Animals Strike Curious Poses

by Elena Passarello

  I am this bear, stuck in this blighted rink, beset upon by nature’s ticking clock. I am not hunkered down in numbered packs; instead I am awaiting death alone. I am afraid of time’s encroaching power, for each new year, I am more bluntly struck. I feel pain, feel it doubling, then I am it; I am always in wait of time’s new teeth. And though befuddled, drunk on sick, I am unfit to tear my eyes away from him.

  The growl of him, his mighty swipe, his blood, the way he foams both in and out of hours. My chain of foes would weigh less, I am sure, if I could toss off minutes, break pain’s spine, or send plague—squealing—to a bitch’s lap. For even if I knew more time, more sick, was at the go, it’d be a righteous salve to fight whatever hour’s on me now. To discard the sick dog of what is now. To throw it—a contaminated rag stained with the gusto of my intellect.

  Yes. I am jealous of his natural acts. And so I’ll hit his nature with a stick.

  68 Let SHEPHATIAH rejoice with the little Owl, which is the winged Cat.

  68 For I am possessed of a cat, surpassing in beauty, from whom I take occasion to bless Almighty God.

  Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno, Fragment B

  695 Let the UNNAMED CAT of Cyprus consider the man in its tomb.

  695 For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

  696 Let SEKHMET uncover the straggled with a sandy cat’s-breath.

  696 For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

  697 Let TA-MIU keep the crown prince a-catted ‘til dawn.

  697 For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

  698 Let LOMASA, trapped in the doxy net, take pains to skirt his struggles.

  698 For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

  699 Let BASTET’s temple rise catastrophic.

  699 For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

  700 Let GOTOKU-JI’s Holy-Cat snuff the pilgrim’s fire.

  700 For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

  701 Let OVINNIK chase ghosts from frenzied SMARTS.

  701 For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

  702 Let all menagerie cats praise tenfold their JEOFFRY!

  702 For this he performs in ten degrees.

  703 Let the Ocelot give her singular kit for Jeoffry to embrace.

  703 For first he looks upon his fore paws to see if they are clean.

  704 Let the Lion sneeze as he did on the Ark and bring forth double Jeoffrys.

  704 For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

  705 Let the Panther slumber three days past Jeoffry’s rollicks.

  705 For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore paws extended.

  706 Let the Wildcat quarter his killing and share it.

  706 For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

  707 Let the Jaguar’s quintessence refute all the filth.

  707 For fifthly he washes himself.

  708 Let the Pard teach Jeoffry six ways of escapement.

  708 For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.

  709 Let the Catamount hide the bite half a fortnight.

  709 For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

  710 Let the Lynx rejoice—up, down, sideways infinitum.

  710 For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

  711 Let the Cheetah run Jeoffry nine quick miles from LOGIC.

  711 For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

  712 Let the Lion mark J with an uproarious X.

  712 For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.

  713 Let all marbled thinkers keep Cats near their books.

  713 For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

  714 Let JOHNSON enshrine good HODGE in his study.

  714 For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

  715 Let MONTAIGNE cat-sport with Mme. VANITY (or does she man-sport with him)?

  715 For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.

  716 Let JEROME be-saint the Cat who stalks his papers for the murine.

  716 For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

  717 Let SCARLATTI give his PULCINELLA a jaunty left-hand line.

  717 For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.

  718 Let not PANGUR BÀN disappear his kept monk with unseeing.

  718 For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.

  719 Let RICHELIEU’s bed-lamps alight on LUDOVIC.

  719 For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

  720 Let WALPOLE mourn poor SELIMA, murdered by goldfish.

  720 For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

  721 Let all kept creatures bask in the light of the one true MAGNIFICAT!

  721 For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

  722 Let Jeoffry rebuff any traffic with a suspect stripe.

  722 For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

  723 Let his man not be called mad, though he shows his Tiger teeth.

  723 For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

  724 Let Jeoffry not live as a May-cat (one a-kept by melancholia).

  724 For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

  725 Let trouble befall those who expectorate Cat slander.

  725 For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

  726 Let the washerfrau who beats the cat besoak her own damned line.

  726 For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.

  727 Let HOGARTH’s wanton boys, who string up tails, meet the sticks.

  727 For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

  728 Let Jeoffry not catch curses on a Scottish belvedere.

  728 For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

  729 Let J not shield the soldier-breast at the gates to Pelusium.

  729 For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

  730 Let all SMARTS keep Cats as kin, as each Kit must be kept.

  730 For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

  731 Let all hounds bring unto Jeoffry the continental praise.

