mouseandhat Wednesday: famous cats
Posted under: A little over a year ago, I made a post about a cat who had become famous for taking the bus home regularly. I have learned that, unfortunately, the cat has since died. According to this January article from The Guardian, Casper the commuting cat was hit by a car.
A moment of silence for that feline of public transportation.
…
It seems that I shall now revisit the topic of famous cats, thanks to the interest of one Marc-André Chambers. After some looking around, I found quite a few examples of famous cats, some fictional and some real. Many of them were famous only because they were owned by famous people. Even so, I have compiled a list of 10 interesting famous cats, starting with one who has been in the news recently.
1. Lola of Coventry
This article (also from The Guardian) describes how one Mary Bale picked up a cat and tossed it in a garbage bin, complete with video of the act captured on security camera. The article cites how news of the act spread through Facebook and how people on the Internet rallied in protest against the woman, but it leaves out how the Internet Hate (except for cats) Machine, 4chan, tracked the woman down and found out her name, address and phone number. If this incident has taught the world anything, it is that 4chan really likes cats. But we all knew that already. After all, /b/ loves its…
2. LOLcats
Image courtesy icanhascheezburger.com.
It’s not unusual for people to resort to gibberish when in close proximity to cats, so when Internet denizens began combining funny pictures of cats with funny taglines lacking in proper grammar or spelling, a meme was born.
I’m throwing LOLcats in here as an example of famous cats because the phenomenon as a whole has taken off in popularity, spawning several less successful spin-offs. I had a roommate in college who regularly visited I Can Has Cheezburger? and declared Caturday every weekend. I think his dad was a veterinarian.
3. Puss in Boots
I have a special place in my heart for the pet of the Marquis de Carabas. Long before Antonio Banderas added his voice to a feline in shoes for the subpar topical-humor comedy franchise that is Shrek, Charles Perrault introduced the world to this trickster ogre slayer with a penchant for footwear.
Though the story has since been rewritten in various forms, one popular version tells of how the youngest son of a miller received as his inheritance no more than a cat. Oddly enough, the cat requests a pair of boots, and upon getting them, he repays his master by conniving him into a life of luxury. Puss in Boots catches wild animals and presents them to the nearby king, claiming they are from the Marquis de Carabas. One day, Puss spies the king and his daughter on their way through the countryside.
Hatching a plan, the cat steals his owner’s clothes as the boy is bathing. He then runs to the king’s coach, exclaiming that bandits have stolen his master’s clothes. The king, having developed the idea that the Marquis is a great and gallant nobleman, dresses the boy in fine clothing. The cat then runs ahead, advises all the farmers to tell the king they work for the marquis, and comes upon the castle of a shape-shifting ogre. He plays upon the hubris of the ogre, goading him to transform into a mouse, which Puss in Boots devours.
Of course, when the king’s coach arrives, a feast awaits them. The charade is complete. The boy marries the king’s daughter and everyone lives happily ever – especially the cat, who can now live a pampered life in posh conditions.
4. Tibert, the Prince of Cats
A series of European fables tell of a fox named Reynard and a wolf named Isengrim who were at odds. They bring their disputes to a court of animals, one of them being Tibert the cat.
Tibert – and the story of Reynard in general – has cropped up in other media from time to time. In William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Romeo’s friend is known as Tybalt, the Prince of Cats, a nod to the character of folklore. Disney once hoped to make an animated film adaptation of the tales, but the idea was discarded, possibly because Reynard did not appear as a traditional hero. Instead, much of the concept was transformed into a telling of the story of Robin Hood with anthropomorphic animals – including the noble thief portrayed as a fox.
Kaspar, courtesy bbm.org.uk.
5. Kaspar the wooden cat
At the end of the 19th century, a South African guest at the Savoy Hotel in London gave a dinner party with twelve others. The guests raised concern about seating 13 people, given the superstitions surrounding the unlucky number. Their superstitions appeared justified when the man who staged the dinner party was shot and killed upon returning to Johannesburg.
The hotel, in an effort to prevent such mishaps in the future – assuming that the unluckiness of the dinner party had anything to do with it – commissioned the creation of Kaspar, a wooden black cat. Now, whenever a party of 13 dines at the hotel, they are joined by Kaspar, who is served the full meal just like all the other guests.
