books – Page 5 – Pain In The Bud

Fearless Cat Forces Bear To Retreat, PLUS: Flow’s Void Sparks Interest In Black Moggies

Flow’s Cat has improved things for his fellow voids, who are drawing more interest from adopters.

This video is bonkers!

A cat who is definitely not Buddy stared down a bear and made the ursine interloper retreat in fear in a confrontation caught on camera.

The stand-off happened in Pike County, Pa., and the cat’s name is T’Challa, after the titular hero of Marvel’s Black Panther franchise.

“I think perhaps this young bear woke this kitty cat up because he was not happy that he was sharing his deck with him when he woke up and he expressed himself,” said the homeowner whose security cameras caught the exchange.

After T’Challa made a series of feints, the bear — who is orders of magnitude larger — beat a hasty (for a bear) retreat.

Well done, T’Challa! Someone get that good boy a treat!

Go with the Flow

Part of what makes Flow so spectacular — aside from the breathtaking visuals, clever narrative and the strange world it portrays — is how endearing its star, Cat, is.

The little guy shows enormous resilience as he survives a biblical flood, gets chased by a flock of angry secretary birds, learns to swim, and finds his confidence in situations that would terrify any feline. He’s incredibly expressive, revealing his emotions with every twitch of his tail and whiskers, as well as his distinctive meow and, most of all, his bright yellow eyes.

He’s also the first feline star to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe, as well as many other film awards for the universally praised film.

Now he’s got another accomplishment to his name: he’s improved the way people view black cats, who have long been the victims of absurd human superstition and have a hard time finding forever homes because of the stigma.

Animal welfare organizations are reporting heightened interest in black cats (good), but not a manic rush to adopt them as has happened when other species and breeds are popularized in films. (Bad, because those pets are often discarded when the novelty wears off.)

In other words, Cat may have inspired something close to parity in adoptions in some places.

Cat is beloved in director Gints Zilbalodis’ home country of Lithuania. The capital, Riga, is now adorned with street art of the little guy, including a statue sitting atop a major monument in the heart of the city.

Petition Aims To Make NYC Bodega Cats Official, Help Pay For Their Vet Care

The plan would allow bodega owners to certify their cats, eliminate city fines for keeping them, and help find homes for working felines if their stores shut down

Cats have been a fixture in New York City’s bodegas for decades, but technically they’re illegal.

The fact that they’re so widespread, and owners of the small groceries/delis don’t try to hide them, underscores the absurdity of the situation. The fine for keeping a cat in a bodega in New York is $200 for the first offense, capping out at $300, but the fine for a rodent infestation starts at $300 and can rise to as much as $2,000 for repeat offenses. That’s in addition to the cost of bringing in pest control to get rid of the rats, which can easily add hundreds or more to an expensive problem.

So given the option between a maximum $300 fine with a clean, rodent-free shop, and potentially crippling fines — plus infestation — for rodents, thousands of bodega owners opt for the former. It’s a no-brainer.

Kota, a bodega cat from Brooklyn. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The cats are also favorites of customers, and bodega owners don’t hesitate to talk to media when their cats go missing, nor do they turn down Dan Rimada, who runs the extremely popular @bodegacatsofnewyork Instagram page.

Now Rimada is the man behind a petition that seeks to eliminate fines for the store-dwelling felines, establish a voluntary shop cat certification, and help bodega owners get veterinary care for their little helpers.

Rimada proposes soliciting seed money from city government as well as deep-pocketed donors in the pet food industry — “think Purina, Chewy, PetCo” — to establish a veterinary care fund for the city’s working cats.

“Through years of hands-on experience, I’ve witnessed both the charm of well-cared-for bodega cats and the harsh reality of neglect when standards aren’t met,” Rimada wrote in the petition, which has almost 5,000 signatures as of Feb. 28. “In conversations with rescue organizations and experts in public policy, business, and technology, we’ve designed a realistic, community-driven solution.”

