Monthly Archives: November 2012

literary cats

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There are cats and cats. – Denis Diderot
Patricia Highsmith with “Ripley”
 W.H. Auden with “Pangur”
“Pangur, white Pangur, How happy we are
Alone together, scholar and cat.” 
 Aldous Huxley with “Limbo”
“No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously importunate wife.” – Aldous Huxley
Sylvia Plath with “Daddy”
“And I a smiling woman. 
I am only thirty. 
And like the cat I have nine times to die.”
Doris Lessing with “Black Madonna”
 Samuel Beckett with “Murphy” and “Watt”
 Mark Twain with “Huckleberry”
George Bernard Shaw with “Pygmalion”
 William Carlos Williams with “Adam and Eve”
As the cat
by William Carlos Williams
As the cat
climbed over
the top ofthe jamcloset
first the right
forefootcarefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot
 Gore Vidal with “Caligula”
 Randall Jarrell with “Little Friend”
Edward Gorey with “Harp, Brown and Company”
 Ezra Pound with his three cats (also tried for high treason after the war)
Tame Cat
by Ezra Pound
It rests me to be among beautiful women
Why should one always lie about such matters?
I repeat:
It rests me to converse with beautiful women
Even though we talk nothing but nonsense,The purring of the invisible antennae
Is both stimulating and delightful.  
 Ernest Hemingway with “Nick”
 
Ernest Hemingway had an affinity for many things, his feline companions being one of them. The “Hemingway Cat,” or polydactyl, is a feline that, instead of the normal 18 toes, has six or more toes on the front feet and sometimes an extra toe on the rear. Hemingway had many talents and interests. He was an extreme cat-lover because he admired the spirit and independence of the species. He acquired his first feline from a ship’s captain in Key West, Florida, where he made his home for many years. Today, around 60 felines live at the Ernest Hemingway Museum and Home in Key West. They are protected by the terms left in his will.  
 
 Raymond Chandler with “Big Sleep”
 Truman Capote with “Tiffany”
“She was still hugging the cat. “Poor slob,” she said, tickling his head, “poor slob without a name. It’s a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven’t any right to give him one: he’ll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don’t belong to each other: he’s an independent, and so am I. I don’t want to own anything until I know I’ve found the place where me and things belong together. I’m not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it’s like.” She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. “It’s like Tiffany’s,” she said.” 
Elizabeth Bishop with “Minnow”
Lullaby for the Cat
by Elizabeth BishopMinnow go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes:
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasentest surprise.Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
Just cooperate.
Not a kitten shall be drowned
In the Marxist State.Joy and Love will both be yours,
Minnow, don’t be glum.
Happy days are coming soon –
Sleep, and let them come . . .

Churchill with “Marmelade”

While many bits of trivia might be known about Winston Churchill, his love of felines isn’t necessarily one of them. Nevertheless, he owned several cats and, during his later years, was particularly fond of Jock, who was a “ginger tom” (a “marmalade cat”). During his time as PM, his best-known cat was a grey called Nelson. During a dinner at the PM’s country residence, Chequers, American war correspondent Quentin Reynolds noted Churchill as saying: “Nelson is the bravest cat I ever knew. I once saw him chase a huge dog out of the Admiralty. I decided to adopt him and name him after our great Admiral.” During dinner, Reynolds noted, “When Mrs. Churchill was not looking, the Prime Minister sneaked pieces of salmon to Nelson.” There were even rumors that Nelson sat in with his master during Cabinet meetings, and Churchill once told a colleague that Nelson was doing more than he was for the war effort.
Allen Ginsberg with “Howl”
“I saw the best cats of my generation destroyed by madness.”
 Jack Kerouac with “Tyke”
 ”Holding up my 
purring cat to the moon 
I sighed.”
 William S. Burroughs with “Junkie”
Charles Bukowski with “Factotum”
The History Of One Tough Motherfucker
by Charles Bukowski (last verse)
I shake the cat, hold him up in 
the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed he knows… 
it’s then that the interviews end 
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures 
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo- 
graphed together. 
he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.
 Don Delillo with “Mao II”
Hermann Hesse with “Narciss”
Jorge Luis Borges with “Aleph”
Julio Cortázar with “Bestiario”
 Alberto Moravia with “Agostino”
 Jospeh Brodsky with “Urania”
Haruki Murakami with Kafka
 André Bazin with “Chaplin”
 Louis-Ferdinand Céline with “Mea Culpa”
Françoise Sagan with “Brahms”
Jean-Paul Sartre with “Nothing”
Albert Camus with “Stranger”
Jaques Derrida with “Logos”
“Logos, a living, animate creature, is thus also an organism that has been engendered. An organism: a differentiated body proper, with a center and extremities, joints, a head, and feet.”   (Jaques Derrida, Plato’s Pharmacy)
 Michel Foucault with “Insanity”
Robert Frost
The cat comes into the room.
I put the cat out.
The cat comes in again.
(Robert Frost)
The Ad-dressing of Cats
by T.S. Eliot 

