It’s not that I don’t like cats; I just disagree with them. It could be a primal opposition, but I doubt my uncertainty and assume it fact. Point is, my feelings are completely instinctive.

Domesticated house cats obviously pale in comparison to their sabre-toothed ancestors, and it’s not that I still fear them, but I certainly don’t like them in my domain.

I have no problem with my problem with territorial animals on my territory. That is to say, it’s not wrong that I should like to ensure my garden receives minimal fecal deposits.

Otherwise, cats and I get on very well. They can have a stroke if I find myself encroaching on their lounge, or bedroom. It’s their ‘owners’ I feel sorry for. Mostly because they call themselves ‘owners,’ when in fact they’ve completely misunderstood the relationship.

I also find the way cats move enchanting — I envy that agility, and that genetic disposition for hunting in the sneakiest, pounce-iest way. I just don’t need their fur all over my clothes.

The Video

The text from the above video was written for my Writing for Images module from last semester. The exercise was to write using a particular verse such as Triolet or Villanelle. I ended up with more of a Tri-llanelle with no real meter. Never mind.

I guess a cat had left a deposit somewhere recently to the writing because I don’t remember struggling to write it. Words don’t usually come so easy. In the script, I’m referring mostly to an old friend’s cat who was rather fat, and mostly slept on their front lawn.

When it came to the visual response, I decided it best that the narrator of this video be slightly older and slightly more dialectical than I am. It sounds ridiculous but I had to spend some time relearning my west country mother tongue. Which reminded me much of that scene where Gaius Baltar talks about his Aerolon roots. I knocked down the pitch a bit to take some of my twenty-something-year-old and nasal timbre out.

Then I animated it, in the fastest, cheapest way I could. Took some inspiration from this lovely animation, The Man with the Beautiful Eyes, and well, you see the result. It may seem a little lazy with the background and the mere 8fps, but I had a lot to work on at this point with Boyhood and that. Forgive me.