Posts tagged cat
The cat that walked by himself

A Just So story about the cat that walked by himself, by Rudyard Kipling [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IbTHL-AXH8&w=700] EAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild--as wild as wild could be--and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn't even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, 'Wipe you feet, dear, when you come in, and now we'll keep house.'

That night, Best Beloved, they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavoured with wild garlic and wild pepper; and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander; and marrow-bones of wild oxen; and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas. Then the Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton--the big fat blade-bone--and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the First Singing Magic in the world.

Out in the Wet Wild Woods all the wild animals gathered together where they could see the light of the fire a long way off, and they wondered what it meant.

Then Wild Horse stamped with his wild foot and said, 'O my Friends and O my Enemies, why have the Man and the Woman made that great light in that great Cave, and what harm will it do us?'

Wild Dog lifted up his wild nose and smelled the smell of roast mutton, and said, 'I will go up and see and look, and say; for I think it is good. Cat, come with me.'

'Nenni!' said the Cat. 'I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.'

'Then we can never be friends again,' said Wild Dog, and he trotted off to the Cave. But when he had gone a little way the Cat said to himself, 'All places are alike to me. Why should I not go too and see and look and come away at my own liking.' So he slipped after Wild Dog softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything. (click here to read the rest of this lovely story or just enjoy the reading at the top)

UncategorizedJack Dysoncat, cats, just so, marrow bones, origins of man, reading, rudyard kipling, shoulder of mutton, stories, story, wild, wild cherries, wild garlic, wild oxen, wild sheepComment
Anton

Warren Ellis's cat died (on my birthday), so he wrote this: Our three cats were basically rescues: we bought them to get them out of a shitty garden centre that was storing them on cold dirty concrete with an upturned rabbit run over them and no food that we could see. The smallest of the three ended up being rushed to the vet the next day, who told us that if we’d waited another 24 hours he’d be dead. I was writing a character who was small and crap, at the time, and so this small crap cat got his name: Anton.

Anton lived a little over sixteen more years. Today, while everyone else was out, I got the vets to come and see him, and they told me that it was sudden kidney failure and he was beyond treatment. So I sat with him, and thanked him, and told him we love him and that he was a good boy while they carefully gave him the injection, and as I stroked him he gave me that half-lidded look that meant it was good, and then he was asleep. And I’ve just finished burying him in the back garden.

And I’m getting these notes down now because first he was my friend who travelled around the house in the palm of my hand, and then he was my daughter’s best friend for very many years, and because he came out into the back garden with me three evenings ago (he was a housecat who didn’t go outside) and stood at the edge of the path, facing the garden, and gave five or six loud shouts into the twilight, as if to say “I was here. Know me. I was here.”

And he was, and it was good. And he deserves for someone to know he was here.

And now comes the hardest part, of waiting for everyone to come home and telling them. But my little man is asleep in the garden now, next to my late father’s poppies, and so with that, and this note, I have taken care of him as best I can.

writingJack Dysonanton, cat, ellis, eulogy, pretty, sad, sweet, warrenComment
The genius of creation

Whenever I think about any sort of script or contrived scene, I always like to imagine the creative meeting behind it. And for the life of me, this (unedited) extract defies reconstruction. Drumroll please, for a bonkers stream-of-consciousness overload - stage directions/storyboard from season one of Monty Python's Flying Circus (opening scene from episode five: Man's crisis of identity in the latter half of the twentieth century). Cut to large van arriving. On one side is a large sign readling 'Confuse-a-Cat Limited: Europe's leading cat-confusing service. By appointment to...' and a crest. Several people get out of the van, dressed in white coats, with peaked caps and insignia. One of them has a sergeant's stripes.

Sergeant Squad! Eyes front! Stand at ease. Cat confusers ...shun!

From a following car a general alights.

General Well men, we've got a pretty difficult cat to confuse today so let's get straight on with it. Jolly good. Thank you sergeant. Sergeant Confusers attend to the van and fetch out... wait for it... fetch out the funny things. (the men unload the van) Move, move, move. One, two, one, two, get those funny things off.

The workmen are completing the erection of a proscenium with curtains in front of the still immobile cat. A and B watch with awe. The arrangements are completed. All stand ready.

Sergeant Stage ready for confusing, sir! General Very good. Carry on, sergeant. Sergeant Left turn, double march! General Right men, confuse the ... cat!

Drum roll and cymbals. The curtains draw back and an amazing show takes place, using various tricks: locked camera, fast motion, jerky motion, jump cuts, some pixilated motion etc. Long John Silver walks to front of stage.

Long John Silver My lords, ladies and Gedderbong.

Long John Silver disappears. A pause. Two boxers appear. They circle each other. On one's head a bowler hat appears, vanishes. On the other's a sterve-pipe hat appears. On the first's head is a fez. The stove-pipe hat becomes a stetson. The fez becomes a cardinal's hat. The stetson becomes a wimple. Then the cardinal's hat and the wimple vanish. One of the boxers becomes Napoleon and the other boxer is astonished. Napoleon punches the boxer with the hand inside his jacket. The boxer falls, stunned. Horizontally he shoots off stage. Shot of cat, watching unimpressed. Napoleon does one-legged pixilated dance across stage and off, immediately reappearinng on other side of stage doing same dance in same direction. He reaches the other side, but is halted by a traffic policeman. The policeman beckons onto the stage a man in a penguin skin on a pogostick. The penguin gets halfway across and then turns into a dustbin. Napoleon hops off stage. Policeman goes to dustbin, opens it and Napoleon gets out. Shot of cat, still unmoved. A nude man with a towel round his waist gets out of the dustbin. Napoleon points at ground. A chair appears where he points. The nude man gets on to the chair, jumps in the air and vanishes. Then Napoleon points to ground by him and a small cannon appears. Napoleon fires cannon and the policeman disappears. The man with the towel round his waist gets out of the dustbin and is chased off stage by the penguin on the pogostick. A sedan chair is carried on stage by two chefs. The man with the towel gets out and the penguin appears from the dustbin and chases him off. Napoleon points to sedan chair and it changes into dustbin. Man in towel runs back on to stage and jumps in dustbin. He looks out and the penguin appears from the other dustbin and hits him on the head with a raw chicken. Shot of cat still unimpressed. Napoleon, the man with the towel round his waist, the policeman, a boxer, and a chef suddenly appear standing in a line, and take a bow. They immediately change positions and take another bow. The penguin appears at the end of the line with a puff of smoke. Each one in turn jumps in the air and vanishes. Shot of passive cat. Cut to Mr A and Mrs B watching with the general.

...aaaaaand compare with the actual finished product (the extract is from 2:10 onwards or so, but you should really watch the whole thing - I won't tell you the ending in case it spoils it)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Je1CEPkUM]

Imagine writing that (about a cat). Pretty phat. And yet when you see the sketch, it all sort of makes sense.

silly, writingJack Dysoncat, monty pythonComment