Cattitude - Episode 289 Bodega Bosses & Bookstore Cats: Inside Shop Cats of New York

<v Speaker 1>Love is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
<v Speaker 2>Hello feline friends. We're going to talk today about one
<v Speaker 2>of my favorite cities in the world, New York City.
<v Speaker 2>I was born there, and you know, even though I
<v Speaker 2>don't live there along, I will always have an affinity
<v Speaker 2>for that city. We're going to talk about one of
<v Speaker 2>their most beloved characters with whiskers. So we're going to
<v Speaker 2>talk about the book Shopcats of New York, which shines
<v Speaker 2>a light on all the felines that rule the bookstores, bodega's, boutiques,
<v Speaker 2>and firehouses, all kinds of places. And I'm joined by
<v Speaker 2>the author and photographer, and I'm so excited to introduce
<v Speaker 2>you to them. Stay tuned, welbe break back.
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<v Speaker 2>Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Tamar Arslanian and
<v Speaker 2>Andrew Martilla. Hi is the author and Andrew is the
<v Speaker 2>photographer of Shopcats of New York, and we're talking about
<v Speaker 2>their new revised edition. Welcome, thank you.
<v Speaker 5>We're so cute here. I didn't know hear from New York.
<v Speaker 2>I was born there and didn't live there my entire life,
<v Speaker 2>you know, just childhood. But in my heart, I will
<v Speaker 2>always be a Yankee. And I'm a Southern New York now,
<v Speaker 2>which means South Florida. That's what we call it because
<v Speaker 2>it's it's so funny when I hear about, you know,
<v Speaker 2>well we're in the South and you know Texas and Tennessee,
<v Speaker 2>and I think, yeah, we're the furthest South, but we're
<v Speaker 2>not the South. I don't know. When I talk to people,
<v Speaker 2>I just say, look, I'm a Yankee, always going to
<v Speaker 2>be Yankee. That's where my head is. So can you
<v Speaker 2>share your backgrounds? Each of you? If tomorrow if you
<v Speaker 2>want to go first.
<v Speaker 5>Sure. I spent most of my career at ad agencies
<v Speaker 5>in New York City, so very like mad Men styled,
<v Speaker 5>with a fewer martinis. Unfortunately, I spent most of my
<v Speaker 5>career there as an account manager. And you know, then,
<v Speaker 5>during one stint of unemployment, I started writing. I had
<v Speaker 5>a friend who encouraged me. She was writing a book,
<v Speaker 5>she was writing a novel, and she encouraged me to
<v Speaker 5>start writing, and so she would edit my stuff, and
<v Speaker 5>I had a blog called I Have Cats, Single in
<v Speaker 5>the City with Cats, and that's kind of how my
<v Speaker 5>writing started.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thank you and Andrew.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, Hi, thanks, thanks so much for the intro, and
<v Speaker 6>really grateful to be on your podcast. I am a
<v Speaker 6>professional cat photographer and I've been doing this as my
<v Speaker 6>main profession somehow for over a decade now. I started
<v Speaker 6>out just taking photos of my cat at home and
<v Speaker 6>posting photos of him online and garnered a social media following.
<v Speaker 6>I had family and friends start to contact me asking
<v Speaker 6>if I would take photos of their cats and their animals,
<v Speaker 6>and so I started to build a portfolio and went
<v Speaker 6>from there. So I've been doing this about five books now.
<v Speaker 6>I have calendars every year, I foster kittens NonStop. I
<v Speaker 6>mean cats are my life.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thank you both. So what was the idea behind
<v Speaker 2>the shop Cuts of New York? And now this is
<v Speaker 2>the revised and expanded edition, so you know, of course
<v Speaker 2>this is the second So what made you decide to
<v Speaker 2>create this book?
<v Speaker 5>So I had been approached by a literary agent. I
<v Speaker 5>was super excited, and that was through the blog. So
<v Speaker 5>I was super excited and she approached me, and I
<v Speaker 5>thought that that meant like, wow, you I'm gonna be famous.
<v Speaker 5>I gonna have a book. This is amazing. Come to
<v Speaker 5>find out, you have to pitch book ideas after you
<v Speaker 5>have an agent. So I pitched a lot of book ideas.
<v Speaker 5>Memoir type things are about being, you know, living in
<v Speaker 5>the city, being singled with cats, that sort of thing,
<v Speaker 5>and none of them apparently had much come mamercial appeal.
<v Speaker 5>And I happen to have a weinster cat near me,
<v Speaker 5>in a pilate studio cat near me, And I thought, well,
<v Speaker 5>how about these guys, Like why don't we talk about them?
