lagniappe: A music-loving moggie perched on the piano, soothed by a lullaby.
next avenue gives us a rundown on cat-friendly hotels if you don’t want to leave Fluffy at home on vacation. Click to read:
Some excerpts (I’ve put the names of the hotesl in bold)
In fact, the Kimpton brand was one of the first big hotel brands to jump into the pet-friendly hotel biz. “We’ve been pet-friendly since the company was founded in 1981— even our founder, Bill Kimpton, would bring his dog, Chianti, to work,” says Joe Capalbo, CHA, Regional Director of Operations, IHG Luxury & Lifestyle, Americas and General Manager, Kimpton Marlowe Hotel in Cambridge/Boston, Massachusetts.
Kimpton is on the radar of pet parents because of their lax pet policies: There is no size/weight limit for any pets; no limit on number of pets allowed; and a deposit or cleaning fee is not charged. Also, the brand allows all pets, fury, scaly, feathery … “as long as they can fit through the door.”
In a town known for Cheers, where everybody knows your name, Kimpton Marlowe in Cambridge/Boston posts the traveling cat’s name on the chalkboard at the front entrance, and the cat is greeted by name. And key items will be in the room upon arrival — think: cat beds, litter boxes, cat toys and cat treats. And, even if the hotel didn’t have a heads up, the front desk has the cat amenities on hand and will deliver to the guest room, upon request.
Chicago!
. . . . “As a frequent traveler with my beloved tabby cat, I know how challenging it can be to find a truly pet-friendly hotel where we both feel happy and cared for,” says Michael L. Moore. On a recent trip to Chicago, Moore stayed at a Kimpton property in the Windy City with Goofy, his cat.
The best way to welcome pets of all kinds is to surprise and delight them.
“When my cat and I walked in, the staff treated her like royalty, bringing her special bowls, treats, and even catnip toys. Our room was amazing — they’d set up a cat condo with sisal scratching posts just for her.”
Moore also took his cat out on the town.”The hotel also gave me fantastic pet-friendly recommendations on cafes, parks and attractions that welcomed cats, and I could easily go on an adventure together,” says Moore.
. . . . The Broadmoor is a pet-friendly resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and has had at least nine lives since opening 106 years ago. The Broadmoor’s founder, Spencer Penrose, had a deep love of animals — especially exotic breeds.
When he opened The Broadmoor in 1918, wildlife roamed the grounds for the guests’ amusement, including seals, camels, giraffes, and bears. Tessie the African elephant served as his caddy when he played golf.
Fast forward to today: the hotel and its three wilderness outposts — The Ranch at Emerald Valley, Cloud Camp, and Fly Fishing Camp — and golf courses have resident dogs and cats that play a key role in guest relations. Also, cat guests are inducted into the Pitty Pat Club which features a dedicated cat menu with dry and wet food and treats.
Litter boxes are in guest rooms and pet walking services are available. There are also Pitty Pat Club parades with guests and their felines on July 4th weekend. The pet fee is $100 per pet/per night with a maximum of two pets per room.
, and has had at least nine lives since opening 106 years ago. The Broadmoor’s founder, Spencer Penrose, had a deep love of animals — especially exotic breeds.
When he opened The Broadmoor in 1918, wildlife roamed the grounds for the guests’ amusement, including seals, camels, giraffes, and bears. Tessie the African elephant served as his caddy when he played golf.
Fast forward to today: the hotel and its three wilderness outposts — The Ranch at Emerald Valley, Cloud Camp, and Fly Fishing Camp — and golf courses have resident dogs and cats that play a key role in guest relations. Also, cat guests are inducted into the Pitty Pat Club which features a dedicated cat menu with dry and wet food and treats.
Litter boxes are in guest rooms and pet walking services are available. There are also Pitty Pat Club parades with guests and their felines on July 4th weekend. The pet fee is $100 per pet/per night with a maximum of two pets per room. [JAC: that’s EXPENSIVE!}
and one where my alma mater is!
Michael Donovan and his wife recently traveled with their little boy and cat, Snickers, from Boston to Williamsburg, Virginia for a long weekend. “As cat owners, finding a place for our furry friend to stay with us was really important when planning our vacation,” says Donovan.
After doing some research online, we decided to stay at the Red Roof Inn Williamsburg. I have to say, I was really impressed with how pet-friendly the hotel was. They let you bring dogs or cats for free, with no extra fees — which is awesome when you’re traveling with kids on a budget.”
