Writers and Cats

Although it doesn't seem that long, it's been five years since I had my original cat put to sleep. She was suffering from a type of blood cancer and had lived a relatively long life. Recently, however, we have adopted another cat, an independent and "willful" (as the vet put it) one-year-old with black-and-white spotted fur.  I suspect she lived as a stray from some time, since she came from a cat-rescue group and still seems wary of our attentions. She spends most of her time on a chair in the kitchen, taking in the sun from the window. All of this has led me to think about cats and their place in the human world.

I always feel a bit embarrassed talking about my cats. Something about the male ego and insecurity wants us to be apologetic about cat ownership, to say, "Oh, there's this cat, but I really like dogs," or something along those lines. The generous explanation for this gender difference is that men enjoy the scruffy rowdiness of dogs as well as their loyalty and generous spirit.  The less charitable explanation (as I saw it put on a message board once) is that men are looking for their pets to be loyal slaves. In the movies, cat owners are often evil, corrupt, or exotically dangerous (see The Godfather), whereas dog lovers naturally come across as loyal and good-hearted, even if the character is a bit of a reckless loner. In America, especially, we tend to associate cats with crazy old ladies and lonely spinsters who live in apartments. At the risk of sounding defensive, ironically enough, I'd like to meditate on the special quality of cats and also comment on the interesting relationship between cats and writers.

From what I've read (I won't bother to provide a citation), the relationship between domesticated cats and humans is much more recent than that between dogs and humans.  Thus, while dogs have become known as "man's best friend," the relationship with cats remains a bit more guarded, not as bone-deep in its intimacy or natural in its closeness. I think the level of closeness can vary a lot depending on the individual cat (or dog, for that matter), but the stereotype of cats as aloof and less friendly rings true enough. We can assume, although it's impossible to prove, that cats were originally domesticated because they kept pests away, and they stuck around for the protection and supplemental food provided by humans.  So, originally, it was just enough to have a cat around. Dogs, on the other hand, seem to have evolved as guard animals, so by definition they needed to be physically closer and more trustworthy and trusting in the bond they shared with humans.

The aloofness of cats provides part of their cool charm, of course. They don't really "care" to interact with humans (although that's personifying them to start with), and they are content to do their own thing, which mostly involves sleeping and catching lizards. Whereas the dog clumsily displays his love in the most obvious ways, the cat keeps himself guarded and mysterious. You have to figure him out, and that takes a while. In the photo above, you can see the way Ernest Hemingway watches the cat.  Being closer to their wild counterparts, in some ways (although again this is all quite unscientific), cats remain fascinating to watch as animals. They behave very much like wild cats, pouncing and stalking mostly invisible prey, sleeping in that half-awake way (as the term "cat-napping" suggests) that allows them to hunt or defend themselves at a moment's notice.

Writers and readers love cats because cats don't interfere with those activities. They aren't noisy and do not demand attention. They either stretch by the fireplace or sleep nearby while one thinks, reads, or writes. American writers especially enjoy a long history of cat ownership and mutual admiration.  The irascible Mark Twain was fond of cats; I like to think they had a calming influence on his cantankerous spirit. One of his cats was called "Sour Mash" (like the whiskey).  Edgar Allan Poe recalls a "wonderful" tortoiseshell cat curling on his wife's chest as she lay dying.  The hipster beat writer Jack Kerouac movingly wrote about the death of a favorite kitten in his autobiographical novel Big Sur. Ernest Hemingway, with his famed brood of six-toed cats, emerges of course as the most well known of American cat lover-writers. Hemingway hunted game in Africa, and he admired the stealthy and wild-like movements of the domesticated cat.

One of Hemingway's cat descendants (allegedly) in Key West (original photo) 

Male writers appreciate cats, as I have said, because they are interesting to watch (and writers are observers) and quiet companions who do not demand too much from their owners. Writers, too, as artists, do not seem to worry too much about whether being fond of cats is unmanly or whether others would approve. They simply enjoy the company of their cats and go about the business of writing and living.

