Are we doing right by our furry friends? The latest issue of New York magazine takes a deep dive into the concept of pet “ownership” and the ethics of keeping animals in our homes.
Almost the entirety of New York magazine is devoted this week to what its editors call “an exhaustive exploration of the ethics of pet ownership.”
There are also articles about what veterinarians really think of “pet owners,” whether runaway dogs deserve to be free, and even a story asking whether the word “owner” is appropriate to begin with. (You’ll notice PITB almost always avoids that word, unless we’re quoting others. I refer to myself as Buddy’s servant and his caretaker, words that feel more honest than owner.)
The stories are worth reading. Some are free for a limited time, others can be read as part of the weekly article limit. And if you can afford it, supporting a magazine or two during these brutal times for the publishing industry is a good way to help quality publications survive, so we’re not all drowning in a sea of clickbait garbage tuned for algorithms instead of human readers.
Regular readers of this blog are likely familiar with the story of Bud’s one and only “escape” as a kitten. When I found him, this cat who hates being picked up leapt into my arms, holding onto me like a terrified toddler, and his relief was palpable as I felt him purring into my neck. We were both relieved.
He’s had the opportunity to leave since, but he won’t. He’s got a good thing going here, living like a little king with his personal servant. He gets tons of attention, he’s allowed to do pretty much anything he wants as long as it isn’t dangerous for him, and he loves his Big Buddy.
I know he does from the way he approaches me, purring and meowing happily as he bunts his forehead against mine. I know it from the way he makes biscuits on me and falls asleep in my lap, feeling content and secure. And I know it from his refusal to leave my side the two times I was so sick I could barely move.
He’s got his own site, awesome retrowave logos and online admirers, but Buddy only cares about the snacks.
We shouldn’t feel guilty for giving cats a home.
I think we tend to forget that as domesticated animals, cats don’t have a natural habitat. The process of domestication made them friendlier, more trusting and more capable of reading human body language, facial expressions and tone of voice.
But those changes came at a cost, as they always do in domestication. Felis catus looks like its wild relatives and retains many of the amazing abilities of wild cats, but compared to them the species has lost a step. Domestic cats are not as quick or agile, they’re too trusting, and they’re not well suited to providing for themselves. The statistics on life expectancy reflect that, with ferals and strays living short, miserable lives.
Although it’s usually very difficult to tell a domestic cat from felis lybica, the wildcat species seen here, there are major differences in their respective survival abilities and instincts. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
So if felis catus has a habitat, it’s our living rooms. When our ancestors welcomed them into human settlements ten thousand years ago, they formed an indelible bond and made a pact, even if they didn’t realize it at the time.
Consider it a debt we owe for the survival of our species, when nascent civilization would have likely been snuffed out were it not for cats protecting the grain stores over long, cold winters.
Without cats, rodents would have eaten their way through the season’s rations, starving out the early settlers before the next harvest. The great agriculture experiment would have been over as quickly as it began with people returning to the nomadic life of hunter-gatherers, and it’s likely that everything after — from the first cities, to the birth of western civilization in Greece, to the remarkable achievement of putting a human being on another world — would have been jeopardized or taken radically different paths otherwise.
So you can thank your cat for your house, your car, the medicine that keeps you tip top, all the comforts of modern civilization, and all the stories and songs of humanity. Without cats and their heroic willingness to eat their way into our good graces, we wouldn’t have gotten here. Thank them often. You can’t go wrong with treats.
The artist says his whimsical animal images are meant to help lower the national temperature after a week of riots and incrimination following the stabbing deaths of three young girls.
UK street artist Banksy has been busy lately, with a new piece of graffiti popping up in London every day for the past six days.
All six new images are animals and the latest is a cat. Sprayed on a billboard in northwest London, the Banksy feline is a black silhouette of a stretching cat and was found this morning.
On Friday, the anonymous artist added a pair of pelicans to a fish shop sign, making it look like the pelicans were eating the fish. That follows a trio of monkeys who appear to be swinging across a bridge, a pair of elephants, a mountain goat, and a howling wolf in the center of a satellite dish, creating the impression that the dish is the moon silhouetting the wolf.
The whimsical animal renderings often show their subjects appearing to interact with their urban environment.
Banksy’s art commands high prices at auction: one piece sold for $25 million, while many others have fetched winning bids well into seven and eight figures.
The wolf piece lasted only hours before a group of men came along and took it. A representative for the artist confirmed to the BBC that the artwork was stolen.