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If you enjoy making cats part of your travels, as I do, then this article tells you which cities give you the best chances to see cats:
Maddie and Patrick, two world travelers from Phoenix, Arizona, like to have everything planned for their visits to incredible places. But sometimes, they throw their plans out the window after a cat appears. They say they often “follow cats all over the world way more than we should.”
After visiting places all over Europe, they say their favorite countries for encountering cats are:
🇬🇷 Greece
🇭🇷 Croatia
🇲🇪 Montenegro
🇮🇹 Italy
The site has some photos and movies of local cats, including cat “tour guides” that you simply follow around, and can lead you to unexpected places. I can vouch for Greece, where I often fed cats bits of fish from my plate in the Mani.
HOWEVER, they left out the most cat-friendly city I know (it’s partly in Europe): Istanbul. The Turks love their cats (Muslims revere them), and here are a few photos I’ve taken over the years in Istanbul. This first photo is one of my favorites: a real cat restiong in an ancient cat sculpture
Cat in a cemetery in a mosque
Another one:
. . . and another:
A Turkish Van cat with odd-colored eyes:
A local petting another local:
This rug store owner had a good gig going: the cats lure people in and then they buy rugs and weavings. I actually bought a nice rug here:
And me feeding Gli, a very famous Istanbul cat who was a resident of the Hagia Sofia. I always carry a box of dry cat food with me in Turkey. Gli, who died in 2020, has her own Facebook page but I didn’t know she was famous until I returned home. I just fed her because she was there.
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A video about the jumping ability of cats. How do they do it?
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From Snow Snob we have a vet who’s a bit of a wag (click to read):
The drivers passing the Carroll County Veterinary Clinic in Maryland and those who follow them on Instagram have enjoyed witty and hilarious messages on their signboards for years. It doesn’t matter what pet you have, or if you have one at alll – you’ll still get a laugh out of these!
Photos are from the Instagram page, shown on Snow Snob
The folks at the Carroll County Maryland Veterinary clinic also answered this age-old riddle which has caused debate for generations. They agree with Dr. Berkeley that it would make a noise. However, on their humorous roadside sign, their answer states that “If a tree falls in the forest and no ones there to see it, a chihuahua 500 miles away will bark at it.” You can’t beat that logic, so they must be right.
We have all experienced our dogs acting like garbage disposals, devouring everything in the blink of an eye, including substances not considered edible. For example, the plastic packaging the actual food came in. You would swear they are half-starved and uncertain when their next meal will be when they gobble the last piece of turkey you left on the counter while you fetched something to drink or when they nearly take your fingers off while accepting a treat.
Have you ever participated in the age-old debate of where socks disappear once they enter the washer or dryer? Well, the Carroll County Maryland Veterinary clinic thinks they have the answer. Their sign suggests, “If you lose a sock in the dryer. It returns as a Tupperware lid that doesn’t fit any containers.” That is one possible answer, as there are often a few extra stray lids taking up space in the Tupperware draw, and there is always a sock that has gone astray.
Here’s a cute one from the Carroll County Veterinary clinic to make you giggle. “When bees move into a new hive, do they have a house-swarming party? Oh dear, we can feel a whole lot of crazy puns and silly dad jokes coming on. Bee warned! Not to worry, though, because bee puns are good for you. They are high in vitamin Bee! Do you know what bees like to chew? Bumble gum!
This next one by the Carroll County Veterinary clinic is very open-ended and leaves a lot of self-interpretation. Their roadside sign and Instagram post read, “She believed she could, but her cat was asleep on her lap, so she didn’t.” What did she believe she could do? And did she have the TV remote or book within reach? What about something to eat or drink?
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Lagniappe from reader Jon sent in March (his words are indented):
Yesterday I went to a reception at a woman’s modest house that has long served as an art gallery in San Francisco’s East Bay. (My wife, who is now an artist, has exhibited works there.) I noticed this time that a cute cat illustration had been pasted to the bathroom door.
From yahoo!life, apparently originating at Fox News, we hear of a stray cat that interrupted a wedding. The outcome was inevitable; click on screenshot below to read:
An excerpt:
A stray kitten was adopted by an adoring couple after she interrupted their wedding last year.
Cat owner Cara racked up over 3 million likes after posting video of her meow-filled wedding ceremony on TikTok. The wedding was held at Curry Estate in Hopewell Junction, New York in September 2023.
