Cats in Film 1: The Third Man and the Second Cat

Like any proper self-improvement program, the book Self Help for Cats of course has lots of successful cats populating its page, you know, good examples and role models, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the images generated in Hollywood and other popular folklore aren’t always the “good role model” we want for our cats.

Cats in film are a fascinating bunch, and while I briefly cover cats in film in my book, I only just recently discovered a new example of a clever cat role, this in the classic black-and-white post-war drama, The Third Man. Unfortunately, upon second viewing of the cat’s pivotal performance, the scene wherein Kitty uncovers that Orson Welles’ character is alive, well, I smelled a fish.

There was something about the shot where the cat looks up and connects with the audience - it just didn’t match. And thanks to the magic of DVD, I discovered that they slipped in a second cat for that one shot! The pattern on the second cat’s face is clearly different from the kitty in all the other scenes. I could not hardly believe it! I had discovered that there was a second cat in The Third Man.

So here I am wondering about The Second Cat these many years since the film was made. I have my theories, of course, all of them inspired by the gritty intriguing underworld of post-war Vienna… probably the first cat is out running an illegal catnip ring after faking his own death. I’m open to other conspiracies and even factual accounts, as well, dear readers.

Have you any cats in film you want to share with Self Help for Cats? Together we can be vigilant watchdogs of cats’ public image, if you can forgive my using the “d” word there.

Announcing Self Help for Cats Collector’s Postcard #1

I ordered the above free, priceless Self Help for Cats postcards from Vista Print recently. In the marketing world, this stuff is called collateral.

I have at least 15 of these original collector’s works (the postcards, that is) and each (signed and misnumbered by the author) could go to a good home for the price of merely surrendering your contact information and pledging non-binding interest in one day purchasing my book, Self Help for Cats. In other words, I’m holding these babies in collateral for your electronic vitals.

{Author’s note: I’m no spam engine here nor am I known as Can’d Spam Betty among my acquaintances.  I promise to be discrete and only spam email you at odd intervals about Self Help for Cats and my other brilliant world-changing projects.}

To get a postcard, send your:

name, email, postal address

to: selfhelpforcats (at) gmail (dot) com.

Have it say something like:

I, of sound mind and body, want Self Help for Cats or a book by a reasonably-similar title just as soon as you can publish it! I’m ready to take my cat(s) to the bank!

Can I Tax Deduct My Cat?

As with all tax questions, the answer is a definite maybe!  Any tax expert will tell you that you can deduct anything you want, but whether you get a call later from Uncle Sam’s tax cat, well, that be another story.

The good news is, there’s a precedent for tax deducting one’s cat, if only one can discover the proper job title for the animal.  Case in point, artist Joan Brown, who was able to tax deduct the entire salary and benefits package of her cats simply by placing them in her paintings and claiming them as her feline muses.

For those of us who don’t happen to make our living as famous painters, there are other ways to slip kitty onto one’s Schedule C.  You could make kitty your company mascot, paste his face on all your business documents, or even name your company after your cat.  This may work better for some industries than others.  Fuzzymoto’s Funeral Home.  Fang Face’s Plastic Surgery Services.  Hairball’s Haircuts.  You get the idea.

But this is only the beginning of cat’s future deductibility, according to the Self Help for Cats plan.  As felines become ever-more-productive members of society, eventually the IRS will just have to accept their legitimate contributions and offer them the same income tax breaks and advantages that humans have enjoyed for decades.

Small print message: The writer is hardly a cat tax expert, so please don’t sue her.

Why Cats Paint? Was That a Great Book or What??

Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics by Heather Busch and Burton Silver. If you haven’t read it what are you waiting for? There is no more mind-blowing book in the whole field or genre.

No one can or should prepare you for your first browse through this mind-blowing collection of cat artists at work. Suffice it to say, when you hand the concept of cat art over to the art snobs you might expect mixed results, but confusion over the authors’ intent is one of the most charming things about this volume.

My favorite artwork in Why Cats Paint aren’t the paintings at all, which I feel are somewhat contrived. Paint’s not the most natural medium for cats. However, some of the installations of cat sculpture done on “found” items, such as sofas and mini-blinds—these felt like true works of bad genius. Like when the cat artists interacted with his or her work, entering and exiting the giant hole they had gnawed in the sofa’s side. I really appreciate this kind of found-object sculpture if it has an interactive performance component, particularly when such works occur at other folk’s houses.

If you’ve seen/read Why Cats Paint, please drop a comment and let me know what you thought. And if you haven’t read it, you might even find Why Cats Paint at the public library, as I was able to, so well known and considered is this fantastically great cat book!

