One of the things I like best about Facebook is the opportunity it provides for random connections, and how a chance encounter through a thread can reveal shared passions. Case in point: Ann Magnuson, one of my all-time favorite East Village performance legends, and a great actor to boot, started a thread last summer on the macabre gifts one of her cats kept leaving at her doorstep. Dead prey, namely. Others added their own stories of feline stealth, and so did I, relaying how my now deceased tomcat, Thelonious, had once managed to grab a bird through a 4-inch space of an open window on the 11th floor of a loft building I lived in years ago in the Financial District. Impressed, Ann and I bonded over our love of cats and chatted about the persistent threat women who love cats seem to pose in our society, and why this is so. Here’s how it went down.
JH: Many of us love our animals like children yet for women with cats there is always this sexist stigma of the crazy cat lady that persists. Its really annoying, don’t you think?
AM: OH I AM SO GLAD YOU SAID THIS. I HATE THE WAY A WOMAN’S LOVE FOR CATS HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A WAY TO FURTHER DENIGRATE HER!!! IT’S SOME SNARKY MODERN VERSION OF WITCH BURNING! HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT! AND GOSH, IT’S ALWAYS DIRECTED TOWARDS OLDER WOMEN…who, in this diseased culture, are considered the lowest of the low. FUCK “EM ALL I SAY!
JH: Exactly!! And what really strikes me in your response, what resonates I mean, is this association of older women and cats with some kind of aberrance, or witchcraft as you say. Why this need to pervert and ridicule the proverbial cat lady, do you think? Is it that we often don’t procreate or care what others think?
AM: I do think it could be because of the very primitive belief that women are of no use unless they can bear children. Once you are past child bearing age, past your ‘sexy prime’, the culture tends to discard us. But our culture discards all older folk, regardless of gender. Unevolved in the extreme.
Of course, given the state of the culture these days, perhaps we’re lucky that way! I feel freer than I ever have been. (Also less interested in pop culture than I EVER have been. We got rid of the cable tv 2 years ago and I do not miss it. Well, maybe some of the arts and nature programs.) I say, throw off the shackles created by Hollywood and the media! It’s quite liberating to embrace that you are no longer ‘desirable’. WHOPPEEE! That was all so overrated to begin with. Not to mention terribly exhausting given all the anxiety and maintenance required. What a relief to be able to focus on what is REALLY of value.
JH: Your attitude is so inspiring, especially since I feel like I am entering this post-desirable phase. And it ain’t easy on the ego. But weirdly, animals can often remind us how shallow such concerns are, right? Recently, you suffered the loss of your beloved Nixon kitty. What was he like? What do you think he gave-taught you that no one else could have? (I often believe my animals teach me a lot about life, myself, relationships, etc. My deceased Thelonius, previously mentioned, for example, was like a little White Buddha; a very evolved being…
AM: Nixon came to me via a friend whose landlady hated cats (unimaginable, I know!) and I really thought the arrangement was temporary. Little did I know then I’d have him in my life for 15 or so years! had just lost another cat (Mr. Pussy Pants) to coyotes (oh God, can’t even bear to TYPE that!) and did not feel he could be replaced (given that he was an EXTREMELY affectionate orange male tabby. Nixon was not nearly as affectionate.) I was actually enjoying the freedom of not having to worry about finding people (and paying them) to feed and care for my kitty (or kitties) when i was traveling, which back in the 90s was quite often. Very reluctantly I took him in. But soon he became my “Buddy” (other nicknames: “Buds” or “Big Guy” and then “Old Guy”). He didn’t like to be held so much (unless I did it with a little dance, which I did when he was receptive) but he occasionally slept on my chest and made me feel loved at a time when I felt very alone. Like most animals, he offered me unconditional love. Well, I guess there ARE conditions – you feed, water and care for THEM and they, in turn, grace your eyeline with cuteness! Not to mention provide you with their affection (granted, with cats, often on their own time and terms). Nixon eventually began to sit on my lap when I was meditating and purred very loudly. Which just deepened my meditation and and feelings of being at one with the mysteries of the universe. As he got older and his many problems tried my patience (we were forever cleaning up his messes there in the last 6 months) he taught me to choose compassion over convenience. To continually be ‘inconvenienced’ and give myself in service of this suffering animal was actually a blessing. The last day was especially painful. He was laying on the floor, unable to get up. Carrying him in my arms like a baby (or ET wrapped in his swaddling clothes and flying past the full moon aloft that kid’s bicycle) I sat in the back seat as my husband drove us to the vet’s. Along the way we passed a woman coming out of her house with her baby in a stroller. That was ‘it’ in a nutshell: the circle of life. It was an incredibly beautiful southern California day. One where the sun is shining so bright that everything – plants, people, buildings – glow as if engulfed in an angelic halo. Poor Nixon was completely incapacitated and just looked up at me with his sad eyes that revealed complete surrender. And I realized that is really all any of us can do. I had just lost my father and, to tell you the truth, watching the cat lose his strength over the last few months reminded me so much of watching my Dad deteriorate.
It really is a crummy trick, isn’t it? This life and death thing.
JH: Awww… what a bittersweet sweet story…I totally relate to the way animals can enlighten you in ways that translate into human terms.
AM: Yeah, this latest episode of loving and caring for a dying pet taught me again that I can learn how to extend this same kind of compassionate attitude to people (who too often do NOT reciprocate affection the way a pet does) or, perhaps more importantly, to myself. Patience, acceptance, appreciation of the smallest things. I think these were the lessons.
And you are right, cats are so much like little Buddhas!! Particularly when they are in their ‘meatloaf’ position. Another spiritual figure asked us to consider “the lilies of the field” and “the birds of the air” and emulate their stillness and faith that we WILL be provided for. Animals, and my cats in particular, have always reminded me of that. That ultimately nothing more is required of us than to just “Be Still” — one with creation. And appreciate every moment! Oh, and also keep ourselves well-groomed. And purr… a lot!
JH: If you could plan a memorial for him (Nixon), what would it be like?
AM: Well, I DO plan on having a memorial for him. His remains are waiting for me to pick up. One does tend to put off that sort of thing as it is so depressing to think something or someone that was once so alive and vibrant has now been reduced to a handful of dust. Then again, that too is an important reminder. I think I will have Matt, who originally brought Nixon to me, come over and we shall put the ashes in the back yard in the spots where he liked to sit. Smack dab in the morning sun. Under the bamboo where he was so content to just bask in glorious existence. Then I think I’ll just meditate. And love our other cat, Christy, all the more! Your fellow cat fancier, Ann!
For me, the name Ann Magnuson will always be synonymous with NYC’s downtown performance art scene of early-mid 80s. That, and her roles in films like David Bowie’s The Hunger (1983), and Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan. Because that’s when I discovered her. Of course, Magnuson’s career has only grown more illustrious ever since – she’s a Hollywood star! – and too numerous to mention, but if you don’t know who she is, get on it with these two links:
http://annmagnuson.com/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Magnuson
