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Todd Field’s new film, Tár, opens with a scene that should feel inherently uncinematic: an onstage Q&A. The conversation, between Lydia Tár (played by Cate Blanchett) and Adam Gopnik (gamely playing himself), is the kind of hoity-toity event that’d be a coveted ticket for a certain highbrow milieu. Tár is the preeminent conductor of her generation.

Of all the nicknames I have for my cat Calvin—Fluffernutter, Chonk-a-Donk, Fuzzy Lumpkin, Jerky McJerkface—Bumpus Maximus may be the most apt. Every night, when I crawl into bed, Calvin hops onto my pillow, purrs, and bonks his head affectionately against mine. It’s adorable, and a little bit gross. Tiny tufts of fur jet into my nose; flecks of spittle smear onto my cheeks.Just shy of a decade ago, cuddling a cat this aggressively would have left me in dire straits.

On a recent weeknight in Punta Gorda, Florida, a bird thief cut the power at a strip mall. It was roughly 2 a.m., a time when cockatoos and cockatiels are asleep; and also when, with its security cameras knocked offline, one might slip inside the coral-stucco storefront of the Parrot Outreach Society, a local rescue-and-adoption group with close to 100 animals on-site.