September 25, 2004

• Since you
• Based on the mismatched eyes, I say Delirium. Or Bowie.
• I've always been partial to Chairman Meow, or possibly Dog
• A friend of a friend has a cat named Tree.
• Not very good at naming animals until I've been around them awhile and assessed their personality. Off the top of my head "flea" comes to mind or "mewler", finally one based on word play, "astro" from catastrophe. My grandmother had a cat that they named when they first got her. Family quickly proceeded to give a nic name, "mother cat" and for 22 years that was what she responded to. I remember asking once what the cats real name was and no one in the family could remember it.
• How about "Irony' in honour of the 'inverted commas' on her forehead?
• Name her Goddamnitgetdown.
• Hold the cat in your lap. Pet it a bit. Close your eyes. Think about the cat, it's nature, what its character seems like to you. Then choose the first appropriate name that comes into your head. Should suit it. If this doesn't work, then I suggest treat the cat as if it is a human being. What would its name be if it were human? All of my cats have for one reason or another taken 'people-names'. Such as Mr. Norton Weeney (disappeared believed dead) Or like Mr. Bentley Denton (demised). Or Errol (deceased), Boris (passed on). Still living feline associate Conrad also conforms to this pattern. This has never been a conscious choice, it just always seems that cats are 'people' to me & I dislike giving them names like 'Tiddles' or 'Fluffy', tho they'll always collect nicknames. When I was a kid we had a white cat called Ahazarus. That was a good name. Old-timey classical names suit a highfalutin' cat, particularly one that has been Presaged & Foretold by Signs & Portents, such as your new moggie. Perhaps a mystical-type name? How about Cheiro (pr. Ky-Ro)? Hephziba ('my delight is in her' in Hebrew)? Or something along those lines? Otherwise, remember the words of The Old Possum: "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, it isn't just one of your holiday games - you may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter, when I tell you a cat must have three different names..." Anyway, no doubt you'll come up with something. Good luck! /tip o' the cat [P.S. before I posted this, the Biblical name MEHITABEL jumped out at me from the same list where I got the meaning for Hephziba. 3 days ago my Grandma discussed, unprompted, reading the comic 'Archie & Mehitabel' in her childhood. Only a week before this I'd heard the same name while reading about George Herriman - the artist who created Krazy Kat - he'd illustrated 'Archie & Mehitabel'. This wasn't connected to the discussion. Never up until this point had I encountered the name. Ever noticed how this happens? Synchronicity at work again.]
• Congratulations, BlueHorse. Wot you have is a Jellicle cat, according to T. S. Eliot. Always thought Rum Tum Tugger a nice name. Mungojerrie, Rumpelteazer, Macavity (the mystery cat), Skimbleshanks -- Eliot offers some amusing cat names. -- Shakespeare had a number of memorable heroines -- Miranda, Portia, Beatrix -- and then the fairy na,mes -- Ariel. Moth, etc might give inspiration -- Allapoosa (because of the dramatic marking, though I will concede this might be present some awkwardnesses if one's hprsey friends don't possess much sense of humour) -- after an attribute, like her whiteness -- Snowball[-from/in-Hell, depending on her temperament], Banshee [perhaps depending on her voal character], Frost, etc -- if you have any type-fonts you are partial to, might find a name that way -- Lucinda, etc -- odd words, I know you have a thesaurus -- Mischief (never knew a kitten this didn't suit), Merrylegs, Meg Merrilies, Pangur Ban, Ban Righ (Gaelic for White Queen), Zephyr, Zephronia, Humbug The naming of cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter When I tell you a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there's the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey -- All of them sensible, everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -- But all of them sensible, everyday names. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular, A name that's peculiar and more dignified, Else how can he kepp up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -- Names that never belong to more than one cat. -- T. S. Eliot, "The Naming of Cats"
• My first kitty had one yellow eye, one blue eye, and was white all over except for gray tiger fur right between her ears. I named her Bowie (he has two different colored eyes, and strange hairstyles - hey I was 14, I thought it was clever). She was a shelter kitty. I miss her.
• I thought Jellicle cats were black and white? We call my cat Moxy a Jellicle cat. Jellicle cats are black and white, Jellicle cats are rather small...
• Oh, and I always thought Pussy Galore would be a good name for a cat.
• If you go with something like Chariman Meow, as Suomynona said, why not just go with Chairman Mao. It sounds better, and in Chinese (depending on the tone used), mao can mean cat. Just a thought if you truly were headed in that direction.
• One of our cats picked his name. We were having a conversation in which the word cous-cous came up several times. Every time he heard it the cat would roll around on the floor in obvious delight. Turned out to be a good name - when he was being very good, we could call him Kiss Kiss, and when her was very bad, he became Cuss Cuss. When he used to sit on top of the tv with a sneer on his face and try to hook you with claws as you went by, he was Matango the Fungus of Terror. (Well, yeah, the last one doesn't fit the pattern, but it did the situation.)
