Got Abercrombie?
No, not that annoying place at the mall. Chicago artist Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977), to be far more specific. Abercrombie was a major proponent of the Magical Realism school that incorporated the use of surrealism in the 1940s and 1950s among Chicago area and Wisconsin artists. She was also a cultural force; memorable for hosting musicians (think Billie Holiday), poets (think Archibald MacLeish), and artists at her North Shore home. Abercrombie as an artist who preferred concept to technique in her artwork, and the result is a collection of paintings that are, on the surface, rather naive looking, but draw one in with unusual, often noctural themes. Diminutive and weird, her artwork sells. Among the 65 works in her auction record at Askart, 95% have sold. That’s a 5% buy-in rate, folks. That’s gooooooood.
Treadway Gallery has, among its offerings at the March 7 auction, a smallish 1945 Abercrombie oil, The Visit. The noctural visitor is one of her enduring themes, so its right on for this artist. Value-wise, it has a bit of a problem, though: it has only been off the market for less than 2 years. Previously sold at a rival Chicago auction house in Sept. 2008 for $7930, this time it’s being offered with a 7-9k estimate, but will likely sell for lower. For measure, Abercrombie’s work commonly sells into the five figure range. Bargains, at least so far, don’t happen in the market for Abercrombie, but given this piece’s recent exposure in the marketplace, it might translate in to a sweet deal for someone willing to buy and hold for a while.
Max and Ruby: A Rant
If you are a TV-friendly parent to a toddler, with cable or satellite TV, you have probably seen, at one time or another, the awfully-cute show about a pair of sibling bunnies, Max and Ruby. Ruby, 7, is older sister to brother Max, 3, and the show revolves around the ongoing sibling rivalry between the two. The show is awfully tame and often very very sweet, and my Little One loves to watch it. In his eyes, he probably relates to Max, the 3 year old who loves to play in the mud and with his particularly loud wind-up toys, much to Ruby’s chagrin. The show happens in two and three segment bits, each problem being lovingly resolved within the course of each segment.
When we first started watching Max and Ruby as a family, it struck me as a little odd that Max and Ruby’s parents were nowhere to be seen. Oh well, I shrugged it off, knowing that the show was based on a series of books that I’d never read, and assumed that there was sufficient explanation within the books as to their lack of presence in the show. Then we Tivo’d the show, and the Little One began to watch it more regularly.
We watched the Thanksgiving episode. Surely mom and dad had to be around for that? Nope. Just grandma and the kids. Max and Ruby go shopping? No parents. Max and Ruby go to the fair? No parents. Have a yard sale? No parents. Ruby has pajama parties for her friends. No parents. Sure, grandma is a regular character, but she clearly has her own digs down the street.
Now curiosity is getting the best of me. I Google the explanation from Rosemary Wells, the author: “As in most other classic stories, we don’t see Max and Ruby’s parents, because I believe that kids resolve their issues and conflicts differently when they are on their own. The television series gives kids a sense about how these two siblings resolve their conflicts in a humorous and entertaining way”. Okay………I can dig it. As a rationale for a series of books, but translated into a TV show, it still is creepy for me to note the continued lack of parental involvement.
I’m all for kids having the opportunity to problem solve on their own. But when we enter into the territory of everyday family life, as the TV show has, and there is forever no sign of parents having an involvement in their kids’s activities, well, it disturbes me. Particularly considering that Max and Ruby has been reprised for a new season, with new sets of everyday adventures, and still the parents are nowhere to be seen.
Or are they? Once in a while, when Max and Ruby are playing upstairs in the house, we are treated to the sight of a closed bedroom door between Max’s room and Ruby’s room. It is tantalizing, that closed door. I get the almost palpable sense that Max and Ruby’s parents are behind it, and I have to wonder, at this point………………meth lab?
A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter
In preparing to write a short bit about the devastating effect of overexposure on a work of art – that is, how value tends to drop dramatically when a single work of art has been offered for sale multiple times over the course of a handful of years, I came across this small black box. And it is challenging that notion head-on. Let me back up and explain.
One of the key factors in a work of art’s value is its freshness to the market. If it’s been in the same collection for a generation or two (or more), demand tends to rise significantly over, say, if the same work of art is offered for sale a year or two after being sold. Sure, there are exceptions to this to be sure, particularly in the contemporary art market; but widely speaking, fresh works are king.
