Cats, Our Mysterious "Others"

Our resident alien, Charlie, who has diligently overseen the creation
of this post. (2026, DS.)

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend, and comrade, without further introduction."

- The words of Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author, humorist, and champion of cats. He was known to rent cats when he was away from home (missing his own, vast feline collection.) His favorite cat was a black cat (with a white ruff) named Bambino. Twain is also credited for stating: “If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." Both quotes and the photo of Twain insert right were sourced from the Smithsonian article: Mark Twain Liked Cats Better Than People.

"Mark Twain" was, incidentally, the name of of the building in Kansas City in which Mac Tonnies (and his cats) resided. (See blog sidebar.) Mark Twain is also one of the memetic connectives between this post and a new  cross-post on my other blog which will appear shortly regarding Kurt Vonnegut. Had Vonnegut, another of Mac's favorite authors, been a cat person, he would have appeared here as well.

Sunday, January 26, 2003

"Why 'Posthuman Blues'? Jack Kerouac's Book of Blues contains some essentially worthless poetry...but if he'd toted a palmtop instead of a ruled notepad, his output would likely find a small but fervent niche audience. His Book of Blues is rich blogging material, written as one would scribble postcards to one's own clone or multidimensional counterpart."

- Mac Tonnies completing his very first post on his new blog, Posthuman Blues. I wasn't aware that the "Blues" half of his title was inspired by Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) and wasn't aware of Book of Blues although I did know of his reverence for On the Road.

Inset left is a vintage photo of Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (his parents were French Canadian) and his cat. This photo, in essence, inspired this post. I suddenly had the hunch that there were more unexpected cat people to be found... and I was right!

(Source: Ranker. Note: slow-loading page but well worth the effort. Numerous celebrities with their cats... from Herman Hesse to Sartre to Bette Davis to Stanley Kubrick!)

Sunday, August 17, 2003

"I was on my computer waiting for a pizza to arrive when I noticed that Spook, my oldest cat, was unusually interested in the window above my air conditioner. I followed her gaze.

The bat from the previous night was hanging from the blinds! Inexplicably inside my apartment!

It immediately started flying all over the place, coming perilously close to the ceiling fan. I ran to the phone and called my apartment's emergency maintenance number and was told that a loose bat in my apartment didn't constitute an emergency. I told them it fucking well did and that they better send someone to help me trap it. (None of this was the bat's fault. I actually like bats; I just don't like sharing my living room with them.)

By this time both my cats were chasing the bat with gleeful abandon. The phone rang: the pizza guy calling from the lobby nine floors down. I grabbed my checkbook and met him at the door just as a maintenance guy and my building's new manager began conferring about the Loose Bat Situation.

The bat, probably exhausted and starving, flew into the kitchen as we walked into my apartment, and the maintenance guy was able to trap it in a towel. It made angry buzzing noises through tiny fangs as he escorted it into the hall. Fortunately, he had every intention of setting the bat free outside.

Now my cats are listless and forlorn. At first, Spook diligently kept looking for it and meowing plaintively. I think the realization that the bat is gone is finally hitting home. But it was certainly fun while it lasted."

- Mac Tonnies via this humorous Posthuman  Blues post. Mac had been blogging for 8 months before mention of his feline companions entered his Posthuman narrative. I guess he was looking for some comic relief... and he found it.

Inset right above is great photograph of one of Mac's fave songwriters, Morrissey, having a magic moment with his tabby found here.

Inset right is one of the most remarkable cat paintings I could find: Suzanne Valadon's glorious Raminou (1920). Valadon was a pretty remarkable artist whose remarkable story can be read in full on this (remarkable) blog. For more Valadon cats see Katzenworld. For a Trans-D article featuring Valadon, see here.

(Continued below the break...)

Determining the "U" in UAP

Ask Ethan: Could we determine if UAPs/UFOs are aliens?

"Although a great many unidentified sights have been seen in the skies, none have conclusively demonstrated the presence of aliens. So far."

"This is actually very robust; if you can find objects that either:

• accelerate at hundreds of gs (or more) for several seconds,
• that move at speeds of hundreds of thousands of km/hr (or greater),
• or that can change their distance from you by amounts that are greater than any known rocket can travel in the same span of time,

you have evidence that you’ve observed a technology that goes well beyond the technologies that are known to humankind at present."

