Monthly Archives: July 2009

Cats decide their own nicknames

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Eva enjoys sitting in the sink.

Eva enjoys sitting in the sink.

I’ll never forget the scene in Logan’s Run where Peter Ustinov tells Logan that cats have more than one name. He does, in fact, quote T.S. Eliot:

You know, they’ve each got three names. Yes. The naming of cats is a difficult matter, It’s just not one of your holiday games; You may think at first that I am mad as a hatter, When I tell you that each cat’s got three different names. See, they got their ordinary name and then they got their fancy name. And that makes two names, doesn’t it? And now it’s got a third name. Can either of you two guess what that third name is? Come on! Above and beyond, there’s one name that’s left over, and this is the name you never will guess. The name that no human research can discover, but the cat itself knows, and never will confess.

I think about the various names my cats have and how they choose the name they respond to. Matilda knows her name is Matilda, but she responds more frequently to “The Baby”. Oatmeal, same circumstance. He responds to his first name, but also comes when I call him “Oatsie” or “Oats”. For our amusement, we also call Oatmeal “Flambo” or “Sir Fluffbottom” and Matilda “Tillypants” or “Tilly”. They haven’t necessarily expressed fondness for any of those.

Eva, our recent addition to the family, at 3.5 years old, came to us with a name her previous owner had chosen. We didn’t think it was a good idea to give her a new name, but we noticed that she doesn’t respond to “Eva.” Her ears don’t perk up when we say it so it’s obvious she isn’t ignoring us. The other cats (as cats do) will ignore us, but their ears will (at the very least) twinge when any of their names are spoken. Not with Eva. Not even a twitch.

When she first came to us, we immediately started thinking of funny nicknames. Just ’cause it’s funny. As an added bonus, she makes the most adorable sounds that aren’t your every day cat sounds. They’re more like beeps, squeaks, or the sound a bicycle horn makes. One day, she came into the room and I said, “There’s Beeps!” and she ran up to me. It caught on. I noticed that when I called her “Beeps”, she was more likely to come to me or make her whereabouts known, even if she was hiding.

It’s not like we consciously chose the name “Beeps”. I said the word and she liked it. She decided she likes the name “Beeps”. I honestly don’t know why. It’s the strangest thing, the words or names cats latch onto. I’m so fascinated by it. They really do decide what they want to be called. I mean, if I were to change her name, I wouldn’t necessarily choose Beeps. It’s a cute name, but it’s not my first choice. I might have gone with something more formal, but that’s just me. She will always officially (and on record) be named “Eva”, but her nickname is Beeps and she likes it just fine. I guess I do too.

Photo: AJB

The Benefits of Planning

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This is an entry I started writing on June 7th, 2009, but didn’t published until now

As an Aries, I’m supposed to be impulsive and spontaneous. I am. Usually. When it comes to my art, I have always followed what I lovingly called “The Chaos Theory” – chaos being about random occurrences. This meant that I would, for example, do a shoot with someone and let what ever happens happen. Ideas come, they always do. I am, after all, an idea person. I’ve never been want for ideas. In my art, I can usually do pretty well without any (or very little) planning. However, if I’ve learned anything from interning for David LaChapelle, it’s that to pull that shit off, you need a mess of planning.

I therefore decided to try it out for size. Real, honest to goodness planning. I thought of a concept and gave myself two weeks to pull it off. I wrote down ideas, held a casting for a female model, booked the male model straight away, shopped for props, and wrote down a list of potential shots. I even created a project folder in which I kept all my inspiration images, data, and notes. I thought about the shoot for two weeks straight. I corresponded with models, found a make-up artist, and imagined how I’d dress the set. It was all starting to come together.

Naturally, Murphy’s Law is always a major player in any event. At the last minute, my make-up artist canceled. As someone who is adept at getting out of things and coming up with a million reasons why I couldn’t go into work or school, I realized at once that she was probably lying. I think this for several reasons: She didn’t call to cancel, she emailed. Her excuse was that she’s gotten an horrible eye infection and was headed to the emergency room. It just seemed so grandiose. People tend to think that the bigger their lies are, the more likely people are to believe them: A UFO crashed into my house and I can’t come into work today because the aliens took my keys. One thing I’ve learned about lying is that if used correctly, it’s a very powerful tool. A better way? I once lied about going into work by saying that “the recent rains had warped my front door so I couldn’t lock it. I had to wait for the landlord to come fix it”. Not bad, right? Later, my boss at the time said that it was such a random excuse, it had to be true. Obviously.

After the make-up artist canceled, I was faced with potentially rescheduling the shoot. How could I find a talented make-up artist in less than 24 hours? No one would do it. Especially since it wasn’t a paying gig. I posted an ad, asked the Universe for a make-up artist and lo, I found one. I accepted that I might not find the best make-up artist in the world, but that anyone with a make-up kit could do the job. It so happened, I found a lovely girl who was not only cool, but talented to boot! I got real lucky. In fact, I made some calls and got about 6 responses. Because of the fairness, I chose the first girl who responded first and crossed my fingers. I hired her sight unseen. And you know what? It worked out.

The result of all my hard work was that this shoot was the one of the best I’ve ever done. Everything fell into the place. The models were phenomenal, the make-up artist was professional and skilled, the set looked great, the costumes were amazing, the lighting was spot on, and the final images are just to good to be true.

What I learned from all this is that planning goes a long way. Even with as much planning as you can muster, something always goes wrong. The important thing to remember is not to panic.

The second lesson I learned was that you can’t do it alone. Even with all my planning, none of this would have happened without the help of my beloved AJB. His help and support through all of this made everything run smooth. He’s my go-to guy and I can’t tell you how important that is to me. I know that I can count on him and it’s invaluable to have trustworthy help on a big shoot. As they say, no man is an Island and no one does anything all by themself.

People keep asking me what I’m going to do with these images. That, I don’t know. I need to figure that out. I assumed I’d only use them for my portfolio, but if there is a way to use them in some other beneficial marketing way, I should go ahead and do that.

I also have yet to figure out how I want to Photoshop them. I’ve played around with different styles, but nothing is slapping me in the face with it’s awesomeness. Naturally, the longer I take to figure it out, the likelihood of moving onto something else comes into play. I’ll post pics when they’re done.