>H.P. Lovecraft's cat was named NiggermanEverybody knows this and everybody has a laugh about it at this point. Let's have a thread for some of the other notable pets of famous /lit/ figures.
>>25425771i'm curious if anyone can find the name of any of lovecrafts other cats, i know he had more than one, and i could say:>"hey, fun fact about lovecraft, he had a cat, get this, a cat named... mittens"
Nerval had a pet lobster he would take for walks
>>25425796He didn't own any others I don't think but he mentions several belonging to people he visited. Also there was a random street cat he got to know over a long period. He named him ‘Old Man’:So I hadn’t spoken about “Old Man” and my dreams of him! Well — he was a great fellow. He belonged to a market at the foot of Thomas Street — the hill street mentioned in “Cthulhu” as the abode of the young artist — and could usually (in later life) be found asleep on the sill of a low window almost touching the ground.Occasionally he would stroll up the hill as far as the Art Club, seating himself at the entrance to one of those old-fashioned courtyard archways (formerly common everywhere) for which Providence is so noted. At night, when the electric lights made the street bright, the space within the archway would remain pitch-black, so that it looked like the mouth of an illimitable abyss, or the gateway of some nameless dimension. And there, as if stationed as a guardian of thebunfathomed mysteries beyond, would crouch the sphinxlike, jet-black, yellow-eyed, and incredibly ancient form of Old Man. I first knew him as a youngish cat in 1906, when my elder aunt lived in Benefit St. nearby, and Thomas St. lay on my route downtown from her place. I used to pet him and remark what a fine boy he was. I was 16 then. The years went by, and I continued to see him off and on. He grew mature — then elderly — and finally cryptically ancient. After about 10 years — when I was grown up and had a grey hair or two myself — I began calling him “Old Man”. He knew me well, and would always purr and rub around my ankles, and greet me with a kind of friendly conversational “e-ew” which finally became hoarse with age. I came to regard him as an indispensable acquaintance, and would often go considerably out of my way to pass his habitual territory, on the chance that I might find him visible. Good Old Man! In fancy I pictured him as an hierophant of the mysteries behind the black archway, and wondered if he would ever invite me through it some midnight . . . . wondered, too, if I could ever come back to earth alive after accepting such an invitation. . . .~ Letter, 1934
>>25425771Dear Charles:A man named Inkstead took some pictures of me for Harper’s Bazaar a while ago (I never quite found out why) and one of me holding my secretary in my lap came out very well indeed. When I get the dozen I have ordered I’ll send you one. The secretary, I should perhaps add, is a black Persian cat, 14 years old, and I call her that because she has been around me ever since I began to write, usually sitting on the paper I wanted to use or the copy I wanted to revise, sometimes leaning up against the typewriter and sometimes just quietly gazing out of the window from a corner of the desk, as much as to say, “The stuff you’re doing’s a waste of my time, bud.” Her name is Taki (it was originally Take, but we got tired of explaining that this was a Japanese word meaning bamboo and should be pronounced in two syllables), and she has a memory like no elephant ever even tried to have. She is usually politely remote, but once in a while will get an argumentative spell and talk back for ten minutes at a time. I wish I knew what she is trying to say then, but I suspect it all adds up to a very sarcastic version of “You can do better.” . . .~ Raymond Chandler, letter, 1945
Richard Wagner's Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Peps, had an unusual sensitivity to music and reacted differently to melodies depending on their key. Wagner valued his dog's responses so highly that critics joked Peps was the only critic he ever listened to. When Peps became gravely ill, Wagner stayed by his side and delayed important work. After Peps died peacefully in his arms, Wagner wrote that he mourned deeply, calling him "the dear friend of the past thirteen years.
>>25425771I named my cat "cat" and it triggers people more than I predicted, not sure why though, it is a cat. I don't think that matters much to him.
>>25426188The main character in Breakfast at Tiffany's names her cat Cat. Try to watch that movie or read the novel without getting angry at what she does with it
>>25425771>>H.P. Lovecraft's cat was named Niggerman>Everybody knows this and everybody has a laugh about it at this point.People know about it but they don't understand it. They think it's some kind of insult or a sign of how nigger obsessed he was, when it was pretty common to call things in general nigger-something. This is a recurring problem with all the "niggerhead rock" type names they try to scrub from existence, and black animals being called nigger-something is not uncommon. More to the point Lovecraft clearly liked cats, and it makes no sense he'd intend the name as an insult or to somehow show his hate for the animal. I think a better analogy would be if someone called a cat "Blackie" today (still used a lot for horses).
>>25426188My Dad named a cat Poor Kitty. When people asked why, he'd say "because he always wants treats, but he never gets them." And then the people would always go, "aww, poor kitty!"
>>25426198That's all fine and good, but Niggerman wasn't even a black cat.
>>25425771Patricia Highsmith kept snails and I wondered if she named them. She started small but eventually had hundreds, at which point naming them all seems impractical, but here's an early journal entry:— December 3, 1946An evening spent reading with Ginnie. Naturally, we had a long, delicious dinner, so we didn’t begin our reading until 9:30. The snails are (almost) our greatest delight. From morning to night, we watch Bouncer and Mike, who can usually be found on the leaves of the plant. The little ones eat all day and grow, and we could spend all evening watching them.
>>25426211. . . What keeps me alive is the ability to look back to the past and imagine I am still in 1902 or 1903. Of all my dreams, about 0.8 are of that period — with myself in short trousers and at the old home, with my mother, grandfather, black cat Nigger-Man, etc. still alive. Thus the world of the early 1900’s still exists for me in about a third of the hours of my daily life. . . .~ H. P. Lovecraft, Letter, 1935
>>25426224>>25426232sorry
>>25426234When HPL was 8 his father died and his mother had to sell the house and move. Nigger-Man was lost at that period (either ran off, or stayed behind, preferring the territory he knew).So if you think HPL is older than 8 in that picture, the cat isn't Nigger-Man.
>>25426272Oh. Well, I stand corrected.
>>25425771Guy Gibson (who wrote Enemy Coast Ahead, and commanded the "Dam Busters" raid) had a black labrador named Nigger.The dog was portrayed accurately in the film about Gibson's exploits.
>>25426188An ex gf asked me what she should name her cat so I suggested “cat who is bad”She did not take my suggestion
>>25426155oh thanks.
>>25426155This is adorable.
>>25426165>usually sitting on the paper I wanted to use or the copy I wanted to reviseTypical.
>>25427929>“cat who is bad”Gato malo I can actually get behind as a name.
>>25426155Lovecraft really, really loved cats. I think he admired them.>It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.
