Of and Pertaining to Feline Atavism

“…remembrance must not proceed in the manner of a narrative or still less that of a report, but must, in the strictest epic and rhapsodic manner assay its spade in ever-new places, and in the old ones delve to ever-deeper layers.”
- Walter Benjamin, "A Berlin Chronicle," Reflections

I typically eschew hard-line pronouncements about the blog as medium, living as we are in the little guy’s adolescence. Heck, maybe the blog is just a little baby.

For example: one ideological pose I used to strike on blogs was a categorical opposition to any and all pet aggrandizement. I am a great lover of animals, but I find these tawdry displays usually come off as either exploitative or narcissistic. I have since come to the conclusion that ‘no pets’ is a silly rule. There is a time and place for everything.

This is Xena. She lives at “Hole in The Wall Deli” down the street where her imposing size keeps rodents at bay. She is a neighborhood hero and the biggest cat I have ever seen in person (those are gallon jugs of water below her). This is because the owners only feed her cold cuts.

I am most fascinated by Xena because she bears an eery resemblance to my first childhood cat, ‘Batcat,’ named for his large ears and my four-year-old obsession with the caped crusader. Batcat was leaner and more given to movement, but his fur bore the same markings. It is unnerving, to see my childhood cat in the eyes of a much larger living female cat. Browsing the back aisle for coffee filters, brownie mix, or vegetable oil, Xena’s eyes stare at me from her camouflaged girth, innocent and knowing, familiar and strange, heimlich and unheimlich. We have maintained a steady friendship, despite the fact that the sight of her explodes my interior experience of linear time and reality.