Writers and Drinking

Many of us associate the romantic image of the writer with drinking, and that probably isn't a healthy connection overall for aspiring writers. As the late and brilliant "This American Life" contributor David Rakoff once put it (and I'm paraphrasing), "there are real writers and those who just drink about it."  Too many writers of note could be termed serious drinkers for me to name them all here, but suffice it to say that some of our most famous and beloved American writers (Hemingway, Faulkner, Carver, Poe, London) knew the bottle intimately. To what extent drinking helped or hurt these writers' careers, to what extent they drank because they wrote or vice versa, is difficult to say. In Hemingway's case, his publisher at least said he wouldn't "have been the same person" or writer without drinking (I'll have to get that citation later). Certainly, for most people, drinking probably doesn't help you gain the clarity or maintain the intellectual rigor necessary for writing.

I think it's interesting (and this is by no means an observation unique to me) that we term alcoholism a disease, but continue to blame drinkers if they are not helped by treatment, assigning their inability to get well (sober) to a moral failure of the will (not wanting to stop drinking badly enough).  It seems we really only reserve the term "illness" for alcoholics who have stopped drinking, thereby allowing those former drinkers to shirk from the blame for misdeeds while drinking (since it is, after all, an illness). There's a lot of truth to that bit of bumper-sticker/t-shirt wisdom, "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings."

It's impossible to say why these particular famous writers were given to drink, whether it was the romantic notion of a tortured soul self-medicating or the sign of an egotist who couldn't live with himself in real and sober terms. Perhaps, though, like all alcoholics who continue to drink, these writers deserve some sympathy instead of judgment, some allowance for their humanity, as well as an acknowledgment that their humanity (including perceived character flaws) allowed them to be better writers and artists.   

We are all touched by Andres Segovia

I have been playing guitar, or attempting to play it in a fashion, since I was about 12 years old.  My mother tells me that even as a young child, I was drawn to the guitar, fascinated by it.  In other words, on some level, I always wanted to play the guitar, even before I started taking lessons and learning first-hand of its challenges and difficulties.

When I was in college, after years of playing rock music and writing my own songs, I found myself attracted to the intricacies and beautiful mystery of the classical guitar. The classical guitar, then as now, seemed apart from other guitar styles and apart from classical music. One man, especially, has been given a lot of the credit for helping to bring credibility to the modern classical guitar: Andres Segovia.  I learned who he was just barely before he died, in 1987.  My own studies of the classical guitar, if such modest attempts can be called "study," began with Mel Bay's Classic Guitar Method and with a few lessons through extension learning at the University of Texas. Since that time, I tried to practice a few pieces, and bought a nice, handmade classical guitar from the Croatian guitar prodigy Ana Vidovic, but mostly I languished as a classical guitarist, and I also did not do much with my other guitars, being mostly preoccupied with the business of living life and trying to get by.

In the last couple of years, I have picked up the classical guitar again, and tried to pursue it more earnestly, with the help of my current instructor, John Kiefer, who teaches guitar at the community college where I teach writing and literature. With John, I have tried to expand my repertoire, learn new skills, and break old habits.

Concurrent with the new routine, I have been reading more about classical guitarists, including Segovia, Christopher Parkening, and John Williams. In reading the Wikipedia entry on Segovia, I was taken aback by the statement that "practically all living classical guitarists are students of Segovia or students of his students."  This seemed implausible, until I began to research it a bit. I asked my instructor, and he nodded and said that his own instructor was a student of a Segovia protege. A little more removed than suggested by Wikipedia, but still pretty interesting.  Then I discovered, quite accidentally, that my first classical guitar instructor, someone I had only taken a few lessons from -- a Spanish guitarist named Maria Cortes -- had studied with Segovia.  I had found two links to me, an amateur guitarist living in suburban Houston, seemingly far from the influence of Europe and Spain.  Not bad.

Segovia's influence cannot be overstated, perhaps, although music writers have noted that there were other guitarists during Segovia's time (such as Ida Presti) who were just as talented and brilliant.  Yet Segovia had the gravitas, the dedication to the guitar like no other, and he had the studious, romantic image that conveyed something important about the guitar. (It also helped that he kept at it for so long, from the 1930s to1980s, giving continuity to his efforts.) Guitarists working today perhaps think of Segovia as too serious, too shut off from other genres and styles (several recent guitarists have made wonderful hybrid albums with the electric guitar, for instance, something that likely would have made Segovia shudder).  Segovia gave the classical guitar what it needed at the time, in order to be taken seriously by the classical music world, and his contributions made all that experimentation possible. And of course, he continues to, indirectly through his teaching and inspirational legacy, influence all students of the classical guitar.

