Fey Tality: Come to the Cat's Eye Cabaret

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In this episode, Gemma chats with Fey Tality, a dynamic aerialist and performer with a background in theater. Fey shares her love for storytelling through her aerial acts, focusing on building characters and weaving narratives into her performances. She also talks about Cat's Eye Cabaret, her monthly variety show that features a new theme each time, ranging from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and What We Do in the Shadows to Marvel and beyond. Plus, Fey gives us a glimpse into life with her two beloved cats, Dodger and Mr. Albus, and unravels the dynamic of their relationships.

Links:

• Follow Fey on IG: @rebecca.fey
• Follow Cats Eye Cabaret on IG: @catseyecabaret
• Tickets to 11/19 Cat's Eye Cabaret: Get tickets here!
• Plastic Reusable Wine Goblet 

Get in Touch:

• Instagram: @tailsandtasselspod, @gemmasmithnyc
• Email us at TailsandTasselsPod@gmail.com
• Leave a comment below

Transcript

Gemma Smith (00:01.89)
Hi, kitty cats, and welcome back to another episode of Tales and Tassels, the show where you pounce into the world of burlesque and nightlife performers, their craft, their cats, and how these two worlds collide. I'm your host, Gemma Smith. I'm a cat lady, of course. And by day, I'm also a manager at a kitten nursery. And by night, I host the Cat Beret in New York City, a cat-themed variety show.

And if you're enjoying my podcast, would so love to connect with you on social media. Please follow us at Tales and Tassels Pod on Instagram. And even better, would you be so kind to give us a shout out on your socials? Tag us at Tales and Tassels Pod and I'll be sure to share your kind words and gratitude. Thanks for helping me spread the purr.

For today's interview, I'm thrilled to be chatting with a fellow performer and cat lady, Faye Tality. Faye is an aerialist, stilt walker, silks instructor, and author. She's also the producer of Cat's Eye Cabaret here in New York City, a monthly variety show with a rotating cast and theme. Mark your calendars for her next show in just a couple of days on Saturday, November 16th. The theme is What We Do in the Shadows.

Thank you so much for being here, Faye. Thank you so much for having me. So excited to talk with you about cats and shows. So to start, and I don't think I really know this, can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got started in performance? I I started in performance in theater. My college training was for acting and directing and actually youth coaching. So I was working in theater when I

started going to flying trapeze classes and those kind of led to aerial classes over in the same place and from there I just started changing my focus a little bit. You know it became more and more of the performances that I was doing were variety shows and then that just sort of took over and for the most part the majority of my focus now is in nightlife and circus and variety entertainment.

Gemma Smith (02:21.91)
I love the intersection of that, how a lot of variety shows are not able to maybe have silks or aerial, but yours is. And that opened up the world to me. I had come to your show because you had a Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme, and I love a theme. And I saw, my gosh, this show actually has aerialists and the silks. Can you describe a little bit about the difference for people who may not know a performer like that? Yeah, so we have different...

in our show, usually we have a silks performer, that's usually me. We have a lira performer most of the time. And the lira is a round metal hoop that you might have seen. The silks are a long piece of fabric that connects at the top and sort of drapes down. It's like those are the two apparatuses that people think about a lot when they think about Ariel. We pieces of solid bar that has two ropes on it.

For our last Buffy show, had a performer who was on a trapeze but in pointe shoes. Sometimes we've had aerial chains before. Sometimes we'll have a unique apparatus, which means maybe someone's apparatus is similar to a lira but in the shape of a heart or in the shape of something else. So the apparatuses can kind of change according to the cast, but also the theme. Like if we were doing a pirate-themed show, maybe we would have a net act because that would

relate. So it'll change a little bit somewhat according to what we're doing and who's in the show. it sounds like there's so much that you can do with Ariel. So many different options to make it different, creative, lean into the theme. Regarding your work as a performer, what is your style? Does it change from act to act? So it does a little bit, but I would say one thing that I've been really proud of with how Cat's Eye has grown.

When we started, I feel like I was just answering a call from the community to create a performance platform that existed where people could bring their work. And then when we did our very first theme, it felt great because it felt like we were really working as this cohesive group and we were storytelling. And that felt like I was able to take my theater background and merge it more. And I feel like that theater background has always been inclusive in my work.

