Category: Gus

Sunday: Hili dialogue

February 4, 2018 • 6:30 am

Good morning: It’s a snowy Sunday (February 4, 2018), and everyone in America knows it’s SUPERBOWL DAY, when the Philadelphia Eagles will play the New England Patriots in Superbowl LII (info here). The venue is the hideously named U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I still remember the first Superbowl, which shows how old I am. It’s also National Homemade Soup Day, but most Americans will be showing down on chips with dip, pizza, Buffalo chicken wings, and nachos. In California and Missouri, it’s Rosa Parks Day. Even if you don’t watch the Superbowl, though, be sure to catch The Kitten Bowl V here at noon eastern US time.

You wanna predict the football winner? Go ahead:

As for the snow, I want winter to be over so my beloved duck Honey will return. I’ll be bereft if I don’t see her again.  And, like the groundhog, I saw my shadow this morning when I emerged from my den, which means six more weeks of winter!

Not much happened on February 4.  In Edo (the present day Tokyo), all but one of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku to recover their honor after avenging their master’s death. On this day in 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the U.S. by the electoral college: the only time such a vote has been unanimous. He did it again in 1792.  On February 4, 1846, the Mormon pioneers began their trek from Nauvoo, Illinois toward Salt Lake City. In 1948, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) gained independence from England.  On this day in 1974, the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst from a house in Berkeley, California. She eventually started participating in their crimes, was convicted, spent 22 months in prison, and then had her sentence commuted by Jimmy Carter and was pardoned by Bill Clinton. Here’s her mug shot:

Finally, it was on this day in 2004 that Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook.

Notables born on this day included Fernand Léger (1881), Charles Lindbergh (1902), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906), Rosa Parks (1913), Betty Friedan (1921), Dan Quayle (1947), Alice Cooper (1948), and Dara Ó Briain (1972). Those who died on this day include physicist Hedrik Lorentz (1928), Neal Cassady (1968, a hero of mine celebrating his 50th’s deathday), Karen Carpenter (1983; gone too soon!), Carl Robers (1987), and Betty Friedan (2006, died on her birthday).  Here’s a beautiful painting by Léger, “Woman with Cat” (1921):

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili wants to get into the fooking sack:

Hili: Of course I will get inside, I just have to figure out how to do it.
A: But what for?
Hili: I do it on principle.

In Polish:
Hili: Oczywiście, że tam jakoś wejdę, muszę tylko zbadać jak to zrobić.
Ja: Ale po co?
Hili: Trzeba mieć zasady.

A picture of gus from Snowy Winnipeg, with a note from his staff Taskin:

Here’s a pic of Gus in the snow. It’s been very cold so he hasn’t gone out much, but the other day he kindly went to see if the bird feeders needed filling.

Can you spot the cat?

From Grania, a cat makes a magnificent leap:

https://twitter.com/CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/959878918277799936

Poor Ricky Gervais is packing on the pounds!:

This is a bandaid for his problem but not a cure! Only in America would something like this sell!

And a lovely picture of a blood moon.

h/t: Michael

Friday: Hili dialogue

February 2, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, February 2, 2018, and a frigid 5° F (-15° C) outside, with snow predicted today and through the weekend in Chicago. It’s National Tater Tot Day. I suspect they have these in Canada, and Wikipedia says they’ve also infected Australia and New Zealand, but not elsewhere. Actually they’re not bad! If you haven’t seen them, here’s what they look like.

Let’s learn about Tater Tots! From Wikipedia;

Tater tots are pieces of deep-fried, grated potatoes served as a side dish. They are recognized by their compact cylindrical shape and crispy colored exterior. “Tater Tots®” is a registered trademark of Ore-Ida (a division of the H. J. Heinz Company) that is often used as a generic term.

The product was created in 1953 when Ore-Ida founders F. Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg were trying to figure out what to do with leftover slivers of cut-up potatoes. They chopped up the slivers, added flour and seasoning, then pushed the mash through holes and sliced off pieces of the extruded mixture. The product was first offered in stores in 1956.