  731 For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

  732 Let hounds be known as mirrors of men, but Cats? A tidy-foot beyond them.

  732 For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.

  733 Let JEOFFRY reflect neither God nor man, but a set of dogged peculiars.

  733 For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

  734 Let Jeoffry be given the hound bone, the tooth, and the scratch.

  734 For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

  735 Let the stale ideas of all your hounds heretoforely be doggerel.

  735 For he is tenacious of his point.

  736 Let Jeoffry tread forward with gusto.

  736 For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

  737 Let his gait be unchecked and undogly.

  737 For he knows that God is his Saviour.

  738 Let it be known that the space between God and SMART men is prayer.

  738 For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

  739 Let it be known that prayer moves man and God into fragmentary bits.

  739 For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

  740 Let it be known that fragmented prayer is heard in the cat’s nipping cry.

  740 For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually— Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

  741 Let
it be known: there’s no sickness darker than bridging two fragments with LOGIC.

  741 For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

  742 Let the two fragments—godly and Smartly—rejoin with a Cat’i’th’gap!

  742 For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.

  743 Let cat-particulars keep odd time and vociferate all hours.

  743 For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.

  744 Let cat-thoughts keep a human body sweetly outside itself.

  744 For he is docile and can learn certain things.

  745 Let cattery soothe the kept man, be he a-bed, at-desk, or exiled.

  745 For he can set up with gravity, which is patience upon approbation.

  746 Let the vox felis remind us: days at a desk are a kind of a keeping.

  746 For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

  747 Let the kept Man-at-desk worship the Cat like a leaping Byzantine.

  747 For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

  748 Let the Man-at-desk go a-catting to squelch the roll and the prank of his mind.

  748 For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

  749 Let Cat pranks parcel out into WAGGLES, for the Man-at-desk’s delighting.

  749 For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.

  750 Let the Cat-waggle-visions pass desk-to-desk and man-to-man, as do the Ballads.

  750 For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

  751 Let Cat-waggle-tales alight on the desks of all those kept by drudgery.

  751 For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

  752 Let Cat-waggle-ditties goose the clock of the jeopardized and bedrugded.

  752 For the former is afraid of detection.

  753 Let the Cat-waggles invade continent and colonies.

  753 For the latter refuses the charge.

  754 Let God bless the SMART who sends a J-waggle down the hump!

  754 For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

  755 Let Cat-waggle-dreams solve all desky jeopardies, and to the letter.

  755 For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

  756 Let J be the missing form—bless those who fly their keep at first watch!

  756 For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

  757 Let E be the eye of Jeoffry, and the eye that disremembers all I’s.

  757 For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

  758 Let O be the illogic that circles in vigilance, like a Cat near sleep.

  758 For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

  759 Let F be Felidae Felis, which—O HOLY CATS!—is doubly fine.

  759 For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

  760 Let R be not what we are, but what we err, and whate’er strikes us.

  760 For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.

  761 Let Y be YES; two short roads to a line, which is why, Jeoffry? And then yes, Jeoffry.

  761 For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.

  762 Let 74 lines of Cat-letting meet 74 lines of warm, for-wanting love.

  762 For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

  763 Let a line of Cats waggling against the ceaseless prayer be love.

  763 For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

  764 Let Jeoffry hover over the road and then let his low roving be love.

  764 For, tho’ he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

  765 Let his feet pad the road and find a man, kneeling a-fours, for love.

  765 For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.

  766 Let his cat-jig, cat-bourrée and cat-Sarabande be-spraggle us as love.

  766 For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.

  767 Let a Cat to a drowning man be love.

  767 For he can swim for life.

  768 Let love be his keep.

  768 For he can creep.

  —for Alexi Morrissey

  He was not naughty, quite,

  But gay and bright.

  And under all his brag,

  A foolish wag.

  W.A. Mozart

  WHISTLE A LITTLE Mozart to a starling in a cage. If it knows humans as creatures that sing and are sung to, the bird will shut its beak. It will arch its starling neck, bending toward your puckered lips. It might bob its dark head back and forth at the Mozart line you’ve sent out—the dotted pops of “Papageno, Papagena” or the crystalline shards of the Rondo for Glass Harmonica. Though a caged starling is chatty during the day and downright garrulous at night, at the moment it locks in on your Mozartean whistle, the little bird will only blink, aiming its entire soundless self toward the music coming from you. Note how it nods along with your tuneful body as if to say, Yes, yes, I have it.

