throbbing light machine

So, I've got to say - I'm halfway through Blackfish, and it's a whole different experience from the one I'd been expecting. I avoided the doc in theaters because I was afraid of Sad Animal Feelings, a genre of pain I find unnecessary. But instead it's doing this wonderful thing of detaching me from my species loyalty; these American brats and white tourists treat majestic, powerful creatures like gratification machines, less respect than they'd give a dog, so that when the whales turn on their trainers you see the heroic nobility of their soldierly attempts at escape, communication, sabotage. Free the prisoners, fuck the police. The footage of orca violence comes off as remarkably considered and strategic, from the hunting group in the wild that works together to overturn a seal's icefloe to the precision way they dominate and damage their primate tormentors. Some of the anti-SeaWorld commentators talk about psychosis, but the attacking whales remind me more of that moment when you just can't take the bullshit anymore. Don't fuck around with beasts. They have more mojo than you.

I've had Virginia's bit from Three Guineas in my head a lot of late: "Set fire to the old hypocrisies. Let the light of the burning building scare the nightingales and incarnadine the willows. And let the daughters of educated men dance round the fire and heap armful upon armful of dead leaves upon the flames. And let their mothers lean from the upper windows and cry “Let it blaze! Let it blaze! For we have done with this ‘education’!" She backs down from it, and by all pragmatic thinking she's right to do so; but although no being should have to kill for its freedom, I end up hissing and baring my teeth and curling my toes with the intensity of watching "trainers" getting schooled on the real powers with which they've dared interfere. "Trainers." there's a difference between teaching and training, between training and genuine interspecies interaction. I don't train my cats, and all jokes to the contrary they don't train me; we communicate. Reciprocally. In a non-hierarchical fashion. ime anything that thinks of itself as a trainer lacks knowledge and spouts disinformation.

I'm drifting from my first thought, but stream-of-consciousness style: what is up with Disney princess movies normalizing the abuse of domestic animals?! I've been clipping for a vid about princesses tripping balls, and keep noticing really cringeworthy stuff. Cinderella is unforgivably rude and disrespectful to that poor cat, for one thing, and on reflection I think he was actually quite decent about it all, far more decent than she deserved. And then, how is killing a cat literally a part of the movie's Happily Ever After? It's not confined to the 50s, either; in The Princess and the Frog, the little white girl is shown treating animals in a borderline abusive manner. It indicates how CUTE!! and BOUNCY!! she is. And I guess just screw the poor beasts that she mauls? becuz animals, amirite? Definitely lower than humans on the Great Chain of Being.

Just got back from Target; bought another bookcase and treats for the kittehs. (They have names now! Little white girl is Mary Queen of Scots, because she is pretty and precise and knows exactly what she wants, thank you very much, and also is kind of fussy at times. Little white guy is Prada, because of his overweening shoe fetish.)

I brought a couple boxes of my books from home this time. I have a car now, and I don't have to worry about carrying my whole life around with me on trains. I've lived without my best-beloveds for four years, and it's been hard! I haven't been able to go sit with them when I need them. But now I have them back. *pets*

Kittehs are now killing an empty pizza box. This excites them mightily.

Can anyone think of a reason why I wouldn't be able to play video on imeem? I can load the videos, see the play button, but it does nothing when I push it. Grr. Help?

So like I said, Beatrice had three kittens yesterday - two pure white ones and one handsome little dark tabby fellow. I haven't checked their genders yet - can you do that with such little ones? - but they all seem healthy and happy. Beatrice is doing a wonderful job. She seems content to snuggle up in her nest and purr and have her head scratched, and she's got both herself and her kittens all cleaned up and fluffly.

I wish I didn't have to leave them in two weeks, but I can't take them home with me. Ang, who was already planning on taking Bea for the summer, said that she'd take the bebehs too, so they'll have a good home for a few months. I think we'll probably keep one, give one to Ang to take with her when she leaves for Chicago in August, and adopt one out. I'd keep them all, but four cats seem a bit much for my wee apartment.

Here are some pictures of the likkle kittehs and their sweet mama over at my Flickr stream. Ain't they just the cutest things? The black one is the most rambunctious - we've been calling it the Squeaky Wheel. Keeps wandering off on adventures and then getting hungry and not being able to figure out why there aren't nipples at the edge of Bea's tail, and getting very noisy about it's displeasure until she gets up and corrals it back to the others.

eta: on a less squeeful note, I just read this article on the link between animal abuse and domestic violence, and I can hear the kittens squeaking in the corner, and it's making me cry. I fundamentally don't understand how people can abuse either animals or other people. I can't imagine what you would have to do to yourself inside in order to be that cruel. I think I will go huggle Bea some more, and be glad that she found herself a home before her kittens were born.