<v Speaker 5>Because there's such an integral part of the fabric of
<v Speaker 5>New York City.
<v Speaker 2>What do you think it is about one New York city,
<v Speaker 2>because this book appeals to everyone. You know, you like cats,
<v Speaker 2>like New York. There you go. But even if you
<v Speaker 2>don't know of New York, well how do you not
<v Speaker 2>know of New York If you're not aware of you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you haven't been to the city, you still know
<v Speaker 2>New York. What made that go together?
<v Speaker 1>Why?
<v Speaker 5>Cats? White cats? I mean they really are everywhere. Most
<v Speaker 5>people know about the Vodiga cats. I mean, it's a
<v Speaker 5>big city with I think they said as many rats
<v Speaker 5>as humans or something like that. Maybe we're even at
<v Speaker 5>Wilmbered we might be outnumbered. And it's so funny because
<v Speaker 5>even though some of these cats may have originally been
<v Speaker 5>brought in for rodent control, they seem to fail miserably
<v Speaker 5>at that. But I'm sure that their presence in and
<v Speaker 5>of itself deters any rodents. So yeah, they're always around.
<v Speaker 5>But you know, it's funny. In New York City, you
<v Speaker 5>tend to see a lot of people with dogs because
<v Speaker 5>it's the dogs that are being walked on the street,
<v Speaker 5>et cetera, people's pets. But the cats are kind of
<v Speaker 5>often talked about as like the managers of these different stores,
<v Speaker 5>which I thought was really unique.
<v Speaker 2>I thought some of the stories were incredible. No, was
<v Speaker 2>the goal to capture the city through the cats or
<v Speaker 2>the cats through the city.
<v Speaker 5>I think that's that's an amazing question. I haven't thought
<v Speaker 5>of it that way. I mean to your point, I
<v Speaker 5>like to think of it as a book that would
<v Speaker 5>appeal to anyone who wants to know about New York
<v Speaker 5>because we feature small businesses, and a lot of these
<v Speaker 5>businesses are places you would never think existed.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 5>We have, you know, a place that sells rubber stamps,
<v Speaker 5>custom rubber stamps. We have a place that sells like
<v Speaker 5>big slabs of marble and courts and whatnot for sculptors.
<v Speaker 5>So it's kind of getting to discover New York City
<v Speaker 5>because of the cats. So through the cat we found
<v Speaker 5>these really unique shops that we may not have otherwise
<v Speaker 5>known existed. There's one spot that it's just a whole
<v Speaker 5>store full of like model trains and airplanes and it's
<v Speaker 5>just packed from Florida ceiling and it's in a basement
<v Speaker 5>of a building in Midtown. So a lot of these
<v Speaker 5>places we would have never known existed. So I guess
<v Speaker 5>a little bit the city through the cats. Who has
<v Speaker 5>found the cats first? And then kind of went where
<v Speaker 5>they were.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thanks, and then I'm just really curious. Do you
<v Speaker 2>think this book could have been written for cats in
<v Speaker 2>you know, any other city.
<v Speaker 5>That's a really good question. I don't know, Andrew, you
<v Speaker 5>want to answer this one because you have traveled the
<v Speaker 5>world in terms of looking at cats. But I don't
<v Speaker 5>know if like cats in businesses are as ubiquitous elsewhere.
<v Speaker 5>I know I hear about, like in La or Chicago.
<v Speaker 5>There are bookstore cats that I hear about, or maybe
<v Speaker 5>distillery or brewing house cats, but I don't get the
<v Speaker 5>sense that they're in such a wide breath of small businesses.
<v Speaker 5>And what are your thoughts?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I think in the United States there definitely are.
<v Speaker 6>I don't think that in the US we have incorporated
<v Speaker 6>cats into our businesses quite as much as other parts
<v Speaker 6>of the world, which have a more harmonious coexistence with
<v Speaker 6>cats in terms of like daily life and in shops
<v Speaker 6>and stores. I think one of the reasons why Shop
<v Speaker 6>Cats of New York work so well is because New
<v Speaker 6>York is such an iconic city. So we could have
<v Speaker 6>done shop Cats of you know, Cleveland or something, but
<v Speaker 6>I don't think it would have had the appeal and
<v Speaker 6>New York what Tom I was talking about all of
<v Speaker 6>the cats, bodega cats. I think it is it is
<v Speaker 6>a bit more unique in the sense that there are
<v Speaker 6>so many cats in stores in New York City.
<v Speaker 7>No.
<v Speaker 6>No, when I lived in Philadelphia there were definitely shop cats.