You've read of several kinds of Cat,
And my opinion now is that 
You should need no interpreter 
To understand their character.
You now have learned enough to see
That Cats are much like you and me
And other people whom we find
Possessed of various types of mind.
For some are same and some are mad
And some are good and some are bad
And some are better, some are worse--
But all may be described in verse.
You've seen them both at work and games,
And learnt about their proper names,
Their habits and their habitat:
But how would you ad-dress a Cat?

So first, your memory I'll jog,
And say:  A CAT IS NOT A DOG.

And you might now and then supply
Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie,
Some potted grouse, or salmon paste--
He's sure to have his personal taste.
(I know a Cat, who makes a habit
Of eating nothing else but rabbit,
And when he's finished, licks his paws
So's not to waste the onion sauce.)
A Cat's entitled to expect
These evidences of respect.
And so in time you reach your aim,
And finally call him by his NAME.

So this is this, and that is that:
And there's how you AD-DRESS A CAT.

Jean Gaumy

Beautiful pictures from writersandkitties, entry shared from Weimarart

I feel terribly ashamed. I should rename my poor cat, who was ruined to a life of cuteness with a name like Tempura! I should rename her, or add a sassy surname, like Tempura Trenchett, to regain her literary dignity.

How will she feel if she ever had to come across Jean Paul Sartre’s ghost of a cat, “Nothing”!

I only wish I thought of the idea first.

reblogged from pennysparkle

katibim (üsküdar’a gider iken) – my scribe (going to üsküdar) (1929)

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Folk song, recorded in 1949 in Istanbul. Sung by Safiye Ayla. Played with violin, kanun, ud and clarinet. This recording is in the public domain. You can download it HERE.

Background
Üsküdar (Scottary), now a section of Istanbul on the Anatolian (Asian) side, used to be a village/town across the Bosphorus from Istanbul proper, where nursing began during the Crimean War (British and French assisted Turks against Russia, 1854-56).

There is much fascinating debate about the origins of this song. Whose Is This Song? is a documentary made about the subject by Adela Peeva in 2003. Here’s the blurb:

“In her search for the true origins of a haunting melody, the filmmaker travels to Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia and Bulgaria. The trip is filled with humour, suspense, tragedy and surprise as each country’s citizens passionately claim the song to be their own and can even furnish elaborate histories for its origins. The tune emerges again and again in different forms: as a love song, a religious hymn, a revolutionary anthem, and even a Scottish military march. The powerful emotions and stubborn nationalism raised by one song seem at times comical and other times, eerily telling. In a region besieged by ethnic hatred and war, what begins as a light-hearted investigation ends as a sociological and historical exploration of the deep misunderstandings between the people of the Balkans.”

You can watch the preview HERE.

