I mentioned before that the fairy tale Go I Know Not Whither, Fetch I Know Not What features a man-eating cat named Bajun who has a magical voice.

He sits on an iron pike and tells stories to try and lull you into a certain state of consciousness before he eats you. When Feodot the archer manages to capture the cat (by wearing an iron hat and iron mittens and managing to keep himself awake), he brings it back to the king. (The king sent him to catch Bajun as part of his ongoing attempts to dispense with the archer and marry his magical wife.)

In the courtroom, the cat starts to tell stories – "have you heard the one about the priest's daughter –" and tries to "tear the king's heart from his breast."

At the time I was thinking about this fairy tale, I was taking an art class with a Russian woman named Luba. I asked her about the cat.

"Oh! Cat Bajun!" she said, saying the name like buy-YOON. "It means... what is the English word..." She felt for it and between us we realized it meant lullaby.

I think Cat Bajun represents anything that is overly soothing, like too many podcasts or too much TV, any story that lulls you to sleep in the face of the truth about yourself and your path, even ones you tell yourself.

The news definitely qualifies as Cat Bajun and I think watching it is a rich person's sport. There are so many other things to think about and other ways to experience life.

There are magical cats that pop up in other fairy tales, and catching them can be a threatening task, but none are quite like Bajun.