Likewise, the feline was gone by afternoon, removed by contractors who said they were trying to safeguard it.
This isn’t Banksy’s first cat. In 2015 the anonymous artist snuck into the Gaza strip via a tunnel from Egypt and painted a kitten on a fragment of concrete wall that was rubble left over from an Israeli strike. Banksy has also been responsible for at least three other feline-themed pieces of street art, and possibly more.
Banksy’s kitten graffiti in the Gaza strip.
The UK artist is known for using his art to highlight causes, and has made reference to various conflicts around the world, unregulated capitalism, destruction of the environment and distrust of authority, with many of his pieces taking aim at the UK surveillance state. As The Londonist wrote, London is considered one of the most surveilled cities in the world, with between 627,000 and 942,000 CCTV cameras monitoring the public.
However, Banksy’s latest series eschews a political message, his reps told UK media. After a tumultuous week that saw rioting across the country in response to the stabbing deaths of three young girls — and inaccurate news reports about the identity of the attacker — Banksy, his publicist said, merely wants his countrymen to “cheer up.”
It’s International Cat Day, which means you should totally do awesome stuff for your cat.
Hello there, PITB readers! I have taken over the blog from my inept human on this most auspicious of days, International Cat Day, to offer some great suggestions on how to honor your feline overlord!
Let’s get right into it, shall we?
10) Human snacks: Let’s be serious here for a moment. I’m sick of getting the same old crunchy treats, meaty sticks, soft Buddy Biscuits, Churus and party mix. I want cheese! I want filet mignon! I want roast turkey! I want a cheeseburger! Day after day we have to sit here, our mouths watering as you humans stuff your faces with all sorts of food we would love to eat. Well, today’s the day. Start cookin’, servants!
Yes! More cheese, hold the lettuce and tomatoes. Credit: Juan Santos/Pexels
9) Roombas. That’s right. It’s 2024 and I still don’t have a Roomba. I’m very angry about that. When do I get my mighty steed? Let it be today!
8) Catnip and silvervine. Sure, we get these on other days, but this day absolutely must not go by without you giving us at least a few doses of the good stuff. Hurry up! I need to get my fix!
7) Sweet cat drip that shows you’re owned by a cat. My Big Buddy just got two t-shirts. One shows a roaring jaguar with the word “Savage,” because I am savage, and the other is a kitty samurai with a cool sword. Aside from the fact that this is premium drip, everyone will know that you answer to a fluffy, benevolent overlord back home. That’s what’s important.
The drip.
6) A throne. I’ve wanted a throne since I was a kitten. It doesn’t need to be an Iron Throne with the melted swords of everyone I’ve conquered, a la Game of Thrones. It can be something humble, made of gilded metal, velvet cushions and maybe a lion crest or cool tiger heads on the paw rests. I’m not picky as long as it looks awesome. What’s important is the symbolism and comfort.
5) Hire a mariachi band to parade through the streets hoisting an image of your cat, performing songs in your feline overlord’s honor. This is another humble offering that says “I serve a cat, and I’m proud of it!” When people ask what the hell is going on, hand them Cuban cigars and say “We are celebrating el jefe!” They’ll know who you mean.
“We sing of the great, wise, handsome and meowscular Buddy the Cat!”
4) Hire a portraitist to paint your kitty. Again, it doesn’t have to be extravagant. As a humble cat, I don’t mind being portrayed as a naval commodore, a king, a great warrior of world renown, or a massive tiger. The important thing is that it looks cool and you hang the picture above the couch in the living room. Get on it, human.
3) Massages. Schedule them throughout the day, sprinkling them around naps and meal times. Do you know how satisfying it is to enjoy a nice massage after Food O’Clock? I like to have my chin rubbed and the top of my head scratched while being told what a good, handsome, awesome, amazing, handsome, meowscular feline I am.
2) Toys. Not just for Christmas, you know. In fact, go ahead and consider this Kitty Christmas In Summer. Wand toys, track toys, new boxes, those little plastic ring things from milk gallon containers, stuffed animals that we can hunt and murder like the apex predators we are. You don’t have to wrap them, just bend the knee and present them as tribute. You’ll have our thanks, and our favor.
