Science

We have three—count them, three—items today.  The first is the first known portrait of an individual cat, that is, a cat who is known to have existed as a pet and with a name:

From Strange Company,

tumblr:  Giovanni Reder, Portrait of the cat Armellino, 1750. Oil on canvas. The first known painting of an individual cat. The italian poetess Alessandra Forteguerra commissioned the artwork of her beloved tom cat. Museo di Roma.

The Mister Tristan site says this:

Very few cats can boast that they have actually had their portraits painted, that is, that they have been depicted without any allegorical, moralizing, religious, esoteric, or simply decorative intent on the part of the artist….Armellino, wearing an elegant little collar, has literally posed on a luxurious cushion; a sonnet by the abbot Bertazzi has even been dedicated to him.

Now, I can’t find a translation of that sonnet anywhere. If any reader can, or can speak Italian, please provide me with a translation. I will credit the translator and put the sonnet in this post. You can enlarge the text by clicking on it.

Reader Brooke supplied the necessary sonnet:

The translation of the sonnet in the painting can be found on this page (you have to scroll down the page quite a ways):

Sonnet to a Cat

by Abbott Bertazzi

This Cat painted here on canvas,
tasted a loving kiss from a beautiful goddess,
after having done the portrait from life,
The cat keeps himself well guarded and most jealous.
In order to keep himself fully intact,
like an Ermine who lives in fear
and to avoid being caught
flees rapidly to stay in the wood or in a more hidden place.
So you as well, oh adventurous Cat,
preserve your mouth intact and your heart pure,
and only think of the one who kissed you,
and allow only me to love you,
you who shoot a kiss,
and take back my lovely kiss to cool the passion.

The cat’s name, Armellino, apparently means ‘ermine’ in old Italian.

Another site has an excerpt about this painting from H.V. Morton’s A Traveller in Rome (1957).

In a picture gallery upstairs [in the museum of Rome] I found a portrait of a black and white cat. This lordly and imposing creature prowled the marble halls of some seventeenth century palace and is here seen enthroned upon a tasselled cushion, wearing a broad collar to which bells are attached. Pinned to a curtain behind the cat is a little poem which says that a great and beautiful lady once kissed the cat and bade him keep his heart and mouth pure, and to remember her kiss. No one knows who the lady was.

Wouldn’t “the lady” be the cat’s owner? It’s rather confusing.

There are earlier named cats, of course, including Pangur Bán (“White Pangur”), the subject of a poem written by an Irish monk in a 9th-century manuscript. It’s a wonderful poem, comparable to “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry,” by Christopher Smart, but, alas, there is no portrait of Pangur.

These are the two best cat poems ever.

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The Japan Rail Club site gives us a look at a wonderful Japanese cat train (I think there are several). The article and photos are from Carlissa Loh, and go to the site to see tons of photos. If you’re an ailurophile, you’ll want to take this train.

Click below to read and see photos, alo by Carlisa Loh:

Excerpts:

Would you take a 1.5-hour train in the Wakayama (和歌山) countryside just to see a cat? Many people would, and many have! In fact, it was thanks to a beloved cat, Tama, that one railway line was revitalised and saved from closure.

The railway line was Wakayama Electric Railway’s Kishigawa Line (貴志川線), and in January 2007, Tama (たま), a female calico cat, became the station master of Kishi Station (貴志駅).

Here’s Tama, the subject of a Wikipedia article in Japanese that autotranslates into English. It says, among other stuff, this:

Tama ( also known as Stationmaster Tama ; April 29 , 1999 ( Heisei 11) – June 22, 2015 (Heisei 27 )) was a cat and the honorary permanent stationmaster of Kishi Station on the Wakayama Electric Railway ‘s Kishigawa Line .

She was a female calico cat kept at the station’s convenience store and became an idol , like a maneki -neko (beckoning cat), before eventually becoming the station’s official mascot (a unique stationmaster, or cat stationmaster ) with the title of ” stationmaster ” and becoming world-famous . [ 3 ] She is now the station’s honorary permanent stationmaster.

On January 5, 2007, he was officially appointed as the stationmaster by the Wakayama Electric Railway, which caused quite a stir . [ 3 ] His main job was to “welcome customers,” and he is said to have not only attracted customers to Kishi Station, but also brought about the Heisei era cat boom, ” nekonomics ,” in Japan . [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] He was employed for life with no term limit , and his annual salary was one year’s worth of cat food .

Tama died in 2015, age 16.