<v Speaker 6>I think it's it is like a bigger city type
<v Speaker 6>of thing. But so much of the appeal comes from
<v Speaker 6>New York being an iconic American city.
<v Speaker 2>I think you have to have the city part, and
<v Speaker 2>then the cats are probably there, they're just not discovered.
<v Speaker 2>I was thinking, what would I think. I came to
<v Speaker 2>mind San Francisco because it's more condensed though there's shops
<v Speaker 2>and everything. And then Paris because of it's very walkable
<v Speaker 2>and there's little shops and very cat friendly. Maybe parts
<v Speaker 2>of Italy, yeah.
<v Speaker 6>There are. I did a book with my wife, not
<v Speaker 6>to get on a different book, but I did a
<v Speaker 6>book with my wife called Cats of the World, and
<v Speaker 6>we found cats, you know, everywhere in the world in
<v Speaker 6>shops being taken care of by someone in the community.
<v Speaker 6>I think that the New York angle here is very strong.
<v Speaker 6>Oh one other place that I know does have a
<v Speaker 6>lot of shop cats is Hong Kong, and there is
<v Speaker 6>a social media account, and I think a small book
<v Speaker 6>about shop cats of Hong Kong and Turkey this is
<v Speaker 6>more universal.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, Turkey has a big, big relation. Absolutely, Kemble, we
<v Speaker 5>should do a tour now, I'll become a travel agent.
<v Speaker 5>I'm sure that tour would sell out pretty well.
<v Speaker 2>Ah yeah, okay, Tomorrow. I'm still saying your name wrong,
<v Speaker 2>aren't I?
<v Speaker 5>Okay? Tomar emphasis on the first Salabo.
<v Speaker 2>Tomar, what cat story inspired you most.
<v Speaker 5>To write the book or just in terms of in
<v Speaker 5>general within the book inspired me? I mean, it's it's
<v Speaker 5>like asking someone to pick their favorite child. We we
<v Speaker 5>kind of like laugh when we're asked that.
<v Speaker 2>What was Was there one that was the most memorable
<v Speaker 2>or quirky or was there one cat that you just
<v Speaker 2>couldnot forget about?
<v Speaker 5>Well, there is one cat. I don't know. We haven't
<v Speaker 5>talked about him a lot, but there's a cat named
<v Speaker 5>Valentino in Carol Garden's Real Key. Now he has been
<v Speaker 5>since replaced by a cat named Smitty. Some of the
<v Speaker 5>cats from the old book have passed on, but they've
<v Speaker 5>been replaced, so we make note of that in the
<v Speaker 5>book and we talk about them. But you know, Valentino,
<v Speaker 5>it was one of those places in Carol Gordon's Brooklyn
<v Speaker 5>where you walk in and it's just this local Brooklyn
<v Speaker 5>real estate kind of place where it's like, you know,
<v Speaker 5>it feels very familiar in these big Brooklyn guys are
<v Speaker 5>there and then all of a sudden they're talking about
<v Speaker 5>how they found this little kitten on Valentine Day that
<v Speaker 5>they called Valentino. I mean talk about like humanizing these men,
<v Speaker 5>right same with like a Messenger facility that we had photographed.
<v Speaker 5>There were these big guys that you know, Messenger around
<v Speaker 5>the city and there they were talking about how much
<v Speaker 5>they love their kittie. So I think that juxtaposition is
<v Speaker 5>really kind of fun for me to see.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it is so okay, Andrew, this is my tough
<v Speaker 2>question for you. Was there a cat that you photographed
<v Speaker 2>or one that stood out? And by the way, you're
<v Speaker 2>the writing is incredible and your the photographs are amazing.
<v Speaker 2>And for anybody who thinks, oh, taking picture of a cat,
<v Speaker 2>no big deal, yeah, try it.
<v Speaker 6>Well, thank you. I appreciate it that I'm a sucker
<v Speaker 6>for tricolor cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I
<v Speaker 6>have a very strong affinity to calicos and tortoise shell cats.
<v Speaker 6>There's something about just not the way they look, but
<v Speaker 6>their personalities are often a little bit spicy. So the
<v Speaker 6>first cat in the book, it is a cheesy answer
<v Speaker 6>because it's the one I've been giving to everyone who
<v Speaker 6>asked me this question. But the first cat in the
<v Speaker 6>book is my favorite. And her name is Raddy. She
<v Speaker 6>lives at the rubber stamp store that Tom Arr previously mentioned,
<v Speaker 6>and she's a delight.
<v Speaker 2>She's adorable.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, was a runt, which is the even more hilarious,
<v Speaker 5>and the owner apparently gave her that name because it
<v Speaker 5>was like an ugly, tough name and he wanted to
<v Speaker 5>toughen her up. So kind of funny, super cute.
