Nicholas Cage Cats

Hi Miss Cellania - thank-you acknowledging mine and Grace's exchange. I am a long-term reader of Neatorama and plus I really enjoy your posts.

Yes, silly blog link with cats - I think teh kittehs are the tea-leaves of the Interwebs, or using another analogy, a sort of Rorschach test. Especially when combined with Nicolas Cage.

I love it. Hooda thunk that comments under a silly picture blog link would turn into a discussion on literature!

Hi Grace - thanks for replying, I can relate.

I read a lot of science fiction in high school and into my 20s, then I focused more on the real life stuff like you mentioned (btw -I'm 41.) I'm sure you can relate to how the early exposure to Science Fiction, and really, any sort of speculative fiction, whetted the appetite for more real-life stuff.

Now that I am, I dunno, somewhat mature (I guess), I have started to read speculative fiction as much as I did as a teen and university-age person. About five or six years ago I started by reading my favs from when I was a kid and young adult I've continued as often as I'm able.

Comparing my perspective and interpretations of things I read as a kid, then later as a 30 something to 40 something gives me insights, laughs and well, more insights.

What you said about sci fi ideas planting seeds, yes, I agree, Grace.

I used to make a distinction between sci fi/speculative fiction and my favourite classics, but after I started reading more of everything on the printed page again,(instead of work/school/web stuff), the distinction between all of these categories is more blurred for me.

Well, good night!

Cool! Thanks so much cdh! It's been eons since I read science fiction, which I read all through high school and my early 20's. There's so much to read and learn about real life nature, science, philosophy, history, psychology, etc., these days that sci fi seemed like a luxury I didn't have time for any more - tho sci fi ideas in the past actually planted the seeds for a lot of things that have now come into existence! It has been fascinating to watch! What is ahead? Maybe reading sci fi again would give me a peek of some possibilities! Perhaps I'll start by checking these two out. They sound very interesting. Thanks again! Grace

Thanks for the complement Grace, but, alas, although I have a good imagination, my reference to 'Speaker to Animals' refers to a species of human-like (kinda sorta) and warlike feliform aliens, the 'Kzin' from Larry Niven's Ringworld Universe.

In Niven's Ringworld series, Earth Tribe is related to the Kzin on a genetic basis due to Earth, Kzin and other planets being nutritional yeast farms for an ancient and now more or less billion-year-extinct galactic empire... humankind,kzin et al are descended from the yeast...

It's a great series, here's the WikiP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Known_space

My original, accidentally evaporated comment referenced David Brin's Uplift Series, in which galactic civilization has maintained order for aeons by uplifting pre-sentient beings to sentience.

The definition of a sentient species by Brin's galactic civilization is one that has uplifted another to sentience.

By dumb luck, 22nd century humans have uplifted several species at the point of First Contact and were reluctantly deemed sentient by Galactic Civilization.

The series notes that 21st century humans would be deemed non-sentient, punished for environmental damage to the planet, then adopted out to some worthy galactic species. Here is a WikiP link to Brin's Uplift series..well worth a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplift_Universe

But my computer ate the comment and restarted, so I made the Kzin comment.

Cheers!

Very creative, cdh! Enjoyed reading your imaginative musings! Yes, the Speaker to Animals is a shaman who can morph into the form of animals and tune into their thinking and communicate with them mentally. Mr. Cage's special calling revealed itself the day he took mushrooms with his cat and experienced the oneness of all life forms.

Actually this is not Nicolas Cage's mug grafted to a picture of a cat, although I guess there is a passing resemblance.

This name, or more accurately the _title_ of the being in this photo is 'Speaker to Animals'*, who is an expert translator of human dialects into his native tongue and an expert in human relations.

*'Speaker to Animals' is a job title - there is one on every mothership, and there are many, many, motherships.

MOMMY! I'm scared!