  But a starling is no parrot. Do not expect that when you whistle “twin-kle, twin-kle,” you’ll immediately hear a “lit-tle star” in return. You’ll have to come back whistling for a day or a week, confirming the sound’s place in the world where the bird perches. And when it does spit back whatever Mozart you’ve fed it, it will be on a starling’s zany terms: a theme from the “Haffner” symphony punctuated with guttural warbles, or the famous Adagio from his Clarinet Concerto mixed into an uncanny impression of your dishwasher. The “Queen of the Night” aria sung in a screech worthy of a Bee Gee.

  A few days after that, your line of Mozart will come from the birdcage as a barely recognizable string of filched sounds, all sung together in a line so arrhythmic, it’s catchy. You’ll hear Mozart, your own voice, the white noise of the house you live in, plus the recesses of starling instinct:

  TWIN-KLE—bizeeet!—TWIN—“hi! how are you!”—[doorbell]—KLE—chackerchackerchacker—LIT-TLE—bweet! bweet! purrrup!—LIT-TLE—[cranging smoke alarm]—LIT—“hi! how are you”—TLE, TWIN-KLE, LIT-TLE—[that Bee Gees screech]——STAAAAAAR!

  This will then be repeated with the maddening obsessiveness of an electronica concert.

  We’re not sure why starlings engage in such behavior, but we think it’s because this breed is hardwired to sing to its tribes. There are many in a starling’s life: the little tribe of the monogamous pair, that of the clutch family, the flock in the field, the mob coming home from the neighboring fields to roost together overnight. All these tribes are sonic. The male starling sings his long coupling song to his mate while she pecks for food. A young starling sends mad chatter to her close-by kin to feel where the safe world starts and stops. A wizened starling finds his place in the mob by singing long runs of mashed-up noise that prove his vast experience.

  This sonic sense of the tribal might explain why, when we see a trilling mob of ten thousand starlings—each bird watching its seven closest neighbors for the slightest change of speed or angle, dodging hawks en masse with shrieks and chips, beak beats and hard whistles—we find ourselves calling that group not a flock or a swarm or a drove, but a collective noun that’s drenched in sound: a “murmuration.”

  So what kind of murmur began that spring day in Vienna when a twenty-eight-year-old Mozart, jaunty in his garnet coat and gold-rimmed cap, strolled into a shop to whistle at a starling in a cage? That bird must have zeroed in on Mozart’s mouth as the man whistled the seventeen-note opening phrase from his recent piano concerto:

  Mozart’s melody riffs in G on a simple line heard in many a Volkslied, so the starling might have been hearing similar tunes from other shoppers that whole month. Or perhaps Mozart himself had been in a few times and had whistled his line enough for the bird to learn it. No matter how the starling got the song, on May 27, 1784, it spat that tune right back at the tunesmith—but not without taking some libertie
s first.

  The little songbird unslurred the quarter notes and added a dramatic fermata at the end of the first full measure; we can only guess how long it held that warbly G. At the next bar, it lengthened Mozart’s staccato attack and replaced his effete grace notes with two pairs of bold crotchets. And the starling had the audacity to sharp the two Gs of the second measure, when any Viennese composer worth his wig would keep them natural and in line with the key. Those bird-born G-sharps take the steady folk tune into a more harmonically complex place, ignoring the fermata-ed natural G of the earlier measure and pushing toward the next note in the phrase—an A—which builds a lifted E-major chord instead.

  Mozart apparently loved this edit, because he bought that bird on sight. For good measure, he drew a little treble staff in his expense book and scored the starling’s tweaks under the note of purchase:

  Vogel Staar, 34 Kreutzer:

  And under the last measure: an acclamation scribbled in the maestro’s quick hand: Das war schön!

  There is no other live animal purchase in Mozart’s expense book, and no more handwritten melodies; no additional transactions were praised as schön! This is one of the very few things we even know about his purchasing habits. He’d only begun tracking his spending that year, and by late summer, Mozart had abandoned the practice and only used that notebook to magpie random phrases of English. So this note of purchase is special among the extant scraps from his life.

  He also bought the bird at a critical point for the Classical period. At the end of the eighteenth century, tunes were never more sparkling or more kept, their composers obsessive over the rhetoric of sonata form: first establishing a theme, then creating tension through a new theme and key, then stretching it into a dizzying search for resolution, and finally finding the resolve in a rollicking coda. The formal understanding of this four-part structure permeated Classical symphony, sonata, and concerto. By 1784, sonata form had imprinted itself on the listening culture enough to feel like instinct; Vienna audiences could rest comfortably in the run of Classical forms as familiar—and thus enjoyable—narratives. And nobody played this cagey game more giddily than Mozart.