<v Speaker 2>That is. I also liked the picture. I don't know
<v Speaker 2>how you did this, but there's a picture near the back.
<v Speaker 2>Let me see if I get I think I marked
<v Speaker 2>it mister Hyde with a hat. Oh yeah, I have
<v Speaker 2>three cats. I used to have five, so three. I
<v Speaker 2>can't even imagine putting a hat on any of them.
<v Speaker 5>No cats were harmed in the making of this book.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I mean, this is not something I normally do.
<v Speaker 6>This was a like a Halloween costume shop, and so
<v Speaker 6>I was taking photos of this cat, and I think
<v Speaker 6>maybe one of the employees said, hey, do you want
<v Speaker 6>to try out some of these hats on him? And
<v Speaker 6>she went and grabbed some hats, and you know, he
<v Speaker 6>tolerated it for about ten.
<v Speaker 5>Seconds, worked fast to get that.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, long enough that I was able to get the photo.
<v Speaker 2>You got the shot exactly. Yeah, it's all that matters.
<v Speaker 2>So he got the shot. Okay, we're going to take break.
<v Speaker 2>We'll be right back.
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<v Speaker 2>Welcome back everyone. We're talking with Tamorrow and Andrew. They
<v Speaker 2>are the author and photographer of Shopcats of New York.
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk more about the book. Tamar, what did
<v Speaker 2>you learn about the relationships between the shopkeepers and their cats,
<v Speaker 2>because there's a lot of different stories in the book.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, that's a great question. Two things come to mind.
<v Speaker 5>I think first off, was amazing how incredibly proud all
<v Speaker 5>these shop owners were of their pet, and the way
<v Speaker 5>they just lit up when they talked about them and
<v Speaker 5>really wanted to have us know everything, and they would
<v Speaker 5>share pictures with me. You know, as Andrew was photographing
<v Speaker 5>the cats, that's sort of what I was interviewing the owner,
<v Speaker 5>the pet parent and either they, but it was showing
<v Speaker 5>me photos of Look, they're these little kids that come
<v Speaker 5>by every day and visit you know, Ratty or Shakira
<v Speaker 5>on the way to the school, and they would show
<v Speaker 5>me their pictures. So that was really fun to see.
<v Speaker 5>I think the other thing just going into the project,
<v Speaker 5>I honestly felt a little bad for the cats. I
<v Speaker 5>was like, you know, these poor cats, they're alone in
<v Speaker 5>the shop all night, and I don't know how I
<v Speaker 5>feel about that. But you know, midway through this project,
<v Speaker 5>I was like, Wow, these cats are living the life.
<v Speaker 5>They have so much enrichment and socialization and stimulation and
<v Speaker 5>get so much attendent for twelve hours out of the day.
<v Speaker 5>I mean, how many cats can say that, right? How
<v Speaker 5>many house cats are actually being interacted with that many
<v Speaker 5>hours a day. So I started to feel badly for
<v Speaker 5>my cats, who I was really only seeing when I
<v Speaker 5>came home from work, watching TV, having something to eat,
<v Speaker 5>you know, and then going right to bed.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, I think you're right on that. What about do
<v Speaker 2>you think that the cats are of you differently in
<v Speaker 2>different stores. Now I've heard this, I don't know where,
<v Speaker 2>maybe I read it's somewhere that some people think that
<v Speaker 2>bodega cats are kind of maybe taken for granted. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know if you've heard that.
<v Speaker 5>It was, Yeah, I mean, Andrew knows it fits strongly
<v Speaker 5>about this. There's a reason that in both the first
<v Speaker 5>book and the second book, we do not have any
<v Speaker 5>oodiga cats in the book. And I really thought going
<v Speaker 5>into this project we were going to have you at least.
<v Speaker 5>But it was really important to me that the cats
<v Speaker 5>that we featured, we knew had been you know, fixed,
<v Speaker 5>were being vetted regularly. You know, we're eating well. And
<v Speaker 5>I think there's a tendency to glamorize podega cats a
<v Speaker 5>little bit. I mean, we all love a bodega cat.
<v Speaker 5>Who doesn't love a bodega cat? But I think there's
<v Speaker 5>a lot we don't know about. And we personally couldn't
<v Speaker 5>find any cats that we felt comfortable featuring in our book.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, and did you find that most of the cats
<v Speaker 2>are mousers? Cats are you know, great animals, so this
<v Speaker 2>is their thing. So it's not bad that they're I
<v Speaker 2>don't mean that negative way at.
