h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

DISCLAIMER: I am not in league with this cat food company. I do not endorse their products. My vet has prescribed a different - and much more expensive, naturally - brand of healthy cat food, which our cats enjoy while they stay trim. What I'm about to recommend is that you watch these fancy cat food commercials...

because they're ART.

It helps if you speak French, but there are useful subtitles, just like in the Art Cinema.

And now, without further ado, 'Henri Le Chat Noir':

http://www.youtube.com/user/HenriLeChatNoir

This cat has dignity. It is intellectual. It ratiocinates elegantly. It quotes Camus and Montaigne - and tells it like it is.

I really recommend No 4, 'L'Haunting'. Profound thoughts, or pensees profondes, on the subject of Halloween. Tres existentialistes, these pensees.

I defy you not to fall in love with this cat. He might make you want to re-read Camus. Or buy nicer cat food.

Side note: It was obvious that this started as a film-school project. Yep, it did. I suspected those cat food people of pouncing on a sure thing, as usual. Yep, they did.

If you want the low-down on Will Braden and his projects, check here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri,_le_Chat_Noir

Get yer memes here. Get 'em while they're hot.

What variant of french is it though? Caribbean? African? Some words ring oddly in my ears... but I do love the quiet desperation, the eloquent depression of it!

I think it's Seattle French. The film-maker's mother is fluent, and helped him with pronunciation. No info on where Mrs Braden is from, though.

I've found more info on our film-maker and his story, from the 'Seattle Times":

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019049418_catvideo02m.html

Students of irony might enjoy the fact that this young man is a graduate of Garfield High School.

And yes, there's a book coming out.

Very good, Dmitri. Thanks for that

Well, my home computer is refusing to switch on, and the speakers on my work computer haven't done anything useful since I moved desk a week ago (something must've come loose). So no audio for me!

TRiG.

How annoying.

Nice find!