Gemma Smith (04:39.202)
I'm happiest with a piece that's storytelling, whether it's an aerial piece or a burlesque piece. I like it to be either built on a character that's already like out there in a parody piece or telling a story. I'm as opposed to an act that's just about the tricks or the musicality or whatever. It felt really good to me when we created that and that became Cat's Eye's sort of new identity. After that, we started theming it every month.

We have themes that we bring back, like you mentioned, Buffy. That's definitely one of the favorites. Buffy always is well attended. I feel like Buffy fans are just out there waiting for their next Buffy event. We do Buffy. We do Marvel vs. DC every year. We did X-Men this year. We're doing What We Do in the Shadows, as either last season is coming up. A lot of the themes we rotate, or we'll keep them current to trend.

But what I love about it is in that moment, we're all there telling a story together and everybody makes their individual act for the character or the archetype that goes with the theme. But then the host will tie it together with a story of like why we're all there to see these characters. And for some of our themes, we'll find reasons why the characters can kind of interact with each other and like have a moment in between the scenes or we'll say like,

hey, you're being this character. Could you do a cameo in my act? And in that way, I feel like we're building a whole world out of our show, which I think makes us unique from the standard variety show format. Cat's Eye Cabaret, what was the inspiration behind the name of the show, the origin story? So I actually didn't come up with it. I was trying to find a name and I knew I just feel like everything I do is for my cat.

They are the center of my world and everything that I do is for them. And so I was trying to find a name that, you know, was for the show. And I was like, well, why do I wake up in the morning? Like I wake up in the morning because my cats are there for me because I love them. And I was like, I feel like I want the name to somehow pay tribute to my cats, the love of cats.

Gemma Smith (06:57.506)
I thought about like, should the show be named after Mr. Albus? Some of my closer friends who had like really encouraged me to do the show, were passing names back and forth. And it was one of my company members who was like, well, what about Kat's eye? And I think she said it because I also work a lot with crystals. I love that. I love the idea of my cat seeing there with her eyes on the show, seeing what we're doing from their distant cat planet.

And yeah, just like right away I was like, I think that's the one. I love it. Yeah, I found it because I was looking for, I think, cat things. But then I found, but I love themes. And so I got drawn into all your themes. And it has such good alliteration to cat's eye, cat's beret. Right? Yeah. I really loved the most recent act I saw of yours. And as you were mentioning things also on trend, you were a Barbie doll.

And you were going down the silks in this way with these movements that were so like what we think of like a Barbie stiff, but I was so impressed because you have to be so flexible, so strong and still kind of show that rigidity. What was that like? Barbie was an interesting process because of exactly what you just said. It was figuring out how to do those really angular restricted Barbie movements and how she would move very

legato within all of her raps and where were the moments when Barbie would have control and where were the moments when she would lose that control. We did a full Barbie show, full Barbie tribute show when the movie came out but I believe you saw our Time Machine one. Yes. Yeah and that was the week before Barbie came out so we had gone to perfect sure to the Barbie movie release. It was also interesting trying to

create that Barbie movement and not lose the joke because it feels like the first few seconds like, she's Barbie isn't this funny. But then, okay, how do I keep that as a movement pattern, keep it interesting and make you care about Barbie and her life and her ability to like move through things with all of this restriction. there was a lot of.

Gemma Smith (09:14.826)
exploration there in angularity and feeling like your body could only move from its hinges. Wow, that is so fascinating to me. I love the creativity and the characterization that goes into an art form that also is like physically challenging. took a, for our listeners, I took a class with Faye at, was it the Muse? It was at the Muse, yeah. Yeah. And it was so fun and also really challenging. And of course I know you must train for a long time, like any art form.

