Tag: clowder

Today’s Birthday: Alastair Ian Stewart

Al Stewart was born September 5, 1945 in Glasgow, Scotland. He writes and sings what might best be called historic folk-rock. One of my favorite songs by Al Stewart is 1976’s Year of the Cat.  Some years ago I met my sister Pam in London and took her to Cats for her birthday.

“Jadi!” Pam whispered towards the end of the show. “Why is that prostitute cat climbing a ladder to heaven??” 

“Uh, Pam,” I whispered back. “Think! What has nine lives?”

But back to Year of the Cat…. The lyrics begin like this:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat
– Source: LyricFind; Songwriters: Alistair Ian Stewart / Peter John Wood
Year of the Cat lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Carlin America Inc.

***

Songwriting doesn’t get any better than this. In his honor here is the post I wrote about his feline friends. – Jadi

I used to lead a writers’ group. I once compared the job to herding cats and the group loved the description. It became one of my official titles: Jadi Campbell, Herder of Cats.

You want us to do what? Seriously?

Try to herd cats sometime; it simply can’t be done. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine a basket in the middle of a long room. The basket opens up and out pop fifteen cats of all ages and breeds. Can you picture them? Long hair, short hair, Manx, kittens, tomcats, calico, tiger striped, Egyptian, Persian, running, sitting abruptly to wash a paw, tumbling, chasing one another, purring, wandering away in all directions. Now, keeping your eyes closed, try to get those cats to all head in the same direction – the one that YOU want them to go in.

Go away, I’m busy

You will open your eyes and comprehend it is impossible to get a single cat to do what you want them to, much less a clowder of them. [1] Not only that: you start sneezing, because you’ve discovered you’re allergic.

Waiting for the rest of the clowder in Portugal

NOTES: [1] Yet another word to describe a group of cats is a pounce of pussies. Even better is the definition for a group of feral felines: A destruction of wild cats. © Jadi Campbell 2017. Previously published as The Animal Kingdom: A Clowder. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.

Broken In: A Novel in Stories was  semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. The Trail Back Out was American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Here’s the annual round-up of my blog offerings. I grew insanely prolific this year, and went from biweekly posts to once a week. Happy Holidays and we’ll meet again in 2018. —Jadi

Art: Burma took center stage with A Burmese Spirit Guide and Sand Paintings. Food as Art was a tasty diversion. Andalusia was featured in Granada Heights, Alhambra Walls & Water, and Cordoba’s Arches. And we always have Paris! J’aime la Vie

Book excerpt: From my first book Broken In: A Novel in Stories, about a little boy and other people’s belongings. Carl Possessed 1 & 2

Current Events: I opined (quietly) concerning the mood in America, hurricanes, and the refugee crisis with Flags and Houston, We Have a Problem

Food: Always a fun subject…. A Cornucopia, The Seeds of Summer, Food as Art, and the local specialties here in Christmas Markets, Flammkuchen, and The Seeds of Summer

History & Cultural Heritage: Flags, In Search of Inspiration, J’aime la Vie, Christmas Markets and Death by Yawning

Holidays: Halloween, Japan’s Jidai Matsuri, plus Germany’s Christmas Markets

Memory: A tricky topic involving both emotions and events. I explored memory in The Seeds of Summer, Going Home (this one resonated deeply with readers), Granada Heights, Alhambra Walls & Water, Cordoba’s Arches, and Sevilla Song and Dance

Music: The sound of castanets and flamenco guitar in Sevilla Song and Dance

Nature: I went nuts writing a thread dedicated to my father. It began with The Animal Kingdom: 1 and so far 19 (!) posts have gone live. Since that wasn’t enough for me, I wrote special posts concentrating on individual critter families, such as A Clowder, A Cluster, A Cornucopia, and A Brood. I wrote a post on natural disasters, too: Houston, We Have a Problem

Places: America, Andalusia, Burma, Estonia, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Paris…

Religion: I was lucky to revisit a glorious spot where Christianity and Islam coexisted in Granada Heights, Alhambra Walls & Water, and Cordoba’s Arches

Writing: A goodly dose of humor helps on those baaad days… In Your Shoes or  In Search of Inspiration

Take a look around and see if you find old friends or stumble upon posts you may have missed. I like to think that these blog posts are my gifts to the world. As always, I welcome any and all feedback. See you next year!

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2017. To see  Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips, go to viewpics.de

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

The Animal Kingdom: A Brood

Patiently waiting for the full moon to rise, Hampi, India

India is good for a surprise around any corner and on any street. We once passed a band of musicians blowing horns and banging drums, marching nonchalently down the middle of the road. Cows, of course, are sacred in the Hindu faith and go wherever they damn well please.

And on our way to the airport near Bhopal, our taxi driver asked if we wanted to halt and watch a truck feed the passengers.

They were transporting a brood of hens to market. [1] Properly defined, a brood is the family produced at a single hatching. This group had to be several broods. [2]

Unbuckling the passengers, so to speak….
Hey! Are we there yet?
Everyone likes a chance to stretch their legs

We were bemused by how healthy the hens were, and how agreeable to being transported together in baskets. They promptly headed for the field and their feed – and then back to the roadside to be placed again in baskets.

Chickens can’t fly (although they will get a running start and stay airborne for a second or two). There are more chickens than any other bird. According to  Wikipedia, “[t]he domestic chicken is descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus).” They’re a gregarious species, and chicks are both incubated and raised communally.

The brood didn’t brood long with lunch being served [2]

We didn’t witness any of the usual pecking order. Maybe these hens were too hungry.

What’s for dessert?

Later that night over dinner (no, I don’t recall if I ordered a chicken dish) we talked about animal husbandry. The fowl transport truck seemed to both of us much less cruel than an industrial chicken factory.

Don’t be such a cluck

NOTES: [1] We were told these were Chinese hens, but I have not been able to find that breed anywhere. If my readers can identify this bird for me, I would be grateful. [2] Brood as a verb is also when a bird sits on the eggs to keep them warm with his or her body heat and hatch them. © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Go to A Clowder, A Cluster, or A Cornucopia for earlier posts on specific animal groups.

Sources for chickens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken and https://animalcorner.co.uk/animals/chickens/

Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

 

 

 

The Animal Kingdom: A Clowder

I’m on hiatus at the moment from leading a writers’ group. I once compared the job to herding cats and the group loved the description. It became one of my official titles: Jadi Campbell, Herder of Cats.

You want us to do what? Seriously?

Try to herd cats sometime; it simply can’t be done. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine a basket in the middle of a long room. The basket opens up and out pop fifteen cats of all ages and breeds. Can you picture them? Long hair, short hair, Manx, kittens, tomcats, calico, tiger striped, Egyptian, Persian, running, sitting abruptly to wash a paw, tumbling, chasing one another, purring, wandering away in all directions. Now, keeping your eyes closed, try to get those cats to all head in the same direction – the one that YOU want them to go in.

Go away, I’m busy

You will open your eyes and comprehend it is impossible to get a single cat to do what you want them to, much less a clowder of them. [1] Not only that: you start sneezing, because you’ve discovered you’re allergic.

Waiting for the rest of the clowder in Portugal

[1] Yet another word to describe a group of cats is a pounce of pussies. Even better is the definition for a group of feral felines: A destruction of wild cats. More definitions to follow!

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. Ceramics courtesy of Barb Campbell. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

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