Felix the Cat: An Existential Influence on Philosophy and the Science of Mysticism
Felix the Cat is an existential hero. He best embodies the bridge between modernity and Post Modern in the last century. Felix inspired a generation of leading French and German philosophers shortly after WWII. His magic bag of tricks played a large role in this inspiration. Felix the Cat was the model for Camus’s protagonist Meursault in his most widely read work The Stranger. Felix went on to inspire Sartre, Beckett and Martin Heidegger. He served as the personifying primary answer to the question. Heidegger poses this question in his seminal work Being and Time, ‘What is Being?’
Heidegger answered his own question with, ‘why Felix the Cat, of course; and his Magic Bag of Tricks, silly”.
Few people know that Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle originates from his experiments with Felix. He repeatedly tried to put Felix in a box with a capsule of cyanide gas. Felix was able to elude death my virtue of his Magic Bag but nonetheless was still able to serve as the model for modern quantum physics. Without Felix, there could not have been a moonshot nor Musk’s Tesla automobile.
Dashiell Hammet’s famous existential hero/detective Sam Spade is said to be loosely based on Felix. Humphry Bogart spent weeks absorbing all of Felix’s cartoons. He did this in preparation for his cinematic portrayal of the existential sleuth. The sleuth is forced to choose duty over love. He eventually overcomes his own choices by using his bag of magic tricks.
Much of Samuel Beckett’s work is set inside of Felix’s bag and the playwrite was often overheard muttering under his breath “where’s my bag? Where’s my bag? I can write nothing with out my bag of magic tricks”.
In February 2025, the University of Heidelberg will be hosting its annual Felix the Cat academic conference. Felix scholars from around the world will present their papers on the cat and his impact on 20th-century thinking. The conference is entitled Felix’s Bag: Magic or Science?
As an internationally renown Magic Bag expert myself, I was invited to attend but unfortunately have a prior commitment to take a cat nap on the day. Inside my Magic Bag, of course. The conference is free and open to the public who are encouraged to attend with their own magic bags-of-tricks
IS SHE AVAILABLE? Get My Book and FIND OUT.
NOTHING has prepared you for This. Nothing ever will.
Because whatever is happening Now has never happened before.
This is a web-nurtured collaboration with 27 artists, sculptors and musicians from the world of Comics, Fantasy, Fine Art and Jazz, including Bill Sienkiewicz, David Lloyd, Liam Sharp, Glenn Fabry, Shaky Kane, Lars Henkel and the cutting edge sculptural typography of the highly acclaimed book designer Rian Hughes.
by Bill Sienkiewicz and Rian Hughes ©2014
This illuminated book is a contemporary Dante’s Divine Comedy; a journey through the confessional landscape of a masculine identity. It uses poetry to construct a narrative that explores themes of death and loss, sex and love, and the modern American and Jewish identity design: by the UK’s eminent graphic designer, typographer, illustrator Rian Hughes.
The music is composed and produced by iconoclast, ex-Israeli, Middle-Eastern jazz virtuoso Gilad Atzmon, along with five other jazz artists.
Written by San Diego native Igor Goldkind, this illuminated book will revolutionize the way you view poetry by meshing comics, art, music and animation in a truly unique way. It uses poetry to construct a narrative that explores themes of death and loss, sex and love, and the modern American and Jewish identity. The book is available for download on the iTunes Store and Google Play, as well as in a 166 page, fully illustrated in colour hardbound edition available ORDER HERE.
The eBook edition pushes the edge of what is possible with present EPUB3 technology. It is not an App, it is a true book that marries pop art, comics, avant-garde, jazz, spoken word poetry, video and animations, and type design in a manner that we have not seen before IS SHE AVAILABLE? has the feel of an artefact from the near future – a seminal work of a new genre-fusing poetry, graphic art, music, and animation.
Sample interior pages:
IS SHE AVAILABLE? RRP is $34.95, SHIPPING INCLUDED
Educational Discount for Students and Teachers: $29.95
Both deluxe hardcover edition PLUS animated and musically scored eBook App edition of Is She Available? bundle: $39.95
Go to http://Paypal.com/issheavailable/ and place your order directly through PayPal with all Pay Pal assurances and protection.
Shipping included in orders within the US and its territories.
If you are in Britain and/or Europe, please contact my European wholesaler Fanfare Productions who will take your order and dispatch to your address the same day: stephen@fanfareuk.demon.co.uk
Reviews ? Sure We Got Reviews. Why You Wanna See Them? Be my guest.
“Igor’s “Illuminated Book” is like a new genre. It is a wonderful ekphrastic expression; a fusion of the arts.” — Poet Mel Takahara
“His collection Is She Available? has the feel of an artefact from the near future – a seminal work of a new genre-fusing poetry, graphic art, music, and animation.” —(San Diego’s) City Beat
“Is SHE Available?” is an experiment, and reading it feels more like an act of discovery… nonetheless there’s a thrill to scrolling through its pages. It’s an ambitious step toward what digital media can (and will) be.”—The Chicago Tribune
You Tube samples: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRnmT_aE0acoowdNBvFtK_VW2OkNN2wWp
SoundCloud samples : https://soundcloud.com/igor-goldkind/sets/is-she-available-spoken-word
The 166 full colour, fully illustrated hard cover deluxe edition is available in discerning and eclectic independent bookstores everywhere. Including Fahrenheit 451 in Carlsbad, Soulscape Bookstore in Encinitas, the Upstart Crow in San Diego, Verbatim Books and Mysterious Galaxy also in San Diego, City Lights and the Cooperfields chain in Marin County and Sonoma County, amongst a growing number of independent book stores.
Order direct from PayPal and shipping is included!
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THE FOOL’S LAUNCH PAD
The book is finally ready.
I’ve seen it, played it, read it, listened to it so many times it’s near driven me mad.
The act of creation is an explosion, a maelstrom of emotional energies seeking form, vying with their own legacy of fragile structures, to Break Through to Something New.
That is the goal.
But the monotony of honing the perfection; wherein the hot metals cool and adhere to the cast, is the labour that seems unending compared to that first ejaculate of inspiration.
So we toil as we complain.
But there never really ever was any turning back
And now there’s no looking back, because the book is uploaded and now for sale on in iTunes, the Books Online Directory and the publisher’s own site: Is She Available?
If you’re reading this, you can get a special discount offer on the website; a kind of 2-4-1 deal. The kind of incentive that is supposed to get you to read my stuff.
The official release is Wednesday, APRIL FOOL’S DAY, which I consider entirely appropriate. A day like any other day, displaced by a change in calendar; a recalibration of our instruments that measure time makes fools of us all when we forget what the calendar really measures:
our own steep descent in running out of time.
So like you, I am a Fool
I took the opportunity to be published and turned it into something more; something different, something that I felt should have been tried by now. But it hadn’t been.
So I did.
Try.
Doing something new.
Whilst the machinations of publishing both print and online, grind into gear, releasing steam and a rumbling thunder, I prepare for my flight from the north to the south.
I will be in the air when this book lifts off from its pad.
I hope it flies.
I hope it flies high enough to break this orbit.
With your help, it very well may.
Thanks, Igor
igorgoldkind
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