This Post Contains Photo Evidence That Cats Are Rude

Yesterday I tried to explain that my one week break from entertaining you was due to some poppycock about finishing a rewrite of a new play.​ This was a pathetic lie. In fact, the reason I spent seven days not typing for you is pictured above. The problem is A Cat, and it is a doozy.

I mention it not as part of some bald-faced traffic-grab. As far as I'm aware, photos of cats are among the least popular things on the Internet. I share this with you because a bit of historical research has shown me that my problem—a cat on the thing I'm working on—is not something I have to face alone. In fact, it's been happening for hundreds of years. From The Atlantic Wire​:

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Image ripped off from the Atlantic Wire, taken by Emir O. Filipovich.​

Now, via medievalist Emir O. Filipovic, evidence that cats have been up to this same mischief for six centuries: inky pawprints, gracing a page of the 13th volume of "Lettere e commissioni di Levante," which collated copies of letters and instructions that the Dubrovnik/Ragusan government sent to its merchants and envoys throughout southeastern Europe (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia etc.), according to Filipovic -- sort of a 15th-century Federal Register. The particular document that the cat got its paws on dates to March 11th, 1445.

​Not only is this adorable, it is reassuring. My cat isn't the only nuisance—my work isn't the only work being interrupted. My lie about finishing a play can die here. Obviously, it would have been impossible for me to work on the play anyway. When the cat isn't on the computer, she's here:

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Dog is man's best friend. Cat is writer's worst enemy.​

"Smash" is Awful And So Is My TV Recapping

Buzzfeed is on a good roll right now. This week's piece about how media reporting has changed for the worse generated a whole bucketful of discussion, including this borderline manifesto from Tom McGeveran, of Capital New York. Because I'm only a pretend reporter, I'll refrain from throwing in my opinion on the shift in media reporting. But, as a pretend reporter, I have massive opinions on pretend things—like Smash. The Buzzfeed article that most amused me this week was about that show's trainwreck of a first season, and the bitter behind-the-scenes feuds that led to its trainwreckiness. 

I've got tons of opinions about that—mainly that, while the article is brilliant, I suspect that Rebeck isn't the monster it makes her out to be—and you can read them here. I have also, for the sake of linkbait SEO metric development (LSEOMD), included a TV recap. Because my girlfriend will make her ANGRY GIRLFRIEND face at me if I watch the entire show, I have restricted my viewing to the first sixty seconds. Ahem:

:01—Apparently this episode is called “On Broadway.” I know that because there’s a title card that says “On Broadway.”

:05—It’s Katherine McPhee! Dressed up as Marilyn! In black and white! She still doesn’t look the part; she still can’t sing. I wonder if the whole season will be in black and white. That would be a poor decision of Rebeckian proportions.

:19—It’s not black and white any more. Rats.

:22—Marilyn McPhee is singing a song inside of what appears to be a diner. Presumably she is on stage…possibly on stage on Broadway? Hopefully the other people are dancers who can dance better than she can, and I will get to watch them dance.

:39—I did not get to see any dancing…yet. A title card has informed me that this is the Boston closing night. This show will never reach Broadway! Or will it?

:46—All of the actors are running around backstage, presumably to avoid the extreme McPheedium of this first sixty seconds. Almost over now, guys!

:51—Now I see dancing!

1:00—There was a shot outside the theater of K. McPhee giving M. Hilty a dirty look. I guess those two haven’t made up during the off-season! How nice to know that that tedious rivalry will continue into season two. McPhee’s song continues, still blandly bland, and I turn the TV off when the timer hits sixty. The last thing I hear is, “And if a duckling never swims, she’ll never become a swaaaaaaaan.”

Phew. That's enough for me. If this feature proves as linkbait awesome traffic driver viral game changer (LATDVGC) as I hope it will, perhaps it will become a weekly thing. But probably not.