So for our listeners who might be a dancer or burlesque performer and interested in learning silks, how long do they kind of have to train then to get to the point where you can add in that characterization? Wow, I'm going to say that's different for everyone because everyone comes from a different background. So I would say if you're already in an art form where you're storytelling and you're creating character, I think that that comes

much faster. mean, even when I'm teaching my beginner classes, at the end of beginner class, I'll usually take everything that we did that day and we'll do it as a sequence so that they can, you know, not just build their stamina, but also get used to the idea of performing and just like a couple moves in a row. And when it's a class of people that like I've had for a while and they all know each other and feel okay getting silly together.

sometimes we'll do an exercise. Like if it's the onset of spring, we'll be like, okay, but you have eight counts to get to your silk as if you're the forest waking up, you know, in same time. And then I want you to think about how that energy will go in. And we have classes for that once they get to a higher level where we focus specifically on choreography and they'll come in for an hour and a half and.

we'll do an assignment and sometimes it's like they'll get a color and they'll try to turn their movement to match the feeling of that color. And then we'll take that and we'll extract the adjectives and then we'll take those adjectives and we'll connect them to a character. then that's the beginning, middle and end. And how do you tell that in four minutes? so we'll do exercises to develop that kind of work once they get to higher level classes. But I try to introduce even as a beginner,

Gemma Smith (11:34.574)
them to the idea of how do you add color to this movement so that you're not just repeating back what I gave you, but making it something that belongs to you as a mover or a storyteller. And I think that even for students who don't have a long-term goal of performance, it gives them an ownership of what they're doing and how it connects to their bodies. And I think that that's really important because I think once you

own a move, you understand it better, and you also start to form a different relationship with your body. That makes total sense. I know from the class I took, you were such an excellent teacher. I felt like I really made the most of that time in that class. I was like, wow, what an amazing experience. And it seems like you're really passionate about kind of having a community, like within your classes, within the artistic cat's eye. Yeah.

You touched on it before a bit about the performers, but is there a community in your audience too that comes to each show? I do feel like we've been rebuilding a little bit since the pandemic. I know that pre-pandemic, I would say we had a really solid community of people who looked forward to the show every month and we would see those regular faces and they were there month to month.

We've been running since 2017, predominantly at the Deep End. Occasionally we will also pop up at Coney Island, and we love when we make our pop ups there. But our regular monthly space is at the Deep End. They're just a little neighborhood bar, but they have a large floor space that they use for their events. They do tons of shows, they do lot of movie nights, they do a lot of drag brunch.

Most of their events take place on their small stage. If you come to our show, we flip the space. We're rigged in what's normally sort of like their dance floor or where their audience sits so that we have room for the aerial points, that we have room for our burlesque performers and our hula hoopers, whatever else we're bringing in that day. So it's a great space. It's very intimate. you're really close to your audience.

Gemma Smith (13:48.056)
They do have a full service menu, full bar, full dinner. We encourage people to come hungry. And Deep End actually also opened in 2017. So they were only open for less than a year when we found our way to each other and started building the show there. So we actually would be their longest running residency.

It's a really great space because the audience is right there with you so the host can interact with you. We have performers who will sometimes move through the audience or they can use the bar. We do a lot of bringing the audience up into the stage during safe times only, obviously, not in the middle of an aerial act. We love to play on-theme games and get people involved on stage. We love to do for our really nerdy themes. We love to do a little trivia. Our goal as we rebuild, we try to do

themes that have strong followings. We really want that same audience that loves when it's time for Brooklyn Comic Con to love when it's time for Marvel DC and to come out and see that for us. So as we build, we definitely we want people who are there just because they love us. And we hope we build those regulars who are just there to see what we're doing every month. It's also our goal to find the communities within each theme that are going to feel really fulfilled.

I can tell that you're super passionate and this is something that you absolutely love and I agree I've been to your shows and I love when the audience gets to feel a part of it whether it's trivia a Game, I think that is really awesome Especially if you're a super fan and you're around other like-minded people and speaking of though cat acts You do have a cat themed burlesque act that you performed at cat beret before I love the song that you chose Could you describe that act a little bit?

for our listeners. I can. So I, and I was so happy for your cat themed show because I knew that I wanted to make an act to can't hug every cat because I think we all want to hug every cat. So that act, I wanted it to be like the idea of getting buried in your cat. So when I met Mr. Albus, he was not actually.