1)Hang out with us! It really is that simple. The most important thing you can do on International Cat Day is spend time with your cat! Many of the above suggestions fall under this category, including playing with us, giving us massages and reading epic poems you’ve composed about us. Personally I like settling down to nap on top of my Big Buddy after a massage. There’s something about having my chin scratched that makes me start yawning, and there’s no better place to nap than on my human, where it’s safe and there’s body heat and he can’t get up to use the bathroom because it would disturb me. That’s love.
I hope these suggestions are helpful! I’ve tried to list really easy, basic, humble stuff, but if you feel like constructing a 426-room cardboard box castle, well, I won’t stop you. In fact, that would be pretty cool. But like I said, the most important thing is that we get to hang out with you. And eat filet mignon.
A rare prequel that matches or exceeds the original, Day One explores relationships feline and human in a harrowing, life-or-death situation. With its Manhattan setting and post-apocalyptic vibe, the film also invites comparisons to the chaos and insanity of 9/11, when shocked survivors were just beginning to grapple with what they’d experienced.
If there’s one thing director Michael Sarnoski knows about cat people, it’s that putting a feline in danger is a reliably manipulative way to ratchet up tension.
Frodo the cat, therapy pet to Lupita Nyong’o’s Sam in A Quiet Place: Day One, is every bit the handsome co-star.
In a story about a woman and her cat trying to survive an apocalyptic event in New York City, the cat gets plenty of screen time. There are entire sequences following the little guy as he dashes away from danger (and sometimes toward it) and as he follows his feline instincts, which might not be the right instincts in a world that suddenly has its rules rewritten.
Nyong’o’s Sam, right, introduces Frodo to a young admirer in a Manhattan theater during the early minutes of A Quiet Place: Day One. Credit: Paramount
A Quiet Place: Day One is the third installment of the Quiet Place films. The first one thrilled audiences with a tight script, tense acting and a quiet/loud dynamic that made the absence of sound more sinister than sound itself.
A Quiet Place (2018) and its sequel (2020) take place about 16 months after the arrival of monstrous creatures of indeterminate origin. The aliens are blind, but that doesn’t impede their ability to rampage through human cities. They have an unearthly sensitivity to sound and can echolocate. Even a whisper can be enough to draw their attention if they’re in relatively close proximity.
We meet the Abbott family (John Krasinski, Emily Blunt and their children) some 16 months after the initial invasion, when they’re living silently on their isolated farm in upstate New York.
The audience is told nothing about where the creatures came from or what they are, and except for a short sequence in the very beginning of the sequel, we don’t see their arrival. The first two films deal exclusively with the aftermath, with scattered survivors trying to eke out an existence.
A curious Frodo watches Quinn’s character, Eric, emerge gasping from a flooded subway station. Credit: Paramount
Day One is a different beast entirely, both from a plot perspective and through the lens of Sarnoski, who leaves his fingerprints all over the franchise and imbues the prequel with a surprisingly poignant relationship between Nyong’o’s Sam and Joseph Quinn’s Eric, a young British student who moved to New York for law school. (If you’re a fan of Stranger Things, you’ll know Quinn as Eddie Munson, the D&D-playing metalhead and stand-out character from the show’s fourth season. He also had a brief appearance in the seventh season of Game of Thrones, and will appear in the upcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.)
Sam and Eric are strangers thrown together by circumstance and quickly grow close. Eric, overwhelmed by the world being turned upside down in a country he’s not yet accustomed to, needs someone to latch onto. Sam, who has isolated herself as she wastes away from cancer, finds the companionship she didn’t know she needed.
While tens of thousands of New Yorkers heed the US military’s call to head to South Street Seaport for evacuation via boats, as the Death Angels apparently cannot swim, Sam is determined to reach Patsy’s pizzeria in Harlem, where she believes the world’s last slice of their beloved thin-crust pizza awaits. Unlike the other survivors, she doesn’t have the possibility of a future if she makes it to safety.
Walking from Chinatown in lower Manhattan to Patsy’s in Harlem is a hike, about nine miles as the crow flies. It would take most people the better part of three hours to walk under normal circumstances. In an invasion, when the slightest sound can mean death, it’s an extraordinarily dangerous and long journey.
Still, being determined to get the very last slice of pizza in an apocalypse is precisely the sort of ridiculous thing I’d do, so I sympathize with Sam.
In an amusing scene early in the film, a man in a bodega tells Nyong’o’s Sam she can’t have a cat in the store — while his own shop cat lounges on the counter next to him. Bonus point for the Knicks hat. Credit: Paramount
As for Frodo, he’s one cute little dude! I appreciate the fact that Michael Sarnoski elected to have an adult cat rather than a kitten, not because I have anything against kittens, but because Frodo is a reminder that felines of all ages are beautiful, and there are plenty of Frodos in shelters.