Lyrics
Here’s a translation of the Turkish version’s lyrics (a compound I have made from various versions I found online), which have been credited in some places to Nuri Halil Poyraz (1885 – 1950) and Muzaffer Sarisozen (1899 – 1963):

On the way to Üsküdar, it started raining
My scribe (katip) wears a frock coat, its long skirt muddied
He has just woken from sleep: his eyes are languid

The scribe is mine; I am his; hands will intertwine
It looks so lovely on my scribe, that starched shirt of his

On the way to Üsküdar, I found a handkerchief
I filled the handkerchief with Turkish delight (lokum)
As I was looking for my helper, I found him next to me

The scribe is mine; I am his; what is it to others?
It looks so lovely on my clerk, that starched shirt of his.

since i was born, i started to decay

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A slow version of “Teenage Angst”  by Placebo, live in Brixton, 1998… They came to South Africa around this time, the support act on a Garbage tour. My boyfriend and I caught a bus up to Jo’burg one day in the middle of end-of-year exams to see them. We had to take the bus back that same night; we couldn’t even stay to see Garbage. It was so worth it… The depth of Brian Molko’s black hole magnetism.

tomorrow is a drag

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Philippa Fallon performs the nihilistic beat poem ‘High School Drag’ aka ‘The Big Switch’ in High School Confidential (1958).

“Tool a fast shore, swing with a gassy chick.
Turn on to a thousand joys.
Smile on what happened, or check what’s going to happen,
You’ll miss what’s happening.
Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum.”

Käthe Kollwitz (July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945)

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“I have never produced anything cold but always to some extent with my blood. I do not want to die…until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown. I am in the world to change the world.”

kollwi01.jpg

http://www.rogallery.com/Kollwitz/Kollwitz-bio.htm

http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Kollwitz_self_portraits.html

http://mhsartgallerymac.wikispaces.com/Kathe+Kollwitz

unsuitable girls

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“As a girl she was legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status.”
 
– Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Quercus, 2008)
 
 
*
 
 
 “What is hidden in snow comes forth in the thaw.”

– Swedish proverb
 
 
*
 
  

malcolm de chazal

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from SENS PLASTIQUE

A bicycle rolls on the road.
The road is the third wheel
Rolling the other two.

The water says to the wave,
“You are swallowing me.”
“How could I?”
Replied the wave,
“I am your mouth.”

The dew
Said to the sun,
“Do you see me?”
“No,” said the sun.
“I am your eyes.”

With their peaks
Two mountains
Were touching a cloud.
For an instant
The cloud felt
Topsyturvy
Unable to find
Its head.

When the fine
Seized the branch
The branch gave way
And the flower
Stuck its head out
To see what was going on.

Fanning yourself?
Not so.
The fan’s in the wind’s hand
That’s why
You feel cool.

“I’ve gone all the way around
The Earth,”
One man said.
“Poor fellow
And all that time
You haven’t progressed
Half an inch
In your body.”

The pupil
Turned the eyes
The iris followed
The white of the eye
Delayed
Just long enough
Friend
for you
To slip into the face
Of the one you love.

“I love you,”
The woman said.
“Be careful,”
Said her lover,
“Don’t love me
Too much
Or you’ll come back
To yourself
Love is round.”

“One and one
Make two”
Said the mathematician.
What’s that
To God and the zero?

Cut water
As much as you like
Never
Will you find
The skeleton.
The skeleton of wind
In life itself.

The eye
Is a oneactor
Theater.

Absolute
Mastery
Of the body
Comes only in death.

“I’ll never
Be
Old”
Said the man
“I have hope.”

Emptiness
Has no
Way
Out.

If light unfurled
Its peacock tail
There would be
No room
For life.

Sugar
Doesn’t know
What it tastes like.
Someone
Tasting it
Gives sugar
A taste of sugar.

A stone
Hears its heart beat
Only
In the rain.

The circle
Is an alibi
For the center
And the center
Is a pretext
For the circle.

The quickest route
From ourselves
To ourselves
Is the Universe.

Blue
Always has
An idea
Up its sleeve.

Night
Is a rimless
Hole.

The road
Runs
In both directions
That’s why
It stands still.

“Take me
Naked”
The flower said
To the sun,
“Before
Night
Closes
My thighs”

The noise,
bit off bits of itself
And left
Its teeth
Among
The keys
Of the piano.

She wore
Her smile
Pinned
To her teeth.

Light
Dressed
For the afternoon
Went
To play golf
With the holes.

The lake
This morning
After
A bad
Night
Got into
Its tub
To relax.

The wave
Out of its depth
On the shore
Went down.

He was
In such a hurry
To get to life
That it
Let him go.

She anchored
Her hips
In his eyes
And brought him
To port.

The car
Will never
Attain
The speed
Of the road.