Gig poster – The Harvest

My girlfriend Robyn pointed out this gig poster last night at the Fairview (we were there to check out my friend Mike’s band, Beluga, more about which later). Never heard of any of the bands, but if they’re playing the Fairview they probably do a classic rock cover or two (Beluga played “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “L.A. Woman”, among others).

A gig poster for an upcoming show at the Fairview Pub. Cats!

I checked The Harvest’s website and they’re definitely a blues-rawk outfit. They’re fronted by Shauna Meloche and one of their songs is called “A Pothead’s Life”, which means they could probably comfortably fit on a bill with last night’s headliner.

RIP Willow, an East Van cat

Willow the Cat thank you note. Shawn Conner photo

This kills me…

We saw this this morning, coming home from Sunday branch. It just happened a few nights ago, on Thursday… I had no idea. I guess a cat named Willow got hit by a car near the intersection near my building and some people tried to help the critter.

What really gets me is the note of forgiveness at the end.

My own cats are going 17 years now; I’ll be lucky to squeeze three or four more years of life out of them, I guess. I can’t imagine how I’ll feel when they’re gone.

The other day I saw a guy buying tins of cat food at a nearby supermarket. We struck up a conversation about cats. “Cats not kids, that’s my mantra,” said the guy, who looked like he might be around my age (46), give or take a few years.

(Strangely, later that evening at the Mountain Goats show at the Rio Theatre one of the items for sale at the merch table was a slip mat that said “No Children”. It’s the name of one of the band’s songs and popular enough for people to have yelled out requests for it at the show.)

I don’t know what I’m getting at here, except maybe that if you don’t have kids then pets become the receptacles of all that otherwise-unused emotion. And R.I.P. Willow. My heart goes out to the grieving owner(s).

Missing cat poster (East Van)

Have you seen this critter? A missing cat poster spotted recently in East Vancouver.

My cousin sent me this. I’d seen the poster around – I think on Woodland near First. Unfortunately you can’t see the phone number in this image. Heartbreaking. Let’s find this cat!

East Van cat party

Cats in East Vancouver, May 24, 2012. Robyn Hanson photo

My girlfriend took this photo on the way out of my building on East 2nd Ave near Commercial last night around 6 p.m. This is in the backyard of the punk rock house next door. The grey furball is my cat, Max; the other two are neighbourhood felines. There’s something going on, though I’m not sure what; no wonder he was so eager to go outside.

 

The Coen Brothers’ next movie

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= 2012 Academy Award winner?

Just came across this item in the New York Times‘ arts and entertainment section for April 24 2011 (I’m writing this June 25, which gives you some idea of the lag-time in my reading material).

In a feature in which the Times‘ movie critics answer readers’ questions, one Kathie Moon of Sarasota, Fla. asks: “Why did the Coen Brothers leave out the cat character, General Stirling Price, in True Grit? I thought this film was a faithful re-adaptation of the book with the usual Coen flourishes, but I missed the cat.”

In their answer, Times movie critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott respond that they “went right to the source” (the Coens, presumably) who responded with, “We would have included the character of General Sterling Price, but our next movie is all about a cat. Seriously.”

Hmm… take that “seriously” with a grain of salt: there’s nothing on Wikipedia about a next project being about a cat, and Joel Coen‘s IMDB allows only that a movie called Gambit, with a script by the Coens, is in production.

So fingers crossed that their really is a top-secret Coen Brothers cat project in the offing… imagine the possibilities: a remake of Disney’s That Darn Cat… a cat who solves a murder mystery… a sequel to No Country for Old Men called No Country for Old Cats… okay, we’ll stop right there.