Video shows the groom reading his vows to the bride when audience members suddenly hear a cat – now named Daisy – loudly meowing.
Cara told Fox News Digital that she originally didn’t hear the chatty cat.
Besides the wedding, there is of course another happy ending: the stray kitten got adopted:
Cara’s sister, who served as the maid of honor, then called the couple’s attention to the matter.
“[She] kindly let us know that there was a cat right there meowing,” the wife explained. “She was so perfectly perched on a tree stump behind us demanding to be heard.”
According to Cara, she and her husband were already “huge cat people” before the ceremony – and the feline’s unexpected appearance was a highlight.
“We have a cat that we adopted together, Gatsby, [and] our friends have celebrity nicknamed us Catt (Cara + Matt), and we even had cat cake toppers,” she explained.
“It felt like this was all meant to be when she showed up.”
After the bride and groom fell in love with the kitten, the couple’s families and friends worked hard to look for her – but had no luck.
“All anyone could talk about was the cat. It was the highlight of the night… I knew we had to have her.”
All’s well that ends well:
Two weeks later, Cara and Matt were contacted by their wedding venue. After trying for days, staff were finally able to lure the stray with leftover shrimp from past weddings.
“We were on our honeymoon [when they said] they had gotten her and that she was headed to a shelter if we wanted to adopt her,” Cara explained.
Cara said Daisy perfectly integrated into her household. She was named after Daisy Buchanan from “The Great Gatsby” to match with her sibling, Gatsby.
“She is the most affectionate cat and loves nothing more than spending the day curled up inside our sweaters,” Cara said. “It got even better when our resident cat, Gatsby, befriended her so quickly.”
And a wonderful three-minute news video of the whole affair. Be sure to watch the whole thing showing Daisy finally adopted by the ailurophilic newlyweds. I love that the cats are named after characters from The Great Gatsby.
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Ginger, who sent this video of a New Age full-body cat massage, said, “You don’t have to watch/listen to the whole thing, but that is one HAPPY cat! Every cat should have such treatment a least a few times in their nine lives.”
The maker, itzblitzz, adds this note:
(Update: We adopted her). Hi everyone In today’s video, I will be giving our current foster kitten a relaxing massage . This has been one of my most HIGHLY requested videos of all time! I hope you find it relaxing and enjoyable. We have fostered 4 cats so far this year and it has been a very rewarding experience.
Start the video at 2:30 when the ad ends and the massage begins. It’s pretty New-Agey, so you can just look in on this 41-minute video. However, there’s no doubt that this is one happy cat!
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Here are three cat films, each of which purports to be the first video ever of a cat. But only the third one seems to have precedence.
First, an old silent film from 1906, colorized, fixed up and, most important, showing a CAT. Reader Jon says the short film is “a good way to modernize history (and show cats haven’t changed much over the years).” This isn’t the earliest cat video, though; the two below it were made earlier.
The YouTube information (I didn’t alter caps or anhything):
We have learned so far that this film is “Le déjeuner des Minet” made in 1905, and released in 1906. This is a french movie, and many viewer lipread french words.
What we don’t know yet : The name of the director. The name of the young girl, and her grandmother,
Old film restoration with the following workflow : – Cleaning dust and scratches, degraining, stabilizing, sharpening, auto-levels and auto-white balance with AVISynth – Upscaled and Colorized using neural network to 4k – Frame interpolation up to 60 fps
And one from 1899 by Louis Lumière. It also claims to be the first cat video, but apparently it’s not.
This early silent film is the first cat video to be made in 1899 featuring a young girl feeding a rather energetic cat. The film was directed by Louis Lumière.
In fact, the REAL earliest video of a cat is this one released in 1894 by Thomas Edison Studios of two boxing cats. I don’t like it because of the pugnacious, fighting moggies. But the YouTube notes say this:
This film is the product of Thomas Edison’s (yes, that Thomas Edison!) Manufacturing Company. Why did the brilliant men – namely producer, W.K.L. Dickson – who worked for Thomas Edison feel that they needed to use this new technology to show the world “boxing cats” is a question that has boggled the minds of film historians for over 100 years.
Many of you may have seen the 1988 movie “My Neighbor Totoro“, directed and written by written and directed by the immensely creative Hayao Miyazaki and made into an animation by the fantastic Studio Ghibli (see it!). In one scene sisters Satsuki and Mei stand by as their friend, a large catlike spirit animal named Totoro, boards the Cat Bus. Shaped like a cat and able to fly, it’s amazing, and a great imaginative creation. Here’s the scene where the Cat Bus first appears. (It also appears later in the film.)
