Making Headlines
At Dawn, the Bird
(All NY Times headlines taken from the week of
the shuttle crash--the first week of February)
I. Possible Damage to the Wing
We were watching TV when the bird hit the window and fell to the patio with its wing arched unnaturally beneath it. "Is it possible that it's still alive?" I ask. My father shakes his head.
"Well..." he sighs. His face looks pained in the moment that the bird's body thumps against the window and drops to the ground--then it softens to grief. A small pool of blood emerges from beneath its body. I cock my head at the mystery of this bird that mistook our window for air. Your body grows cold already, Texas patio dove.
Penguins spend up to seventy-five percent of their lives underwater--even those on display at the aquarium. We watch them dive headfirst into the water like fat arrows, their arms sleek and thick at their sides. Fish, freshly killed and slick like steel, slip down their throats without a word.
In Chilean folklore, the penguin is not the only bird unable to fly. The Alicanto is a nocturnal sparrow that feeds on the veins of gold and silver. The weight of the metal is what keeps it from flying.
II. Tracking Shuttle, Many Saw Long Trail of Flames Instead
The Egyptians' bird of eternal life was what the Greeks would call Phoenix. Did it roost in treetops and cactus arms? Or did it fly, leaving trails of flames across the horizon? Did it scatter its ashes over the earth like the strewn answers to immortality; the clues to rebirth irreparably dispersed like the infinite pieces of a puzzle?
I used to fall asleep to locusts. Their plump insect bodies sang a long and unanswered serenade. They lived on the trees outside my window. They left crisp skeleton skins behind them, whose leggings still clung to the bark. I have never seen them land, though I wonder if they do it all at once, or in pieces. If they gather to one tree over time, or if they descend in swarms, settling over the branches like a shroud--a skin of screaming scales.
In Carlsbad Caverns, stalactites plunge earthward, stalagmites stretch heavenward. Like tapered tree trunks. Like lava. My voice trickles over the cool of the walls. Here and there, ends meet--a stalactite thinks it has reached the earth, and a stalagmite believes it's in heaven.
...ne in shadowy corners, of mutilated orifices. Dead sometimes. And more often, unfortunately living to remember. Or to disassociate” (141-2). At this point Bertha has begun to sympathize with the bird; it is a victim, much like herself.
The husband ordered his servant to set out traps to capture the bird. So, his servant catches the bird and returns it back to him. “The husband takes the bird to his wife and before her eyes he killed it out of spite breaking its neck with his hands.” (Sutton 171) The blood from the bird splatters over her chest (Sutton 172).
I've heard the fable before, three times in fact. Originally, the oracle in question was always an old man, an Asian philosopher and blind. The boys carried in a live bird, not a dead bird as she described as a "small bundle of life sacrificed" or the absence of bird altogether. The boys asked the same question. If the philosopher answered dead, they would let it fly away, but if he answered alive, they would kill it and drop it at his feet, proving him wrong with either answer. When the old, wise, blind man was presented with the question, he pondered it a bit and deduced their scheme. He answered, "The fate of that bird is in your hands."
In “A Caged Bird”, it is made clear that this bird has never experienced the freedom of flying with the other species or perching atop the highest building. All it has ever known is the cage in which is has been kept and fed plentifully, yet not punctually, and nurtured with the love of an owner and proper care.
"It is known to be a mythical multi-colored bird of Arabia, with a long history of artistic and literary symbolism, the Phoenix is one of a kind. At the end of its five-hundred-year existence, it perches on its nest of spices and sings until sunlight ignites the masses. After the body is consumed in flames, a worm emerges and develops into the next Phoenix.
It was the size of an eagle. Its eyes were not like ordinary birds, ferocious and darting about with suspicion. No, its eyes had a sense of humility over them with a gentleness that only eyes full of wisdom can have. The beak was long, narrow, smooth, and bathed in a burnt orange tint. The feet took a similar shade, but were riddled with crevices, cracks and chinks in the dry skin from which razor like talons protruded. It had a plumage full of brilliant hues of crimson with glints of purple and gold dispersed throughout. Then, as if done with the flick of a switch, this majestic fowl burst into flames, engulfed in a white intense blaze that consumed the entire animal. As swiftly as the combustion began, it ended. All that remained was a heap of smoldering ashes. There was movement in the cinders. A baby bird peaked its head out of the burnt remains. Birthed from the ashes, a phoenix was reborn.
they think nothing of it until they discover the bird. He was found wrapped in a
“Many years ago, there was a bird that just didn’t seem to fit in, this odd little bird tried to join a flock of seagulls and they refused him, he moved on but the crow said he was much too tiny. He searched everywhere looking for a place to call home, but all the other birds wanted nothing to do with this odd character. He wondered, why they were refusing his… until one day he discovered he had a unique quality that no other birds could understand, you see this strange creature was the only bird on the face of the earth that could actually fly
The Egyptian Process of Mummification In ancient Egyptian society, preserving a body after death was an important process necessary for entrance into an immortal existence. According to Egyptian belief, the soul did not die. The soul would take the form of a bird, usually a falcon, and fly around in the world of the living returning later its dead body. The importance of preserving the body revolved around the idea that the roaming soul would be able to recognize the right body and return to it.
The broken bird cage was a vital clue for whoever killed Mr. Wright. In the text, the author says how, “Mrs. Peters was examining the bird-cage. “Look at this door,” she said slowly. “It’s broke. Someone pulled apart the cage hinge.” Bird cages are pretty easy
This is a very uncommon, because different species of birds never work mutually. Also, the story and the film are both in the identical climate. It is cold and chilly; "The ground is frozen and it will be a black winter." The climate gives both versions of the story an eerie or creepy feeling. Each version has the main character boarding up the windows to protect themselves from the suicidal birds that try to break the barriers in front of the windows. Anyone who thought the birds would not attack are usually found dead with their eyes pecked away. The film and the story both have pathetic endings.
the pigeons keep on dancing, their wings will forever be intact and they will always be
form. The image of a "pitchy cloud / Of locusts" to describe them as they
When he realized that the bird wasn’t dead he got mad and started choking it till it died..
Because I am a journalism student, I have talked, researched and discussed with many of my fellow students and faculty members about the topics above. I am choosing to talk about this because I think it is important and they are pertinent issues in the journalism field. I am also very interested in this topic, so I thought it would be fun to take the opportunity you gave us to design our own multi-part question and write about something in journalism that is appealing to me.