
As the holiday season approaches, my urge to blog about cats irrationally increases. Here’s a great story from the Chicago Maroon (the school paper for the University of Chicago, where my wife will be attending medical school next fall):
The audience waits in muted anticipation, anxious to witness the performers whose musical and acrobatic reputation has permeated Chicago’s underground scene. The stage is a chaotic combination of Halloween decorations and sundry props: Plastic pumpkins, rubber balls, bowling pins, and an abandoned drum set perched haphazardly on a dusty ledge. Samantha Martin, the ringleader of the show, wears a handmade headband of glittery cat ears and, with a dramatic gesture, reveals her first performer: A rat, ceremoniously followed by a chicken, a groundhog, and a ferret-like kinkajou. Her troupe of cats, the main performers of the night’s events, wait nearby for their own worthy introduction.