Now, by clicking on the two-page article from Toyota Times below, you can learn how Toyota created a drive-able Cat Bus. (All photos from Studio Ghibli.)
Indented text from the Toyota site:
Toyota’s APM Cat Bus was unveiled to the press in a ceremony on February 27, 2024.
It was modeled on the iconic bus in which Satsuki and Mei hurtle through the night sky in the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro.
The design is based on Toyota’s Accessible People Mover (APM), a low-speed, short-distance BEV used at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. But let’s jump right into the details.
You can’t help but smile. This whimsical design is the work of Naoki Nagatsu, Professional Partner at Toyota’s Vision Design Division, and his team, in close communication with Studio Ghibli director Goro Miyazaki.
The tail end and insidewith furry seats:
The concept for the APM Cat Bus was “fantastical feline shapeshifts into APM.” Bringing out the details required the unique carmaking skills of veteran designers.
Director Goro Miyazaki placed particular importance on those otherworldly eyes. [Miyazaki is shown below, and his words are doubly indented.]
The two eyes don’t actually face forward but slightly out to the sides. This was Miyazaki’s advice for achieving that supernatural look, but positioning the left and right pupils nicely on the spherical eyeballs was difficult.
To begin with, we had to get the car sitting perfectly level.
Incidentally, the APM Cat Bus’s steering wheel is centered in the vehicle—not placed on one side, as is usual—because the weight difference would cause a slight lean if the tire pressure were not adjusted. Now that’s fine-tuned craftsmanship.
The caption: “Four mice adorn the roof, peeking out so that they are visible from the eye line of a 100cm-tall child.”
One of the Cat Bus’s standout features is eyes that shine in the dark. How were they brought to life?
The team crafted eyes in many color and shape variations, repeatedly testing how they lit up indoors, under natural light, and in the dark. When the APM Cat Bus is actually operating, most people will see it during the day. That makes the nighttime cat eyes all the more special.
The APM Cat Bus is based on the Accessible People Mover, which was designed to accommodate seniors, mobility-impaired passengers, pregnant women, and parents with young children.
As such, it is configured to provide easy access for all types of people, with a ramp that can be deployed in just 10 seconds.
It allows a wheelchair user and their companion to board from opposite sides. Another basic APM feature is the raised driver’s seat, which makes it easy to turn around and check that the passengers are safe when setting off.
Where can you see it?
Ghibli Park visitors can catch the Cat Bus for themselves at Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park (Nagakute, Aichi) from March 16, with tickets featuring illustrations by director Hayao Miyazaki.
I’ve loved all the Ghibli animations, and now there’s a new one I haven’t seen, “The Boy and the Heron,” which is highly acclaimed, and nabbed a 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. I can’t wait to see it. “Spirited Away,” from 2001 and another of Miyazaki’s films, was a fantastic animated story.
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From the Washington Post, we have the story of a cat purloined as it was inside a stolen truck. Citizens went up in arms to recover the moggy. Click to read:
Susie Heffernan dashed into a store to purchase some pet food, and left her cat, Dundee, in her truck. A winter storm was coming,and Heffernan wanted to stock up on food for her animals before an expected blizzard hit the area.
When she came out a few minutes later, hertruck — and cat — had vanished.
“I don’t ever usually leave an animal in the car, but I thought he was perfectly safe,” said Heffernan, explaining that she had just taken Dundee to the veterinarian and she left him in her truck because it was too cold to bring him out, and she knew she could run her errand fast. She locked the doors.
“This can’t really be happening,” Heffernan thought to herself, as she stood in a Tractor Supply store parking lot in Paradise, Calif., on Feb. 28.
While she was concerned about losing her 2000 Ford F-250, she was far more worried about Dundee — an 8-year-old Siamese whom Heffernan rescued off the streets in 2018. He was in a carrier in the passenger seat.
Heffernan immediately ran back into the store and called the police. Although Tractor Supply did not have video footage of the theft, the store next door did. It showed a gray vehicle dropping off a person nearher truck. A figure then entered her truck, Heffernan said, and both vehicles drove off around 12:25 p.m.