• The last three cats I've helped to rescue became named Alchemy, Wicket and Banjo and I've already decided if I ever get another cat, it's going to be named Pickles.
• Heaven, a gateway, a hope Just like a feeling I need, it's no joke And though it hurts me to see you this way Betrayed by words, I'd never heard, too hard to say Up, down, turn around Please don't let me hit the ground Tonight I think I'll walk alone I'll find my soul as I go home Each way I turn, I know I'll always try To break this circle that's been placed around me From time to time, I find I've lost some need That was urgent to myself, I do believe Oh, you've got green eyes Oh, you've got blue eyes Oh, you've got grey eyes And I've never seen anyone quite like you before No, I've never met anyone quite like you before - "Temptation" by New Order
• Bluehorse...can we see a pic? That would help with the naming. I have 2 meowmakers, Zero (coz his IQ is approximately 0,) and Ginja - coz she's a ginger tabby. It also appears i've been adopted by a stray calico mama and her two kittenses, (the mama responds to Here Kitty, and the babies are unofficially Booger and Patches). Hmm...i think i'm becoming the cat lady... somebody hope me!
• I had an artist friend whose cat was named Mehitabel. Fabulous cat, fabulous name. When I was a kid, every cat we ever had was named "Morris". We couldn't be troubled with originality. I had another friend who named his cat "Heavenhelpuss". Shortened to a variety of names such as; Heavy, Heavehell, Helpuss, Heavenly, etc... You get the picture.
• A cautionary tale: I once rescued a tiny kitten, all black and affectionate as could be. I accidentally started calling him 'Bitty-Butt' and the name stuck to him like..like..something really sticky. It was embarassing to bring a full-grown cat into a new vet's office and saying 'His name is Bitty-Butt' Not that the cat was embarassed. He only spoke Sanskrit.
• Burt is good. you can make it sound cat-like.
• OK, PatB, I'll bite -- how do you make butt sound cat-like? Best I seem able to do is motor-boat noises, rather putta putta putta.
• no no no no no, beeswacky its BuRt. (And stop biting, it isn't nice unless you're asked.)
• oops. beeswacky. sheesh.
• ...isn't nice unless you're asked... Heh. Just cat-astrophic. Unless askin' nine lives? Bad jokes for Pat; I tease an honorary B. Don't pun-ish, please.
• I'm gonna say Bowie is the canonical name in this case.
• BlueHorse, I kinda hate to ask, but is it possible the poor kitty was trying to get into the pound because its mommy was in there? God, the suicide and beheading threads have got me all maudlin. Ok, back to names. (she said chipperly) A kitten who was difficult to dislodge from clothing was called 'Sticky.' A cat who brought home a dead weasel, which I stepped on in the wee small hours of the morning became 'The Erminator' in spite of the fact that weasels are not and have never been ermine. A cat who showed up one day, skinny and beat up and maybe 4ish years old was named Hobo. As long as you didn't get between him and his food, he was happy to be the man of the house...even scratched the nose of a garbage-stealing dog (who, needless to say, never came back)...get between him and his food and he'd rip your face off. Say, is this kitten a colon or a semicolon? An honorary B is me!Yippee Skippee!
• Jellicle cats are white and black, Jellicle cats are of moderate size; Jellicles jump like a jumping-jack, Jellicle cats have moonlit eyes. They're quiet enough in the morning hours, They're quiet enough in the afternoon, Reserving their terpsichorean powers To dance by the light of the Jellicle moon. --T. S. Eliot, "The Song of the Jellicles"
• This kitten sounds adorable -- any chance you could post a pic for us?
• How about Alice B. Toeclaws? Begs for a special friend named Purrtrude Stein...
• If people are voting, I would second tracicle's suggestion of Delirium, and reccomend the Sandman graphic novels to go with :)
• Call her commie, for the commas in her head and so that you can have a reason to yell "damn commie" once in a while.
• Wow, so many great names. I'll have to sit and contemplate, as Nostril mentioned. Pic will be posted as soon as I can get her to hold still long enough--today I took about 15 pics of the tip of her nose, her butt, three paws, her left ear, etc. PatB: As thin as she is, I don't think she's seen momma in a long while, but I did think of that and call the pound. No nursing mums or anything that had given birth recently. These answers all made me smile--you Monkeys are such a great bunch o'banana luvers!
