Wednesday, June 13, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 21
Commentary...
Bend gallery runs cat for
‘/n blood stepped in so far’
mayor as sign-code protest
By Jim Cornelius
By Julia Shumway
The Bulletin
BEND (AP) — One Bend
resident set on becoming the
city’s first elected mayor has
an ambitious policy platform:
eliminating cars, stopping all
new construction and enforc-
ing strong leash laws.
He’s a newcomer to the
political scene, but he’s well-
known in some circles of
town through his work with
small businesses. He’s also
a lifelong Bend resident who
started his political career
out of frustration with city
policies.
And one more thing. He’s
a cat.
Leonardo F. Bend, 5-1/2,
works as a greeter at Bright
Place Gallery, which has
become a de facto campaign
headquarters replete with
buttons and other swag for
his supporters. The gallery’s
owners, Stuart Breidenstein
and Abby Dubief, speak for
him while he lounges nearby
wearing a red bow tie.
Of course, they know
Leonardo can’t officially run
for mayor. Their efforts are
part political commentary,
part publicity stunt, part fun-
draising — they want to raise
money for animal welfare
organizations.
Their cat, who goes by
Leonard, is a quiet but impos-
ing presence at 26 pounds.
“It doesn’t offend him
when people call him a fat
cat politician,” Breidenstein
said. “Politician, yes, but not
fat cat.”
Dubief and Breidenstein
convinced Leonard to run for
office because they — or was
it he? — were unsatisfied
with local government: In
this case, the city of Bend’s
sign code.
Bright Place Gallery,
along with many other busi-
nesses, had to take down
temporary signs because they
violated city law.
While reading about
that city law, Dubief and
B r e i d e n s t e i n f o u n d a
loophole: Bend allows cam-
paign signs up to 16 square
feet in nonresidential areas.
“We figured that if
Leonard ran for mayor we
could have a big sign for his
campaign and draw people
to the gallery,” Dubief said.
“Leonard’s reason is that the
humans have made a mock-
ery of the political process.”
L e o n a r d h a s b e e n
employed full-time as the
greeter at Bright Place
Gallery, where customers
regularly stop to pet him,
since it opened in March of
2017. Before then, he was
a mouser at the Workhouse
on Scott Street and a greeter
at the Old Ironworks Arts
District.
“His experience with
small business, that will
really help him out,” Dubief
said.
If elected, Leonard would
not be the first feline mayor
in the U.S. That distinction
belongs to Stubbs, a yellow
cat who served as mayor
of the historic district of
Talkeetna, Alaska, from July
1997 until his death in July.
H e j o i n s A n g u s P.
Woolley, a 3-year-old Vizla
from Hutchinson, Kansas,
as prospective nonhuman
candidates in 2018. Angus
attempted to run for gover-
nor of Kansas, a state with
requirements for filing so
lax that at least six teenag-
ers and the arts editor of the
Eugene Weekly in Oregon
filed to run for governor, but
See CAT on page 22
Editor in Chief
There’s a book beckoning
from the shelves of Paulina
Springs Books. Its cover
image is classic noir, and its
title will make a literary feller
snap around in a double-
take. Yep, that’s what it says
alright: MACBETH — Jo
Nesbo.
The Norwegian crime nov-
elist has recast the Scottish
play as a crime novel, set in a
rainy, Scottish industrial city
in the 1970s.
Here’s the publisher’s
description:
“Macbeth centers around
a police force struggling to
shed an incessant drug prob-
lem. Duncan, chief of police,
is idealistic and visionary,
a dream to the townspeople
but a nightmare for criminals.
The drug trade is ruled by
two drug lords, one of whom
— a master of manipulation
named Hecate — has con-
nections with the highest in
power, and plans to use them
to get his way. Hecate’s plot
hinges on steadily, insidi-
ously manipulating Inspector
Macbeth: the head of SWAT
and a man already susceptible
to violent and paranoid ten-
dencies. What follows is an
unputdownable story of love
and guilt, political ambition,
and greed for more, exploring
the darkest corners of human
nature, and the aspirations of
the criminal mind.”
Nesbo isn’t the first to
adapt Macbeth into a crime
story — which is, after all,
what it is at its core. There’s
a 1991 movie titled “Men of
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Respect,” which sets the tale
among a New York mob fam-
ily, which, of course, works
perfectly. The movie is over-
wrought and John Turturro
chews every piece of scenery
on set, but it is nevertheless
thoroughly enjoyable.
The facility with which
Shakespeare’s tale of murder
and madness can be trans-
lated into settings very dif-
ferent from the medieval
Scottish Highlands is testa-
ment to the timeless power
of the Bard’s mythic tale. As
he did so often, Shakespeare
looted history and turned it
to his own ends. MacBeth
was a real Scottish king,
but Shakespeare’s telling is
almost entirely mythic. And
in a cage match between Myth
and History, Shakespeare’s
Macbeth outweighs and out-
punches the historical king
by a long shot and remains
the undisputed champion.
Nevertheless: a word for the
historical MacBeth.
M a c B e t h a d m a c
Findláich (c.1005-1057)
bears almost no resemblance
to Shakespeare’s villainous
King Hereafter.
He was Mormaer of
Moray (pronounced Murray),
a Marcher Lord, tasked with
defending a large chunk of
the Highlands near Inverness
from incursions by seaborne
Norwegians — late-period
Vikings. His lands were wild,
harsh and beautiful and he
fought well defending them.
Lady Macbeth is one of
the most deliciously crafted
villianesses in literature. She,
too, was given a bad rap by
the Bard. Gruoch ingen Boite
was a Scottish noblewoman
of the bloodline of the first
King of Scotland, Kenneth
Macalpine, and she was, by
all accounts, a strong partner
of MacBeth and a patroness
of the Church — noble in all
senses of the word.
MacBeth did not mur-
der King Duncan in his bed,
but rather slew him in battle
when Duncan invaded Moray.
He became King of Scotland
by acclamation in the proper
Celtic manner and ruled well
for many a prosperous year,
before being slain in his turn
by Duncan’s son, the man
who would become Malcolm
III of Scotland.
The death of the last
Celtic King of Scotland
— the last to rule from the
Highlands — marked a turn-
ing point in history. Malcom
III married a Sassenach, an
Englishwoman, and the king-
dom would from then on be
oriented toward the south, a
feudal, Anglo-Norman con-
struct. The Highland Gaels
were marginalized and per-
ceived ever after as a barba-
rous threat from the north,
until their final crushing on
Culloden Moor in April 1746.
The historical Mac Bethad
mac Findláich lies buried in
the Scottish Highlands (or
perhaps in Ireland; another
story). The mythic Macbeth
lives on forever, in multiple
incarnations — including
that of a SWAT team leader
in a rough industrial city c.
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