Disappearing Culture

In a fine new Salon article, writer Andrew Leonard writes about the changes in music-delivery media, and posits that we will miss 1990s-era CDs much less than we miss LPs and other obsolete forms of music storage. It's an interesting essay, well worth reading in its own right, as Andrew Leonard is one of the better writers over at Salon. His essay got me thinking about what we always miss when new forms of art and new forms artistic delivery (media) emerge. Although there is a resurgence of nostalgic interest in LPs (mentioned in his essay), it seems clear that particular form has become a thing of the past. At their best, albums represented beautifully packaged artistic visions, the aesthetic of the album packaging complementing carefully chosen tracks that presented a complete picture of the musical artist's voice at the time. Album artwork often included compelling photographs as well as details of the recording and reprints of the lyrics. We have lost that complete package, and we have arguably lost something in audio quality (depending on the type of compression used in whatever digital audio file you have), but the consumers have also gained greater accessibility and the ability to buy only the songs we want (although ITunes has also attempted various workarounds on that, with "album only" purchase options).  We have gained something, but we have lost something also. Such is the way with the progress of artistic technology.  I've been reading a biography of Andres Segovia, the great classical guitarist, who had to endure the loss of fine, hand-wound strings to less-expensive, machine-made strings.  To the casual listener, his sound quality never suffered, and strings were made more widely available for all, for a long time. But there's always a trade-off. When sound movies were invented, we lost the delicate art of silent film, yet few today mourn the loss in any serious way. Sound presented an obvious advantage in allowing us to access the rich language of human dialogue and the evocative emotion of music.

Silent films today exist as wistful dreams of a bygone era, beautiful in their own way but relics of the past. The technology of art marches on, and artists and consumers change and adapt in a way that keeps art vibrant and relevant.

Starbucks

For a creative-project assignment in my American literature class today, one of my students brought ginger-snap cookies and, to wash down the somewhat bitter taste of these old-fashioned treats, a cardboard pot of Starbucks coffee. The cookies were inspired by Ginger Nut, a young office-boy character in Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener." Although my student didn't realize it, bringing a pot of Starbucks coffee was an especially inspired addition to this project, since the name of that famous coffee chain was taken from a character in another Herman Melville work, Moby-Dick.  (The founders had wanted to call the shop Pequod's, after the ship in Moby-Dick, but were talked out of it by their financial backers. They settled on the name of the level-headed chief mate on the fictional ship.

Not a Starbucks, in Key West,  Florida (original photo)

I have nothing bad to say about Starbucks, though of course it's been a target of criticism for its ubiquitous presence (a store on every corner) and its supposed role in driving out the smaller coffee shops. (Disclaimer: I happen to own some stock in the company.)  But really, how many small coffeeshops were around before Starbucks?  Didn't they really arise as Starbucks spearheaded the entire coffee-drinking trend? I am not a huge fan of the coffee itself, because I prefer a lighter roast on my coffee beans (contrary to the common view, "dark" roasted coffee has nothing to do with strength in terms of caffeine; it's really just about how long the bean is roasted and the flavor of the final brew). Most Starbucks brews require cream to mellow that "slightly burnt" taste.

I like Starbucks because they treat their customers well, and, not coincidentally, they treat their employees well.  They also allow anyone to use their restrooms, as a matter of policy, whether you're a paying customer or not. That's pretty cool.


And that coffee my student brought to class was pretty darn excellent, even if I did have to put some cream in. "I'd prefer not to" put in the cream, but it beats typical office coffee no matter what.

R.I.P. Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney, that venerable yet mercurial Hollywood legend who was in movies longer than anyone, the last star to have had roles in silent movies, has passed. Because I teach Mark Twain's novel every semester, I primarily remember Rooney from his role as Huckleberry Finn in MGM's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939).

While it's easy to criticize this particular version as overly sanitized from our modern perspective, it's also worth noting that nearly every film version of Twain's novel has cleaned up the language and dealt with the issue of slavery in a "family-friendly" fashion, often by awkwardly repackaging the story as a message movie. Rooney's portrayal of Huck as an all-American, freckle-faced mild rebel may not seem very faithful to Twain's more complex vision of Huck, but it remains true to the plucky, generous spirit of the character. Rooney's Huck has a big heart, and it's a pleasure to watch him on screen, even 70 years later, as he energetically bounces from one predicament to another.