<v Speaker 5>All, right, except for you know, in New York City,
<v Speaker 5>like the rats are bigger than the cats. But we
<v Speaker 5>did hear some stories here and there, like Ned from
<v Speaker 5>Carlton Arms, you know, apparently he came in and on
<v Speaker 5>the first day he just caught a ton of mice
<v Speaker 5>and was very proud of himself. So we would hear
<v Speaker 5>some stories here and there. But I don't know, Andrew,
<v Speaker 5>if you agree, but I feel like more often than not,
<v Speaker 5>they'd be like, he's supposed to be a mouser, but
<v Speaker 5>he's not.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I think so much of his companionship. I think
<v Speaker 6>maybe there's the initial sense like Okay, we'll get a
<v Speaker 6>cat who will be a buddy, but also, you know,
<v Speaker 6>take care of the mice if there are any, And
<v Speaker 6>what Tomar said, so many of them just sort of
<v Speaker 6>hang out and enjoy their life of luxury and don't
<v Speaker 6>necessarily do any work. So yeah, I think that's what
<v Speaker 6>we found also.
<v Speaker 5>And I think just by existing, right, So I've heard
<v Speaker 5>that even just if you put cat here, you know,
<v Speaker 5>in the totally different parts of your house, it keeps
<v Speaker 5>the road in a way. So I think a lot
<v Speaker 5>of it is just having the cat around. The mice
<v Speaker 5>are like, yeah, no, we smell a kitty. We're going
<v Speaker 5>to go somewhere else.
<v Speaker 2>Well, the cat hair might work for rodents, it doesn't
<v Speaker 2>work for roaches.
<v Speaker 5>Oh, let's not talk about that.
<v Speaker 2>But well, I live in a tropical place. I wish
<v Speaker 2>you did.
<v Speaker 5>But my cats, I live in New York City, when
<v Speaker 5>they see a water bug, they just essentially alert me
<v Speaker 5>to the fact that there's a water bug instead of
<v Speaker 5>doing anything about it.
<v Speaker 2>Mine are lazy.
<v Speaker 5>They don't even tell you.
<v Speaker 2>And no matter what you do, whatever you do. And
<v Speaker 2>I don't like having any pesticide, you know, that's you know,
<v Speaker 2>in the cats or anything outside. Because there's community cats,
<v Speaker 2>so you do what you can. They still find a
<v Speaker 2>way to come in.
<v Speaker 5>I would much rather have a mouse than a roach
<v Speaker 5>in my apartment with all Yeah, me too, a roach,
<v Speaker 5>Yeah for sure. Mice are durable.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, not my favorite, but.
<v Speaker 6>I'm with tomar I love mice.
<v Speaker 5>They're cute. I've had to save one from my cat ones.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I don't think anything bad.
<v Speaker 5>But you're not excited to see a mouse in your house?
<v Speaker 2>No, But that's because I live mostly in you know,
<v Speaker 2>Little New York Florida, La. So you mostly have well,
<v Speaker 2>there's there were some ice in it in LA about lizards.
<v Speaker 6>Michelle give lizards.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, lizards plenty, but they're cute.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I love the.
<v Speaker 5>Honorable How we determine, how we kind of decide arbitrarily
<v Speaker 5>which ones are the cute ones.
<v Speaker 2>I know, right, which depends. But lizards, no big deal.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I've had them in the house. I try
<v Speaker 2>to catch them to put them outside before the cats
<v Speaker 2>get them, because they the lizards.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah.
<v Speaker 6>I live in southern California and we have cadios, and
<v Speaker 6>very often we're saving some lizard from a yeah, and
<v Speaker 6>early untimely death.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, on our cadio. Well, they probably torment the lizards,
<v Speaker 2>the iguanas, I don't think so lately. There's been a
<v Speaker 2>I went outside, there was a he was huge. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>let's talk more about the book. What was the most
<v Speaker 2>challenging part of putting the book together?
<v Speaker 5>I would say, I mean from my perspective, but it
<v Speaker 5>was coordinating sort of the days. I mean, it's pretty
<v Speaker 5>amazing thinking about it in retrospect, but both books were
<v Speaker 5>shot within just a few days. I mean the first
<v Speaker 5>time around. Andrew is living on the East post, so
<v Speaker 5>we would do like a day or maybe like a
<v Speaker 5>day or two a month, do you know what I mean?
<v Speaker 5>And we kind of this summer to do it. This time,
<v Speaker 5>he's in San Diego, so he came to New York
<v Speaker 5>and we knocked out all the new cats in three days,
<v Speaker 5>which meant like five to six cats a day. So
<v Speaker 5>that's where my account management skills came in from my
<v Speaker 5>advertising days, and I was like mapping out, you know,
<v Speaker 5>how long it takes to get from one cat to another,
<v Speaker 5>and what our shoot day was going to look like.