Sales venues like Ebay have challenged this notion, but not significantly: if a work of art is offered for sale and fails to meet reserve or garner an opening bid, the future value is still hurt, but there are not any lasting sales records to haunt it – Ebay’s completed auction records only last for a few months or so. Still, I’ve watched paintings that might have had significant value get completely pummeled by a seller’s repeated unsuccessful attempts at selling it. For that reason, I never recommend offering a work of art on Ebay more than once.
And now, Caleb Larsen’s A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter. A single work of art which, by way of its own internal programming, puts itself up for auction every week on Ebay. As an appraiser, my head is spinning. What happens to value when ownership is so fleeting as to only last a week? Motivation to sell is not a factor at all in this equation; it is part and parcel of the work itself. But what motivates the buyer? When I first became aware of this piece by way of Felix Salmon’s article, it was listed at $1500. Before the end of the auction, the price was upped to $2500, but failed to sell. It’s current auction ongoing, it started again at $2500, and bidding is up to $4250. Methinks that a rise in press coverage may be a large component of its rise in value. Therefore, the more publicity that this work receives, the higher its value? The seller, after all, isn’t “dumping” it back out into the market; the work itself, by design, is placing itself back out into the market.
According to the artist’s response to a question posed within the descriptive text of the auction site, “The perpetual state of uncertainty and the instability of ownership are primary components of the work”.
A work of art for the times, to be sure. And I will be watching with confoundment at how the market responds.
1/29/10 Update: Bidding on the piece closed yesterday evening at $6350 with 19 bids. It is currently en route to its next owner, and will presumably be set to auction itself again as soon as an ethernet connection is established. Wonder what the opening bid will be? Apparently that is at the discretion of its new owner, but I would still recommend an opening bid lower than the sales price.
CIE’s Person of the Year: Barack Obama
Ben Bernanke? Really, Time magazine? Certainly not here at CIE. And I realize that you already chose Obama as your 2008 Person of the Year, but in all due respect, that was a really safe choice at the time (pre-inauguration). Safe, and well, maybe it was also a small contribution to the PR problem that Obama currently faces. While Bernanke is the de-facto face of the economic bubble and its unraveling, Obama had a bubble problem of his own: an image bubble. The rock star-cum-messiah-cum-Santa Claus persona that he developed thoughout his campaign was perhaps what ultimately led to his election, but in such a serious time of economic downturn and real social and civic need, that bubble has also unraveled over the first year of his presidency. Please understand, those of you out there who are disillusioned with Obama these days, this had to happen. Obama is not a rock star. He is not a messiah, he is not Santa Claus. But he is a very very good president. Already. In his first year. And we are not spoiled children. We need things, to be sure. Things with which Obama can help. But throwing tantrums because your own set of personal needs was not addressed immediately after the election is unrealistic. Even for Santa Claus.
Obama inherited a broken system. More specifically, he inherited a system that the previous administration willfully and intentionally broke. If that sounds a little far-fetched, please read Thomas Frank’s brilliant book on the subject, The Wrecking Crew. Among the reasons to willfully hollow out government (see also “Starving the Beast”): so that the public learns not to rely on government to assist in meeting their needs. If people expect the government to be absent, or poorly run and inefficient, they will find alternative ways to get the support they need, and not expect the government to offer any oversight or protections. Viva la Free Market! And all those tax dollars, which are still pouring in? To be spent as freely and irresponsibly as you can dream (though not by you, of course)!
But what we’ve learned in this 10+ year experiment in Free Market-ism is that the Free Market, without effective government, has no oversight. And the Free Market does not care about what’s best for you, or the world at large. Just what gets and keeps cash flowing. At the expense of our health, our education, our well-being, our homes, our judgment, our economy, our environment. How the heck do you think we ended up with such things soda and junk food machines in our nation’s public schools, or insurance companies that refuse individuals based on previous condition, or cancel policies if they develop a serious illness?
