10.17.2005

Ornithological dejecta

My dad and I have this thing about bad books. Not merely "a complete waste of time" bad, or even "why, God, oh why?", but bad--so bad they're almost good. And while we've exchanged several books of bad poetry over the years, the pursuit of the very worst books didn't get competitive until last Father's Day, when I gave Dad a copy of Why Cats Paint.

I can't even explain the badness of this book and do it justice, so thank God for the website.

I send you forth with the chilling words, "They're serious."

So, we went out to breakfast at Old Town on Father's Day, and found ourselves seated not two booths away from another Father's Day hoopla--a dad, a mom and three kids, and dammit all if the dad wasn't wearing a crown with "World's Best Dad" across the front in embossed letters. Show off.

"I want a crown," Dad pouted as we sat down.

Before long, however, we stole the spotlight as the craziest folks in Old Town when Why Cats Paint made its way out of the gift bag--laughing like mad as we read passages aloud, passing the book back and forth over our coffee cups and breakfast plates, both of us crying and pink in the cheeks. In the absence of the actual book, I give you this quote from the website:

The work shown here was completed in 15 minutes on bathroom wallpaper by Monty, a Persian belonging to Mrs. Nora Scrotes of Chicago.

Mrs. Scrotes feels sure that the work was directly influenced by Monty being washed and having his knots removed the day before. Not only does Monty find the experience unpleasant, but on this occasion Mrs. Scrotes had to take an extended call from her elderly mother when she was halfway through the final rinse and was therefore unable to restrain the cat from attempting to dry itself by rolling in its litter tray.


We learned, to our dismay, that there are honest-to-God "feline art critics." And to make matters far worse (or better? I can never really be sure), while perusing The Museum of Non-Primate Art website, I found this.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I kid you not. My grandmother owns that book and tries to get her huge cat, Joseph, to paint at least once a week. Seriously. *hides face*

Thea said...

That is the coolest thing I've heard all day.--not only does your grandma have this book and urge her cat to paint, but she names her cat Joseph. Rock on.

Anonymous said...

lol. Yes, Joseph and Michael. Each in excess of 20 pounds and named after her favorite Bible characters. They eat off her plate, have their own allergy medicine, and ... paint.

Thea said...

Moments like these are when the Internet fails--no font can express to you how hard I laughed reading that comment. Not at your grandmother's expense, oh no--I think that's absolutely adorable.

Ashley said...

My dog could do better!