Gemma Smith (15:57.794)
the cat that I had gone to meet, but they were like, just hold him. And he was from a bad home. So I didn't know, but when I got there and he was the little rent of the litter, I saw them banging a broom at him and everything. And I saw the other cats not letting him eat and I saw them kind of being rude to him. And he still wasn't the cat that I had picked up, but I gave him a little hug and I went to put him down and he took his tiny claws and he put them right.

in my heart and he looked up at me and that has kind of always stayed with me like that moment where he was like, can't leave me here. I need you to take care of me and help me and rescue me. So that idea kind of stayed with me as a concept of like trying to put a cat down and they're like,

So I took that idea of being buried in like endless cats and that, okay, well now we have a moment where like, I need to put you down and I can't. So I put all of these stuffed cats on retractable key chains and then I sewed them to my clothes. They were very heavy. So it was a buildup of multiple key chains. We're actually needed to support each tiny stuffed cat so that I could pull them out and retract them back.

So then the idea of the act was this woman creating her dating online profile video, but she has all of these cats that are just all over her body. And as she's trying to do her video and seem normal and reasonable, it's like, honey, yeah, you have to go down for a second. I'm creating this video and the cat's like, And retracting back.

which is obviously like why it leads into the burlesque having to take off these whole clothing items as your cats tend to attach themselves to, I'm sure you know. To try and get the cat to the grab, like here, this whole sweater is for you. my gosh, now there's cats inside of my dress. They're everywhere, they're on my head. So it was a really fun act.

Gemma Smith (18:07.946)
It was a really fun act to build. And I see what you mean regarding your storytelling. mean, there's such a... people that don't know about burlesque that maybe... I mean, I hope a lot of people listening are performers or have seen it, but there's so much that the audience doesn't always know, like, went into coming up with that act. And when you said about, like, cat owners, we know, like, if my cat has his claw stuck in my sweater because, you know, he got overstimulated because I was walking by and he saw my arm.

I like do have to stop and take the sweater off sometimes because I don't want him to hurt himself. So you're right. Right, because otherwise their little claws, they loop around the fabric piece and then they start screaming at you all. And you're like, my God, it's like your entire paw coming off what's happening right now. And it's just this tiny piece of fabric that they can't get out of. So they completely freak themselves out. So you're like, okay, here's my whole jacket.

for you and your tiny clock and we get it I've done that so many times. I've been actually scared too, you know, because sometimes your cat's like, they could be not understand and be angry at you. I have one cat Lionel that could like try to swap me or bite me. So I'm like, no, I'm in a precarious situation. Right, right. You don't, you don't know. Like if they get too scared, then they're going to like then try to like stop you or they're going to try to help, you know, they're really just made of

of weapons. we love them so much and idolize them. We do. And speaking of your cat, so you have two cats, right? I have two cats, Okay, tell us a little more about Dodger and Mr. Albus, their personalities, how you found Dodger, because we heard how you found Mr. Albus. Yeah, so Dodger actually belongs to my partner. But when we first started dating, she had been abandoned by her mom, who was a street cat.

ghost knows who looked just like her. So she had been abandoned in his basement. And we had just started dating and he was like, do you want to meet the cat that's living in my basement? What better way to get me over to your house than to say do I want to meet this Yeah, it's a good move. Yeah, yes, I want to meet this cat. And he was all like, I just got to get her out of the basement. Like she meows all the time. Maybe you could help me.

Gemma Smith (20:30.904)
catch her so that we can put her outside. So we went down to the basement and collectively moved in on her to catch her. She's scurried up to his shoulder and he looked at her and he goes, thank you. And he just walked out of the basement without me. Just like whispering, whispering to the cat, right? It was instant love.

She was so small. She was so small. We think she was maybe like four weeks old. So I went, I like ran to the store. He stayed with her. I ran to the store. There was no cat food there. So I got like baby food, potato, which she her foot in somewhere. I have a photo of her with her like nose just dripping sweet potato. And that was how from that moment on, like she claimed him when she climbed up on the shoulder. How old is Miss Dodger now?