We need our education system to work efficiently, we need infrastructure that is well maintained, we need our basic rights and liberties protected. We need a government that works for us. We have to be willing to support our President in putting it back together. He’s got a tremendous amount of work to do, and one year is a small amount of time to tackle even some of them. Despite the head-scratching conventional wisdom that “Obama’s administration hasn’t done anything yet” (Seriously – who floated this turd? Grover Norquist?), please read John Richardson’s line-up of accomplishments (via Esquire Magazine). Among them, “Two days after he was sworn in, Obama banned the use of “harsh interrogation” and ordered the closing of Guantánamo. Two weeks after that, Obama signed the stimulus bill — a $787 billion accomplishment. In June, Obama reset the tone of our relations with the entire Arab world with a single speech — an accomplishment that the Bush administration failed to achieve despite a series of desperate PR moves (anyone remember Charlotte Beers?) and a “public diplomacy” budget of $1 billion a year“. These are just a few, and now, after Christmas Eve, might I add: a Health Care Reform Bill. Yep. On the table since the 1960s and not one President has been able to send it through House and Senate. Until now. And to all those who decry it because it is ‘not enough’; Obama himself has acknowledged that it is a start. Finally on the right path.
One morning in early October, I heard in passing that Obama had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. My heart swelled with pride. This was actually happening to our President! In that moment, I was struck with giddy joy: not only had our country elected to the highest office a Harvard professor of Constitutional Law, but a Nobel Laureate to boot. Amazing. Simply amazing. This feeling lasted all day until I turned on the TV news to watch some coverage. No feeling of national pride there at all. Oh sure, there was plenty of noise about the nomination, but it was to the tune of “he doesn’t really deserve it”. I was crestfallen. The image bubble had not only burst, but it seems our citizens were so disillusioned as to refuse acceptance of this honor. De-legitimized. Just as the Birther movement had been trying, unsuccessfully, to do for months. Granted, the timing was bad; Obama was already set to announce the ramping up of troops in Afghanistan; a patently non-peaceful move.
But this President has inspired in me something that all other Presidents of my lifetime have not: Trust. Obama is highly educated, analytically-minded, worldly and well-traveled, from a background that is similar to many of us in this country, well spoken and composed. GW Bush was none of these things. Obama has a capacity for understanding and empathy, and a strong will to do right by his office and its citizens. GW Bush did not. And although he was swept into office by fueling our hopes for change, he has not been a chest-beating purveyor of his own accomplishments (yep. like GW Bush). So when he orders more troops to Afghanistan, I assume that he has sufficient reason. But just in case, I still listen carefully to how he frames his decision. I could read between the lines sufficiently to reckon that his worry was Pakistan (Rogue nukes? Unstable government?), and not in fact Afghanistan, but as one wouldn’t openly declare war on a nuclear state, it was a prudent thing to make it about Pakistan’s neighbor, where troops had already been for eight years. And I am at peace with his decision. Out of trust.
I worry that the Free Market-ism will once again reign supreme in this country, its hold having gone too deep into the fabric of our lives, but one thing is certain: if we can’t get behind our President and his aims to repair the badly damaged system of government in this country, it will reign again (starting after the 2010 elections). So please, let us all get over our hurt at Obama not being Superman, or at least a superhuman who can come to our rescue on every little thing, and support him in what he has done, and is doing. In the words of the Neko Case, “bet the hand that your money’s on”. Our future is at stake.
No more whining!
Why I Love Yo Gabba Gabba
Let’s get this straight: I am not a fan of kid’s TV programming. Through the years, I have had friends who thought that Pokemon and the Powerpuff Girls were fantastic, and the Power Rangers and Dragon Ball Z were awesome (we’re talking about adults, here, folks). Not me. Outside of a deep appreciation for Ren and Stimpy, the Simpsons, and Family Guy (which are patently NOT kid’s TV shows), I have not even been much of a fan of anything animated or developed for kids.
So I thought that when I had my own kids, TV programming would be something I’d have to endure. I dreaded the mere thought of having to watch a single episode of Barney or the Teletubbies. I stocked up on DVD sets of old school 70s Sesame Street and Electric Company, just to have something I once adored to add to the mix. What ended up happening, and what my childless self didn’t anticipate, is that you love your kid and you end up loving it when he is enjoying himself. Even when that means he enjoys watching Barney. You’re watching him watch it, and that’s pretty cool. So I did it. I watched all those shows that I dreaded, and anything he enjoyed: new Sesame Street (Elmo and all), Curious George, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go…….and it was OK. Perhaps thankfully, he just never got into Barney OR Teletubbies.
And then one day an orange hat glided past on our TV set.
