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Maru. Who knew?
Published: 8/23/2011 4:45 PM
Last Modified: 8/23/2011 4:45 PM


"i am maru." And don't you forget it.

For some of you, the following sentence will mean absolutely nothing, while other might purr with delight.

Today is the official publication date of the U.S. edition of "i am maru."

Maru is a cat, living in Japan, who has become one of the more popular felines on the Internet thanks to his penchant for diving, climbing, jumping and sliding into boxes.

Maru's owner, who goes by the name "murumogu," filmed one of Maru's slides across her kitchen's highly polished floor to enter a YouTube contest.

Since then, Maru -- a Scottish fold whose name refers to his rounded shape -- has become a darling of cat-besotted internet surfers around the world.

The YouTube videos of Maru's exploits have been accessed more than 100 million times. Maru is the subject of a blog, on which his own daily publishes images of whatever Maru might do (today's entry, for example, includes photos of Maru playing -- and ultimately wearing -- some sort of mesh bag).

In the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami earlier this year, the Maru site was inundated with messages, inquiring after Maru's safety.

The woman behind "mugumogu" remains resolutely behind the pseudonym and camera. Not surprising -- given the potentially ardent nature of some of Maru's fans.

That anonymity, however, serves a different purpose, at least in the films that "mugumogu" posts on YouTube and elsewhere. You hear no human voice, really sense no human presence in most of these videos. There is just Maru the cat, doing things that cats do -- playing, sleeping, watching, sleeping, sleeping, eating, meowing, and did we mention sleeping?

Because you see no person, and because "mugumogu's" sense of interior design is minimalist in the extreme, watching a Maru video is a bit like have a virtual pet. One can experience all the aspects of pet ownership that people enjoy -- the funny things our pets do that become the main topic of our conversation for days on end, even a kind of companionship with this pixelated pussycat for the three to five minutes it takes for a Maru video to unspool -- with none of the responsibilities. Or allergies.

And now, with the book "i am maru," one can have a scrapbook of those favorite moments: "Remember the time Maru got that bag stuck on his head? Or the time he found a way to get into the trash can?"

Either that, or it's enough to make you keep a video camera trained on your own pet. One never knows when an internet star will be born.

For glimpse of Maru in action, go here.



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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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