Warning: Gratuitous Cat Photos

As the Howling Assistant will attest, Pilates can be brutal. Here she is, stuck over her blubberous expanse of belly. To be fair, she was very sick as a kitten and as a result seems to gain weight no matter what she eats.

She watches from the sofa every morning while I collapse in a heap of quivering, cat-fur-accented jelly. At least she’s entertained.

There was entertainment in abundance in Pawtucket yesterday, where I spotted a new genre of folk art I had not seen before. By the time you strip off the layers of weirdness, you’ve moved through appropriation, jokiness and Post Modernism to sincerity and then I’m not sure quite where you end up. I’ve seen the “historic portraits with cats and dogs” genre before, done well and done poorly, but never anything quite so home-grown as this. I have to agree with my friend that the carpet’s pretty wonderful, and the details captured in he Hitchcock chairs are well-observed. Art’s a curious thing, and observation. It pleased me to find this, and I hope in some way it will please you to see it. We’re strange creatures; enjoy the ride.