And in the half hour that followed, my ideas about what is possible in children’s programming changed. The specific episode that I watched, Episode 8 of season 1. What I saw: Yo Gabba Gabba characters Muno and Brobie doing a countdown to launch their new rocket, followed by a chorus of “up, up up, down, down, down”, done with enough childlike enthusiasm to smash to smithereens an entire season’s worth of Dora’s screechy forced-happy speak. Biz Markie (Biz freaking Markie!) doing a short beatboxing segment called “Biz’s Beat of the Day”, encouraging kids at home to follow along with his beats. The band Supernova doing a rendition of “Up and Down”, wearing space suits and jumping on trampolines while performing on stage, for the series’s regular feature, the ‘Super Music Friends Show’, which is always followed by DJ Lance calling out “listening and dancing to music is………awesome!”. And I felt what I hadn’t felt since I was watching shows I loved as a kid: a rush of excitement.
So many of the kids shows that I had been watching were awfully formulaic: identify problem in the beginning, set up a plan for fixing problem, follow through with plan, do dance at the end. And I understand that the task-based, problem-solving approach is de rigeur now in pedagogy, but sometimes it kinda feels like doing chores. Even the “unexpected” twists that the shows sometimes do feel just the opposite — planned. And the interactive element that is also such a prominent feature of pretty much everything that came after the success of “Blue’s Clues” also usually strikes me as hokey. Like Dora insisting that if you do an upwards motion with your hands, you’re actually “helping” her onscreen friend to climb a tree. Hokey and also a little……..misplaced and creepy? And you know what? Her onscreen friend always makes it up that tree even though my Little One doesn’t lift a finger. What sort of strangeness is being taught here? It’s OK not to respond when someone’s asking you for help, ’cause they’ll get by perfectly fine without it?
Despite the edgy underpinnings of Yo Gabba Gabba’s surface image, the values and skill set that it is promoting through its segments are just as basic and wholesome as any PBS show: Sharing, brushing your teeth, making new friends, being scared, taking naps, counting, loving your family and friends, being generous, caring for the earth, and above all…….playing and having fun. At its core, isn’t that what childhood should be about? (our next generation needs another My Baby can Read program like it needs a hole in the head). And the interactiveness that it aims for is a very old and organic formula: through guessing games, teaching new dance moves, encouraging kids to make a funny face. No voice-overs of kids shouting out answers to clueless characters necessary.
The celebrity cameos on YGG alone are worth tuning in for. Aside from the regulars Biz Markie and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, such diverse talents as Jack Black, Laila Ali (Laila freaking Ali!), Elijah Wood, Paul Williams, Andy Samberg, Jack McBrayer have graced the show, always at unexpected turns. That’s one of the main themes with YGG: you never really quite know what to expect. And that turns out to be really, really fun for everyone in our household. The Little One has embraced YGG into his daily life like no other show: He has his own set of ‘cool tricks’, does Biz’s beats, and often breaks out into song that he’s heard on the show. And he’s only two. Take that, My Baby Can Read. My baby can have great, goofy fun.
Wikipedia describes the coining of Yo Gabba Gabba’s title thusly: “Some claim the title of the series is derived from the chant “Gabba Gabba Hey“, first coined by punk rock band Ramones, but any similarities to the Ramones end at the title”. I, for one, disagree. The Ramones came to popularity in the late 70’s with a sound that took its cues from the fast tempo and edgy guitar sound of punk rock, but rose high above both punk and the bubblegum pop radio tunes of the era by delivering music that was basic and accessible and consistently jump-up-and-down fun. Much, I would argue, like Yo Gabba Gabba.
If you’re reading this, and you haven’t actually seen the show yet, I might suggest watching the following clip, which I believe is one of the best to sum up the overall mood of the show: The Aggrolites sing “Banana”. And even if you know the clip and you’ve seen it a hundred times already, go ahead and watch it again……you know you want to.
Yo Gabba Gabba is shown commercial-free on Nick Jr., currently in the noon and 12:30 time slots (cst).
CIE Holiday Shopping Guide
News recently broke (and unbroke) about the unsafe levels of the toxic compound antimony on this Holiday season’s hottest new toy, Zhu Zhu Pets. Until then, it seemed like a great gift for the times: inexpensive, simple, and oh so cute. But the alarm raised by the exposure of a certain fireproofing chemical used in its manufacture should not be dismissed. Standards for toy manufacture, and, for that matter, product manufacture, remain at once lax and rather unregulated. Fortunate thing we have groups like GoodGuide that are helping the consumer to navigate the waters of safe/unsafe in a wide range of products, from toys to food to personal care items.
Similarly, we have publications such as The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices 
In that vein, my Holiday Shopping Guide is a compendium of companies recommended by both GoodGuide and The Blue Pages. Get out your shopping lists and get ready to edit!
Greenest Toy Companies of 2009 — Good Guide
The Blue Pages: 10 Best Brands to Buy this Holiday Season (via Air America):
- Gap
- Tiffany and Co.
- Best Buy
- Hewlett-Packard
- Kenneth Cole
- Campbell Soup Company
- Naked Juice
- The North Face
- Ben and Jerry’s
The Blue Pages: The Top Ten Companies to AVOID this Holiday Season (via Air America):
- The Children’s Place
- Hanes
- JC Penney
- The Limited Brands
- IBM
- Albertson’s
- Chiquita
- L’Oreal
- Target — ouch! That one’s gonna hurt!
- Wal-Mart
One Small Step to a Sustainable Holiday
Amid all of the pre-Thanksgiving buzz last week about Black Friday, a TV news reporter stood in the middle of a well known Big Box store, holding up some of the great deals to be had. Among her selected items, a toilet seat cover with Santa’s face. No really, I’m not kidding:
Most of us would agree that, especially in these economic times, something like this is unnecessary. But what if the price quoted by the TV news anchor was a low low $13? For the whole set! Even those among us who would normally snort at such outrageous decor might think “hmm…that might be kind of adorable, and Aunt Stella would get such a kick out of it when she comes out for Christmas dinner”! Something seems to happen to our judgment when things we wouldn’t be inclined to buy turn out to fall comfortably in our price range.
Let’s all please, please this holiday season start here: reclaim that judgment. If there’s one thing we don’t need on this planet, it’s a toilet seat cover with Santa’s face on it. The sooner manufacturers are aware of this (by lack of sales), the less burden our planet will have to bear for their production. In fact, how about we all, as consumers,
Buy no new holiday decor this year
Yep. It’s simple. Here’s what to do instead: Use what you have. Use what your friends and family have, but are not currently using. If you must obtain something that isn’t available to you in this way, thrift shops and antique stores are packed to the gills with holiday decor that’s already out there. If there’s something that absolutely must be purchased new, like candles, please patronize local artisans, in your town or online (a la Etsy).
We tend to think of recycling as the glass and paper and plastic that we sort out from our trash, but really, using what we have and relying on secondhand sources is just as powerful a way to recycle, if not more so. And the next time you see a $3.99 price tag on the silliest little thing that you almost can’t resist, please, take yourself out of the moment. The fewer new $3.99 silliest things in your life, and in the life of the planet, the better.
Diapers: Cloth or Disposable?
When I was expecting the Little One, I dreaded this question. For me, it was like the “paper or plastic” question that you feel like you never really have all of the information necessary to make an informed decision (and if you’ve ever felt the same about the ‘paper or plastic?’ question, RUN, don’t walk, to this helpful breakdown). But with ‘Cloth or Disposable?’, I felt even more lost; for one thing, I wasn’t even a mom yet, so hadn’t even honed my diaper changing skills. I didn’t know how much and to what extent diapers would consume my future life, so had no real clue of what information was necessary to make this choice.
As a sustainability-friendly person, my instinct was that ‘cloth’ was the right answer. Much in the same way that many sustainability-friendly folks believe that ‘paper’ is the corresponding right answer among bagging issues. But I soon found, upon the Little One’s birth, that the choice here becomes a far more personal one than which type bag to use. Here is how I found the path to my favorite pick:
My initial response to the dreaded question was that I intended to try cloth, but begin with disposables; I figured the learning curve of caring for a newborn would be great enough without the added stress of trying to manage a new cloth diapering system. Turns out that Whew! I had that right! So, after a little homework on the various options in disposables, I added Seventh Generation diapers to my baby registry. They were hard to find; only one shop offered them locally at the time. The best bet was to buy them online. I’d been happy with both the products and philosophy of the Seventh Generation line, so I was looking forward to giving the diapers a shot. Although they are, like most disposables, essentially a plastic-based product, no chlorine is used in their manufacture, which is helpful in a few ways: Less processing required in manufacture means less carbon footprint; lack of chlorine makes diapers friendly to sensitive baby skin; no chlorine to leach into the groundwater after the diapers are disposed of.