• Some of my favorite poems about cats: The cat's song--Marge Piercy Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness. My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing milk from his mother's forgotten breasts. Let us walk in the woods, says the cat. I'll teach you to read the tabloid of scents, to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt. Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat. You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends, says the cat, although I am more equal than you. Can you leap twenty times the height of your body? Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs? Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch. My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard. My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings walking round and round your bed and into your face. Come I will teach you to dance as naturally as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long. I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers. Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass. unnamed--William Cowper A poet's cat sedate and grave As poet well could wish to have, Was much addicted to inquire For nooks, to which she might retire, And where, secure as mouse in chink, She might repose, or sit and think. I know not where she caught the trick - Nature perhaps had cast her In such a mould philosophique Or else she learn'd it of her master. Cats sleep fat--Rosalie Moore Cats sleep fat and walk thin. Cats, when they sleep, slump; When they wake, pull in - And where the plump's been There's skin. Cats walk thin. Cats wait in a lump, Jump in a streak. Cats, when they jump, are sleek As a grape slipping its skin- They have technique. Oh, cats don't creak. They sneak. Cats sleep fat. They spread comfort beneath them Like a good mat, As if they picked the place And then sat. You walk around one As if he were City Hall After that. If male, A cat is apt to sing upon a major scale: This concert is for everybody, this Is wholesale. For a baton, he wields a tail. (He is also found, When happy, to resound With an enclosed and private sound.) A cat condenses. He pulls in his tail to go under bridges, And himself to go under fences. Cats fit In any box or kit; And if a large pumpkin grew under one, He could arch over it. When everyone else is just ready to go out, The cat is just ready to come in, He's not where he's been. Cats sleep fat and walk thin. Thomas o' Malley--?? Thomas o' Malley is a ginger tabby with sleek body that's not flabby He was somehow, by persons unknown, discarded, but with us found a home. He has lazy green eyes and pink nose always sitting in comfortable pose. Thomas is not just an ordinary good cat, at times he's worse than a stinking rat. He talks to his human in various sounds as they, in the garden, do their rounds. He has his comments and criticisms of the layout, watering and schisms. Thomas is a connoiseur and taster of food as he'll not eat if not in the right mood. He looks with disdain on the other cats as they scramble for cookie rats. He'll have fish biscuits, if you please, not on the floor in the dirt and fleas. Oh, shoot, how can I not share Don Marquis or Yeats or Eliot's Skimbleshanks or Morley's Taffy Topez? I've 14 pages of cat poems I love, excluding what Bees has quoted, and if anyone wants more, email me.(If you've got one, or ten, you like, email me. fetlocks@hotmail.com
• For once, one of my jokes is relevant! What's the difference between a cat and a comma? A comma is a pause at the end of a clause. . .
• You could name her Amelia or Beryl after a great adventurer. Here's a list of more real life tough chicks, 'cause your new puddytat seems to be one tough cookie. And very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Ook, that gives me another idea. Call her "Fu" after the Chinese character for blessing, good fortune or good luck. Plus she'll be eating lots of Cat Fu to get strong and grow into a Kung Fu kitty.
• Here she is: da puddytat!
• Is her name Shadow Illuminator?
• She's a canadian mall?
• This kitten o' yours, bears a certain resemblance to a close-up of a piece of cork, best I can make out. Wot am I doing wrong now?
• bears a resemblance to a close-up
• of a pieve of cork, best I can make out. Wot am I doing wrong?
• All I got was a gate, in a brick wall. Drop me an email if you need to, Blue - I'll pop her up on my website temporarily... I gots ta see dis puss! And I like Commie. I really do.
• Commie eyes Commie quotation marks More quote marks This post brought to you care of net2ftp.com, allowing me to bypass this STUPIDFLIPPINGWORKFIREWALL that blocks ftp. GAH! *ahem* It's a cool util, though.
• I repeat my Delirium suggestion. Man, that's a cool-looking cat. Kittenbashi?
• Dogenbashi: Destroyer of worlds might be more appropriate... ;)
• She's very intelligent-looking. I'm liking all the plays on "Comma." I went looking for praises of the comma and found this (from a Time magazine essay by Pico Iyer in 1988): "The gods, they say, give breath, and they take it away. But the same could be said - could it not? - of the humble comma. Add it to the present clause, and, all of a sudden, the mind is, quite literally, given pause to think; take it out, if you wish or forget it and the mind is deprived of a resting place. Yet still the comma gets no respect. It seems just a slip of a thing, a pedant's tick, a blip on the edge of our consciousness, a kind of printer's smudge almost. Small, we claim, is beautiful (especially in the age of the microchip). Yet what is so often used, and so rarely recalled, as the comma - unless it be breath itself." Let us know what you come up with!
• Generalissimo Weenis.
• Think ye ought to0 name her Vamp, , for this minx has what I suspect is a spuriously demure expression.
• Blue and green, they say, should never be seen. Since this is, thusly, the cat who walks unseen, I think it is a Phantom. Or, in the Sandman vein, how about Bast?
• BlueHorse, your kitten's commas look more like horns to me. So perhaps it would be appropriate to mention here that I, for one, welcome our new stray kitten overlords. Give the wee one a few days to adjust to her new surroundings, allow her personality to grow, and the name will come to you.
