James Studdard: The Cedar Waxwing is indigenous to the
southeastern U.S. a very colorful bird, known for its waxy look and crested
head. They fly in flocks of thousands and usually roost for the night
around sundown. I remember, as a child, sitting in the woods, BB gun at
the ready, only to be discouraged by a great downpouring of digested
berries.
JM: Bird
defensive bombings! A great story.
I'm happy to report that the campaign against
the reflective windowpanes is moving along. It uses Nabokov's first two lines of
Pale Fire in the posters.
A Danish friend told me that in his
country black silhouettes of birds of prey are manufactured in series and
sold: they are glued onto glass panes and, apparently, their
shadow serves as a menace and it keeps birds away from
any dangerous "false azure." It's also a
reversion (PF's dangerous shadows, Shade's shadows used as a protective
device) like the one found Alexey's quote from Khodasevich:
Счастлив, кто падает вниз головой:
Мир для него хоть на миг - а иной.
Happy who's falling down heels over head:
To him the world - if only momentarily - is
different.
To be saved by a shadowy menace, to fall
head over heels in love, or to bend down to look at the inverted world from
in-between the legs, can be a revelation! (Nabokov, besides Mascodagama's setting the metaphors "upside down",
returns to this new perspective in one of his Lectures on English
Literature).
A.Sklyarenko's addition on Cora Day (
"Day being the time between sunrise and sunset, the name Cora Day made me
think of Khodasevich's last book of poetry "Европейская ночь" ("The European
Night", 1928). When it is day in America (where Cora Day shot Murat), it is
night in Europe (where Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat), and vice versa. In other
words, American Day = European Night".) sent me back to Pale Fire's head of
the department to which Kinbote belonged, Dr. Nattochdag ("Netochka"), Dr. Oscar N. was
seens as a "distinguished Zemblan scholar,"
by Kinbote (but...wasn't he the Head of the English
department?).