sisu

Do not stand at my grave and weep

"Do not stand at my grave and weep . . . I am not there."

He is risen, the sequel

In heartbroken memory of our beloved Baby Cakes republication of last year's Easter blogpost:

Best Easter Dinner ever, says Goomp, and Baby doesn't disagree, but could I have some more shrimp, please? No pictures of the fab feast 'cause the Pentax Optio 450 pulled its annual no can do just after sunrise.

Too early in the astrological year to snap the sunrise out of the mouth of the river from Goomp's front lawn, but the condos across the river were dazzled by the sun's early rays.

Update from post-game imail wrap-up:

She: Will there be any dinners redux at your house, or will you have "something light"?  ;-)

We: I  just had a dish of stuffing. Stop me before I stuff again!

She: LOL. That's my girl!!!!

We: Why does it have to be so good?

She: It's God's will. :-)  If God hadn't wanted us to stuff, he wouldn't have made our stomachs so expandable.

He truly does move in mysterious ways.

Update: "Mysterious little creatures," as B. Kliban famously wrote in "the mother of all cat books," Cat. Carnival of the Cats #210 is open for business at Chey's Place.

We gave ourselves in to the flood of happiness

Just after breakfast Tiny recharges her batteries in the early morning light atop the dining room table.

"They are like bookends. They will give you many years of pleasure," a veterinarian's assistant said long ago in the flush of Tiny and Baby's kittenhood.

"Best Easter Dinner ever, says Goomp, and Baby doesn't disagree, but could I have some more shrimp, please?" we captioned this image of the late, great Cakes, featured in our Easter 2008 post "He is risen."

And so they did give us lifetimes of pleasure with their breathtaking physical beauty, their personal integrity and earnestness, their embodiment of our favorite words of Henry David Thoreau:

The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him.

Tiny thinks about things we don't as she soaks up the sun's early rays.

A vivid dream about the Babe last night. He was in our loving arms prancing and petting and purring. Tuck was there, too, and we spoke to him, saying we knew it couldn't be, but even so we gave ourselves in to the flood of happiness.

 "Baby Cakes, how come you're so beautiful?" we captioned this image in our November 11, 2005 post "Baby Cakes endorses our candidacy."

With bookends we were blessed.

The only boy

Hearts still breaking. Still listening for his chirp, anticipating his stare in the countdown to supper. He haunts our dreams.

All that floof

"The Babe and the Duncan Phyfe chair — classical beauty seeks its own level" from our April 2006 post "A major and lasting influence."

A lovely tribute to Baby Cakes from Karen Jo of Kitty Limericks:

Looking at all that floof, his size and those snowshoe feet, I think that he must have been a Maine Coon … Babe was a cat with gravitas. He kept it through the very last.

More words of comfort from Tom the Redhunter in the comments of our previous post featuring Tiny in a Rembrandt Moment:

What a photo of Tiny. Words escape me, but you are right, it is a shade of Rembrandt. I love the photos on this blog. They remind me of my dear departed cats, and the ones yet to come.

When our sis asked this afternoon whether we were feeling nostalgic about undecorating the tree or glad to get it all over with, we were able to say without  a second thought that the loss of our precious boy kitty had put it all into perspective. No regrets.

Best of all from Tuck in the comments of that Portrait of Tiny as a Young Rembrandt:

Here is a masterpiece. This portrait speaks to the wonder of our beloved companions; here is a thinking, compassionate, responsive, introspective being.

Savor every sweet moment.

Update: "All that floof, but more than floof really, as you and Tuck know," writes our precious Laura Lee in the comments:

I love that photo of Babe. The subtle chiaroscuro of Tiny's photo was simply stunning and so Rembrandt-esq. So much depth and it seemed to speak of grief in your sweet Tiny. I hope she is doing well with her double measure of love.

"A sweet new comment just in from Laura Lee," we imailed our sis, who replied "Just read it. I weep fresh tears."

