As you've maybe seen from our three previous posts, we're honoring the cat today (something we occasionally do to make up for neglecting them the rest of the time).

Today, we're all cats all the time -- beginning here on the Mutts blog and culminating tonight in a groundbreaking live performance that will be the debut (and perhaps death) of a new art form.

It's so significant, so ... well, "cutting edge," I may try to get Sam Sessa to put it on his Midnight Sun blog.

There is much talk these days about the demise of newspapers -- about how printed words sitting lifelessly on a page (though, if we reporters do our jobs right, they shouldn't be lifeless) can no longer hold the interest of the reading public. There are others who'll tell you that reading public is down to oh, six or seven folks.

We at Mutts disagree with all that, believing that there are still readers and they still like substance and depth (in addition to their daily blog intake).

But we recognize, despite our age, that these are changing times, and we make every effort -- through the use of things like video and Google and podcasts and blogging -- to not just keep up, but stay fairly close to the forefront of these changes (lest we become an anachronism).

We worry so much about becoming an anachronism (anachronophobia) that it leads us to the kind of "opposite extreme" behavior that will take place tonight, when we'll be dancing so far out on the cutting edge that we may slice our feet.

We are presenting for the first time anywhere in the world a brand new genre: the musical newspaper story.

How better to breath new life into the printed word? But what, you may ask, does this have to do with cats?

Digging through my vast personal archives (which can be hazardous; I recommend using a Q-Tip), I came across the perfect story to use for this experiment -- and it's about feral cats.

That's all I'm going to say for now. Should you wish to attend, this will take place sometime after 8 p.m. (but not too late, I hope) at open mic night at Charlotte's, at the corner of Light and Randall streets in what the pretentious among us like to call South Federal Hill.

Charlotte's has a five tastes for $5 wine night on Wednesdays -- one of which served to inspire tonight's performance.

Admission to open mic night is free, much like the cats at the Maryland SPCA, until the middle of this month.

(AP Photo)