Cats and the Ballet

Though I can appreciate the music and the beauty and grace of the women, and the mental feats that are involved in remembering what to do next, and the fact that you have to be in great shape to do it at all, ballet dancing is by far my least favorite of the arts. Maybe that's because I have no talent -- or desire -- to do any of the dancing and singing that is supposed to come so naturally to people with my kind of ancestry. A lot of the time ballet dancing looks just plain silly to me, and I'm also leery of the fact that you'd better be slim and "good"-looking if you're going to do it, which also makes ballet the least democratic of the arts.

The dancers' arms contribute a lot to it looking silly, though I know they are a big part of the artistic expression, as well as providing balance and lifting up partners and stuff. Still it looks to me as if they are waved about mostly because they are there and something must be done with them, while the legs, on the other hand, are absolutely essential and do most of the work.

This makes it look for all the world as if cats, a more worthy and far less harmful species to everything around them than are humans, had the right idea. They kept their arms on the ground, which keeps them out of trouble, like making atom bombs and endlessly waging war and performing pointless, boastful acts like rocketing some golfers to the Moon. Instead cats can perform real feats of individual physical prowess, such as casually strolling along the tops of fences and railings, which even the aged among them can do with nary a quiver. Their use of their arms must be one reason why they were welcomed to the planet so many millions of years before we were, and why they have a much brighter future...