I don't know how I stumble across these, but I do (and to think that I assumed that Monty Python's "Arthur Ewing, and his Musical Mice" sketch was just the humorous imagining of a brilliant but twisted mind).Well, speaking of brilliant and twisted, Athanasius Kircher actually designed the "cat piano" and documented it in the Musurgia Universalis in the year 1650. The piano was designed to raise the spirits of an Italian prince who was, well, stressed out. The musician would select cats whose voices were at different pitches then arrange them in the pens accordingly. The piano delivered sharp pokes into the tails of the cats.
Cruel? Definitely. Funny? Well, animal cruelty laws prevent us from really knowing for sure. But for the curious, there's always Jingle Cats.
posted by James [link] | |