"Like all politicians, he is sometimes required to talk anodyne or disingenuous rot"

"The parks are the lungs of London," wrote William Pitt, British Prime Minister (1766 - 68), an idea that took flight in 19th and early 20th century city planning and now is enjoying a Smithian revival in London Mayor Boris Johnson's "greener and cleaner and cheaper" vision for the city. "Like Goethe's 'frozen music,' the balletic branching structure of the young Ailanthus (above) as it spirals heavenward is a physical expression of the dynamics of plant growth, as formulated in The Fibonacci Series," we captioned this image from our August 2007 post "A walk on the wild side."

"Lefties are fundamentally interested in coercion and control, and across British society you can see the huge progress they are now making in achieving their objectives," newly minted London Mayor Boris Johnson wrote three years back — when he was moving on up as MP for Henley — in a Telegraph opinion piece that blew our socks off. His words were prescient, of course. Things have gotten worserer and worserer in the Mother Country since then, what with the insidious infiltration of Sharia Law to take its place as first among equals (!) beside Common Law ["Off with their heads!" appears to work for both], not to mention the parallel Gramscian march through the institutions now dropping its rotting fruit all over the Anglosphere. But if Londoners had the sense — or luck, or whatever it was — to elect Boris Johnson to lead them through this darkest of dark hours, there may yet be hope for the old verities. We discovered this new light in our naturo-politico-intellectual universe in today's WSJ, a must-read chock full of quotable quotes, as is everything we googled about him this afternoon. First an excerpt from the Journal and then on to all things green and beautiful:

Talking up the need for bigger apartments at the introduction of his new housing strategy, he says Londoners have grown too fat to live like Hobbits. He indulges his passion for cycling by seeking to make London friendlier to bikes — for aesthetic green reasons, he says, to get people out of cars and fat burned off their bodies. Recently, he infuriated earnest greens by describing climate change as "a religion" in his weekly column. "Not all religions are bad!" he says. "Climate change might be the faith that supervenes and brings the human race together. Fear of the Sun God …" he adds, before trailing off in a chuckle.

Johnson's casting of "climate change" as "a religion" was right up our alley, of course, but we had a scare when we stumbled upon these quotations from a November 2008 speech of his:

The Tory mayor, famed for scorning the global warming agenda in the past, sought to throw off his image as the man who used to write caustic articles about "the religion of climate change" by saying that his mind had been changed by the incontrovertible science. "If the climate can change, I don't see why my mind can't," he said.

"Incontrovertible science"? We took a few deep breaths and then reminded ourselves of Spectator columnist Rod Liddle's words:

Like all politicians, he is sometimes required to talk anodyne or disingenuous rot, but unlike the remainder, he cannot keep a straight face while doing this.

We reserve judgment until we can see a video of his presentation. We're hoping his face will reveal a man lying to a cat. Meanwhile, we totally agree with Mayor Johnson's specific "green" prescriptions:

And even if the entire scientific establishment [Huh? You haven't been keeping up, sir] is wrong about anthropogenic climate change — and I don't think [Yes. You don't think!] they are — then I believe to reduce pollution also makes aesthetic and economic sense as well [Now you're thinking]. And I want today to show what we all know to be true — that in an economic downturn there are in fact huge opportunities for us to go green and stay cheap and indeed to be greener and cleaner and cheaper at the same time.

It is our job in City Hall not just to help Londoners to beautify and improve the city, so making it an ever more attractive place to come to live and invest. It is our job to help Londoners save money. Every week I authorise new combined heat and power plants in developments across the city, intended to deliver energy and hot water locally. And this CHP means that our houses no longer have to emit those shaming plumes of gas from our own individual boilers.

"To beautify and improve the city, so making it an ever more attractive place to come to live and invest." William Pitt's venerable 18th-century notion of the "lungs of London" — picked up next century as the "lungs of the city" on this side of the pond by our own Frederic Law Olmsted — comes to mind. It's a good thing. Meanwhile, we are encouraged by the Mayor of London's invitation to Labor PM Gordon Brown to "Bring it on, you great big quivering gelatinous invertebrate jelly of indecision."

"Like Barbara Boxer within her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on climate change this afternoon, Baby makes the rules," we captioned this image of the Babe last March, citing the latest derring do of two of our heroes fighting the good fight, Senator James Inhofe and Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus.

Update: This just in:

EU's new figurehead believes climate change is a myth.