<v Speaker 5>But yeah, it was jam packed.
<v Speaker 2>I can imagine Andrew, how long does it take to
<v Speaker 2>shoot a cat?
<v Speaker 6>It depends For these ones. I would say the average
<v Speaker 6>time was probably twenty mins. I work pretty quickly, and
<v Speaker 6>I think half of that time is just befriending the cat,
<v Speaker 6>making sure they know that I'm not a threat. I'm
<v Speaker 6>an ally. I have all these treats and toys, and yeah,
<v Speaker 6>once we have this understanding, it's pretty easy to get
<v Speaker 6>photos of cats. It's what I do. And these cats
<v Speaker 6>are around people all the time, so they're used to
<v Speaker 6>strangers being in their space. It's very different than if,
<v Speaker 6>you know, I had to do a client shoot where
<v Speaker 6>I'm meeting a cat for the first time and there
<v Speaker 6>are never any visitors in the home. This was pretty easy.
<v Speaker 6>I think the hardest part for me besides just the days,
<v Speaker 6>they were long and quite difficult in terms of how
<v Speaker 6>much we were accomplishing going through the photos afterwards. I
<v Speaker 6>take a lot of photos in that short period of time,
<v Speaker 6>so not just editing the photos but then making cuts.
<v Speaker 6>Making cuts of text and images is one of the
<v Speaker 6>most heartbreaking things for an author or a photographer because
<v Speaker 6>you have you normally have way more than can go
<v Speaker 6>into the finished product, and so saying goodbye to things
<v Speaker 6>is a little bit heartbreaking.
<v Speaker 2>Sod you save all the pictures and the extra text
<v Speaker 2>information or you just hit to lead No.
<v Speaker 6>I have backups of everything. Pretty much everything I've ever
<v Speaker 6>taken I have backed up just in case, and you
<v Speaker 6>never know there might be a calendar or a postcard
<v Speaker 6>of this, And often publishers want things that are outtakes
<v Speaker 6>or b sides, you know, things that weren't in the original.
<v Speaker 6>So it's really good to keep hold of all those things.
<v Speaker 5>I think one thing that's just want to interject really
<v Speaker 5>quickly important to note is that these shops were open
<v Speaker 5>when we went in, so not like they were closing
<v Speaker 5>the shops for us, or we were going before or
<v Speaker 5>after business hours, which I think made it challenging as well,
<v Speaker 5>because again we were working based off proximity of the shops,
<v Speaker 5>so you know, we may have been coming and during
<v Speaker 5>the busiest time or during a cat's normal nap time, right,
<v Speaker 5>that mattered because that was it. I mean, there was
<v Speaker 5>one shop, Shakira that we thought we'd have to leave
<v Speaker 5>and just not shoot that cat because that cat was
<v Speaker 5>hiding and having a long time not hiding because it
<v Speaker 5>was scared. But just like that was normally it's time
<v Speaker 5>of day that it liked to have a little quiet time.
<v Speaker 5>So it was kind of like gorilla journalism, like we
<v Speaker 5>really went in there and we were like in and
<v Speaker 5>out in fifteen twenty minutes.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it sounds like when you were talking about it,
<v Speaker 2>it made me think of little kids, you know, planning
<v Speaker 2>around nap time, treats and toys. And then I did
<v Speaker 2>think Andrew, they wouldn't be so hard to shoot because
<v Speaker 2>they have some socialization. But then on the other hand,
<v Speaker 2>like you said tamorrow, there could be too much socialization
<v Speaker 2>going on so I had to work within that fine balance. Yeah.
<v Speaker 6>Absolutely.
<v Speaker 2>Which cat do you think had the most New York personality?
<v Speaker 5>That's a good question. Hang on, give us the second
<v Speaker 5>new York So I'm thinking of kind of like tough.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, yeah, I think New York can embody a lot
<v Speaker 6>of different things.
<v Speaker 2>So I have to show that sassy hey use you
<v Speaker 2>know that New York thing?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, okay, a mess with me.
<v Speaker 5>Would it be Sammy Sammy the Bull?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah he was.
<v Speaker 6>He was nice. They were all sweet.
<v Speaker 1>Cats.
<v Speaker 5>Owned the corner. He really owned, you know, that corner,
<v Speaker 5>that street, corner that he kind of was the mayor
<v Speaker 5>of that little He had a lot of girlfriends apparently.
<v Speaker 2>Boy, was there anything that you would have done differently?
