Cat: A Hell Of A Nice Animal, Frequently Mistaken For A Meatloaf
We have a fond farewell to Hamper Cat, Elizabeth Warren on SNL, and the mandatory Twitter goofiness!
"In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this." -- Terry Pratchett
A little while ago, we learned of the death of Hamper Cat, the always glorious Bengal cat who ruled over the home of Wonkette Operative "Horrible Pourable." HC -- real name Raj -- was a constant presence in the comments here. He was a gorgeous cat and a joy to look at, and appeared to be a feline embodiment of snark. One look at that face and you knew you'd seen a kindred smartass, and we mean that in the best possible way.
Our thanks to Horrible Pourable for sharing these HC pics! We've added a few nice cat-related quotes, too.
Here, have some baby pics of Hamper Cat and his "brother," who both "arrived at the Horrible Household at the same time, and grew up together." HC was about 12, and the entire family, including brother kitty, misses him very much.
"The smallest feline is a masterpiece." — Leonardo da Vinci
"But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept." — Neil Gaiman
"Cats are connoisseurs of comfort." – James Herriot
"A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?" — Mark Twain
"Arise from sleep, old cat / And with great yawns and stretchings... / Amble out for love" — Kobayashi Issa
"The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer." — Paula Poundstone
"Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven." — Terry Pratchett
"If a cat spoke, it would say things like 'Hey, I don't see the problem here.'" — Roy Blount Jr.
"my cat is always looking at me like i am forgetting something crucial and he depends on it" Megan Boyle
"If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat." — Mark Twain
We'll close with a couple of longer cat quotes. First, some Cat Thoughts from Ursula K. Le Guin:
Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat's way of maintaining a relationship.
Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can't make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it'll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish, and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — "I thought that was a cat. Aren't I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?"
— The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
And a bit from the ultimate Cat Poem , Christopher Smart's "To His Cat Geoffrey," written between 1759 and 1763:
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness
he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will he spit
without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
OK, sure, that last line is a cat lover talking. You're still a good person if you don't have a cat. No matter what a cat might say about the matter.
(Yes, yes, our headline today is from B. Kliban ; you knew that.)
Elizabeth Warren Did SNL And It Was Very Good
Elizabeth Warren showed up on "Saturday Night Live," appearing on the show's version of the Laura Ingraham propatainment program -- which we should note is the closest to Fox News Sen. Warren would ever think of getting. We've skipped straight to the Warren part in the video below, but the rest of the cold open isn't half bad if you want to go back and watch the whole shebang.
SNL also released this cute TikTok video with Warren and Kate McKinnon as Warren, and damn it, we could have had four years of McKinnon spoofing President Warren.
𝗙𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵. https: //t.co/t8qHcGRUhY
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@Saturday Night Live - SNL) 1583645261.0
You Need That Moby Dick Energy
We've been listening to a terrific new podcast, "Moby Dick Energy," hosted by Talia Lavin. It's a heck of a good excuse to rereadHerman Melville's great weird novel , and the nice thing about it is that since the podcast tackles just a chapter or two each outing, it makes that vast big book far easier to digest.
Lavin discusses the book with a different guest each week, and it's ridiculously fun. The pace is just right for me, taking time to linger over Melville's wonderful, strangely obsessive, lyrical language. Particularly nice is Lavin's requirement that each week's guest summarize the "action" in that week's chapter. For instance, Ishmael visits a chapel for whalers and sees memorial plaques for lost seamen (Chapter 7) and describes the chapel's pulpit (Chapter 8). Whether you're already a Melville fan, or even a tiny bit afraid of his big sprawling masterpiece, this is a very friendly companion to the book. Also, the theme song by Noam Hassenfeld will get in your head and stay there, in the best way.
Also cool: Power Moby Dick, an online annotated version of the novel.
Yes of COURSE there's a Moby Dick Energy Twitter account! Also merch , like this stylin' chowder mug:
Fine Here Are Your Cute Twitter Things!
True fact: Even before Lavin started "Moby Dick Energy," I was primed to take another bite of Moby-Dick after rereading all of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series of seafaring novels , which I finished last year. That, and the copy that Kid couldn't quite get into ("It's awfully boaty" -- same goes for O'Brian) was sitting on my dresser for five years. Anyway, here's a fine Patrick O'Brian joke brought to life (yes, the tweeter credits O'Brian later in the thread).