Nico and Schnitzel, the cats who play Frodo, are great animal actors. In one scene Frodo sees Quinn emerge from a flooded subway and stops, curiosity playing across his little face. He looks at the stranger and his mouth opens ever so slightly, as if in shock. How many takes did Sarnoski need to get that?
Nico and Schnitzel split duties as Frodo. Credit: Paramount
Frodo is also a survivor. His hunting instincts kick in when he sees a rat, drawing him closer to danger, and at one point curiosity beckons him toward the ruined shell of a building where the Death Angels are apparently nesting.
Incredibly, he never meows. There are times when he freaks out and runs, as cats are known to do, but he reliably finds his way back to Sam, and he has a knack for remaining absolutely still and silent when he needs to be.
There were so many moments when I imagined myself in Sam’s shoes and Buddy in Frodo’s paws, and we’d have been dead in all of them. As I noted in my post about the “Quiet Place Challenge” trend on social media, the Budster and I would have a life expectancy of approximately 60 seconds in the film’s world. Death by Buddy would be my fate, as inescapable as his mealtime screeching.
There is also a visceral 9-11 feel to the opening sequences of the invasion, and any New Yorker old enough to remember that day will be reminded of it. It’s impossible not to with the scenes of ash-covered survivors huddled inside buildings, crowds of dead-eyed people walking away from disaster and the eerie sight of a sooty Manhattan bereft of its usual bustle and life.
There are of course plot holes in Day One, or at least unanswered questions to things that don’t seem to make sense. When the military’s helicopters sweep over Manhattan, announcing via loudspeakers that survivors should head to the ports because “the enemy cannot swim,” I wondered: did these aliens just land in Manhattan? If so, why? Surely they don’t recognize the arbitrary municipal boundaries of humanity, and the whole area is one seemingly endless metropolis.
Quinn, left, and Nyong’o, right, panic as a Death Angel crashes down from above, listening for its prey. Credit: Paramount
The Death Angels are obviously sentient, but whether they’re sapient is another matter. They don’t seem to have much in the way of a sense of self-preservation, and there is no method to their madness. During the aforementioned helicopter scene, the characters watch as hundreds of Death Angels race toward lower Manhattan, drawn by the sound of the choppers and the loudspeaker. It’s impossible not to think it would be trivial to draw the lot of them with the loudest possible sound, then drop a few daisy cutters on them and call it a day.
Of course if any of that happened there would be no movie and no drama, so as with most stories like this, it’s best to let the film pull you along without stopping to over-analyze what you’re seeing.
If you’ve watched the first two films, you also know the reasons for the invasion are nebulous. The Death Angels don’t eat their kills, as Krasinski’s Lee Abbott learned, and if they’re the vanguard of a more intelligent species, doing all the dirty work before the masters arrive, well, we’ve yet to see who’s pulling the strings.
Overall, like horror master Mike Flanagan taking on a sequel to the tepid Ouiji earlier in his career, Sarnoski doesn’t view the fact that Day One is a prequel as an excuse to phone in a performance. He approaches the film with enthusiasm and energy as if it’s one of his own creations, and that’s evident in every frame. It’s a Sarnoski movie that happens to be a genre film, not the other way round.
There’s a surprising poignancy to Day One that makes it more than the sum of its parts. We’re not here to spoil anything, but if you’re a cat lover, we will say that Day One doesn’t pull an I Am Legend. You can watch the film with reassurance that Sarnoski has better tricks up his sleeve for stirring your emotions than gratuitous animal-involved violence.
It’s rare when a sequel or a prequel reaches the same heights as the original. How many of us wish franchises like Alien and The Matrix stopped at one film? Thankfully that’s not the case here. There’s life in A Quiet Place yet, and like the best science fiction, it’s a film that uses extraordinary circumstances to tell a very human story.
Perhaps the best part is the experience has made a cat lover of Nyong’o. In a short promo (below), she explains that she’s always been afraid of cats, viewing them as miniature lions.
“Now,” she says with a laugh, “somehow, I love them!”
She’s not just saying that either. After filming Day One, she adopted her own cat, Yoyo, and it takes just a glance at her Instagram page, which is festooned with photos of the orange tabby, to know that she really does love the little guy.
Pain In The Bud 