So Dodger is nine and a half now, and Albus just recently celebrated his 17th birthday. that's amazing. Yeah, yeah. He is a big boy now. He's ready for college. And I have noticed that one thing that happens is he'll go to the litter box and she'll see. She didn't do that this time, though. But sometimes she'll see, and she'll go and she'll jump on top of him, like, while he's trying to use his litter box.

so then he doesn't get to finish. I'm sure that that is part of what is feeding the problem. And you asked about their personalities. That is very much their personalities. It's interesting because with Dodger, her personality is very split. If I make a high-pitched sound, I stub my toe, I cut myself with a knife, I hit my head, anything where she hears any sort of sound of, no, mommy's in pain.

she will run up the stairs through the whole house. She's there, she's with me, she's on me. She's like, what's wrong? She's like looking for like what to lick. The other day I was like having this like little stabbing pain and she like put her paw on my arm and just sat there with her paw on my arm. And I was like, Dodger, my pain's getting better. Are you trying to fix it? Like take your paw off my arm. Cause I can't have you, I can't have you do that.

Gemma Smith (22:48.32)
And then she took her paw away and I was like, it hurts again. she put her paw back. So she's such a little healer cat. And she also, she's afraid of the dark. She doesn't like to be alone. She wants to be on you. She's always giving kisses. If people come over, the first thing she wants to do is smell your foot so that she knows that she likes you. If she likes you, she wants to give you kisses. But when it comes to Mr. Albus, she sees him sleeping.

He's there, he's resting, he's so peaceful. She has to jump on top of him and wake him up and make him abandon his post. She doesn't even want it. She just doesn't want him to have it. He gets a new toy, he's really happy. She has to have that toy. He's in the litter box, she has to stop him. So I think like part of the problem comes from the anxiety of him never knowing when she's going to pounce on him. Is he gonna get to finish using the litter box?

But that's also part of why we have so many. Like if she's downstairs, he could go upstairs and use a litter box away from her. But if he sees a piece of clothing, he considers that a place where he should pee. That's so hard for you as a cat parent. And you're doing all the things, the multiple litter boxes, being so aware of other things in the house. And with Dodger and him, was it always like that?

I guess how old was Mr. Albus when Dodger, you and your partner moved in together? guess that's when the cats moved in together. So Albus' original sister, Luna Belle, passed away when she was eight years old. And they were very, very close. And Mr. Albus in that relationship, he very much had the protector role. He was also really a comedian for those first years of his life. He would use his nose and his paw to like...

push my t-shirt drawer open and he would get a little t-shirt, he would hold in his teeth and he would run through the house really fast with the t-shirt waving behind him like a superhero cape and he'd be like, his cape just waving behind him. He would do like all sorts of goofy things like that all the time. He sounds smart too. Like if you have to be smart to get the drawer open, not all cats are smart.

Gemma Smith (25:04.206)
He's a really smart cat, so smart. When she passed away, it was hard on him and he just laid in bed for days. I say he was keening because that's what it sounded like. He would just lay in bed with this high-pitched whale. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't move. And I didn't know what to do. So I said, can Dodger come stay with us? And her role at that point in time was to like,

nudge him to make him notice that like if he didn't get up and eat his food, it might be gone. And she played that role well. But I think the problem is that that's how she moved in. And it worked in that he got up, he got off the bed, you know, she chased him around the house and made him move around. He started kind of defending his food. I am grateful for that because if she hadn't done that, I do worry that he would have gone shortly after her. I know that happened with cats who are really close. So

as far as I see things, like she saved his life. Yeah, and he's 17. I mean, that's amazing. That's like a really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I also think that because they were introduced to living together that way, she adopted it as an acceptable behavior. And for whatever reason, we haven't been able to break it. Like, he doesn't fight back against it 99 % of the time.

He just like allows himself to be dominated which is interesting because he's twice her size and like almost twice her age The only place that he's dominant is at mealtime He's not allowed to take the first bite of her food until he has started eating Which is a really? thing to watch

Yeah, quite fascinating the way that I love your storytelling and telling me about your cats because I really feel like I know them now. I'm getting to know them. You're so good at these specific moments. Like how does he not let her eat until he eats? They seem to have an agreement. She will sit there and she will wait. And then when he has started eating his food, she will go to her bowl and she will start eating. But if I put her bowl down first.

