Manufacturer’s note on the Manufacturer, the first: In the interest of full disclosure, the Manufacturer has never constructed a Katzenklavier. He has, in fact, never tried. He is, in fact, naturally averse to cats (scarring childhood experience; allergies). So the Manufacturer has never caught cats, never caged them, never (strictly speaking) heard them sing. But that doesn’t mean that he — that I — don’t love the Katzenklavier’s song. 

Manufacturer’s note on history, the second: Two men are commonly associated with the invention of the Katzenklavier. Both were born after the event described by Weckerlin. The first was “the last renaissance man,” Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680); the next was “the first psychiatrist,” Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813). Instructions included in this kit are for a Reil-style Katzenklavier (the nails). 

Manufacturer’s note on knowing everything: Athanasius Kircher wrote an atlas of China, though he had never been. He drew dragons into the maps. Kircher wrote a ten-book treatise on music theory, though he never played music. He transcribed bird songs, he drafted schematics for instruments he never built. He translated works in languages he didn’t know. So he was never wrong, as he saw it; he knew what he knew and he knew everything, to a point. He was a Sinologist, Egyptologist, geologist, parasitologist. Doctor, author, absent-minded professor. A Jesuit, a monk, and bald. But most of all — most importantly — Athanasius Kircher invented things.