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Indiespensable
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Fup. Store Cat.

Chapter 59

In Loving Memory
Fup. Store Cat.
1988 — 2007
fup 18 fup 19
Click here for details on our specially designed Fup. Store Cat. T-shirts!
Fup. Store Cat.
Fup watercolor courtesy of reader Linda McDougall. Click here for a larger view.
Bear
bear 		Zooey
zooey

see Fup's photo album

"Cats eat birds to swallow song," Fup explains to her niece, Socks.

Socks stares at the painting some more.

Bear adds, "The cat singing on the roof — her name was Ah Choo."

"Lifetimes ago," Bear continues, "Ah Choo devised a clever plan to capture the most melodious bird in the forest. She wanted to eat the bird, but other cats scoffed: 'Why not just eat rats and mice?' they asked. 'Why chase birds who'll simply fly off into some high tree? That Ah Choo is a fool,' they said.

"But Ah Choo's plan worked, and when she ate that tuneful bird immediately her lungs filled with song. From that day forward, Ah Choo sang all day long, every day — often from the roof of tall buildings (to stand among the birds, legend says). Gorgeous arias, simple folk tunes, traditional ballads... song after song after song.

"Below on the ground, scores of cats gathered, entranced by her voice, which was unlike anything they'd heard before, more beautiful than any sound they'd imagined. In it they recognized the spirit of the songbird, but now it arrived from a different instrument. This was a cat singing — a cat, singing! Squirrels and skunks, chipmunks and monkeys, even snakes would follow the sound to its source and gather to listen in those dusty lots and shady doorways. They'd listen, enraptured, for hours."

Socks reconsiders the faces in the hypnotized crowd, the tiny shapes of birds clustered among foliage in the distance. The nameplate beneath the painting reads, "Oboe."

Fup confides, "They say the first oboe was carved to mimic Ah Choo's song — slippery as a bird's, but fuller, richer, rounder. Still today, the oboe's sound fills birds with an awful, unnamable dread."

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The Trip to Kahani

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Read the press release.

Follow the links to more Fup adventures
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Fup's Picks

That Cat That Changed My Life: 50 Cats Talk About How They Became Who They Are That Cat That Changed My Life: 50 Cats Talk About How They Became Who They Are
by Bruce Eric Kaplan

"All these cats lead exciting and varied lives wholly independent of the human race," notes the editor in his Introduction. Well, duh. Scant attention has been paid to the role of community in modern cat culture, so what a relief that here, finally, fifty articulate felines set the record straight. Funny, sad, occasionally shocking, but never less than true, these brave monologues reaffirm our interdependency in ways that choreographed public displays such as Paws Across America never can.

Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs
by Amy Hempel

In "Dog Kibble," Tasha Baxter's verse exhibits a brutal economy of words: "Life is never meaningless," her villanelle announces, "there is always food." Here and throughout this collection these authors demand your attention, as if to bark, "You can send me to my room for yelling at the neighbors but you cannot silence what woofs in my heart!" Among the selections nominated for Best American Writing by Pets 2000 are Bob Barker Barry's sordid and hilarious hallucinogenic escapades with Lynda; a tragic, posthumous prose poem by Marrow Irving; and Sadie Louise Lamott's "Spoon River Sadie Louise," a wildly metered exploration of the cross-cultural dynamics within a household occupied by dogs, cats, birds, and small children. The sheer intellect of these collected pieces will renew your faith in dogs.

Is Your Cat Too Fat?Is Your Cat Too Fat?
by Bronwen Meredith

Too fat for what? And what business is it of this Meredith person's anyway? Bronwen sounds like the kind of lady I wouldn't like at all.

 
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