Oscar

OscarInSunshine
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

That's a photo of Oscar -- so named because he was Wilde -- my friend M's cat who died suddenly yesterday. He was only eight. Poor M distraught: was it stress? (She introduced another rescue cat, and he and Oscar did not get on. But Tau's been there for well over a year.) Have been trying to reassure her that Oscar was a happy kitty -- he was eating well, being as sociable as he could manage, not exhibiting stressy behaviour -- and that there are worse ways for a cat to go than suddenly, to a heart attack, as he's about to have his breakfast.

He was born feral, and she gave him six or seven years of quiet domestic life with a lovely garden to prowl and sunny beds to lie on, and fish cooked just for him, and affection when he wanted it. Who knows what happened to him pre-Kew, or what long-term effects his early life might have had?

But he was happy with M. Which is what counts.

No more cat-deaths this week pls.

2010/18: Her Fearful Symmetry -- Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry -- Audrey Niffenegger

She wanted to walk until she was exhausted enough to sleep. Instead she went into her office and looked out at the front garden in the moonlight. Let me go, she asked of whatever held her there. I want to die now, please; really die and be gone. She waited, but there was no response. Please, God, or whoever you are, please let me go. She looked out at the garden, up at the sky. Nothing happened. She understood then that no one was listening. Anything that happened to her now would be her own doing. (p.206)

( non-spoilery review )

Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for health supplements | Information Is Beautiful

Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for health supplements | Information Is Beautiful

Via BoingBoing, a clever and effective marriage of graphic and content: maps alternative remedies / treatments by effectiveness, popularity etc.

2010/19: Anil's Ghost -- Michael Ondaatje

Anil's Ghost -- Michael Ondaatje

The streets were still streets, the citizens remained citizens. They shopped, changed jobs, laughed. Yet the darkest Greek tragedies were innocent compared with what was happening here. Heads on stakes. Skeletons dug out of a cocoa pit in Matale. At university Anil had translated lines from Archilocus -- in the hospitality of war we left them their dead to remember us by. But here there was no such gesture to the families of the dead, not even the information of who the enemy was. (p.11)

( slightly spoilery review )

2010/20: The Sacred Book of [the] Werewolf -- Victor Pelevin

The Sacred Book of [the] Werewolf -- Victor Pelevin

We feel for a man's secret heartstrings, and when we find them we play 'Ride of the Valkyries' on them, and that brings down the entire edifice of the personality. In fact, nowadays that's not so very terrible. The edifice of the modern personality is more like a dugout than anything else -- there's nothing in it to collapse, and its conquest hardly requires any effort at all. (p. 95)

( non-spoilery review )