Originally, the product was very inexpensive. According to advertising lectures at Iowa State University, people did not buy it at first because there was no perceived value. When the price was raised, people began buying it. Today, Americans consume approximately 70,000,000 pounds (32,000,000 kg) of tater tots, or 3,710,000,000 tots per year.

It’s also Groundhog Day, and the sky in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where Phil makes his prognostication, is predicted to be partly cloudy. We won’t know for a while, then, whether Phil will see his shadow (that forecasts 6 more weeks of cold weather). I hope he doesn’t, because maybe my beloved duck Honey will return early!

On February 2, 1709, Alexander Selkirk, after being marooned for 4 years on a desert island, was rescued, inspiring Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe. And on this day in 1887, in Punxsutawney, the very first Groundhog Day was observed, so it’s been going 131 years.  On February 2, 1901, Queen Victoria died at age 81; she had reigned for 63.5 years.  And on this day in 1922, Joyce’s great novel Ulysses was published. In 1943, the ferocious Battle of Stalingrad came to a close, with the last German troops surrendering to the Red Army.  On this day in 1959, the Dyatlov Pass incident occurred, in which 9 experienced hikers and skiers died, having cut their way out of their tents. The cause of their death has never been determined. Finally, on February 2, 1990, South African President F. W. de Klerk announced that the ANC was unbanned and promised to release Nelson Mandela from prison. It was the beginning of the end for apartheid, and both de Klerk and Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Notables born on this day include Hamnet Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s only son. Hamnet died at only 11, but his twin sister Judith lived to be 77 and his eldest daughter Susanna lived to 66. On this day in 1882, James Joyce was born, so that Ulysses was published on Joyce’s 40th birthday.  Also born on February 2 were Jascha Heifitz (1901), Ayn Rand (1905), James Dickey (1923), Stan Getz (1927), Evgeny Velikhov (1935), Tommy Smothers (1937; still with us), and Shakira (1977; hips don’t lie).

Getz and Coltrane, who had very different styles, were two of the greatest saxophone players of our time. Here they are playing together (with the Miles Davis Quintet) in a medley of three songs:

Those who died on February 2 include Dmitri Mendeleev (1907), John L. Sullivan (1918), Boris Karloff (1969), Bertrand Russell (1970), Sid Vicious (1979), and Philip Seymour Hoffman (2014, only 46).

Also, Buster Keaton, who died on February 1, 1966, had his death reported on the front page of the New York times on February 2. Note the second paragraph (h/t: Matthew):

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili (already rotund) is wheedling for her next meal:
Hili: You understand yourself that we have to have a talk.
A: What about?
Hili: About shopping or about what can be pleasing for a cat.
In Polish:
Hili: Sam rozumiesz, że musimy porozmawiać.
Ja: O czym?
Hili: O zakupach, czyli o tym, co może kotu sprawić przyjemność.

And up in Winnipeg, Gus got a good brushing yesterday, but wanted to nom the brush, too:

Matthew sent a tweet of maternal instinct gone wrong:

A tweet from Grania, who says the prediction is “freakishly correct”:

From Matthew, a Dramatic Ferret:

. . . and a cat chased by an otter:

Aerin Jacob has also experienced the 15 minutes of fame that come with a botfly:

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 29, 2018 • 6:30 am

We’re at the start of another week, but at the end of January: it’s Monday, January 29, 2008, and National Corn Chip Day. In the midlands, it’s Kansas Day, celebrating the day when that state was admitted to the Union in 1861. Posting may be light today as I don’t have much to say.

On this day in 1845, Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” was published in the Evening Mirror in New York; it was the first of his published works to bear his name. On January 29 1886, Karl Benz (yes, that Benz) received a patent for the first successful automobile powered by gasoline. In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame opened with its first inductees, and a powerful crew they were: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner. I wonder how they’d fare in today’s game.  In 1967, according to Wikipedia, “The ‘ultimate high’ of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance, took place in San Francisco and features Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.” Sadly, I don’t remember this at all, but here’s the poster:

Sixteen years ago, George W. Bush gave the State of the Union address, naming regimes that sponsored terrorism as the “Axis of evil”; they included Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Here’s an event I remember well: on January 29, 2009, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was removed from office for multiple instances of corruption. He was jailed in 2012, and will serve at least 12 years before he’s eligible for parole. Blagojevich is the fourth Illinois governor to go to prison, all in my lifetime and two while I was living here.

