Caturday: The Big Cat

Today’s cat is from one of my favourite picture books of all time: Lane Smith’s The Big Pets. As the title suggests, the pets in this book are large, and not just regular-large, they’re as big as houses! On some nights, the children and their animals go to special places to play. The cats head to the Milk-Pool or the Scratching Forest, or the place where the ‘Stringy Vines tease’. The dogs and their children frolic in the Bone Gardens; and in the Grassy Plains, the pet snakes roll and tumble.

And on some extra special nights, there is an entire milky way to play in …

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Caturday: Behemoth

By Viktor Yegimenko, featured on The Master & Margarita website.

Behemoth is the large black cat from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

He is a demon, part of the Devil’s posse, a cruel and violent beast who walks on twos, carries a pistol and loves chess, vodka and pickled mushrooms. Not a nice kitty at all, but I rather admire him, maybe even want to be him.

 

 

Caturday: Red Tiger

How many Caturdays have I missed? I’m sorry, but December has been a busy month, and soon it will be 2019!

This week’s cat is from a print that I bought when I was in Hanoi recently. It is by a young artist called Xuân Lam and is one of a series of ‘remakes’ he’s done of folk art — I believe the originals were woodblock prints.

From Xuân Lam’s Behance site:

‘Red Tiger: The painting features one of the Five Tigers with red color, representing the Fire in Five Elements and standing for the South. Besides the application of Five Elements, what makes this painting distinctive is the figure of the tiger with a strong body, an imposing posture and vibrant eyes.’

I would love to get Five Tigers — they remind me of the five spirit tigers in my short story ‘All Was Still’. Well, that is yet another reason to return to Hanoi.

(From the artist’s site: ‘According to Vietnamese religious belief, tiger possesses a sacred power to keep the ghosts away. In many ancient families, there were altars specially designed to worship the tiger, with the Five Tiger painting hung above. The painting features five tigers with a balanced structure, each tiger in a unique posture: one Is standing, one is sitting, another is riding the cloud and wind. The structure, together with the strokes and colors, effectively depicts the vigorous and mighty air of the king of the forest.’)

Prints by Xuân Lam can be purchased at Tired City, 84 Quán Sứ, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Quán Sứ, Cửa Nam, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội 100000, Vietnam. Tel: +84 24 6270 2900.

Caturday: No More Twist!

Simpkin returns with a ‘penn’orth of bread, a penn’orth of milk and a penn’orth of sausages. And the all-important penn’orth of cherry-coloured silk.

Is it really Caturday again?

I know I just featured a Beatrix Potter cat a couple of Caturdays ago, but here is another one, called Simpkin.

‘Now all day long while the tailor was out at work, Simpkin kept house by himself; and he also was fond of the mice, though he gave them no satin for coats!’

‘But Simpkin hid a little parcel privately in the tea-pot, and spit and growled at the tailor; and if Simpkin had been able to talk, he would have asked: “Where is my MOUSE?”‘

‘When the tailor awoke in the morning, the first thing which he saw upon the patchwork quilt, was a skein of cherry-coloured twisted silk, and beside his bed stood the repentant Simpkin!’

‘But upon the table—oh joy! the tailor gave a shout—there, where he had left plain cuttings of silk—there lay the most beautifullest coat and embroidered satin waistcoat that ever were worn by a Mayor of Gloucester.’

He is from The Tailor of Gloucester and is the tailor’s cat, and sort of assistant. The tailor sends him out to buy food and thread, but Simpkin’s fondness for mice gets the better of him.

All ends well though, with Simpkin properly repentant.

The Tailor of Gloucester in available to read and download at Project Gutenberg.