But the Japan Rail Club says there’s a new stationmaster cat:

Her role of station master at Kishi Station was assumed by another beautiful calico cat, Nitama (ニタマ literarally “Tama two”), for whom curious travellers and excited fans alike travel all the way to the quiet station in Wakayama Prefecture.

Here is Nitama from CNN:

Nitama — the new stationmaster of Kishi Station in Wakayama Prefecture — has been praised for her “hat-wearing” skills. courtesy Ryobi Group

Notes (indented) and 3 photos from Carlissa Loh:

As a tribute to Tama, Wakayama Electric Railway started operating the Tama Densha train (たま電車), an adorable train with an exterior decorated 101 drawings of Tama donning a station master’s hat in various poses. Affectionately called “Tamaden”, the train’s front even has ears and whiskers, how cute is that? As a self-professed noritetsu, I love riding special trains, and knew I had to make room in my trip to take a ride on this train and pay a visit to Nitama.

Inside the train, there were even more darling drawings and decals of Tama adorning the windows and walls, and since it was the New Year’s period when I visited, there weren’t many other passengers, so I could take photos to my heart’s content.

The Tama Densha is made up of two carriages, and each one is furnished with wooden seats of varying designs of shades of orange, black, and white, and just oozed comfort and cosiness. The train was designed by Mitooka Eiji (水戸岡 鋭治), who has designed many memorable sightseeing trains such as the luxury cruise train Seven Stars in Kyushu, many of JR Kyushu’s D&S Trains, Kyoto Tango Railway’s sightseeing trains, and more.

I’d surely ride this train if I went to Japan (one of my dream destinations)!

More photos and info at the site.

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And from Defector, Alex Sujong Laughlin interviews his cat Pong about the cat’s obnoxious behaviors. Click below to read:

Excerpts by Laughlin are indented:

Like every other member of my generation who has put off traditional markers of adulthood, like home ownership and having children, I am completely, utterly devoted to my cat, Pong. In the five years he’s lived with us, Pong has evolved from the scrawny street cat we adopted in the Union Square Petco to the ruler of our household. We often quote a decade-old Adam Serwer tweet about his own cats: Management doesn’t need a union.

We’ve invented a rich mythology for Pong’s inner life over the last five years. His hardscrabble early years taught him to flirt and charm for his meals on the streets of Harlem, where he developed his taste for French fries, noodles, and pizza. He ran with a tough crew that wasn’t afraid to get into scraps if he needed to assert dominance. He inherited his asthma and anxiety from his mother (me), and he spends his days working hard (sleeping on a chair in my office) for the money to pay our rent.

In any relationship, you fall into rhythms built around each other’s quirks and scar tissue. This is true even—or maybe especially—when the relationship is with an animal who cannot speak English. We’ve come to accept his most annoying behaviors; his loafing on our backs at 5 a.m. like a sleep paralysis demon is just a part of life with Pong, as are the lost hours of sleep and frequent yelling when he can’t find us in the house. \

I got a recommendation for a pet communicator, whose identity I’m keeping private at their request, and booked a 30-minute session with them. We met on Zoom, and when they started looking for his energy, they asked if he’s a male, six to eight years old, who’s very sure of himself. Pong was sleeping next to me in a little kitty croissant but the communicator couldn’t see him on screen. I told them they had the right guy.

What follows is an interview with Pong, through the communicator, which I’ve edited for clarity.

Just two Q&A’s via the pet communicator:

Can you tell me anything about your life before you came to live with us? 

There wasn’t a loving family, but there were two or three people who took care of me on the street. There was one man who I had a strong relationship with. There was a misunderstanding, the people tried to bring me into the house, and then took me away.

(This made me think of Alex, the doorman who apparently fed him when he was a stray, and who he was named for when he was brought to Union Square. Yes, we should’ve kept that name.)

. . .I appreciate that. OK, one last question. Sometimes you’ll crawl up onto my lap and be really sweet and snuggly, and then out of nowhere you’ll start attacking me, biting me and breaking skin. It really sucks when that happens! What’s going on? 

Sometimes I feel like I’m back on the street and it just happens. It feels right in the moment, but when you get upset I feel ashamed. I saw the tissues with the blood last week and I feel bad. It’s not your fault.

There’s a lot more Q&A at the site.

h/t: Malcolm, Ginger K.

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Did you spot the spider in this morning’s post?  Here’s the original photo:

The reveal:

It’s ready for its closeup:

. . . and a running crab spider (the tentative ID) from Wikipedia:

Bruce Marlin, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Waste from old landfill sites is spilling onto beaches as rising seas erode coastlines - and some of it is toxic