Strangers came out, searched, and even donated money for a reward. The truck was found the next day, but Dundee was missing (his medication, which he requires, was still in the car):
They picked up Heffernan at the store, and a group of about a half-dozen neighbors spent from 1 p.m. to around 3 a.m. searching the streets for Dundee, who has a thyroid condition and needs daily medication. They also contacted Pamela Bezley, another neighbor who runs a cat rescue group, and she began searching, too.
News of the stolen cat spread rapidly on social media, with people posting in several Facebook groups to be on the lookout for Dundee. Many strangers joined the search.
“People just came out in droves,” Curtis said.
Heffernan said she received hundreds of messages with words of support and potential leads, and people pushed to get the story covered by local news outlets.
“The offers that were coming in from strangers were just incredible,” said Heffernan, noting that people pitched in reward money for Dundee’s safe return. One man pledged $1,000, but Heffernan capped the total at $500 to prevent the thief from holding out for more money.
The day after the truck disappeared, police found it in Chico, about 15 miles from where it was stolen. Dundee was nowhere in sight.
The truck was stripped and was missing the ignition and catalytic converter. The locks were damaged, and the dashboard was pulled out. The thieves placed Dundee’s medication, which was on the floorboard in front of the crate, in the glove box.
Finally, someone said he had the cat and nabbed the $600 reward:
Finally, someone called and said they had Dundee. Heffernan promised to keep their identity secret and vowed to take a no-questions-asked approach. Heffernan — along with Curtis and Bezley, who runs Concow Feline Rescue — met the person at an apartment complex in Chico. They gave the person the $500 reward, plus an extra $100, and took Dundee home. Heffernan said she does not know whether the person was responsible for stealing the truck and believes they saw the torrent of posts on social media about the reward.
It’s a bit weird that the person who probably stole the cat got all the dosh for a reward. But of course what cat lover would mind that? The important thing is to get your moggy back! But now the cops should investigate the person who had the cat to see if he stole car + cat!
Here’s a 2½-minute news piece about Dundee’s rescue, and showing the cat.
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If you’re around Pasadena in early August, they’re having a big two-day Cat Convention, which you can read about by clicking on the poster below. Tickets run from $35 to the VIP special tickets at $175 with apparently lots of cat perks. Unfortunately, the schedule, which is here, says that things won’t be finalized until the summer, but stay tuned.
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Lagniappe: I took a photo of this sign in mid-March. They’re fixing up the south facade of Rockefeller Chapel, barely visible to the left. and the whole facade is covered in Black Cat scaffolding. The company is apparently in Chicago, and they have hats and tee shirts for sale, but sadly, the wonderful tee shirts are sold out.
The NYT’s “Trilobites” column analyzes what a cat’s meow really means. Click on the headline below, or read the article archived here.
The article describes a study in which people tried to interpret the meaning of a cat’s meow by watching videos of said moggy. Some excerpts:
It turns out these misunderstood moments with your cat may be more common than not. A new study by French researchers, published last month in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, found that people were significantly worse at reading the cues of an unhappy cat (nearly one third got it wrong) than those of a contented cat (closer to 10 percent).
The study also suggested that a cat’s meows and other vocalizations are greatly misinterpreted and that people should consider both vocal and visual cues to try to determine what’s going on with their pets.
The researchers drew these findings from the answers of 630 online participants; respondents were volunteers recruited through advertisements on social media. Each watched 24 videos of differing cat behaviors. One third depicted only vocal communication, another third just visual cues, and the remainder involved both.
. . .Their vocals can range from seductive to threatening: meowing, purring, growling, hissing and caterwauling. At last count, kittens were known to use nine different forms of vocalization, while adult cats uttered 16.
That we could better understand what a cat wants by using visual and vocal cues may seem obvious. But we know far less than we think we do.
. . . And the fact that we’re not very good at picking up on signs of animal discontentment should not come as a surprise, Dr. Udell suggested. “We’re more likely to perceive our animals as experiencing positive emotions because we want them to,” she said. “When we see the animals, it makes us feel good, and our positive emotional state in response to the animals gives us these rose-colored glasses.”
Even some of the most common cues may be misunderstood.
Purring, for example, is not always a sign of comfort. “Purring can be exhibited in uncomfortable or stressful conditions,” Dr. de Mouzon said. “When a cat is stressed, or even hurt, they will sometimes purr.”
Such instances are a form of “self-soothing,” said Kristyn Vitale, an assistant professor of animal health and behavior at Unity Environmental University in Maine, who was not involved in the new study.