Gemma Smith (27:20.898)
She'll just, she'll wait. She'll wait until he has his food and he started eating. And it seems like they made an agreement. That's their one place where like he's dominant is he gets to eat first. And it's so weird because how did they come to that agreement? And why was that his one thing? Yeah, it's so interesting. Like you mentioned that you think that part of the reason she's still this way in their relationship is because when they were introduced, he was grieving Luna Bell.

And she was able to get him up, to run around, to kind of push him around. That makes sense because my work with kittens or at a kitten nursery, we know like singleton kittens, we call them lone kittens, who don't have like another cat at home. They are not being taught like those limits, those boundaries from another cat being like, no, get back here. like, no, you can't play that rough with me. And it sounds like with Dodger and Mr. Albus, he wasn't in the best state because he was still like getting over the loss of Lunabel.

to push those boundaries except with the eating. So fascinating. Yeah, it's so weird. And it's funny because I didn't actually put that moment together until I was just going back and telling you their story. But it makes so much sense to connect those pieces. I know, with Albus, when I first brought him home, I got Luna a week before.

I had gotten him and he was so small, she would like try to like eat him, you know? So I would hide him under the blankets and be like, you're safe, baby. She's not gonna eat you under the blanket. And to this day, when he wants to feel safe, he will look for a blanket and he'll climb underneath the blanket. And he's like, no, I'm safe. I'm under a blanket. So I know that they like memorize that sort of behavior when they're young.

so it makes sense that like that was her introductory behavior. And so that's still her behavior as an adult cat, but I just, never put those pieces together until this conversation. well, I'm so glad for our listeners. This podcast can help you psychologically uncover. Yeah. And we didn't even know it. We're just processing it here live. I have no idea what to do with that information and how to.

Gemma Smith (29:45.39)
So that he can use his litter box in peace. Well, it seems though like you have the options. He has many to go to. How else like with two cats as a performer, you mentioned lots of costumes. How do you kind of manage everything in New York City? We have, you know, small spaces. How do you kind of store your costumes or rehearse with your cats around? Yeah. So right now I'm really lucky. We actually just bought a house. And it was a thank you.

It's been a journey. It was a three bedroom and the first thing we did was turn one of the rooms into a closet. So all of our costumes are in there and that is the closed door room. The cats are not allowed in the costume room so that they don't pee on things. That's how we generally like try to keep them safe is they have their own room in this house.

Yeah, I mean, when we are making things, we generally have the problem that I think all cat owners have, which is like, that piece of ribbon looks like a really good time. Can I chase it? Can I eat it? Can I help you? And Dodger has an affinity for sharp things. So we actually have to be really careful in this house with tracking, sewing needles, any pins, anything like that, because if she sees them, she will try to eat it.

More so than like, feel like a lot of people have to be careful with like their spool of thread. She's way more interested. She's way more interested in the needles, which is terrifying. Scary. Yeah, that's terrifying. Yeah. So we have to be really careful with our sewing. Usually if I'm sewing something, I will also close the door of our like sort of office crafting room. And then I'll make sure like, okay, like did all of the needles that I get used get put away? They have a cabinet.

Luckily, she has not yet figured out how to open that cabinet door. Both of the cabs are really good at general cabinets, but I think this one's a little harder to open. a dream for a creative person. That's such an ideal setup. I love it. I know. I feel really lucky to have that as a setup. definitely like don't take for granted that we're able to have that when some people are in like

Gemma Smith (32:04.366)
one room with like all the costumes like stacked up. And it's funny though, because you know what, it never, it never feels like enough. Like my tutus don't fit in my two thirds of the costume room. As it should be. And so like, I have them spilled over into Robbie's closet in the craft room. Never, I don't think a performer ever actually has enough space. Yeah.

I understand. I will say, like, I hoard, you know, like if I see something on by nothing and we're like, that might be a prop for a theme one day, you know, like we will go and we will get that item because it's always the one time like when we were moving, I had all these, you know, like old fashioned looking lanterns I was like, you know what, I've never let them I threw them all away. And then a week later, my host said to me,

You know what, I thought of a bit where I want to come on in the dark in my night dress, in my wizard cap carrying a lantern. Do you have a lantern? And I was like, I just threw away three. my gosh. So this reinforces you're doing the right thing by getting, by getting props when you see them on by nothing. Cause your show could be any theme, any, like anything. And it also reinforces, nobody should ever throw anything away. We should, we should all hoard.

anything that might someday be a prop that we need. That's a good tip. Now speaking of tips, it's the time of the podcast where our performer, you give us a piece of advice about that you think could apply whether to performers or cat parents, it could be a recommendation, a product or just an overall tip, something you want to leave us with.

