Madison Square Garden Cat Show

“It was like herding cats” is an expression for something that’s extremely difficult (because, as everyone knows, cats don’t take kindly to being told what to do, especially in groups.)

Imagine 212 nervous cats representing 43 breeds and an equal number of nervous cat breeders herded into Madison Square Garden last Oct. 18 and 19 for the very elite CFA- IAMs Cat Championship, which included two days of judging cats in five different rings at the same time. It culminated in the choice of the best of the Best of the Best at 5:00 on Sunday.

I was there – partly to promote my photo book “The Secret Life of Greek Cats” (check it out at www.GreekCats.com) but mostly to see and photograph all those exotic breeds I’d read about but never seen in the flesh, er, fur, including the popular Sphynx Cat, hairless except for the fine down on its body.

Near the door where you come in there was even a Republi-cat and a Demo-cat named Barack Obama, in patriotically decorated cages.

Everyone was admiring the Ocicats—a breed which has markings like a leopard and would make a very chic (and expensive) accessory for ladies who like to wear animal prints (not me.) Cats and kittens were being bought and sold and $600 was the lowest price I heard mentioned.

I love the exotic long-hairs with their squashed-in grouchy faces although many people don’t. The Greek cats who tell their stories in my book are certainly not pure-breds. They’re, as the real Obama would put it, “Mutts like me”, but just as attractive as the cats who walked off with the ribbons at Madison Square Garden.

Everyone there was, of course, a cat lover, including the judges who held up each furry contestant and raved about the good points of the breed. The judges held wands with tassels on the end to get the cats interested and involved. Some, but not all, of the breeders looked like their cats. If you want to see photos of the judging, let me know.

The ultimate winner on Sunday was a Blue Russian, but I didn’t make it back in time to see it. I was down in Greenwich Village looking at a crazy art show created by the guerrilla artist Banksy which was a witty but effective statement about turning animals into food, but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

A Rolling Crone Gets Rolling

Here is my very first post -- I've spent far too much time getting ready to do it or, as my mother Martha would put it, spitting on my hands.

It's time to put up or shut up and so I'm trying to launch this ship TODAY despite the fact that I foolishly signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo is their web site) -- for which more than 100,000 would-be novelists have promised to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. (You will hear more from me about that as the pressure mounts.)

That's 1,667 words a day every day, and since I have a slight cushion, as I'm at 21,343 today, Nov.13th, I'm taking off time to start the blog A Rolling Crone. (The name was daughter Eleni Gage's inspiration.) You can get to it on www.arollingcrone.blogspot.com. Soon I’ll also have it linked to my website: www.joanpgage.com.

“Why a blog? you ask? “There are too many already! And let’s face it—you’re not a pundit, you’re just a crone.”

Well, a year or so ago I took a course at the Worcester Art Museum called “Marketing your art on the internet”, taught by a computer expert, artist and genius named Andy Fish. He told us we all must have a website and a blog which we update daily. So I’m finally doing it. I promise not to write anything about the following: Obama. McCain, Palin, the bailout and Joe the Plumber. (Unless it’s about hairless Aztec dogs suitable for Obama's allergic daughter, which I plan to write about soon.)

What I will write about, as the spirit moves me, is art (I just got back from Manhattan where I visited exhibits by Banksy and Van Gogh—a study in contrasts); cats (in NYC I visited to Madison Square Garden cat show—what a trip!); my travels (next up three weeks in India), along with photos illustrating same.

I will try to address issues and events that are of interest to crones over sixty, who are definitely under-served in the media. Yet we are, as a friend remarked, the pig in the python—the huge population of women who are still tuned in and creating despite (or because of) our age.

The blog is also meant to be (as explained by Andy) a sneaky way to call attention to my paintings and my newly published photo book “The Secret of Greek Cats, Feline Photos and Cats’ Tales of Greek Life and Lore” (now only $10 on my web site: www.joanpgage.com or www.GreekCats.com ).

About the photo: It's me and some of my watercolors at last June's Grecian Festival at Saint Spyridon Cathedral in Worcester, MA where I was privileged to show some of my paintings (and even sold some!) I also was lucky enough this year to have my first solo show of my watercolors at The First Show Gallery at C. C. Lowell in Worcester.

I hope you’ll tune in to this crone’s journey!

Joan Paulson Gage

Questions, remarks, slander? Write me at JoanPGage@yahoo.com