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OLBERMANN: I don't know if he would have liked the term or not, but - frankly - James Thurber
was as gifted at getting pissed off and drawing hilarity from his anger as any other writer.
Nor could anyone get more mileage from a small acorn of complaint.
Consider what he penned for the November 17th, 1934 edition of "The New Yorker," which was
then republished in his 1935 collection "The Middle-Aged Man On The Flying Trapeze." I'll
be reading, as usual, from "The American Library: Thurber: Writings and Drawings," edited by
Garrison Keillor.
The entire story is based on one quote from one scene from one 1927 play written by the
free-association-style writer Gertrude Stein: "Pigeons on the grass, alas. Pigeons on the
grass, alas. Short longer grass short longer, longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons, large
pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass, alas, pigeons on the grass."
See if you can tell how he feels about that in tonight's story, "There's An Owl In My
Room" by James Thurber.
"I saw Gertrude Stein on the screen of a newsreel theater one afternoon and I heard her read
that famous passage of hers about 'pigeons on the grass, alas.' The sorrow is, as you
know, Miss Stein's. After reading about the pigeons on the grass alas, Miss Stein said,
'This is a simple description of a landscape I have seen many times.' I don't really believe
that that is true. 'Pigeons on the grass, alas' may be a simple description of Miss
Stein's own consciousness, but it is not a simple description of a plot of grass on which
pigeons have alighted, are alighting, or are going to alight.
A truly simple description of the pigeons alighting on the grass of the Luxembourg Gardens,
which, I believe, is where the pigeons alighted, would say of the pigeons alighting there only
that they were pigeons alighting. Pigeons that alight anywhere are neither sad pigeons
nor gay pigeons, they are simply pigeons.
It is neither just nor accurate to connect the word 'alas' with pigeons. Pigeons are
definitely not 'alas.' They have nothing to do with 'alas' and they have nothing to do
with 'hooray,' not even when you tie red, white, and blue ribbons on them and let them
loose at band concerts. They have nothing to do with 'Mercy me' or 'Isn't that fine?'
either.
White rabbits, yes, and Scotch terriers, and blue jays, and even hippopotamuses, but not
pigeons. I happen to have studied pigeons very closely and carefully, and I have studied
the effect or, rather - the lack of effect - of pigeons very carefully.
A number of pigeons alight from time to time on the sill of my hotel window when I am eating
breakfast and staring out the window. They never 'alas' me, they never make me feel 'alas,'
they never make me feel anything.
Nobody and no animal and no other bird can play a scene so far down as a pigeon can.
For instance, when a pigeon on my window ledge becomes aware of me sitting there in a chair
in my blue, polka-dot dressing gown, worrying, he pokes his head far out from his shoulders
and peers sideways at me, for all the world - Miss Stein might surmise - like a timid
man peering around the corner of a building trying to ascertain whether he is being followed
by some hoofed fiend or only by the echo of his own footsteps.
And yet, it is not - for all the world - like a timid man peering around the corner of a
building trying to ascertain whether he is being followed by a hoofed fiend or only by
the echo of his own footsteps.
And that is because there is no emotion in the pigeon and no power to cause emotion.
A pigeon looking is just a pigeon looking. When it comes to emotion, a fish, compared
to a pigeon, is practically beside himself. A pigeon peering at me doesn't make me sad
or glad or apprehensive or hopeful. With a horse or a cow or a dog, it might be different.
It would be especially different with a dog.
Some dogs peer at me as if I had just gone completely crazy or as if they had just gone
completely crazy. I can go so far as to say that most dogs peer at me that way. This creates
in the consciousness of both me and the dog a feeling of alarm or downright terror and
legitimately permits me to work into a description of the landscape, in which the dog and myself
are figures, a note of emotion.
Thus, I should not have minded if Miss Stein had written: 'Dogs on the grass, look out,
dogs on the grass, look out, look out, dogs on the grass, look out, Alice.' That would
be a simple description of dogs on the grass.
But when any writer pretends that a pigeon makes him sad, or makes him anything else,
I must instantly protest that this is a highly-specialized, fantastic impression created in an individual
consciousness and that therefore it cannot fairly be presented as a simple description
of what actually was to be seen.
People who do not understand pigeons - and pigeons can be understood only when you understand
that there is nothing to understand about them - should not go around describing pigeons
or the effect of pigeons.
Pigeons come closer to a zero of impingement than any other birds. Hens embarrass me the
way my old Aunt Hattie used to when I was twelve and she still insisted I wasn't big
enough to bathe myself. Owls disturb me. If I am with an eagle, I always pretend that
I am not with an eagle, and so on down to swallows at twilight - who scare the hell
out of me.
But pigeons have absolutely no effect on me. They have absolutely no effect on anybody.
They couldn't even startle a child. That is why they are selected, from among all birds,
to be let loose, with colored ribbons attached to them, at band concerts, library dedications,
and christenings of new dirigibles. If anybody let loose a lot of owls on such an occasion
there would be rioting and catcalls and whistling and fainting spells and throwing of chairs
and the Lord only knows what else.
From where I am sitting now, I can look out the window and see a pigeon being a pigeon
on the roof of the Harvard Club. No other thing can be less what it is not than a pigeon
can, and Miss Stein, of all people, should understand that simple fact. Behind the pigeon
I am looking at, a blank wall of tired gray bricks is stolidly trying to sleep off oblivion;
underneath the pigeon, the cloistered windows of the Harvard Club are staring in horrified
bewilderment at something they have seen across the street.
The pigeon is just there on the roof being a pigeon, having been, and being, a pigeon
and, what is more, always going to be, too. Nothing could be simpler than that. If you
read that sentence aloud you will instantly see what I mean. It is a simple description
of a pigeon on a roof. It is only with an effort that I am conscious of the pigeon,
but I am acutely aware of a great, sulky, red iron pipe that is creeping up the side
of the building intent on sneaking up on a slightly tipsy chimney which is shouting its
head off.
There is nothing a pigeon can do or be that would make me feel sorry for it or for myself
or for the people in the world, just as there is nothing I could do or be that would make
a pigeon feel sorry for itself. Even if I plucked his feathers out, it would not make
him feel sorry for himself and it would not make me feel sorry for myself or for him.
But try plucking the quills out of a porcupine or even plucking the fur out of a jackrabbit.
There is nothing a pigeon could be - or can be, rather - which could get into my consciousness
like a fumbling hand in a bureau drawer and disarrange my mind or pull anything out of
it.
I bar nothing at all.
You could dress up a pigeon in a tiny suit of evening clothes and put a tiny silk hat
on his head and a tiny gold-headed cane under his wing and send him walking into my room
at night. It would make no impression on me. I would not shout, 'Good God almighty, the
birds are in charge!'
But you could send an owl into my room, dressed only in the feathers it was born with, and
no monkey business, and I would pull the covers over my head and scream.
No other thing in the world falls so far short of being able to do what it cannot do as a
pigeon does. Of being unable to do what it can do, too, as far as that goes."
"There's An Owl In My Room," by James Thurber.
That's "Countdown." I'm Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck.