Thursday, April 04, 2013

Friendly Holly Golightly and responses



 The new visitor to the vegetable garden with its tiger stripes is less pretty but more friendly than the usual  orange cat which ignores me as though I were not more than an attachment to the wheelbarrow. Pretty isn't always kind.




 
I  read today  that Truman Capote originally intended Holly Golightly (surely among the most inspired names in fiction) to be called Connie Gustafson. What a lucky escape for him as well as his readers, and for Audrey Hepburn too who played Holly in the 1961 movie of Breakfast at Tiffanay's! Names are important in life as well as fiction.  It is worth remembering that Adolf Hitler's uncle changed the family name from Schicklegruber to Hitler. Hard to imagine many people shouting "Heil Schickelgruber" at Nazi rallies. Hard to adjust even when dear friends change their pseudonyms. For my own part I regret ceasing to sign this blog Plutarch. I had become used to the old boy. Worse I made the change by mistake. Almost in the same way as I arrived at the current layout of this blog, which I would like a lot more if it didn't discourage commentators from responding.

One of the pleasures of life which often go unnoticed is receiving an intelligent and courteous response over the telephone or across a shop counter. Although one should I suppose, I don't expect it or take it for granted. 


5 comments:

Ellena said...

Oh, my first sighting of a tiger/leopard cat.

And, Schickelgruber, hm, the name contains the German word for pit.

The Crow said...

Your garden visitor is (I think) what's called a Bengal cat. They are strikingly handsome cats with more curiosity than normal. They're affectionate with their owners; very 'talkative,' too. I understand, though, that they own the household and don't "play well with others."

Unknown said...

Thank you both for defining my visitor. I am sorry that you seem to be having problems commenting. I have left the duplicates because as I discovered with Robbie's last comment, if you delete one you delete both. Please persist if you can.

Lucy said...

That is a beautiful cat. I understand those Bengals are so precious they are often the objects of theft and so not allowed to venture out of doors, and that you can get a snow leopard version too.

I always liked Plutarch too.

Unknown said...

Crow, Lucy, Ellena I had heard of Bengal cats but didn't recognise this one. I would have been more apprecatiave if I had realized. This is my first siting too. Perhaps its rarity and the care people take of the breed explains why I haven't seen it out and about before.