Cats: The 9500 Year Old Answer to Rats at Taco Bell

The rats at KFC/Taco Bell video points up the fact that cats have been alienated from their job-by-nature: The decimating of rodents attracted to human food resources. Normally, cats would have long ago vanquished that rodent population right out of Bell-ville.

In fact, a few enthusiastic cat volunteers saw the rat story on the TV news and said “Let us at those rat bastards,” in so many cat words.

But send in the cats and you contend with cat germs instead of rat germs, and regulation wonks with their anti-cat-in-restaurant laws have already shown that rat germs are clearly the policy-preferred. Rats in turn love us so much, they are practically domestic animals. Only they harvest off of us instead of vice versa. The nerve.

Yet if it wasn’t rats filling that niche, it might be something worse, like giant nasty spiders, so let’s go with rats, because rats keep cats in business – for now.

That’s right, even rats cannot last forever (no industry does no matter how stable). And the disturbing trend now is not to replace jobs or retrain, but rather a growing alienation between cats and work itself. Self Help for Cats, the book, offers alternatives to this latest human experiment-in-lives that has already played itself out in no doubt a lot of lost time and inefficiency on the part of some perfectly good and talented individuals – our list-less, goalless cats!

Meet the Cats behind Self Help for Cats

Having laid a foundation for the Self Help for Cats paradigm, it’s time to introduce you to the stars of the show: Brody and Herman Panther. These are the scoundrels shown hard at work/sleep in the above banner photo. Notice how they are on top of their paperwork and reading. Without these two, Self Help for Cats would be nothing at all.

The talented duo have already been featured in several newspaper articles for their incredible contributions to me, their collaborator, medium, archivist and main patron.

In the Self Help for Cats book, you will read about how Brody’s Maine Coon Cat ancestors shaped their own destiny, with romantic stories about going half-wild in New England, later kicking butt at the first American cat shows, and, later still, losing out at the same shows to prissy, “precious” breeds. The Main Coon didn’t let the public’s finicky attitude for felines get him down, no: He boarded a train to California to sire, a few generations removed, the brilliant nut-cat I found one day at the San Francisco SPCA.

It’s just part of the story behind the Self Help for Cats movement, one piece of the puzzle that adds up to the fact that cats and people are on a collision course with destiny. We sit on the verge of the lip of a whole new future, a new age in which cats and people collaborate on levels that right now we can hardly even begin to imagine.

I know this seems unfathomable to you, but trust me, with the steps and exercises in the Self Help for Cats book, redefining your felines’ future is going to be simple as pie.

All the Presidents’ Cats (or some of them, anyway)

Cats have really scratched their way to the top in America, and now it’s totally normal to even see a cat or two working in the White House itself! But what our nation’s First Cats have and haven’t accomplished once they Made It to the highest domicile of Western power only serves to reveal the entrenched obstacles remaining for catus politicus—aka Politikitty.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that the president who broke the cat barrier at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was that Union-loving, controversy-generating character known as Abraham Lincoln. Ole Honest Abe just couldn’t wait to let his little pal Tabby loose to shred Van Buren’s loveseat and the like.

What is Your Cat “Good” At?

In the interest of starting positive and staying positive, I want you to ask yourself: What is my cat “good” at?

Maybe he’s a climber, or a shredder, or watcher. Start a list of the innate talents you find in your feline friend. Then add one more talent to the list: “You.” That’s right, chances are your cat is very good at “you.” Your cat probably knows “you” pretty well, right? They know what “you” like and how to get what they like out of “you.”

Some folks would even go so far to say that “you” are your cat’s job. All of the energy they would otherwise put into terrorizing the local rat population now gets siphoned into figuring out how to get their jollies out of “you.” This is an interesting theory, but I’m not terribly interested in hiring my cats in this capacity.

The point is, your cat has got to be good at something, no matter how small or insignificant. Fortunately, the Self Help for Cats program has all the tricks you’ll ever need for discovering and exploiting your cat’s dormant talent.

Finally, Self Help for Cats

Welcome to Self Help for Cats, a site devoted to the self-improvement of house cats. The human race has not domesticated a new species in thousands of years, so we have to work with what we got.

Self Help for Cats is not so much a website or a blog as it is a world movement. Cats everywhere are taking charge of their lives and saying, “Hey, we better get with the band wagon!” After all, cats have issues to deal with – public relations issues, for one. I mean, cats are super popular number-wise, but dogs right now have them beat in the charisma category. And any cat knows that’s just plain whacko.

Of course, PR isn’t the only area where cats need a major makeover. Cats in general need a whole new career concept and a complete political rebirthing. Self Help for Cats takes on the gamut of opportunities available to help your cat realize his greatest dreams.