The fund would help cover the costs of care, with additional “micro-loans” available for emergencies.

Rimada envisions it as a triple win for the shop owners, rescuers who will be compensated for their time, and most importantly, the cats. If city leaders are willing to engage, Rimada says he hopes to conduct a year-long pilot program to see what works and what would need tweaks, with input from rescuers, veterinarians and the people who care for the cats.

The petition and resulting plan was inspired by cases like that of Kobe, a Hell’s Kitchen bodega cat who almost died of a urinary infection when the owners of the bodega balked at paying veterinary bills.

The Cat Whose Voice Is Heard In More Than 300 Movies, Plus: Buddy Didn’t Attack His Sitter!

A 23-second clip of a cat growling and yowling has become one of the most-used sound effects over the past three decades. The Guardian traced the clip back to the man who recorded it and got the full story.

We’ve all heard Cheeta the cat yowling, we just don’t know it.

Cheeta was a house cat who belonged to Wylie Stateman, a sound engineer who lives in LA.

In 1988, Stateman recorded an argument between Cheeta, a “remarkably small” half-Siamese void, and her mate, a tomcat named Sylvester.

The 23-second clip made it onto The Premiere Edition, a 20-CD library of sound effects Stateman produced in 1990.

Stateman, called “one of the great recorders of the time” by a colleague, told The Guardian he brought his sound recorder with him everywhere he went for three decades, recording thousands of sounds that have been used in movies for 35 years.

Buddy is also an accomplished sound effects cat.

Cheeta’s yowls are one of his greatest successes. The cranky cat can be heard in Toy Story, Home Alone 3, Les Miserables, Pet Sematary, 101 Dalmations, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Babe, End of Days, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and many more.

Although it’s difficult to get an exact count, it’s believed Cheeta’s distinct voice can be heard in some 330 films over the years. If you’re interested in learning more, check out The Guardian’s deep dive into the sound effect and its origins.

Buddy the Magnanimous

I went to visit my brother and his family in Washington this past week, leaving Buddy in the care of my mom.

Regular readers will recall that Bud has a bad reputation for trying to maul his cat sitters, which obviously complicates things.

Sue, his regular sitter, has known Bud since he was a kitten. She’s literally one of the first humans he met, yet that has not stopped him from ambushing and attacking her. Incredibly, she still agrees to care for him in my absence despite his belligerence, though she’ll no longer play with him. She feeds him and gets out ASAP. I can’t blame her.

This time my mom cared for the little stinker. He’s also tried to murder her when she’s watched him on previous occasions, including one incident in which his bites and scratches necessitated a trip to urgent care and a round of antibiotics.

So yeah, the happy news is that he didn’t attack her this time, although she told me every time she came back, he’d be waiting right by the door, and when he saw it wasn’t me, he would sniff derisively before turning and padding away.

They have an uneasy truce, but I’ll take it. You know you have small dreams when you celebrate a trip in which your cat doesn’t try to maul anyone in your absence.

On a tangential note, I had a first phone interview with a wild cat conservation organization this week, and for the first time in a long time, Bud didn’t make a peep.

He’s meowed loudly during other phone interviews, he’s put his butt in front of the camera like it’s his job during video calls, and he won’t shut up at any other time, but the one time when having a cat might benefit me, he decides to be silent. Thanks, Bud. You’re the best.

House Cat Mistaken For A Puma, Plus: The Late Novelist Caleb Carr On His Love For Cats

Caleb Carr credits cats for showing him love during his difficult childhood when he was frequently beaten by his father.

A “mountain lion” spotted near a trail in Ventura County, California, was actually just a house cat, authorities said this week.

California’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife dispatched staff to the area in question, the Los Padres trail in Thousand Oaks, after neighbors there reported what they thought was a baby mountain lion. One family had footage of the interloper captured on a doorbell camera.

The alleged puma turned out to be a house cat, which is a surprisingly common outcome when authorities look into alleged mountain lion sightings. Despite their size, pumas are genetically closer to felines — small and medium-size cats that can purr and meow — than they are to panthera, the genus that includes tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards.