• Now that is one nifty looking cat! a commendable cat. and possibly a conversational cat?
• Many thanks, Ccoriolisdave, for posting the pics for me after I blundered in setting up the gallery. (waste of everyone's time) PatB, the jury's still out on whether she is a commendable cat--although she has been working to decimate the moth population--that bodes ill for the mice--but she certainly is conversational. Look at the conversation she generated here! Actually, she's quite talky, especially when fed, when petted, or when she sees anyone after a long absence--say 4 minutes ;) She hasn't mentioned her name to me yet, but I've been staring at the walls, occasionally go into a fugue state, and have paused while slipping into a comma right now thinking about it. I think a name with a bad pun attached or one that lends itself to silly changes would be appropriate--she's a silly acting girl and clowns for attention. Something like .... CommaKazy? Hmmmm, that's not quite it. Please keep suggesting, there's plenty of good ones here--makes me want to be a crazy cat lady so I can have cats named Irony, Cheiro, Kung Fu-puss, Vamp, Weenis, and Purrlieu (and this puss, of course.)
• I dunno about that fugue stuff, BlueHorse, I tried that with my Manx and the name that slowly surfaced from the True Name Place was...Beezwax. Now, this name actually fits him, and lends itself to lotsa wordplay, but its hardly as profound as he truly deserves. Then again, this is the cat who brought home his first kill, all proud mrowring and dropped it right into my lap. It was a green and pink plastic kazoo, and it had volcanic ash on it because a volcano had spit up the week before and ash doesn't melt.
• I hate to say this, but looking at the pics of your cat -- she kinda reminds me of Marilyn Manson.
• Nomen: Well, she's a howler, alright. Eeek. Have to have the cat named by tomorrow, otherwise, husband says he will start calling her "Stinky."
• He can call her Stinky all he wants, but if that's not her name it won't stick. Or surround her like an aura. unless she turns out to be a stinkin' commie.
• Monkey?
• what an awesome kitty!!! yowsa. i'd go with Umlaut.
• How about Amphora or Ampersat (other names for the @ symbol, which is also known as a little cat, monkey's tail or monkey's testicle in other languages) or call her Ampercat.
• Puddytatter? if she is a scratcher; Swipe, if she proves to be a snatcher of moths or mice; Bracket, for the way her horns are placed to either side of her face. Bantam, for her size, though that may change; and then there's Hazard, or Random, or Eerie, Spry, Swift, Runcible, or Phantom.
• WOW SIDEDISH! That's it! Umlaut it is. Already we've started calling her by her pet names: Umlauty, Umy-Fu, Lazy Laut, Um-worm. Bees' poem was read at the official christening ceremony, and an admonition to stay away from kazoos and stick to mice was given. great story, PatB Shinything: Now I need to go find another kitty to call Ampercat to add to Irony, Cheiro, Kung Fu-puss, Vamp, Weenis, and Purrlieu and Umlaut Crazy catladyhood, here I come.
• Many thanks to all who contributed to the Naming of The Cat.
• Congratulations to you, BlueHorse! And to Umlaut for so cunningly inserting herself into a home where she'll be appreciated.
• Mirrors are not more wrapped in silence nor the arriving dawn more secretive; you, in the moonlight, are that panther figure which we can only spy at from a distance.... Your back allows the tentative caress my hand extends. And you have condescended since that eternity, by now forgotten, to take love from a flattering human hand. You live in other time, lord of your realm -- a world as closed and separate as dream. -- Jorge Luis Borges, from "To a Cat" How nicely a cat sleeps, sleeps with its paws and its gravity, sleeps with its cruel claws, and with its sanguinary blood, sleeps with all the rings which, like burnt circles, compose the geology of a tail the color of sand. I would like to sleep like a cat with all the hairs of time, with the tongue of flint, with the dry sex of fire and after speaking to no one stretch myself over the whole world, over the roof-tiles and the ground, intensely determined to go hunting the rats of dream. --Pablo Neruda, from "Cats' Dream"
• Mmmmm. Very nice, Bees. That Neruda, he's sure the cat's whiskers, isn't he?
• One from the long-storied Isle of Man: The Manx Cat The Manx cat comes to you by day, A friendly cat, they all say. He'll not refuse gentle stroking, A heart that's soft, forget all grudging. He looks for love that's out of measure, Filling his body with wholesome treasure. But then he's taken off so fast, Into a basket he is cast. What sad deceit has crept up now, Earning money for thieves somehow, Yes, now he's going far from home, Ripped by force, adrift, alone. No longer simple, pure and clean, For him, a trap that's dirty, not serent. Poor Manx cat, what can we do? Melt away fast, Manxmen true? We can stand and scratch and shout Not for us the boat and out. Maybe there's no answering, What's left is caterwauling. -- Brian Stowell