Really?

It turns out that while dog painting is all the rave in China, cat painting is quite common elsewhere--or so two nutty New Zealanders claim (not Bret and Jemaine, the only kiwis that matter). Burton Silver and Heather Busch wrote a book titled Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of Feline Aesthetics, which includes several painted cats like the one above.

With some research, I found out that the book is a spoof on both art and cat publications--which makes this way, way awesomer than the painted Panda dog. It creates an entire theory and includes fake interpretive essays about each artist and cat. The pictures were Photoshopped and the writing is completely deadpan. For example, a cat painted like a fish achieves in:

"redefining and blurring the relationship between fur and scale, fin and tail, in order to create a shared intent that transubstantiates the species and repositions the notion of symbiosis."

Since 90% of people are stupid, many took the book seriously. This spurred inflammatory reaction and discussion boards filled with admirers questioning how to get the cat, an innately skittish animal, to stay still while you paint.

Burton and Busch have also published Why Cats Paint, which also confused people and was even more absurd in both concept and commentary.

Those New Zealanders are some silly descendants of criminals*. I wish I had some degenerate blood in me.

*A blog reader has informed me that my reference to New Zealand as an island of criminals is incorrect--Australia is where the miscreants were sent and where their descendants reside. But I bet some Australian criminals kayaked over to New Zealand and thought, They have ratites here! I think I'll stay. The descendants of these ratite-loving kayakers are who I am talking about.