So this really interesting thing happened recently. And this is for people with older cats, actually, like Mr. Albus. He recently, I was drinking like water from a wine glass. You might have had your cats do this too. And he came over and he started drinking from my glass. And I'm like, cute baby. Well, that was it. Like he now, he stopped drinking from his bowl and I now have to have wine goblets of water.

Gemma Smith (34:20.472)
placed around the house. And at first I thought he was just being fancy. And I was like talking about it with some of my students. Sometimes we love to talk about our cats during warmups in class. And one of my students was like, I'm gonna look at that with my cat. And she came back the next week and she said, I researched it. And she said, cause I was like, I wonder.

if as he's getting older, if the wine goblet is an easier angle for him to reach, which I still think it is. I think it's easier for him to not bend down. But then she said, and this part is for all cats of all ages, not just older cats. She said as she was researching it, she learned that actually things that are raised like that wine glass are easier for them to swallow and that actually

Like their food should be lifted too and that they're less likely to vomit if their food isn't in a bowl. I had no idea. You're nodding. You knew this. I knew this about the food because I have a cat who scarves and barfs. Yeah. with her, that wasn't, I tried these lifted bowls that I know it says it's supposed to help, but with her, think it was the amount of food. So now I kind of spread her food out. Yeah. So she doesn't eat it as fast, but I didn't know this about the water. I'm going to try it.

So yeah, apparently it's all just easier for them to just like swallow. And yeah, so this was like a fascinating thing that I learned just because he wanted to drink my water. And now I just have wine glasses all over the place for him. We also recently discovered that he loves crushed ice. we're now filling the wine goblets with crushed ice.

He will go and he will lick the ice until he gets brain freeze. He'll lick the ice, which I actually also really like because it means that he's not drinking too fast. But he thinks it's a treat. So it's also causing him to drink more water. So everything about this goblet situation has been a win. Yeah, and it seems like it's also good enrichment for him, like going up to the different goblets and like the ice melting. Like it just seems like.

Gemma Smith (36:39.85)
a win-win for Mr. Yeah, it's a lot of different sensory. Yeah, exactly. And I do sometimes, like, I've watched him, like, explore. I put goblets with different, like, shapes and different, like, widths, you know, of the opening. And I do watch him, like, go up and, explore and, like, put his snout at, different angles. And I'm learning, too. Like, I'm learning that he likes the ones that have the, that are taller, even though they have a narrower opening.

because the wider shallower ones, it seems like he has to like dip his head into more. And he doesn't seem to like that as much. And I think that goes back to the comfortable swallowing angle. Yeah, I love this. Okay, I'm gonna be trying this as soon as we get off the skull. I can't wait to see photos and videos of your cat drinking from her gorgeous goblet. Yes, thank you. And for our listeners who want to find you, they want to follow you on Instagram, maybe they want to take

Silks classes with you and follow CatSciCabaret and come to the next show. Can you give us social media links or the best places they can find out more and I'll list it in the show notes too. Absolutely. Please follow us at CatSciCabaret on Instagram. That is the best place to find updates on

all of our shows to see if we do like a quick early bird online ticket special, which we do occasionally and to know what our upcoming themes are. And you can also follow me personally at Rebecca.Faye. Wonderful. Okay. Well, thank you so much for being here today. Fatality was amazing to have our very first aerialist on the show and producer of Cat's Eye Cabaret. Follow her, follow the show. And thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me, Gemma. It was so great talking to you and to

learn in real time realizations about my cat. I love it.

Gemma Smith (38:34.39)
And that's a wrap for this episode of Tales and Tassels. So if you have any questions, comments, or just want to say meow, feel free to send us an email at talesandtasselspod at gmail.com. Thank you for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Also join our community on Instagram at Tales and Tassels Pod for more updates and behind the scenes fun. See you next time, kitty cats.