. . .As an example, Dr. de Mouzon pointed to a cat’s habit of suddenly biting. “Over time, with cats communicating and humans not understanding, the cat will just bite,” she said, “because they have learned over time that this is the only way to make something stop.”
Animal rescue shelters use such findings to educate prospective owners. Dr. Udell and Dr. Vitale are assessing whether cats can be suitable as therapy animals, or in aiding children with developmental differences.
I wonder if humans could develop a form of “purr therapy” in which we could do something similar to purring as “self-soothing”. As you know, self care is a big deal these days, often involving expensive items like hot-rocks-on-the-back therapy and expensive oils. If we could do something like purring it would be a lot cheaper!
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From Country Life we have a big list of great quotations about cats. I’ll give just a few; click on the headline to see ’em all:
“I’ve found that the way a person feels about cats—and the way they feel about him or her in return—is usually an excellent gauge by which to measure a person’s character.”
Source:Marked
Charles Dickens
“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”
Eckhart Tolle
“I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats.”
Source: The Power of Now
Beverley Nichols
“Let us be honest: most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked around the house with a saintly expression.”
Source: Beverley Nichols’ Cats’ X. Y. Z.
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This NYT piece (click on headline or find it archived here) made big news, and is still doing so: I saw it on the NBC Evening News two nights ago. It’s one of the cleverest ideas I’ve heard of!
An excerpt (warning: lots of puns):
Finally, there is something cats can do for humans.
The Worcester Public Library in Worcester, Mass., announced that through the end of March, people who have lost or damaged a book or other borrowed items can bring a photograph, drawing, or magazine clipping of a cat, and get their library cards reactivated.
The library calls the program March Meowness, a way for the system of seven branches to forgive (or is that fur-give?) members of the community who misplaced a book or damaged a borrowed item, and then never went back to avoid paying for it.
In just a few days, the program has already generated hundreds of returns, multiple postings of random cat photographs on the library’s Facebook page, and photographs and drawings pinned on a growing “cat wall” in the main building.
The local NPR affiliate, WBUR, described it as a “never be-fur tried initiative,” and urged patrons to hurry and “act meow.” So far the response, WBUR said, has Jason Homer, the executive director of the library, “feline good.”
. . . If you don’t have a cat? No problem. One cat-less 7-year-old boy, who never returned a “Captain Underpants” book, had his library card reactivated after the staff gave him paper and crayons to sketch one.
. . .The library had previously tried to boost attendance and fee-forgiveness programs with canned food drives. But the cats found their way into the spotlight, as they do. The Meowness program took shape after several months of brainstorming by a library task force that met to come up with a creative way to get people back through the doors.
“It spiraled in a good way from there,” Mr. Homer said. “We were just trying to figure out the lowest barrier possible.”
. . .Mr. Homer said that using cats as the vehicle to forgive patrons for losing or damaging books or other borrowed items could help to soften the stereotype of the stern librarian.
“We don’t really have the high buns and ‘shush’ people anymore,” he said. “We are still book lovers, cardigan lovers and cat lovers.”
This would not, of course, have worked nearly as well as d*gs, for cats rule the Internet.
On the news report I heard that the library had received over 10,000 cat photos, many sent in by distant folks who wanted to help a local waive their fees or get back their library card. In response, the library has now waived fees for everyone! That’s what a cat lover would do.
And here’s a video:
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Lagniappe: A version of the well known song “The Cat Came Back“, sung by Garrison Keillor and Frederica Von Stade. This song was written in 1893 by Harry S. Miller, and has been recorded many times.
Again I importune readers to keep those wildlife photos coming in. And many thanks to those who have contributed.
Today we have some black-and-white photos by reader Christopher Moss. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. This was sent on March 15:
Inspired by today’s B&W film, I thought I’d throw some more your way.
Rain on trumpet lilies (Lilium spp). Leica MP, Summilux 75mm, Delta 3200 in Diafine.
Nuttby Dream Home. Supposedly the second most photographed site in Nova Scotia (how does one ascertain that?), and now demolished. Leica M7, Summicron 50mm, Tri-X in TMax developer.
It’s nice having a brewery at the end of the driveway! Hasselblad 500c, Planar 80mm, XP2, Rodinal developer:
Their product. Pentax 645n, 80mm lens, Tri-X, Diafine:
Lap Cat. Pentax 645n, 120mm lens, Ilford HP5+, Diafine:
