Gerard, I think the cat train toy is a kind of homage to Tama, a Japanese cat who became the honorary stationmaster of a train on the Wakayama Line in Kishi Prefecture in 2007. Her appointment as stationmaster led to a 10% increase in ridership on the Wakayama Line. In 2010, the station building at Kishi was remodeled to look like a cat’s face. Tama died in 2015 at the cat equivalent of 80 human years but has been succeeded by two cat assistants and a deputy named Nitama.
Per Wikipedia: “After her passing, thousands of her fans from all over Japan came to pay their respect. She was honored with a Shinto-style funeral at the station and was given the posthumous title, ‘Honorary Eternal Stationmaster.’ She was enshrined at a nearby Shinto cat shrine as spirit goddess Tama Daimyōjin on August 11, 2015. . . . Nitama’s first official duty was to be conveyed to her predecessor’s shrine to pay her respects.”
Photos of Tama, her assistants and deputy, the Wakayama train painted to look like a cat, the Kishi Station after remodeling, and the Shinto shrine to Tama at the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_(cat)
I hope you don’t volunteer Miss Olive to be the feline face of California High-Speed Rail.
Wandering ’round the net, looking for a bit more background on Tama, the Station Master cat in Japan, I somehow ended up reading about a little publication called The Organ, made on San Fran, edited by some guy called van der Leun.
Reading Richard Lupoff’s intro to The Organ Reader, http://www.ramblehouse.com/organreaderchapter.htm , leave me wondering if that guy van der Leun, was nuked too much, not enough, or just right. 😉
AesopFanApril 30, 2019, 12:20 PM
IF I had a cat, I just might get one.
IF.
Nobody AtallApril 30, 2019, 12:47 PM
Hmmm … my kittie my actually like that thing … hmmm
EskymanApril 30, 2019, 1:18 PM
Gerard, you and Miss Olive might enjoy Neko Cafe, aka Cat Cafe the movie; Miss Olive can view it from her perch in the Cat Train that I’m sure you have on order for her.
“In Akihabara, Sakura Sakuragi (Yurika Kubo) runs cat cafe “Mocha.” She listens to her customers’ troubles there. The various customers that enter her cafe also take comfort in the cats that reside there.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9703882/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
I’d tell you what I thought of it, but alas! I haven’t yet found any subtitles, and my Japanese is quite limited (i.e. nonexistent) so I can’t, at least not yet!
VanderleunMay 1, 2019, 3:41 PM
Jim in Alaska…. Yes I was nuked far far too much… far far af faaa rrrr toooo moooch!@@$#%$
SuburbanbansheeMay 2, 2019, 4:20 PM
Cats like boxes with escape holes and lookouts, and humans like watching cats in cute situations.
Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history… for contemplation or in fact…
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.
“From a student radical/hippie/leftist of the Free Speech Movement/Vietnam Day Commitee era and a full-on Democratic Liberal in the decades after, I think I’ve evolved a politics that is neither right nor left but is, in its elemental nature, draconian. In the last 20 years, I’ve taken apart my beliefs with a sledgehammer. Now I’ve got to put the surviving parts back together with tweezers and other ‘shabby equipment, always deteriorating’.”
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Comments on this entry are closed.
Gerard, I think the cat train toy is a kind of homage to Tama, a Japanese cat who became the honorary stationmaster of a train on the Wakayama Line in Kishi Prefecture in 2007. Her appointment as stationmaster led to a 10% increase in ridership on the Wakayama Line. In 2010, the station building at Kishi was remodeled to look like a cat’s face. Tama died in 2015 at the cat equivalent of 80 human years but has been succeeded by two cat assistants and a deputy named Nitama.
Per Wikipedia: “After her passing, thousands of her fans from all over Japan came to pay their respect. She was honored with a Shinto-style funeral at the station and was given the posthumous title, ‘Honorary Eternal Stationmaster.’ She was enshrined at a nearby Shinto cat shrine as spirit goddess Tama Daimyōjin on August 11, 2015. . . . Nitama’s first official duty was to be conveyed to her predecessor’s shrine to pay her respects.”
Photos of Tama, her assistants and deputy, the Wakayama train painted to look like a cat, the Kishi Station after remodeling, and the Shinto shrine to Tama at the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_(cat)
I hope you don’t volunteer Miss Olive to be the feline face of California High-Speed Rail.
Absotively nyet!
Wandering ’round the net, looking for a bit more background on Tama, the Station Master cat in Japan, I somehow ended up reading about a little publication called The Organ, made on San Fran, edited by some guy called van der Leun.
Reading Richard Lupoff’s intro to The Organ Reader, http://www.ramblehouse.com/organreaderchapter.htm , leave me wondering if that guy van der Leun, was nuked too much, not enough, or just right. 😉
IF I had a cat, I just might get one.
IF.
Hmmm … my kittie my actually like that thing … hmmm
Gerard, you and Miss Olive might enjoy Neko Cafe, aka Cat Cafe the movie; Miss Olive can view it from her perch in the Cat Train that I’m sure you have on order for her.
“In Akihabara, Sakura Sakuragi (Yurika Kubo) runs cat cafe “Mocha.” She listens to her customers’ troubles there. The various customers that enter her cafe also take comfort in the cats that reside there.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9703882/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
I’d tell you what I thought of it, but alas! I haven’t yet found any subtitles, and my Japanese is quite limited (i.e. nonexistent) so I can’t, at least not yet!
Jim in Alaska…. Yes I was nuked far far too much… far far af faaa rrrr toooo moooch!@@$#%$
Cats like boxes with escape holes and lookouts, and humans like watching cats in cute situations.