Tweets,

It has been suggested that I post Ian Frazier's "Count on Crows" here
despite its length. I hope you all will not blame me personally for what I
suspect will become "the dreaded crow thread." Anyway, here it is.

David Chelimer
chelimer at qwest.net
Seattle (and yes, I see one just outside my window now!)



"Count on Crows"
They're tomorrow's bird for all the right reasons, says a local employee

By Ian Frazier, DoubleTake


Lately, I?ve been working for the crows, and so far it?s the best job I ever
had. I fell into it by a combination of preparedness and luck. I?d been
casting around a bit, looking for a new direction in my career, and one
afternoon when I was out on my walk I happened to see some crows fly by. One
of them landed on a telephone wire just above my head. I looked at him for a
moment, and then on impulse I made a skchhh noise with my teeth and lips. He
seemed to like that; I saw his tail make a quick upward bobbing motion at
the sound. Encouraged, I made the noise again, and again his tail bobbed. He
looked at me closely with one eye, then turned his beak and looked at me
with the other, meanwhile readjusting his feet on the wire. After a few
minutes, he cawed and flew off to join his companions. I had a good feeling
I couldn?t put into words. Basically, I thought the meeting had gone well,
and as it turned out, I was right. When I got home there was a message from
the crows saying I had the job.

That first interview proved indicative of the crows? business style. They
are very informal and relaxed, unlike their public persona, and mostly they
leave me alone. I?m given a general direction of what they want done, but
the specifics of how to do it are up to me. For example, the crows have long
been unhappy about public misperceptions of them: that they raid other
birds? nests, drive songbirds away, eat garbage and dead things, can?t sing,
etc.?all of which is completely untrue once you know them. My first task was
to take these misperceptions and turn them into a more positive image. I
decided the crows needed a slogan that emphasized their strengths as a
species. The slogan I came up with was Crows: We Want to Be Your Only Bird.?
I told this to the crows, they loved it, and we?ve been using it ever since..


Crows speak a dialect of English rather like that of the remote hill people
of the Alleghenies. If you?re not accustomed to it, it can be hard to
understand. In their formal speech they are as measured and clear as a radio
announcer from the Midwest?though, as I say, they are seldom formal with me..
(For everyday needs, of course, they caw.) Their unit of money is the empty
soda bottle, which trades at a rate of about 20 to the dollar. In the recent
years of economic boom, the crows have quietly amassed great power. With
investment capital based on their nationwide control of everything that gets
run over on the roads, they have bought a number of major companies.
Pepsi-Cola is now owned by the crows, as well as Knight Ridder newspapers
and the company that makes Tombstone frozen pizzas. The New York
Metropolitan Opera is now wholly crow-owned.

In order to stay competitive, the crows recently merged with the ravens.
This was done not only for reasons of growth but also to better serve those
millions who live and work near crows. In the future, both crows and ravens
will be known by the group name of Crows, so if you see a bird and wonder
which it is, you don?t have to waste any time: Officially and legally, it?s
a crow. The net result of this, of course, is that now there are a lot more
crows?which is exactly what the crows want. Studies they?ve sponsored show
that there could be anywhere from 10 to a thousand times more crows than
there already are, with no strain on carrying capacity. A healthy increase
in crow numbers would make basic services like cawing loudly outside your
bedroom window at six in the morning available to all. In this area, as in
many others, the crows are thinking very long term.


If more people in the future get a chance to know crows as I have done, they
are in for a real treat. Because I must say, the crows have been absolutely
wonderful to me. I like them not just as highly profitable business
associates but as friends. Their aggressive side, admittedly quite strong in
disputes with scarlet tanagers and other birds, has been nowhere in evidence
around me. I could not wish for any companions more charming. The other day
I was having lunch with an important crow in the park?me sipping from a
drinking fountain while he ate peanuts taken from a squirrel. In between
sharp downward raps of his bill on the peanut shell to poke it open, he drew
me out with seemingly artless questions. Sometimes the wind would push the
shell to one side and he would steady it with one large foot while
continuing the raps with his beak. And all the while, he kept up his
attentive questioning, making me feel that, business considerations aside,
he was truly interested in what I had to say.

Crows: We Want to Be Your Only Bird.? I think this slogan is worth
repeating, because there?s a lot behind it. Of course, the crows don?t
literally want (or expect) to be the only species of bird left on the
planet. They admire and enjoy other kinds of birds and even hope that there
will still be some remaining in limited numbers out of doors as well as in
zoos and museums. But in terms of daily usage, the crows hope that you will
think of them first when you?re looking for those quality-of-life
intangibles usually associated with birds. Singing, for example: Crows
actually can sing, and beautifully, too; so far, however, they have not been
given the chance. In the future, with fewer other birds around, they feel
that they will be.

Whether they?re good-naturedly harassing an owl caught out in daylight, or
carrying bits of sticks and used gauze bandage in their beaks to make their
colorful, free-form nests, or simply landing on the sidewalk in front of you
with their characteristic double hop, the crows have become a part of the
fabric of our days. When you had your first kiss, the crows were there,
flying around nearby. They were cawing overhead at your college graduation,
and worrying a hamburger wrapper through the wire mesh of a trash container
in front of the building when you went in for your first job interview, and
flapping past the door of the hospital where you held your first-born child..
The crows have always been with us, and they promise that by growing the
species at a predicted rate of 17 percent a year, in the future they?ll be
around even more.


The crows aren?t the last Siberian tigers, and they don?t pretend to be.
They?re not interested in being a part of anybody?s dying tradition. But
then how many of us deal with Siberian tigers on a regular basis? Usually,
the nontech stuff we deal with?besides humans?is squirrels, pigeons,
raccoons, rats, mice, and a few kinds of bugs. The crows are confident
enough to claim that they will be able to compete effectively even with
these familiar and well-entrenched providers. Indeed, they have already
begun to displace pigeons in the category of walking around under park
benches with chewing gum stuck to their feet. Scampering nervously in
attics, sneaking through pet doors, and gnawing little holes in things are
all in the crows? expansion plans.

I would not have taken this job if I did not believe, strongly and deeply,
in the crows. And I do. I could go on and on about the crows? generosity,
taste in music, sense of family values; the "buddy system" they invented to
use against other birds, the work they do for the Shriners, and more. But
they?re paying me a lot of bottles to say this?I can?t expect everybody to
believe me. I do ask, if you?re unconvinced, that you take this simple test:
Next time you?re looking out a window or driving in a car, notice if there?s
a crow in sight. Then multiply that one crow by lots and lots of crows, and
you?ll get an idea of what the next few years will bring. In the bird
department, no matter what, the future is going to be almost all crows,
almost all the time. That?s just a fact.

So why not just accept it, and learn to appreciate it, as so many of us have
already? The crows are going to influence our culture and our world in
beneficial ways we can?t even imagine today. Much of what they envision I am
not yet at liberty to disclose, but I can tell you that it is magnificent.
They are going to be birds like we?ve never seen. In their dark, jewel-like
eyes burns an ambition to be more and better and to fly around all over the
place constantly. They?re smart, they?re driven, and they?re comin? at us.
The crows : Let?s get ready to welcome tomorrow?s only bird.



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