The Little One finally showed up in October, and I was ready with my pick for disposable diapers. My life became a diaper-changing marathon. Any supply of diapers that I had armed myself with disappeared almost immediately. No matter how many new packs I bought, it seemed I was always almost out of them. Having chosen a brand that was difficult to find was not an optimal plan for the time. I ended up supplementing with plenty of Pampers Swaddlers and Luvs, just because they were the ones I could buy at the nearest grocery store. I’m glad that that happened, though, because it learned me something important: The Little One’s bum consistently got rashy when I used any other brand than Seventh Gen.
After a couple of months when I finally felt like I was getting the hang of whole diapering thing, I began to branch out. As a stop between disposable and cloth, I tried G Diapers. This was essentially a 3-part system: Cloth outer diaper, biodegradable/flushable/disposable insert, and protective plastic liner. They were freakin adorable. I loved how they looked on him, and the fit and absorbency was generally right on. I liked that the insert was flushable, but as we have septic system out here, that option was just not for us. The use of the G diaper required a little more planning than the full disposables; there were two outer cloth diapers, which needed to have the plastic liner snapped in place, in order to place the disposable insert, in order for the diaper to go on baby. Fine to plan out for an afternoon diaper change; at 2 am, however, not so much.
And just to wade a little into full cloth, I picked up a Bum Genius set. Super cute, super soft. If I were a baby, this is what I would want wrapping my tush. Aesthetically, it’s like the infant equivalent to Charmin Ultra.
Here, however, was the dealbreaker for me and cloth, and even me and G diapers: the Little One is famous for his consistently huge, runny poops. Even at 2, that kid can fill a diaper. Full. “Man poops” is how is daycare teacher jokingly characterized them. He made an awful mess of the poor Bum Genius. The kind that never quite washed out, and left it discolored. The G diapers would get all three layers saturated, necessitating a frantic run to the washing machine on a regular basis. But the Seventh Gen held it. Sure there were blow-outs, but few and far between as compared to the alternatives.
And now, many more places carry Seventh Generation locally, making them a consistently attractive option. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I used anything else. The Little One is slowly turning his sights to the potty, but I’ve got Kid 2.0 on the way as well; if his/her claim to fame does not include “man poops”, I might be inclined to give cloth another try. Any input or advice is welcome!
Picks from my Ebay Watchlist
Is it just me, or does the quality of art offerings on Ebay seem to be ramping down lately? I usually associate November with a month of better-than-average offerings in the art categories. Still, as almost always, there are some attractive offerings amongst the bunch worth passing along to any interested collectors out there:
FERDINAND BURGDORFF “TEMPLE TO ATHENA”
Burgdorff was a prolific artist, stationed for the bulk of his career in a studio in Carmel, California. He had a very long career, stretching from the 1910s throughout his life to the 1970s. His paintings most in demand are with California subject matter, from the 1920s and 1930s. The painting in this listing is neither. The subject matter is European, and dated 1959. It is, however, a great example of his signature style; the light pastel palette and soft pointillist brushstrokes. The market lately has not been kind to Burgdorff’s work. It is an excellent time to snap up a gem like this painting for a heretofore unheard-of price of $230.
Le Petit Matelot (The Little Sailor)
Don’t let the French title fool you; Mary Ronin was an American artist and illustrator in the mid 20th century. I cannot find sales records for her paintings, but her style is highly reminiscent of a popular contemporary of hers, Ralph Cahoon. This is one of those artists that, in time, the market will recognize, and I’m sure that her paintings will be valued at much more than the $150 opening bid.
b.1906 CECIL HEAD Barnyard Cat INDIANA Regionalist NICE
Cecil Head was a Brown County artist, and is one of the up-and-comers in the market for Indiana art; he was too young to have been a part of the original Brown County colony, but old enough to have firm roots in the modernist WPA movement that sets his artwork apart from the older set. In terms of Head’s own career, this painting is late (dated 1984), which the art market would currently count as a strike, but this is also a Hoosier Salon painting, complete with tag on the reverse, which sets it apart from the crowd. Get it now while it’s cheap!
