Blood & Rhetoric

So early (early!) this morning, Jimmy (that’s the cat) walks into the bedroom, jumps up on the bed, and starts purring like mad and nudging my hand for some heavy petting action.

What the hell?

We thought this cat was a goner. We’ve been force-feeding syringes of disgusting vet-approved food down his throat and three kinds of medicine for over a week. He’s barely been able to move, and puddles of his vomit have greeted us on every staircase landing — he chooses the carpet to throw up it seems, the hardwood would just be, y’know, too easy for us to clean up — and now this?

My boyfriend and I had been having serious discussions about putting him down just the previous night, and this morning, we just stared at each other in shock.

So he’s going to pull through it seems, which is a relief. And with this post, I officially join the ranks of writers posting about their cats. Except Jimmy belongs to my boyfriend. And I will not punctuate this post with a LOLCat image. I swear!

I was going to write a post today about novel-based films not always sucking when compared to the actual novels.

I was going to use The English Patient, written by Michael Ondaatje, and later turned into a 9-Oscar winning film by the incredibly talented Anthony Minghella as a perfect example of that fact.

And then today I learned that Anthony Minghella had died yesterday morning from internal haemorrhaging, mere days after undergoing surgery that was originally deemed a success. 

He was 54. He was one of our most talented directors; with such films as: ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’; ‘The Talented Mister Ripley’, and the aforementioned ‘English Patient’, which is one of my favourite films, as well as one of my favourite novels.

Along with this tragedy, with have the death of Arthur C. Clark, at the ripe old age of 90, who was one of the most important science fiction writers of the last century.

Two creative minds. The same day.

Arthur C. Clark had almost 100 novels under his belt, and many short stories; including, The Sentinal, the short story that would later be turned into 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick (yet another talented dead guy). He and Kubrick worked on the actual novel of the film together, which might also give pause to the whole novels adapted off films always suck theory.

I’ve never read anything by Anthony C. Clark. But now, I want too.

I wonder if that statement gives credence to the whole “more fame after death” thing?

R.I.P dudes, you’ll be missed.