While you’re in: Gaze at the moon, check out regional art, or see strange cat hybrids
Get mooned
Saturday, Sept. 26, is International Observe the Moon Night, organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to encourage people around the world to look skyward and learn about both lunar science and the moon’s significance to cultures around the world. On the NASA page devoted to the event, you can get more information on observing from home or find an event to join. (The latter might be a good idea, since cloudy skies look likely to hide the moon.) If you’re looking for a relatively local — though virtual — celebration to join, Pierce College’s Science Dome is hosting an event at 3 p.m. Saturday on Zoom, which will include online observation of the moon through telescopes in Chile and the Canary Islands. More moony festivities are on the way Thursday, Oct. 1, the date of this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival, the second-grandest festival in China after the Chinese New Year. It’s celebrated throughout East Asia and around the world. Tacoma’s version, the Moon Festival, is happening online this year. Get details on Facebook.
Hit the trails
ARTrails’ annual studio tour has been luring road-tripping art lovers to Southwest Washington for the past 18 years. This year, a scaled-down version of the tour is happening online with content including artists’ profiles and contact information, plus videos of many of the artists. (Click on the art pieces to see the videos.) The virtual tour will be up all year, but you might want to check it out soon, because you have a chance to win free art if you register and vote for your favorite piece on the ARTrails site.
Escape with shape-shifting cats
As regular readers of this column know, at least some members of The Olympian’s staff rely on cat videos, pictures, etc., to provide temporary relief from the many stresses of modern life. This week, The Olympian stumbled across something that might be even better than cats: crazy crosses between cats and other creatures, say a giraffe, or even objects, like this cat-banana. Those are just two examples of the creative combinations designed by Russian artist Galina Bugaevskaya, who posts her work on Instagram and Facebook. More cat hybrids — including a new kind of caterpillar — can be seen on a video by Kiddopedia. It’s fun to watch, and the slow, calm narration, by a fellow with a German accent, is relaxing, but the video does include a few oddly named beasts, likely because English isn’t the creator’s first language. (“Scat” for a cat-snail mix? No thanks.)
Freelance writer Molly Gilmore went looking for a cat-moon hybrid and discovered the existence of a 1953 sci-fi flick called “Cat-Women of the Moon”, and the tagline trumpets, “Love-starved moon maidens on the prowl.” She discusses local arts, entertainment and more with 95.3 KGY-FM’s Michael Stein from 3 to 4 p.m. Fridays.
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 5:45 AM.