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Straight talk on contemporary design & architecture

House Birds

CrowA neighbour in my apartment building has two fake stuffed crows in his window that curiously peer out at me while I fill up my watering can.  At first glance, they were a bit scary … but after meeting their gaze a few times, I’ve grown to like them … a lot.  Crows get a bit of a bad wrap in our culture – like when you refer to a group of several crows, it’s called MURDER. 

That’s harsh. 

MURDER

MURDER

Also, they eat garbage and that’s no good for their rep.  The other day outside of Zellers I noticed a MURDER of crows trying to bust into an entire bag of bagels with a series of teeny tiny punctures inflicted by their pointy beaks.  It seemed as though they had been working tirelessly at this for hours, so naturally I sympathized.  I bravely approached the MURDER to rip open the bag and free the yummy circles of doughy goodness and all traces of bagel disappeared within seconds. 

It was amazing.

 

Anyhoo… Apparently Charles and Ray Eames also had an affinity for the black bird (maybe not crow specific).  On one of their many travels they picked up an American folk art object … a black wooden bird and brought it home to live in the centre of their living room. 

eames2[1]

Vitra has re-produced the Eames’ beloved pet as a beautiful smooth black bird with the very same skinny stick legs and round eye balls.  It’s elegant and endearing and makes a nice alternative to a feathered friend of the live variety.  Against a back-drop it becomes a graphic image and on the carpet in the middle of room it’s just sweet and loveable.

Eames house bird 2

 

Eames house bird

Eames house bird

MURDER of house birds

MURDER of house birds

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3 Responses to “House Birds”

  1. Shawn Says:

    I went to school at BCIT in Burnaby and we used to have migratory crows arrive year after year. The shear number of them was a bit scary on a winter night. They used to dive bomb students in large numbers walking home. Now that you have alluded to the MURDER, it makes much more sense.

    A year or so after finishing school I worked at the tech park across the highway from BCIT where the birds were even larger numbers. A few of the businesses had Owls and other visual deterrents; one had a supersonic loudspeaker. So for the entire evening while working a late shift, there was the high pitched bird sound (unsure what bird) every 30 seconds that I suppose was to intimidate the flock of crows. Oh the insanity…

    “MURDER she wrote”, great story Anona!

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