Another great man after our heart and mind.

Here's lookin' at you, kit

This animated gif of the Babe "working the room for his supper," featured in our October 2007 Instalanched post "When madness struck," was one of several moving pictures starring the Chelsea Grays.

As part of our Baby photo retrospective we offer republication of "Lengthy sequences without dialogue" from August 2007. But first, a full listing, with highlights, of other Chelsea Gray film reviews:

"The mind's eye," January 2005: "Baby Cakes makes his motion picture debut in "Paw and Order" Click on film title or above image to watch. Nobody does Mr. Paw better than Cakes.

"Chelsea Grays together for first time in new film," January 2004: "Sister and brother Tiny and Baby star in "Want your supper?"

"Mews and whispers," January 2004: "Ominous use of dark and light and lengthy sequences without dialogue characterize both Tiny and Baby's and Ingmar Bergman's films."

"Is it time yet?" October 2007: "Tiny, above, using the Think System to evoke the magic words — Want your suppers? — that will conjure up the bowls of Friskies 'Special Diet.'"

"The sounds of silence," October 2007: "As the mystical moment of incantation — Want your suppers? — drew near, the brooding Bergmanesque mask of 'Meows and whispurrs' slipped a little, Tiny's eyes glazing over and Baby's restive gaze and tilt of the head seeming to say 'Come on, Grandma. Let's eat!'"

Now here's our repost of "Lengthy sequences without dialogue" from August 2007 in full:

"Ominous use of dark and light and lengthy sequences without dialogue characterize both Tiny and Baby's and Ingmar Bergman's films," we wrote a couple of years back, comparing the cinematographic style of the Chelsea Grays' "Want your supper?" with that of the great Swedish director's "The Virgin Spring." Now, this very afternoon, in the magic light of a setting sun, Baby (left) and Tiny are at it again, inviting our camera's eye to explore the sounds of silence.

John Singer Sargent's portrait of the Daughters of Edward Darley Boit also came to mind. (1882, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Oil on canvas) "Its composition was criticized for its 'four corners and a void,' the children not having any relationship to each other," according to one web site, but for us in this Chekhovian day and age of everyone's talking past each other -- whether or not intended by the artist -- the lack of communication amongst players perfectly catches the spirit of the age.

Music to my ears

"What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?" asked William Blake rhetorically in our all-time fave poem, "The Tyger," cited in our October 2005 post "What immortal hand or eye?" featuring the late, great Baby Cakes (above) and his sister "with fire burning bright in their eyes as they defended their turf from the intruder."

"Music to my ears," we wanted to write in the comments to Horsefeathers's latest post, cum video, "Nobody asked me but," BUT … we were unable to comment due to some inscrutable technical thing about registering that just didn't work for us, so here are excerpts of his argument, followed by our own frustrated but heartfelt comments:

We are weakened by our own therapeutic approach to the jihad. Were we to destroy the symbols of Islam, they'd be at our feet instead of at our throats.

When sharia law prevails and Bach is banned, somewhere there will remain a hidden version of the single greatest musical piece ever composed, played by the greatest pianist to ever interpret it: Here's a portion of the Goldberg Variations played by Glenn Gould. Proof, if any more were needed, of the superiority of Western culture. Let's hope 2009 is a year when the West wakes up and vows to defend itself.

Citing exerpts from an imail conversation with our sis this evening, here's what we wanted to write in the comments:

We: You or I might choose a different piece or a different composer, but as Tuck says, we know what he means. I would prolly choose Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus" or Schubert's "Ave Maria."

She: Exactly.

We: Tuck might choose Haydn's "Creation" or Handel's "Messiah" or "any of that stuff," says he.

She: An extremely succinct article.

We: Yes. It made me tingle. Similar to the way Obama gave Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg.

It all calls to mind the recent acknowledgement by British atheist Matthew Parris that "In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts," as blogged the other day by our dear friend neo, who quotes Parris in her post "Africa and change: what hath the missionaries wrought?": 

"It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

"I used to avoid this truth by applauding — as you can — the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write …

"But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing."

