When I first came to New York, I would scream like a girl and run to the other side of the street if there was a pigeon. Now I can face off with a pigeon.
New York is part of the natural world. I love the city, I love the country, and for the same reasons. The city is part of the country. When I had an apartment on East Forty-Eighth Street, my backyard during the migratory season yielded more birds than I ever saw in Maine.
I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature. In unbalanced times, balance is as difficult to come by as Parsifal's Grail.
The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.
In South Florida, we have industrial cockroaches that have to be equipped with loud warning beepers so you can get out of their way when they back up.
There will be hoards of vampire bats descending on Beverly Hills.... We'll see if they can find any real flesh to puncture. I don't know.
I saw a cardinal when I was in Brooklyn, and I was almost moved to tears. I was, like, 'I can't believe this thing is legal. I can't believe this thing is in the wild. How did this happen? How has someone not killed them all? They're so conspicuous. They're gorgeous. How can they still be alive?'
And the most unusual and surrealistic place in New York City is Central Park.
The pigeons are shitting on George M. Cohan. I shoo them off. They fly up and perch on his hat. Cohan would've never given his regards to Broadway if he saw how dirty they kept his statue in Duffy Square. New Yorkers walk right by. Nobody cares.
A lot of money could be saved if we ate urban wildlife.
In New York City, the common bats fly only at twilight. Brick-bats fly at all hours.
Most big cities like London and Glasgow have great big rivers that are unmissable. What's brilliant about the Water of Leith is that it's so hidden. It's a secret.
I am not a fan of rats or pigeons. In New York City, they have become very confident. When I was a child, you went on the subways, and the rats would stay down on the tracks, but now they hang out on the platform.
The squirrel in my yard really knows his way around the neighborhood.
Today coming to work, I saw one of those only in New York scenes. It was a rat who had passed out after choking on a pretzel.
The thing I love about Norwegian cities is that you often have nature right at your doorstep - you don't need to go that far. That makes it a lot easier to just get out.
I don't like to go into subways, because I always see them [ mice]. They are like my naguales [kindred animal spirits]. They follow me. I have literally stepped off of a plane in Phoenix and gotten my bag and stepped out on the curb and they'll be a big desert rat walking right in front of me.
It'll certainly give the pigeons something to do.
On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.
Oh, a lion hunter in the jungle dark, And a sleeping drunkard up in central park, and a Chinese dentist and a British queen All fit together in the same machine. Nice, nice, such very different people in the same device!
I saw a robin redbreast in Central Park today, but it turned out to be a sparrow with an exit wound.
I go to Union Square Park, mostly to take care of squirrels.
I started down but Sam caught my arm and knelt down himself to look. "For crying out loud," he said. "It's a racoon." "Poor thing," I said. "It could be a rabid baby-killer," Cole told me primly. "Shut up," Sam said pleasantly.
Rats are just Ziploc bags full of disease.
London is a roost for every bird.
