I asked the chickens their views on creativity. They were eating tuna which
had suffered freezer burn. Did you know that chickens like fish? Dogs do too.
When the girls had filled their bellies, Hamish finished the rest.
“From the point of view of one who is satiated,” Mimo began, “and on behalf of
all present, may I offer a word of thanks. Whatever that was, it was much
appreciated.”
“Much appreciated,” was the general opinion. “Keep it coming.”
I explained that they shouldn’t count on ever getting more, which was not what
they wanted to hear. I returned their mental focus to the subject of
creativity and whether or not it can be taught.
“Creativity,” said Pecorino, “is all about eggs. You squeeze one out, you feel
that you have created something, added to the world’s stock.”
“Definitely created something,” Rocky reinforced. “It puts your mind in a
different mental state, that does. One minute no egg…the next…voila, an egg.”
Appenzeller objected. “Hyperbole! I never pushed one out that quickly.”
“Takes a lot more effort, proper creativity,” Cheddar agreed. “And I don’t
think it can be taught. You’ve either got it, or you haven’t."
“The thing about eggs, “said Mimo, “is how mysteriously they disappear. You
turn around and they’re gone. I mean, why would anyone want to steal an egg?”
“People sometimes behave oddly around art,” Cheddar suggested. “They’ve been
known to attack paintings with knives.”
“Or beaks. I heard of a blue-footed booby that slashed a tourist’s leg.”
“Where?”
“In the Galapagos.”
“No I meant where in the leg? Blue-footed Boobies aren’t tall are they?”
“Quite low down, I should think. Maybe in the calf?"
Appenzeller walked up and down looking really quite perplexed, “I don’t see
eggs as art. They’re just life; part of the natural order.”
I couldn’t help muttering, “I wish.”
“Well, they once were,” said Rocky. "And when they were, there was nothing of
the sublime about them. They were just eggs, sure as eggs is eggs, as regular
as eggs is eggs, as eggy as eggs can be. Nothing egregious about them.”
Much flapping followed, “Egregious? Don’t like the sound of that.”
No, no."
Mimo finally asked, “What’s egregious mean?”
“Standing out from the flock,” said Cheddar.
I looked it up.
She’s right!
From the Latin, ex-out; greg, grex, flock.
My other discovery this week was that Marianne Faithful is related to the
fellow with whom we associate Sado-Masochism, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. His
mistress was Baroness Fanny Pistor; his wife was Aurora von Rumelin. Marianne
Faithfull was not a stage name; Marianne and her brother Simon are the children
of Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, a British Army officer and professor of
Italian Literature. It was their mother, Eva, whose maternal great, great
uncle wrote, “Venus in Furs.”
Arsenal won 5-1.
There’s snow in the forecast, but nothing egregious.
Now you know.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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