Notables born on this day include Emanuel Swedenborg (1688), Anton Chekhov (1860), W. C. Fields (1880), Abdus Salam (1926; he was the first Muslim and first Pakistani to get a Nobel Prize in science, which he shared with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg), Germaine Greer (1939), Oprah Winfrey (1954, not our next President), and Heather Graham (1970).  Those who expired on January 29 include Edward Lear (1888), H. L. Mencken (1956), Fritz Kreisler (1962), Alan Ladd (1964), Margaret Truman (2008), Colleen McCullough (2015), and Rod McKuen (2015).

Ladd, born in 1913, starred in lots of movies, including the Western “Shane”.  Here he is in Greece (left) with my father on the Acropolis (Parthenon in the background), probably in 1956. We were all living there then, and (as I’ve mentioned before), my father helped get Army jeeps and fuel for the movie “Boy on a Dolphin“, also starring Sophia Loren.  More on my father later today:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili can’t even. . .

Hili: I can’t find words.
A: Did you look for them?
Hili: Not really.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie znajduję słów.
Ja: A szukałaś?
Hili: Nie specjalnie.
And Leon is back! He’s walking in the snow, and on the prowl for prey:

Leon: I’m sniffing big game.

His little footprints:

And it was so sunny in Winnipeg yesterday that Gus had to shield his eyes while sleeping on the Katzenbaum:

Here are tweets unearthed by Grania:

 

Look at the size of these bat skulls!

Here, as Grania said, is a “super-cute robot that looks like WALL-E. Life is imitating art here.”

Here’s Pixar’s Wall-E:

A tweet found by Matthew: look at that lady’s soccer skills! UPDATE: A reader notes a correction here; “The artist should be identified as Maria Nilda Pereira Passos.  In an interview last weekend on Brazilian television, she revealed her age to be 54.”

 

 

Friday: Hili dialogue

January 19, 2018 • 6:30 am

We’ve reached Friday again—January 19, 2018—and the high temperature will at last rise above freezing in Chicago (it’s now 28° F: -2° C). It’s National Popcorn Day, and in the Indian state of Tripura it’s Kokborok Day, celebrating the local language.

On this day in 1829, Goethe’s Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy, was first performed. In 1853, Verdi’s opera Il trovatore was first performed—in Rome.  Two electricity innovations occurred on January 19: in 1883, the first overhead-wire electrical lighting system, devised by Thomas Edison, began service in New Jersey; and in 1915 Georges Claude patented the neon discharge tube (neon lights) to use in advertisements. On January 19, 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was founded. In 1940, according to Wikipedia, “You Nazty Spy!, the very first Hollywood film of any kind to satirize Adolf Hitler and the Nazis premieres, starring The Three Stooges, with Moe Howard as the character ‘Moe Hailstone satirizing Hitler.” In case you’re curious, here’s the entire 18-minute short. The big question is: would Dan Arel punch Moe?

On this day in 1953, the majority of television sets in the U.S. (73% of them) were tuned to the show “I Love Lucy” for the episode “Lucy Goes to the Hospital“, in which Little Ricky was born.  On this day in 1978, the last VW Beetle made in Germany left the plant in Emden. Production of the Beetle continued in Mexico until 2003, but, sadly, they’re no longer made. In my youth I spent many hours standing by the side of the road with my thumb out, watching for a Beetle—or, better yet, its larger cousin the Volkswagen bus—to come by; the probability that they were driven by fellow hippies, and would give me a ride, was high.  Did any readers have a Beetle, or still have one? Finally, on this day in 1983, the Apple Lisa, Apple Inc.’s first personal computer with a mouse and a graphical interface, was announced.

