UNIFIED THEORY II

   GREEN lives with his wife in Belgravia. He has now become a hermit. Only the other day a woman of sixty looking after the tobacconist's shop was dragged by her hair across the counter and stabbed twice in the neck. That is one reason why I don't go out any more.
  
   Green can write novels, but his present difficulty is to know quite how to do it. As Time magazine says, Green is ailing, which means he has several things wrong with him which, rising sixty, is perhaps to be expected.

   Of course, he sees his contemporaries die almost every day, like John Strachey and many another.

   Whether you are a man like Kingsley Martin and believe in things is, of course, an advantage. Green tells me that he doesn't believe in anything at all. And perhaps that is not a bad thing. Love your wife, love your cat and stay perfectly quiet, if possible not to leave the house. Because on the street if you are sixty danger threatens.

   It has always been said as a sign of age that if you don't see policemen with medal ribbons it means that you are getting very old. In other words, the policemen are very much younger. One of the reasons I won't go out is for fear of meeting a policeman. Yesterday I saw four at the corner and was very frightened indeed.

   Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who was one of the best novelists who has ever lived, and is dead now, had such a persecution thing. When Auric, the composer, was walking with him in a fog in Paris there was somebody wavering in front of them and Céline said in a very loud voice, 'C'est un juif.'  Auric was much disturbed because he didn't have a thing about Jews and in any case the fog was too deep to tell.

  So the whole thing is really not to go out. If one can afford it, the best thing is to stay in one place, which might be bed. Not sex, for sleep.

Henry Green: For Jenny with Affection from Henry Green (1963)

Josie And The Pussycats: Three Small Words (Link)

Kinks: Surviving (Link)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING (TAKE IT AWAY, MORRISSEY)

  This year I am deeply thankful for the earthly lives of my cats Eddie (l) and Felix (r) (nb., short “e” sound on Felix; he was named by Brazilians).   We "lost" these two family members earlier this year, but that’s not how it really works.  Eddie was in many ways the best and closest friend I ever had.  Felix was Jane’s best friend and guardian.  You couldn’t ask for finer companions with nobler characters.

  Andy, pictured below/right with Edie, is doing well a year after his last back surgery.  He is coming back all the way, I think, slowly but steadily and surely.  With everything he’s been through, he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself or overdo things.  It’s a smart decision. 

  The rationality and good character of our so-called pets – our cats, dogs, birds and fish – astounds me.  They are a round-and-round-never-ending drama-comedy event rivaling all the news, science, pseudo-science, art & literature, and mysterioso conspiracy theory websites combined.  Everything good in and for our family resides in this all-of-us-together place, and as far as the bad & the sad go, we need perforce to take the bitter along with the better.  Things once seemed easier, I think I recall, but I’m pretty certain they’ve also been more difficult.  

  Happy Thanksgiving.

  Take it away, Morrissey (Link)

and Andy Mackay: A Four-Legged Friend (Link)

FELIX

I find myself so running out of steam at this point, but.

Our dear cat Felix (his name is pronounced with a short-e vowel sound; he was named by Brazilian children we knew) passed away yesterday.

He was a large and very handsome mixed-breed cat with a lot of Maine Coon in him.

Although he was really  “Jane’s cat,” as the dogs are “Jane’s dogs,”  during the last two years of his life, after he developed the pancreatic illness, it was Caroline who really cared for him and kept him going.

Felix adopted us after he had originally adopted my friend Jeannie Fallon’s daughter, Megan.  He was probably someone’s unwanted Christmas kitten, who was set loose in their Queens neighborhood and stole onto their porch. 

He was the largest kitten I’d ever seen (frankly, I couldn’t believe he was a kitten), but Dr. Kessler confirmed his age for us at our first appointment.

Felix’s philosophy was “su casa es mi casa” and he made our life and family more complete and very happy.

He died in his sleep on his favorite sofa.   He lived a long life and we will miss him a lot.  I do think that he is now in heaven, massive again and happily playing with Pansy, Eddie and Tiger Lily.

With less and less, it seems, that you can believe in and trust, Felix was stalwart.