6. Oscar the therapy cat
I am not sure whether I would regard this case as heart-warming or terribly creepy. Oscar resides at a nursing center in Providence, R.I. and is seen as something of a grim reaper. Doctors and nurses have observed that the cat seems to have a knack for determining which patients are going to die soon. Oscar’s tally has reached somewhere around 50 accurate predictions.
Doctors could not figure out how Oscar was able to determine a patient’s time of death within a few hours. They have speculated that he may be tuning into sensory cues, such as a certain smell or a lack of movement. Whatever the case, he is regarded in a positive way because he provides nurses and family members with an indication of when someone is soon to die and thus gives them a chance to spend some time with that person before it is too late.
7. Pangur Bán
Though the exact origin of the Gaelic poem is unknown, the story of Pangur Bán has often been attributed to a student in an Irish monastery. The poem compares the cat’s mouse-catching with the poet’s word-catching. I suppose Pangur is not particularly famous, at least not on a global scale, but something about the poem amuses me so I felt it worth mentioning. When I read it, I imagine a scholarly fellow sitting at his writing desk, leaning back in his chair in search of the right word, bemusedly observing his pet cat chase a mouse.
Pangur has found his way into cinema, at the very least. The 2009 animated feature “The Secret of Kells”, which is steeped in Gaelic mythology, has a cat known by the very same name. On a sidenote, the film is pretty good and worth checking out, though I would recommend doing a bit of research on the Book of Kells and the art of illumination before seeing it.
8. Sockington the Twitter cat
The rise in fame of Sockington is one of those phenomena that sounds silly and simple out of context. Jason Scott got the idea to create a Twitter account for his cat and update it with what he perceives are the cat’s thoughts. The project has since skyrocketed, drawing about 1.5 million followers and inspiring countless other pet owners to follow suit.
Though the novelty of Socks the cat and his tweeting has worn off for the general public, the feline continues to keep followers updated on his daily goings-on. Scott has expanded the project, rounding up a “Socks Army” and promoting no-kill animal shelters.
9. the Cheshire Cat
I would hope that this cat needs no introduction.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has seen many iterations and adaptations. From the Disney cartoon Cheshire Cat – voiced by an actor who also starred in a few episodes of “The Twilight Zone” – to American McGee’s version – who looks like he would fit right in at a tattoo parlor – this freaky feline has always been a crowd-pleaser.
10. Schrödinger’s Cat
Holistic thought experiment, Catman! Many are familiar with the basic setup of Schrödinger’s Cat. By some means, a cat is placed in a box and presented with a situation in which it may or may not die. An outside observer cannot know the state of the cat without opening the box. Many understand that the cat is believed to be both alive and dead at the same time.
What the experiment deals with specifically is the notion of quantum mechanics acting on a larger scale. Within the box is also a sealed container of poison and a radioactive source. A mechanism is rigged so that a Geiger counter, upon detecting radiation, will cause the poison container to be shattered, poisoning and killing the cat. It is possible by the property of quantum superposition for the cat to be experiencing all possible states, both alive and dead. Of course, once we lift the lid of the box, we can see that the cat is in one definite state.
It is entirely possible that I messed up in that explanation somewhere. Regardless, this thought experiment demonstrates the absurdity of quantum mechanics.
Personally, I like Terry Pratchett’s version better. In one of his Discworld novels, he suggests a third state: bloody furious. In American Gods, one of Neil Gaiman’s characters likewise argues that if nobody feeds the cat, after a while it will just be two different kinds of dead.
Next week’s topic: sunrises vs. sunsets, submitted by Marc-André Chambers
1 Comment + Add Comment
Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!
Additional comments powered by BackType
categories
tag cloud
@mouseandcat
- The Twitter API returned an error while processing your request. Please try again.
recent comments
- Loading...
[...] mouseandhat Wednesday: famous cats | mouseandcat Related postsAlice wonderland costumes for Halloween 2009 | cdrc philSummer Diversions « Hanging Laundry in the RainLinks, books, obesity and health | Sistema Limbicothe digital wonderland « tangerine textAlice's Fantastic Tour to the WonderlandAlice in Wonderland Return of Alice Trailer [HD]Dark Desires Emporium − Darkside Alice In Wonderland Cheshire Cat …coded by nessus [...]