Word: cats
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...psyche. Says Robert Perper, 48, a New York veterinarian: "There's a lot of macho in dog persons. Dogs are bigger, they're a display. People like to give them hearty slaps and decorate them with collars. Three years ago, about 5% of my men patients were cat owners. Now it's 25%. The stigma is gone. They've learned a man can own a cat and still be a man." Peter Borchelt, a behavioralist at Manhattan's Animal Medical Center, wryly points out that you can own a cat and even be an American...
Perhaps, too, the cat, regal and precise, aloof and alone, reflects the preferred-or enforced-situation of the record 23% of American households where single adults dwell. "Cats are a perfect way out of urban alienation," says Dunlop. And behind bars, the cat softens hard-time sentences. Some prisoners at the Lorton Reformatory in Virginia keep up to five cats at once. Says Charles E. ("Itchy") Richardson, 30, who is serving ten to 40 years for burglary: "Cats teach you what some dudes down here can't understand. They give you love. They don't talk back...
...Whether cats represent a psychic revolution or merely engage our interest because they're decorative and instructive or just a jet-set recognition symbol like Gucci luggage, the cat and its ways never fail to fascinate...
...cat's very singularity, moreover, is the most important bond between man and animal. The wildness of the cat, its instinctual businesslike yet skewed version of reality, is more than enchanting. Behavioral research now postulates that while humans may ascribe to the cat a number of sophisticated genetic motives, the cat is fascinated with man because he appeals to the cat's suppressed childishness. Kittens raised by humans associate man with suckling, warmth, mother's milk and childhood learning play. While the adult feline is obsessed with reproduction, territorial battles and mousing, we remain large toys...
Garfield and his top-selling feline pals are but one example of the cat boom in the U.S., which now goes well beyond book and comic pages. There is, for example, Cats, an opulent, energetic rock musical adapted from T.S. Eliot's volume of poems Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. The production has been a smash hit in London for nine months and will stalk onto Broadway early next year. Signature lines of kitty sheets, towels, ceramic cat planters, calendars, mugs, watches, umbrellas, T shirts, sweatshirts, stationery and housewares move swiftly at gift stores and specialty...