The photo on the left clearly shows the lesser of two weevils. https: //t.co/8M4Vs8t7DL
— ratfish (@ratfish) 1583576550.0
Brook loves her new @sageshandmade bunny! https: //t.co/3HhJ3H7Cw3
— Kitten Academy (@Kitten Academy) 1583645146.0
ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇᴇғs ᴍᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ ɪs ᴏɴ https: //t.co/y1diF82A81
— Kevin Gannon (@Kevin Gannon) 1583106016.0
Good evening from the squad https: //t.co/ScWBa5n6jv
— Kevin Gannon (@Kevin Gannon) 1583639363.0
Damn onion ninjas.
This beautiful little girl has autism. She brought her stuffed-puppy to the dog show. One of the judges stopped,… https: //t.co/sHnseKDfI8
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@Rex Chapman🏇🏼) 1583533961.0
Also too, good observation:
@RexChapman One thing I loved about this is how respectful the judge was about the child’s physical boundaries whil… https: //t.co/pNIZFSDRde
— Sen. Fritz McCorkindale (@Sen. Fritz McCorkindale) 1583593631.0
Say what you will about Rick Wilson, but the man knows a dad joke when he sees one:
A friend sends: https://t.co/i2xZDzGzWd
— Rick Wilson (@Rick Wilson) 1583516414.0
And so, shamelessly, do I:
MORTAL WOMBAT!!!!! https: //t.co/fb5AVduhEa
— Doktor Zoom (@Doktor Zoom) 1583545208.0
One more wombat/Australian wildlife take:
@DickKingSmith Good Morning ! Posting this Platypus to brighten your morning !! 🤭 https: //t.co/2bz0KBASRG
— Roger Baschi 🇮🇪 🇧🇷 (@Roger Baschi 🇮🇪 🇧🇷) 1583492769.0
(Remember, kids, a platypus is not a marsupial. It is a monotreme. Like the one that put Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook on the map.)
they look so pleased with themselves https: //t.co/AyMTK0S0cH https://t.co/s0cDTsXttK https://t.co/zySxOWekai
— Humor And Animals (@Humor And Animals) 1583421832.0
I’m about to get kicked out of this supermarket https: //t.co/aDafX4cLzh
— Jeff Bisti (@Jeff Bisti) 1583158865.0
Good week for produce-section jokes, we guess! Novelist and comics writer Chuck Wendig started off a wonderful thread here:
The DC CINEMATIC UNIVERSE is writing the vegetables, now. The vegetables! That’s how traumatic 2020 has become.… https: //t.co/ddlsN9mxw5
— Chuck Wendig (@Chuck Wendig) 1583367243.0
Then AI Weirdness blogger Janelle Shane joined in...
@ChuckWendig Fun fact: if you train a neural net in metal bands and on apples you get names like these Dark the Pi… https://t.co/50omFqBpR6
— Janelle Shane (@Janelle Shane) 1583367698.0
And that inspired a poem by science fiction writer Amal El-Mohtar:
@JanelleCShane @ChuckWendig HELL TO THEE BLITHE SPIRITE BELLE THOU NEVER WERT THAT FROM DESERT OR NEAR IT POUREST THY FULL HEART
— Amal El-Mohtar (@Amal El-Mohtar) 1583367946.0
@tithenai @ChuckWendig Yes absolutely even if they don’t look but merely perch and yell incoherently
— Janelle Shane (@Janelle Shane) 1583369893.0
Twitter: It only sucks your soul out through your eyeballs if you let it. Also, I guess I need to add El-Mohtar's novel This Is How You Lose the Time War to my reading list, because what a title!
the president of ireland's dog out here stealing the show at an international women's day event (Cristin Proctor Ro… https: //t.co/e3cjh1V2m0
— Humor And Animals (@Humor And Animals) 1583602258.0
A good dose of pareidolia:
That time when we saw a smiley face inside the crater of the Kilauea volcano https: //t.co/Gjp7PFz7EC https://t.co/aVjXe6Pl4P
— Massimo (@Massimo) 1583077804.0
This is Tucker. He decided to call it an early night. Had a very busy day. Already dreaming about being on a roller… https: //t.co/V0WJGAHBkN
— WeRateDogs® (@WeRateDogs®) 1583199325.0
Thornton says have a nice relaxing Sunday, is what Thornton says. He intends to spend the day looking regal AF, except when he needs to be a big damn doofus.
Nap! Eat! Pounce on something/somebody you love! BYE!
[ Brainpickings / Slate / Moby Dick Energy on Twitter / Moby Dick Energy on Apple Podcasts (but available wherever you get podcasts) / Power Moby Dick / AI Weirdness ]
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I always call my furball “Devil Cat” when they act like that!
Beautiful work!