Desmond Slattery (1914-1977) claimed to be a naturalist. But I'm not sure how much scientific training he actually had. I suspect that's just how he rebranded himself after his career in Hollywood fizzled.
His 'Songbird Saver,' which he debuted in 1968, was designed to stop cats from attacking birds by conditioning them to think that, if they did so, the birds would explode. As explained in the LA Times (Jan 23, 1969):
Basically, the Songbird Saver consists of a small dummy bird which, when nudged by a cat for any reason, explodes.
Slattery's own news release describes its effectiveness perhaps more vividly:
"Slipping out of the house, the trainee-cat will make its stealthily stalking approach... Seeing it (the Songbird Saver), apparently frozen with terror, the trainee-cat will pounce upon it, and with the resulting explosion, that cat will go about 9 feet in the air and take off for the high timber before its feet touch the ground."
It is with this simple device that Slattery hopes to save civilization "as we know it."
"Songbirds are vital to our ecology of life," he explained. "Our society could not exist without them. Frankly, in six years we'd be up to our neck in insects."
Slattery emphasized his device is harmless to cats and uses merely the same sort of exploding caps used in cap pistols. It is based on common theories of preconditioning and some stuff he read by Mark Twain on a cat's ability to learn.
"It's based, actually, on a combination of Pavlov and Mark Twain. If both those guys are wrong, I'm wrong."
The dapper 54-year-old promoter denied he was "anti-cat" and said that in fact his invention would allow cats and birds to live together in harmony.
The Calvin Klein fragrance Obsession for Men has the odd distinction of being known to be an aphrodisiac for cats. And not just house cats. The larger, wild variety as well. The NY Times explains:
This fragrance for men includes civetone, a compound originally derived from the scent glands of a civet though now often made synthetically. Obsession has been billed as irresistible to women. But because of the civetone, it is also scientifically proven to make wild cats go gaga. They roll around it, they take huge sniffs, they luxuriate in the smell for several minutes.
They don’t react to all perfumes - with some of them they’re like, “meh,” just like us I guess, some of them they’re not real keen on. But others, like the Calvin Klein one, whatever is in that, cats love it. They really, really roll and cheek-rub and they just look to be in heaven.
In 2002, artist Tracey Emin's cat, Docket, went missing. So she put up 'missing cat' posters around her neighborhood. But since she was a famous artist, people immediately began taking the posters down and selling them. Reportedly, they fetched prices as high as £500 each.
This prompted a spokeswoman from Emin's gallery to issue a statement: "Tracey does deal with memorabilia, but the posters are not works of art, it's simply a notice of her missing cat to alert neighbours."
The Missing Cat posters are problematic because the moment they reach a public they are coopted by the poncif already set up by the artist, and as such they become arranged "as part of [her] oeuvre". They are readily coopted because Emin’s particular trademark is "near-absolute identification of the artist with her work": work that is characterized by confessional and subjective autobiographical content that the posters also supply. We might say that Emin has created a convincing, life-sized tableau of her life, and it is difficult to exclude from this tableau anything she does or produces.
The Crazy Cat Lady is the cultural stereotype (Archie McPhee even sells a Crazy Cat Lady action figure). But this story demonstrates that there are definitely Crazy Cat Men as well.
The Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa) — Jan 8, 1954
Mate Preferred Cats, She Left Him With Them
HARTFORD, Conn., Jan. 8 — Mrs. Joseph Gazik got a divorce in Superior Court after she said her husband liked cats so much that every time she asked him to get rid of them, he suggested that she leave instead.
Gazik didn't appear in court. He stayed home with his cats — all 20 of them.
Now you can turn your cat into a wino and never drink alone again with kitty wine! The ingredients do not include actual alcohol, just catnip, water and beet juice. But considering the company is based in Colorado who knows what kind of weed is in there.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.