ISO A Better Cat Food: Some Reviews
The cat food commercials that I recall growing up showcase how much the cats loved to eat a particular brand, or how fabulous and well cared they looked while eating it. But lately, there is a disturbing trend among TV pet food ads: appeal to the appetite of the cat owner. Hence a beautifully presented but undeniably human dinner being transformed into a plate to put out for Kitty. Like your mom’s home cooking for felines. And while this may have the emotional appeal conducive to our opening our wallets (as most of us want to be good caretakers of our pets), this is downright backwards in terms of the cat’s actual nutritional needs. Folks, cats are obligatory carnivores. That can of “Tuscan turkey with vegetables and garden greens” may sound more appealing than just plain old turkey to us, but their bodies have no use for, let alone benefit from, non-meat ingredients and the carbohydrates they carry. In fact, these recreational non-meat ingredients can, over time, damage the health of our feline friends in the form of bowel disease, obesity, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, and kidney disease.
Since the passing of my sweet elderly CRD cats, I have been on a mission to provide my two youngster kitties (T, 5, and Kiki, 2) with a better diet. More specifically, a high-protein/meat based, low carbohydrate diet, so that they might enjoy a long life free of obesity, diabetes and hyperthyroidism. I also care for a colony of three feral farm cats, providing food and shelter for the last five years. They are known, affectionately, as “the mongrels”. During the course of this mission, I’ve tried several varieties with mixed results, and found great resources which I’d like to pass along to other cat owners on a similar mission.
First, the website which has been indispensable to my quest for better cat food, collecting independent analyses of the composition of cat foods:
- Canned Cat Food, and the updated/amended version, and Dry Cat Food. These sites provide a graph in which cat food content is arranged by phosphorous level, a critical factor in caring for elderly cats with Kidney Disease. In addition, it contains that all-important number for carbohydrates, which, not surprisingly, is absent from the manufacturer’s ingredients lists.
Among the brands that I have tried with my kitties are:
Raw Meat: Feline’s Pride.
The makeup of this cat food is ground raw meat and bones, shipped frozen to your door. I tried the 2.5lb chicken formula to start. At $18.48 including shipping, it’s a little steep, but I was determined to find the best diet, and most signs pointed this way. Here’s the thing, though: it’s raw. I mean, I knew this going in, and to be fair, the ick factor was very much ramped up by the fact that I was in my first trimester of pregnancy and couldn’t even stomach the meat aisle in the grocery store, let alone a tub of ground up raw chicken and bones. For me, the timing was bad. For my kitties, it was something that they picked at, but wouldn’t finish a portion in the hour’s time I was instructed to leave it out.
Verdict: I like this option, but I think that it requires a plan in order to introduce it to the kitties diet. Scheduled eating times should be established first, then the Feline’s Pride mixed in with their regular canned food, weaning them gradually. And I shouldn’t be in any trimester of pregnancy when I do try it again.
Grain-free canned foods:
I bought one of each of the varieties offered at the local shop: Beef, Chicken and Turkey, Venison, Rabbit, and Duck (all the 95% meat formula). T, my pickier eater, was only interested in the Beef. Kiki, on the other hand, was also interested in the Chicken and Turkey, but neither were too gung ho on the Venison, Rabbit, or Duck formulas. The mongrels, however, ate everything readily!
Verdict: will keep buying the 95% Beef.
They both seem to love it all. Unfortunately, Wellness has also broken with tradition and begun to add some grains, like brown rice, and fruits to some formulations. Check labels for carbohydrate content (add up all percentages for ingredients listed; the missing number is the carbohydrate content).
Verdict: will keep buying low carb formulations
Commercial, non-grain-free canned foods:
Using the bulleted links above, it’s easy to zero in on widely available commercial foods that offer low carbohydrate formulations. In our house, I routinely buy Fancy Feast and Friskies varieties that have lower carb options, because they are eaten so readily and universally. But here’s an overall hint: varieties that are marketed as “kitten food” tend overwhelmingly to be lowest in carbohydrate content. Do not fret about giving “kitten food” to an adult cat; their nutritional needs are the same. If you are feeding kitten food to an older CRD cat, however, please be sure to check on the phosphorous level first.
Keep posted; more to come…