<v Speaker 5>I would have liked to have included all the cats
<v Speaker 5>I found out about after we went we submitted the manuscript,
<v Speaker 5>because that's always when new cats pop up. There's a
<v Speaker 5>there's a record shop in Brooklyn called Octopus Records, and
<v Speaker 5>they have two cats and one of them gets hugs
<v Speaker 5>And I only found out about this cat after the fact,
<v Speaker 5>So that for me, that was that's all I regret.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I think when we pitched this idea of redoing
<v Speaker 6>the book, Initially we were just considering a straight reprint
<v Speaker 6>from the twenty sixteen version, and as we got into
<v Speaker 6>it with different publishers, we realized how much better of
<v Speaker 6>a finished product this would be if we did incorporate
<v Speaker 6>new cats. I think I love the old photos and
<v Speaker 6>the old stories, but I wonder if an entirely new
<v Speaker 6>edition of Shopcats. We just had so much fun doing
<v Speaker 6>this project physically being there meeting cats that I wish
<v Speaker 6>we could have included more and done more.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I mean this is dirty pages longer than the
<v Speaker 5>original one, but I think we could have probably done
<v Speaker 5>another No.
<v Speaker 2>Ten at least now, yeah, more than two. But prompted
<v Speaker 2>another question that I'm asking you in a minute. But
<v Speaker 2>what was it like? I mean, this was nine years later.
<v Speaker 2>You know cats generally, you know, and a lot of them,
<v Speaker 2>you know, Unfortunately they passed on. I like how you
<v Speaker 2>put it, have received their wings? Was that hard to
<v Speaker 2>go it? Or I mean it's part of the cycle
<v Speaker 2>of life? But was that difficult for you for either
<v Speaker 2>of you?
<v Speaker 5>I mean, I think we're both such cat people. We
<v Speaker 5>kind of know how it goes. It's always sad to hear,
<v Speaker 5>but the fun thing was hearing about the cats that
<v Speaker 5>sort of came after those cats. Like a lot of
<v Speaker 5>times we heard that the cats that we had originally
<v Speaker 5>photographed kind of retired because of COVID nineteen, right, Like
<v Speaker 5>a lot of the stores had to be shut down,
<v Speaker 5>so the store the cats went home with the owners,
<v Speaker 5>and a lot of those cats, you know, maybe they
<v Speaker 5>were just old and they passed away, or maybe they
<v Speaker 5>just got used to living in a house so they
<v Speaker 5>didn't really come back, so they you know, sometimes they
<v Speaker 5>would have new cats, like that Coo Bigelow. They have
<v Speaker 5>a long history of tuxedo cats, and while Allegra's not
<v Speaker 5>there anymore, there's another tuxedo cat. They're named Ozzie after
<v Speaker 5>a zempic. So you know, it kind of continues on
<v Speaker 5>and it's kind of I can't think of many places
<v Speaker 5>that had cats that no longer have cats unless they
<v Speaker 5>went out of business.
<v Speaker 2>I really liked that you included that because people always
<v Speaker 2>wonder what happened. Yeah, so I really liked that part. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>here's my question that you were just about answering. But
<v Speaker 2>what is the next book? Shopcats of New York too?
<v Speaker 5>Another city I personally would do as many shopcats of
<v Speaker 5>New York as the people demand. Hopefully my next project,
<v Speaker 5>not hopefully, but my next project potentially, it's not. This
<v Speaker 5>one is maybe going to be a little different. I
<v Speaker 5>have an idea for a children's book, but it is
<v Speaker 5>around cats. But we'll see how that goes.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thank you and Andrew. What about for you?
<v Speaker 6>I don't know, To be honest, I have a couple
<v Speaker 6>of different ideas I've worked on. This is the fifth
<v Speaker 6>book that I've worked on. Whatever it is, I can
<v Speaker 6>assure you it will involve cats.
<v Speaker 7>I have.
<v Speaker 6>I have a list of maybe a dozen book ideas,
<v Speaker 6>but unfortunately it's not just what I want to do.
<v Speaker 6>I will often give this to my agent, give ideas
<v Speaker 6>to my agent, and she will say things like, I
<v Speaker 6>don't know if this has such widespread appeal. So often
<v Speaker 6>the things that I want to do that you know
<v Speaker 6>I might be passionate about, don't necessarily translate to sales.
<v Speaker 6>And for publishers, while they are very interested that you
<v Speaker 6>are passionate about your project, they need to make money.
<v Speaker 6>So yeah, I have a bunch of ideas. It's just
<v Speaker 6>figuring out the right combination of how can this be
<v Speaker 6>marketed to an audience that would be willing to buy
<v Speaker 6>this while also being fulfilling for me.