Notables born on this day include Robert E. Lee (1807), Edgar Allen Poe (1809), Paul Cézanne (1839), Lester Flatt (1914), Phil Everly (1939), Janis Joplin (1943), Dolly Parton (1946), photographer Cindy Sherman (1954) and geneticist Cliff Tabin (also 1954).  Those who died on January 19 include William Congreve (1729), Debendranath Tagore (1905), Thomas Hart Benton (1975), William O. Douglas (1980), James Dickey (1997), Carl Perkins (1998), and Hedy Lamarr (2000; she was not only an actress and singer, but an inventor who devised a torpedo-jamming system that was later used by the U.S. Navy. According to Wikipedia, ” Lamarr and [George] Antheil’s work with spread spectrum technology led to the development of GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.”) Also deceased on this day were Wilson Pickett (2006; I touched him once when he performed at William and Mary for a dance), Suzanne Pleshette (2008), and my favorite baseball player of all time, Stan Musial (died 2013), who played for the St. Louis Cardinals—and only the Cardinals—for 22 years. My father, a huge Cardinals fan, often saw Stan “The Man” Musial play in St. Louis and (on a visiting team) in Pittsburgh (I saw him play once, at the end of his career), and turned me on to his abilities and to Musial’s reputation for being a nice guy. (My dad told me that Musial “never questioned an umpire’s call”). Musial’s father was a Polish immigrant, and so Musial’s real name was Stanisław Franciszek Musiał. Here are some of his accomplishments as recounted on Wikipedia:

Musial batted .331 over the course of his career and set National League (NL) records for career hits (3,630), runs batted in (1,951), games played (3,026), at bats (10,972), runs scored (1,949) and doubles (725), his 475 career home runs then ranked second in NL history behind Mel Ott’s total of 511. His 6,134 total bases remained a major league record until surpassed by Hank Aaron, and his hit total still ranks fourth all-time, and is the highest by any player who spent his career with only one team. A seven-time batting champion with identical totals of 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 hits on the road, he was named the National League’s (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times and led St. Louis to three World Series championships. He also shares the major league record for the most All-Star Games played (24) with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.

He also became noted for his harmonica playing, a skill he acquired during his playing career. Known for his modesty and sportsmanship, Musial was selected for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. In February 2011, President Barack Obama presented Musial with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian awards that can be bestowed on a person by the United States government.

I believe he still holds the record for hitting five home runs in a single day—in a double header.  Here’s a 5-minute summary of his career (yes, the video does work). Obama’s encomiums for Musial begin at 2:32.

Finally, on this day two years ago, ecologist Richard Levins died; I knew him slightly and his office at Harvard’s main campus was on our floor in the MCZ. Levins ran his lab like a Marxist collective (he was a Marxist), and even had “criticism sessions” in which his entire lab would go into a closed room and single out one person to chastise for political improprieties. It was the Cultural Revolution enacted at Harvard! I sometimes saw students leaving these sessions in tears.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, restless and housebound by the snow, is fighting with the rug:

Hili: I will teach it a lesson!
A: But it was lying down quietly, doing nothing
Hili: Exactly.
In Polish:
Hili: Ja go nauczę!
Ja: Ale on leżał sobie spokojnie i nic nie robił.
Hili: No właśnie.

And out in frigid Winnipeg, Gus (also housebound) watches for rabbits from his Katzenbaum:

 

A tweet from Stephen Fry found by Grania. Look at that determined kid!

Also from Grania: really wonderful Japanese paper toys. Can I have one of the penguins? (I haven’t talked about my penguin fetish.)

https://twitter.com/PhysicsVideo_/status/954195612311764994

A bizarre tweet found by Matthew:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/953988871662067712

Monday: Hili dialogue

January 8, 2018 • 7:18 am

It’s my first Monday back: January 8, 2018. That means it’s National English Toffee Day (what?), as well as International Typing Day, which, since nobody actually types any more (at least on a typewriter), is celebrated instead to to “promote speed, accuracy and efficiency in written communication among the public.”

I’m slowly readjusting to the local time, though my sleep is still a tad disrupted, which is why this posting is late. The last two nights I had weird dreams about India. The first involved me and my father (now deceased) trying to import green beans (string beans) from India to the US, and getting them loaded on large ships. Last night I dreamed I was staying with a bunch of younger Indian students in their college, and had to eat in their canteen (which was impossible to navigate) as well as to attend a local entertainment, whose auditorium I couldn’t find. When I finally did, the entertainment consisted of a row of chairs on the stage, arrayed from front to back. In all of them sat Indian students save one in the middle, occupied by the American ambassador to India, who, on cue, waved his hands and danced in his chair. Then, leaving the entertainment, I flexed my shoulder, as I sometimes do now to give it mobility when it’s healing (it’s much better now), and a student yelled at me me, “Stop doing that with your arm!”  What does all of this mean?