Their gait is almost identical to that of familiar felis catus, their golden coats can look dark at night, and cats can look like pumas — or the other way around — when there’s not enough visual context to gauge the animal’s size, especially in footage captured on cell phones and security cameras, which are almost always equipped with digital zoom instead of the true optical variety.

We know what you’re thinking: this house cat must have been an impressive specimen if it was mistaken for a puma, so there’s a good chance it was Buddy. However, we can confirm that Buddy the Cat definitely was not wandering around California this week.

Novelist found solace in the company of cats

Author Caleb Carr passed away on May 23, and the Los Angeles Times has a nice tribute to him by a reporter who bonded with Carr over their shared love of cats. The writer, 68, had been suffering from cancer for some time.

Carr was known for his crime thrillers (The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness) and military history books, and he spent part of his career teaching military history at Bard College in New York. (Just a short ride from our own alma mater, Marist College.)

Carr’s last book is a tribute to his cat and her species.

Despite his publisher requesting another crime thriller, Carr decided his last book would be about a cat. Specifically his rescue cat Masha, who helped him through difficult times, and the cats of his childhood who comforted him when he was beaten by his father, Beat Generation figure and author Lucien Carr.

“It’s amazing to think about it now, but there were cats, and other animals, that were trying to make me feel better,” Caleb Carr told the Times. “The idea of that was so at odds with everything I was experiencing.”

Carr credits those felines for helping him avoid the abyss, telling the interviewer he “could have been one of those dead-eyed drone troublemakers that comes out of an abusive household very easily, if it hadn’t been for cats.”

Some people were disappointed that Carr didn’t have another novel like The Alienist in him, but Little, Brown publisher Bruce Nichols liked the idea, and the finished book was titled My Beloved Monster: Masha, The Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me.

Buddy The Cat’s ‘The Art Of Napping’ Debuts Atop NYT Bestseller List

The book received glowing reviews for its comprehensive approach to the world of slumber and promises something for every type of napper.

A new book on napping from the world’s most prolific snoozer has taken the sleep enthusiast community by storm.

“The Art of Napping: The History and Technique of Dozing Off” by Buddy the Cat bills itself as “the world’s most comprehensive guide to taking a siesta” and a “manual on how to commit yourself to a lifestyle of leisure and laziness.”

It includes an illustrated history of sleep science, from its superstition-mired origins to the highly specialized field of modern-day napology, following the rich sedentary traditions of various cultures.

“The chapter contrasting ancient Sumerian nap-walking with Syracusan Somnambulism is not only heavy with detail, it’ll put you to sleep almost immediately,” said Rusty LeFelino, chaircat of the Snooze Studies Department at the University of Catlanta.

“Nap on tatami mat under cherry blossoms” by Hirotaro Buddishida, 1646, is one of many historical depictions of shut-eye included in The Art of Napping.

Reviewers were equally effusive with their praise.

“Buddy the Cat dozes headfirst into the world of segmented slumber, documenting everything from Chicago-Style Snoozing to indigenous bedding techniques pioneered by the jaguars of the Pantanal,” reads a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. “Whether you’re a weekend warrior who enjoys drooling on your couch during baseball games or a committed napper who swears by episodic DaVinci Sleep, there’s something for everyone in this beautifully bound volume.”

The New York-based feline spent more than a year researching and getting paws-on experience for the book. He visited the California headquarters of Google with its famous employee nap pods, spent a week sleeping under the stars with the pumas of the Pacific Northwest, and interviewed lucid dreamers to find out whether it’s possible to nap within a nap a la Inception.

“Buddy leaves no pillow unturned in his quest for the truth, with spectacularly stale prose that will have even the over-caffeinated yawning into the back of their paws,” a reviewer for Narcolepsy Daily wrote. “Get yourself a cozy blanket, curl up with Buddy and let the Z’s commence.”