Cat Pictures, Pepsi, William Blake

 

For years I've thought that I might be some sort of mutant because I don’t feel much when I look at cat pictures or cat videos on social media. And I really couldn't figure it out - because I like cats. Tonight, riding my bike home in the dark, it hit me: The reason I don't really feel anything when I look at a cat picture or a cat video is because there is something about felines that does not permit their essence to be captured on film. They are like ghosts in that way. Central to their identity are stealth, mystery, cunning & mischief. So, they know to recede just a bit, to become a bit more generic or anonymous when captured on film. When I am around a cat, I feel like a switch inside of me is activated; I can feel electric with fascination just watching them. Such is not the case when I see a cat picture. There is a flatness or, in the videos, an anodyne goofiness that I don't sense in person.

Cats inhabit their bodies the way a tai chi master does. The grace and flow of movement is multi-dimensional; it radiates something powerful that we can sense, but not only with our eyes. Their stride, their poise and their leap is what the dancer aspires to and what the painter seeks to embody in her brushstroke.

Cats are such riddles that they invite the wildest speculation. When I was a child, I believed our cat, Pepsi, was actually a small man dressed up in a cat suit who walked around on all fours. I always expected him to unzip the suit and reveal himself one day, but he never did.

The house cat does not prowl the jungles of India stalking prey. Nonetheless, in her we can recognize something of the fierce beauty and mystery that can be impossible to capture in a photo, but that William Blake captured in his poem, “The Tyger.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?