On January 8, 871, Alfred the Great successfully led his West Saxon army against an invasion by the Danelaw Vikings. I had no idea that the Danes had been installed in England for several years. On this day in 1790, President George Washington delivered the country’s first State of the Union Address; it was in New York City. Exactly 38 years later, the Democratic Party of the U.S. was organized—and now it’s disorganized again.  On this date in 1835, or so says Wikipedia, “The United States national debt is zero for the only time.”  On January 8, 1973, seven men accused of breaking into the Democratic Party Headquarters went on trial: it was a dramatic opening of the Watergate affair. Two years later, Ella T. Grasso became the governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a U.S. Governor who wasn’t succeeding to her husband’s position.  In 2004, the RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, was christened by Queen Elizabeth II. That was a stalwart ship, and I’ve lectured on evolution aboard it (for free translatlantic fare) twice. We were, as “entertainment” treated quite well, even getting a 50% discount on alcohol. Here are three vanity photos from my 2006 lecture series:

A Gibson (shaken, not stirred) before the formal dinner, which required dark suits or tuxes. I still had black in my hair!

Jogging on deck:

About to climb into the jacuzzi on the top deck; it was COLD (nobody was on that extremely windy top deck), but it was lovely in the hot bath. This was the last trans-Atlantic crossing (east to west) for that year, and went from Southampton to Orlando; the ship does Caribbean cruises during the winter.

Finally, it was on this day in 2011 that an assassin killed five people in Arizona, critically wounding Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

Notables born on this day include Alfred Russel Wallace (1823), Albert Bierstadt (1830), Gypsy Rose Lee (1911), Soupy Sales (1926; real name Milton Supman), Elvis Presley (1935), Graham Chapman (1941), Stephen Hawking (1942), David Bowie (1947), and Kim Jong-un (1984; has a small button).  I do love Bierstadt’s sweeping and grandiose landscapes; here’s “Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (1868)”:

 

There was a paucity of  deaths on January 8, the only person of note who expired was Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai—in 1976.

Today’s Hili dialogue needs a bit of explanation, which Malgorzata provided: “Andrzej was sitting on his chair and heard Hili purring. He looked around but didn’t see her. So he asked her where was she purring and it turned out that she was sitting behind him on the chair.”

A: Where are you purring?
Hili: Behind your back.
In Polish:
Ja: Gdzie ty mruczysz?
Hili: Za twoimi plecami.

Out in frigid Winnipeg, Gus is doing his best polar bear impression on the staff’s harpsichord:

And our tweets. The first is from Matthew, and it’s a capybara parade:

And one from Grania:

From ready Barry, a cat miscalculates:

https://twitter.com/PersianRose1/status/949833342727393280

And another from Grania: a baby elephant falling asleep on its feet:

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/949781404384157698

 

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

December 29, 2017 • 6:30 am

Various bits by Jerry & Grania

Greetings from a very cold Europe!

Jerry’s sad because today is already the 5th day of Koynezaa (it ends tomorrow on my birthday), and greetings have been few on the ground and presents nonexistent! Do remember this six day holiday that celebrates The Wonder that is Coyne! For my birthday, instead of extorting readers or Facebook friends to donate to my favorite charity, I simply ask them to give fusses to a stray cat (or, if you really want to make me happy, adopt one).

Today’s Google Doodle in India celebrates the 113th birthday of Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, or, in the beautiful and local Kannada script, ಕುಪ್ಪಳಿ ವೆಂಕಟಪ್ಪ ಪುಟ್ಟಪ್ಪ. Also known as Kuvempu, Wikipedia describes Puttapa as “an Indian Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Critic and Thinker. He is widely regarded as the greatest Kannada Poet of the 20th century. He is the first among Kannada writers to be decorated with the prestigious Dnyanpith Award.”  Poetry is a big deal in India—much bigger than in America—and great poets are widely celebrated. Here’s the Doodle.