Although the obituaries have not paid much attention to this film, focusing instead on his highly profitable Andy Hardy films and musicals with Judy Garland, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is worth mentioning as a highly watchable, comical film of its era that, if not a faithful adaptation of the novel, that pays great tribute to Twain's humor and his admiration for the American youthful spirit.  It's no wonder this was the definitive Huck Finn adaptation for decades, a film that people remembered fondly as the first real cinematic vision of Huck. (The first adaptation was actually during the silent era.) Filmmakers have been trying to adapt Huck Finn for the screen ever since, with very little success, as the family-friendly movie genre proves to be too small a box for Twain's complex novel. But at least with Mickey Rooney's version, we get a lovable and suitably adolescent Huck (he's often portrayed as much younger), who looks pretty comfortable smoking a pipe.

Like Huck, Rooney was something of a rebel and an amiable trouble-maker in real life (see the linked obituary above), so perhaps he connected to Huck on some level. Like Huck, this was a guy who was hard to confine, hard to keep civilized in the way that society feels comfortable with.

R.I.P. to Mickey Rooney, who has lit out for the territories, so to speak.

Oh, and this is cool:  My name will forever be linked with Mickey Rooney's, at least in the official IMDB record for his last film, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (2014).  Just look at my name under the "Producers" heading. 

Blockbuster Busts Out

In case you haven't heard, or in case you're surprised to learn they still had any stores open, Blockbuster has officially decided to close all its corporate retail rental stores. I for one welcome the news, remembering as many others do Blockbuster's awful customer service, its policy of being hard nosed about late fees, and its limited selection and tendency to focus too much on carrying dozens of copies of the latest releases and very few foreign or independent films. (What kind of slogan is "Be kind. Please rewind."?) It's also ironic, of course, that Blockbuster now faces the same fate as the many mom-and-pop neighborhood rental stores it put out of business.

Nonetheless, the story has me feeling nostalgic about the video-rental glory days, physically going to the video store and ritualistically gazing at the empty boxes of available movies, deciding want to rent for a quiet night at home. Physically perusing the shelves at the video-rental store, as opposed to going through endless lists of streaming videos, seemed more like shopping, the promise of the perfect rental remaining tantalizingly just out of sight as you looked at all the available videos, each one a mystery, its contents only suggested by the cover and the names of stars. I used to drive partners mad as I lingered looking at all the different movie boxes. I sometimes wanted to go down every row, see everything that was available, as opposed to just grabbing the first promising video.

With VHS movies in particular, those boxy, worn-out covers often revealed forgotten gems, obscure movies that had only been printed once. I remain nostalgic particularly about the magic of VHS, the first home-rental movie format (if we conveniently forget about Beta, since I never had a Betamax). The movies felt like real movies in those boxy, book-like packages, even if the actual video quality of the movies was substandard and grainy by today's standards (and even in comparison to the resolution of standard TV in those days -- VHS movies always had that strange, cartoonish quality; you knew when you were watching a "video").  But there was something odd and promising about being able to fast forward and scan through movies to find your favorite scenes, something real about the way the video tapes rewound, clicked in the machine, and whirred and buzzed when played. Video tapes also gave us our first opportunity to watch movies at home, at our own leisure, without waiting for a favorite to come back on to TV broadcast.

I remember my last physical video rental, a DVD a friend and I hunted down after a few drinks. It was 2008, and he was determined that I see Superbad, because I hadn't seen it, and so we took a trip to the last of the neighborhood video store holdouts in my area, a store that has since closed down. Streaming video wasn't yet available, at least on my system, so the only real option was to find a video store and find the movie. Video stores gave you that opportunity for adventure, a hunting trip to the local video store to find that movie you had to watch that night. Sometimes you even had to buy the video if it wasn't available for rental.

Now our options seem endless, and the chance for a hunting adventure, a drive to the local video store, seems ridiculous and quaint, just a few years after my last trip. We still have our DVDs and Blu-Rays, of course, but they too will be quickly fading. Soon we will never have to leave the house at all.