***

- Via a Big Think article (link above) which attempts to establish "clear evidentiary thresholds we'd need to pass to conclude that an unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) truly defies natural or terrestrial explanation."

The video introducing this post reports one account of a mysterious spiral light which appeared over Norway in 2009. A CBS report of the same phenomenon appears in the Ethan article - Spiral Phenomenon Explained - but, judging by most of the comments on the YouTube page, I'd say the explanation (a Russian missile) was not popular.

Alternative explanation? The death of Mothra.

More Fun:

Angels or aliens? Some researchers say Vatican archives hold UFO secrets

The sci-fi future stands derelict: Taiwan’s abandoned UFO houses

***

The moon in a phi-shell. G - DS - 22024.

A belated Happy Birthday to Mac in the Multiverse!

Art connects us to the past... which is a good thing, or we might try to forget it. The artwork above and inset left is a tiny detail of a much larger religious painting, a fresco of the Crucifixion from the Visoki Decani Monestary in Kosovo, Serbia, 1350, artist unknown. The image has been all over the web, mostly misinterpreted as a medieval UAP. According to The View from the Junkyard, and with whom I agree, the two UAPs which fly in the background of the crucified Christ are, in fact, medieval symbolist depictions of the sun and moon; this detail is of the moon. That the sun and moon happen to be vehicles for UHE (Unidentified Human-like Entities)... well, let's just say, it's probably one of those Pre-Christian things. The UHE may symbolize gods... the old gods who still lingered in artist's minds regardless of what new gods they were hired to portray.

If I remember correctly, Mac Tonnies adored the old gods as a boy... along with dinosaurs and robots, of course. But, then again, artists, writers and makers of all varieties still appreciate the old gods till this  very day. Well, they were Immortals, weren't they? Oddly enough, in visual art, the celestial gods often appear in vehicles that echo the shape of the pentagonal golden ratio's spiral mechanism. Even this one does to some degree, and, so, I embellished it with a phi-shell.

For more images and info regarding ancient future vehicles (and/or the "Chariots of the Gods"), try Crystalinks, or this  Preterhuman .pdf.

Cheers(!) to another imaginary year...

 

Once In A Lifetime

"And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

Water dissolving and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Under the water, carry the water
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, into the silent water
Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

And you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"
And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?"

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, into the silent water
Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was and look where my hand was
Time isn't holding up, time isn't after us
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Letting the days go by, same as it ever was

Here a twister comes, here comes the twister
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Once in a lifetime, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by"

- Lyrics to Once In a Lifetime (1980) by the Talking Heads.

***

It's all in our heads, my friends, all in our heads...

Heads in a Net of Pearls - DS 2020

Once again, this goes out to Mac in the multiverse: Happy Birthday, baby!

PS   Mac's Blip.fm link on the sidebar has been repaired.

 

 

Putting Things in Perspective

 

From the awesome film, The Fifth Element.

Blade Runner 2049

Coming to theaters everywhere October 6, 2017 is the long-awaited sequel to the original (1982) Blade Runner - a film that Mac never could get enough of - Blade Runner 2049. I wish I could beam up the new film to him just to hear his reaction. Favorable or unfavorable? In any case, another run with Rick Deckard can't be a bad thing.

The new story line fast-forwards to 30 years later, Los Angeles, California. Apparently, another blade runner (played by Ryan Gosling) discovers a "dark secret" threatening humanity which sends him on a quest to find the blade runner we all know and love, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who's been missing for 30 years. The film also stars Ana De Armas, MacKenzie Davis, Sylvia Hoeks, Lennie James, Carla Juri, Robin Wright, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto.

Ridley Scott, director of the original film, only co-produces this one, while Canadian Denis Villeneuve (director of the much-acclaimed film Arrival) is at the helm.

Below is another version of the trailer. And, here's the website. For past posts with video clips of the original film try here, here, or here.

Pendulum Waves and Hidden Symmetries

David Peeples sent me a view of the video (above) today - thanks, David - featuring a ball pendulum, which takes on interesting patterns when viewed from the side. Technical aspects of this "wave" effect can be found on this Harvard page.

Interestingly, the symmetries we see above are not the same ones we see below - the same variety of experiment now viewed from the front (and above) of a similar pendulum.