Kannada, by the way, is the local language of Karnataka, which includes Bangalore. There are so many languages in India that many people from different areas communicate in English or Hindi, but often locals in some areas don’t speak Hindi well.

A cat zinger from the official Downing Street Mouser.

 

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon is sad as he didn’t get any presents, which is weird because Hiroko kindly sent him (and Hili) some “cat’s snacks” from Japan, as well as some dog treats for Cyrus. When I asked Malgorzata why Leon was sad when he had gotten presents, she responded, “You didn’t notice the word ‘today’. Leon got presents every day during the holiday. Now, when the holiday is over, he is complaining.”

Leon: What, no presents today?!!!

And in Winnipeg we have a special Christmas Gus photo. As his staff notes:

Gus demonstrates the latest thing in cat toys. (There is a pile of half a dozen toy mice just outside the picture frame…)

 

Here’s sweet story from The Dodo about a hero vet who looks after animals who have “fallen on hard times“.

And from Poland the inscrutable couple are having an ineffable conversation. I think.

Hili: What’s the time?
Cyrus: Nine o’clock.
Hili: You are just guessing.

In Polish:

Hili: Która może być godzina?
Cyrus: Dziewiąta.
Hili: Zgadujesz.

Hat-tip: Matthew

Sunday: Hili dialogue

December 24, 2017 • 6:48 am

by Grania and Jerry

In India today the Google Doodle celebrates a national celebrity, Mohammed Rafi, a prolific and famous movie singer born on this day in 1924 (he died in 1980). From the very first time when Indian movies featured singing actors , virtually all of that singing was done not by the actors themselves, but by people like Rafi and his female equivalent, the very famous and prolific  Lata Mangeshkar (born 1929 and still with us). The actors, as they do now, simply lip-synched the prerecorded tracks. As Wikipedia says of Rafi:

Mohammed Rafi was an Indian playback singer and one of the most popular and successful singers of the Hindi film industry. Rafi was notable for his voice and versatility; his songs ranged from classical numbers to patriotic songs, sad lamentations to highly romantic numbers, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans. He was known for his ability to mould his voice to the persona of the actor, lip-syncing the song on screen in the movie. He received six Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India.

Rafi is primarily noted for his songs in Hindi, over which he had a strong command. He sang around 7,405 songs in many languages. He sang in other Indian languages including Konkani, Bhojpuri, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Telugu, Magahi, Maithili and Urdu. Apart from Indian languages, he also sang songs in English, Farsi, Arabic, Sinhalese, Creole and Dutch.

. . . Rafi was buried at the Juhu Muslim cemetery and his burial was one of the largest funeral processions in India as over 10,000 people attended his burial. The government of India announced a two-day public holiday in his honour

Here’s his Doodle (click on it to go to a photographic biography of the man), and below I’ll put one of the songs he sang

Here are Rafi and Mangeshkar together singing a romantic duet (the actors are lip-synching), “Teri Suniya Se Door Chale Hoke Majboor”, from the 1961 movie Zabak, made in Tamil. (English translation here.) This is the precursor of the modern Bollywood musical:

Some bits and pieces from Twitter

Further evidence of the dignity of cats.

And the dramatic rescue of a frozen bird.

Penguins, because Jerry loves them almost as much as cats. Truefact.

Good news, everybody!

https://twitter.com/natureslover_s/status/943798206063939584

Meanwhile in Winnipeg, Gus is wrapping presents, eager to get his promised Xmas present, a pork chop! He adds this assurance to me, his Uncle, that he’s been a good cat:

I haz bin gud, I promize. Zee, I hepped wif de wrapping, zee how fast I movez. =^..^=

The final word is from Hili in which she discovers an unpleasant truth.

Hili: What am I going to get under the Christmas tree?
A: We don’t have a Christmas tree.
Hili: We have so many other trees.

In Polish:

Hili: Co dostanę pod choinkę?
Ja: Nie mamy choinki.
Hili: Mamy tyle innych drzew.

Hat-tip to Matthew