"Parris goes on to describe the transformation he has observed, the difference between the converted and those still mired in tribal attitudes," writes neo:

He says the former are more open, relaxed, lively, curious, and engaged with the world. Parris rejects the cultural/moral relativism that denies that there is anything inherently better about these sort of attitudes as opposed to the characteristics fostered by traditional tribal beliefs. Instead, he insists on making a distinction, and a judgment.

Read the whole thing, and then "Pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death."

"I meant every word and every tear"

The Babe stepped out briefly to see which way the wind was blowing in the wake of a winter storm, December, 2005.

"I am glad that anything that I have said could be helpful; I meant every word and every tear," emailed Carol Ward during yesterday's snowy, snowy New Year's Eve:

As Snowball has been going through her health issues the past three years, I have had to think long and hard about Snowball's role in our life. I decided I needed to invert that, and focus on our role in her life.

It is the same with Baby. You fed him, took care of him, and showed the world what a beauty he was. You let him be vulnerable with you and never lose his dignity. You loved him — that was your role.

And he loved you in return. Seems like a good trade. The pain of losing someone you love was going to be there no matter when or how Baby died. Would you have traded the pleasure to not have the pain?

I have enjoyed the Baby photo retrospective. A number of them made me smile the first time around, and made me smile again. What a lucky cat he was to live with you. What lucky people you were to be able to take care of him. And what lucky people we readers were to see such amazing, beautiful portraits.

For you, Carol, and all of Cakes's cherished circle of admirers, more seasonal images from the Baby photo retrospective, "The Lion King in Winter":

"Baby steps out into the Kitty Play Yard this afternoon to case the joint," we captioned this image in January of 2005 when "with 2 1/2 feet of snow in the side yard — what with drifting, not to mention steady snowfall — we started shoveling out over the bottom half of the Dutch door, moving on outside to carve a path to the little house plus a side route to the patio table, a good place for poodies to jump up and command a larger view.

"Baby steps out onto the front porch to gauge meteorological conditions," we captioned these images in our January 2005 post "When the snow lay round about."

The Lion King is dead. Long live the Lion King!

How cats deal with grief

Pausing during her rounds this morning, in a particular spot we'd never seen her occupy before atop the studio file cabinets and framed by Tuck's model of "America," Tiny appears lost in thought. We're thinking the fading scent of her brother in all the usual places must be a puzzlement to the feline mind.

Tiny's been playing superball every day, more than usual, since we lost her brother. It may be her way of dealing with stress — Why are Grandpa and Grandma so quiet? Why can't I pick up the scent of my brother, and where is he, anyway?

"Political strongcat Tiny 'The Warrior' signals her displeasure to Baby 'The Cakes' with a hissing, snarling neck grab as her brother makes the mistake of coming too close in maneuvering past her on the kitchen counter in pursuit of kitty treats. Note Tiny's furious glare and Baby's hang-cat look of resignation," we captioned this image of the Chelsea Grays in early November.

Or maybe the superballs are an outlet for the aggressive impulse, someone to swipe at (above) in the absense of Baby Cakes.

"Setting herself up in a hunting blind of hostas and violets, Tiny draws a bead on a gray squirrel," we captioned this image of Tiny last May, noting that "Offspring of the feral beauty Sweet Pea — AKA The Squirrel Slayer — our own Sweet Tiny Pea and her brother Baby" had "slain reckless squirrels at the base of this very tree on occasion … even as they were constrained by their tethers. Knowing this, the squirrels like to play 'chicken', testing their mettle by taunting the Chelsea Grays."

Then, too, there's the cabin-fever aspect of her mindset in the wake of yesterday's substantial snowfall, followed by today's single-digit temperatures and sub-zero windchill factor. The usual opportunities for territorial patrol to destroy vermin (above) and run off feline intruders aren't available.

"Tiny goes for the jugular of her 'Pure Catnip' kitty toy," we captioned this image of Tiny in her cups in December of 2006, "Not vindictive, her attitude toward prey seems to be more aligned with Avery Cardinal Dulles's 'just retribution, which seeks to establish the right order of things.'"

She did have her own version of New Year's Day Eggs Benedict and champagne for brunch — an extra serving of wet cat food and a shot of catnip — and is at the moment upstairs in a box in the attic sleeping it off.