“Leo,” she said slowly, “that looks like the work of a guy named Russell P. Hogue. He was a special effects modeler for low-budget Florida films in the ’70s. Did props for The Creature of the Black Lagoon ride at Universal before it was even Universal. Then he vanished. Rumor was he got obsessed with ‘solar kinetics’—machines powered purely by sunlight and memory wire.”
The first was a diorama—about the size of a microwave. It depicted a miniature Florida beach: neon-blue resin water, a sliver of white sand, and a tiny sun painted on a curved piece of plexiglass that glowed faintly under the fluorescent lights. In the center of the beach lay a cat. Not a toy cat. A model of a cat: hand-painted, eerily realistic, its fur a swirl of calico patches, its eyes half-closed in what looked like bliss. The little chest even rose and fell—no, wait, that was just my pulse. Static. It was static.
I hung up. The diorama sat there on the balcony, the miniature sun now fully blazing. And the cat—the Florida Sun Model Two Cat—rolled onto its back, stretched all four paws toward the sky, and began to purr. florida sun models two cat
“You the blog guy?” she asked.
I called my friend Mira, who does restoration for the Florida Historical Society. She didn’t believe me until I sent the video. Then she went quiet. “Leo,” she said slowly, “that looks like the
I haven’t sold it. I haven’t even blogged about it. Because some stories don’t need clicks. Some stories just need sunlight, a little patience, and the willingness to believe that in Florida—where the absurd is the baseline—a tiny mechanical cat can finally feel the sun on its back, after all these years.
“Nitinol. A nickel-titanium alloy that changes shape when heated. You can program it to ‘remember’ a movement. If you set it up right, a few seconds of direct sun could trigger a whole sequence. Hogue supposedly built little solar tableaus for rich retirees. Sunsets that painted themselves. Flowers that opened and closed with the daylight. But the cats… the cats were his specialty.” Did props for The Creature of the Black
“My aunt Verna left it,” Darla said, exhaling smoke. “She worked at something called ‘Gator Glen’ back in the ’80s. Place was a dump. But this… this was her pride.”
Darla shrugged. “Aunt Verna said it was a prototype. Some art project from a guy who lived in a van down by the old Weeki Wachee springs. She said he called it ‘a poem for depressed snowbirds.’ Anyway, twelve ninety-nine, you want it or not?”