<v Speaker 5>I mean it was the same thing as right when
<v Speaker 5>I first started pitching ideas, same thing. You have to
<v Speaker 5>keep pitching until you know one of them sticks.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think there should be definitely another one. How
<v Speaker 2>passionate are you both about You say you have to
<v Speaker 2>be passionate about your subject. How passionate are you both
<v Speaker 2>about cats?
<v Speaker 5>Well? I live with three of them, and I have
<v Speaker 5>fostered not as many as Andrew, but I've maybe foster
<v Speaker 5>around fifty or sixty over all the years I've lived here,
<v Speaker 5>So pretty passionate. But it came to me later in life.
<v Speaker 5>I didn't grow up with animals, and I got my
<v Speaker 5>first cat in my thirties and he lived to twenty,
<v Speaker 5>so that was super exciting for me.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I am very passionate about guy. I'd love cats.
<v Speaker 6>I have my cat tattooed.
<v Speaker 1>On my forearm.
<v Speaker 6>I all right, you currently currently have four foster kittens.
<v Speaker 6>I've with my wife, we have fostered hundreds and hundreds
<v Speaker 6>of kittens. Cats are such an integral part of my
<v Speaker 6>life and I love all of their little personalities. I
<v Speaker 6>don't know who I would be without cats.
<v Speaker 5>I mean, I would have to agree, because again, I
<v Speaker 5>don't think i'd be writing if I hadn't started that blog.
<v Speaker 5>And while the blog was about being single in New
<v Speaker 5>York City, the with cats part was you know, people
<v Speaker 5>used to say it's like sex and the City with kitty,
<v Speaker 5>so it's like, you know, that was always a part
<v Speaker 5>of it. So I can't imagine that I would have
<v Speaker 5>a book if it weren't for the cats.
<v Speaker 2>Well, thank you both. Where can our listeners fine Shopcats
<v Speaker 2>of New York.
<v Speaker 5>Honestly, any bookstore can order it for you, and there
<v Speaker 5>are multiple places online. If you just google shop Cats
<v Speaker 5>of New York, there's maybe five or six different online
<v Speaker 5>retailers that you can pick from.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you so much, And where can our listeners find
<v Speaker 2>out more about each of you?
<v Speaker 5>I do have Instagram called I Have Cat and then
<v Speaker 5>I have one called Flirting with Vegan because I do
<v Speaker 5>vegan food tours. I mean it's cats and food or
<v Speaker 5>my life. Those are like my two passions. Andrew, what
<v Speaker 5>about yourself?
<v Speaker 6>I go by the handle the Cat Photographer online, so
<v Speaker 6>you can find me on my website or Instagram on Facebook.
<v Speaker 6>I don't really like TikTok, but I do. I do
<v Speaker 6>have one, and I am a board member for my nonprofit.
<v Speaker 6>It's called Orphan Kitten Club Space in San Diego and
<v Speaker 6>we're a five one C three nonprofit.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I want to thank you both so much for
<v Speaker 2>coming on kata Tude. Thanks for all you do to
<v Speaker 2>I guess, increase the passion or keep the passion going
<v Speaker 2>for cats and writing and photographing and putting together such
<v Speaker 2>an amazing book as The Shopcats of New York the
<v Speaker 2>revised edition.
<v Speaker 5>Thank you so much, Thank you so much for yours time.
<v Speaker 8>Much you for having us.
<v Speaker 2>I hope you all enjoyed the show. I want to
<v Speaker 2>give a big thanks to Tamar and Andrew for coming
<v Speaker 2>on Cataitude. Their book is The Shopcats of New York
<v Speaker 2>and if you want to explore more, please go ahead
<v Speaker 2>and check out their book. It's available in all kinds
<v Speaker 2>of bookstores. Just do a search Shopcats of New York.
<v Speaker 2>And hey, remember when you're in New York next time,
<v Speaker 2>make sure you take a look. You just might see
<v Speaker 2>one of these fur babies. I want to thank my
<v Speaker 2>fur babies, Dennis, Charlotte, and Molly. None of them have
<v Speaker 2>been to New York. They all have quirky personalities and
<v Speaker 2>I can see them in some of the cats in
<v Speaker 2>the book. Thanks to my listeners, thank you so much
<v Speaker 2>for listening to Catitude. I appreciate it very much. And
<v Speaker 2>of course a huge thank you to the amazing work
<v Speaker 2>of my producer, Mark Winter for making this show sound amazing.
<v Speaker 2>And hey, remember lose the attitude, Have atitude.
<v Speaker 4>Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on petlight
<v Speaker 4>radio dot com.