Odd Birds & Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary) - Peter Wortsman

Odd Birds & Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary)

(An Urban Bestiary)
Buch | Hardcover
112 Seiten
2025
Turtle Point Press (Verlag)
978-1-885983-59-6 (ISBN)
21,15 inkl. MwSt
Ravens in Berlin . . . Parakeets in Brooklyn . . . Chickens
in Tel Aviv . . . Spiders in Cognac. City creatures spark the imagination and
intellect in words and art by this father-daughter team.



Odd Birds & Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary) is an
illustrated collection of brief observations on city creatures. Inspired
by the tradition of the medieval bestiary, bestiarum vocabulum, a
12th-century bestselling genre that chronicled animals and beings both
real and fantastical, the book features pithy impressions of birds and animals
that delight, confound, and edify, written by Peter Wortsman, coupled
with detailed naturalist artwork by his daughter, Aurélie
Bernard Wortsman.




Featured creatures include:






Pigeons: “When, finally, it takes flight . . . this
asphalt-colored bird is like a piece of the pavement which by some fluke of
gravity broke loose and is foolishly falling upward by mistake." 









Seagulls: “Fallen splinters of eternity, they hang
overhead with the equanimity and mild disdain of angels in a medieval
altarpiece, and unlike pigeons, refuse any direct contact with man."



Ants: “Micro-managers in three-piece bodies,
ants parody human antics to a tee. Or is it the other way around?"













Dust mites: “Every time you scratch yourself or comb
your hair, you are feeding the tiny intruders with the detritus of self."





With four-color images throughout, printed in a beautiful hardbound
edition, this one-of-a-kind volume will please the discerning animal lover,
traveler, art lover, iconoclast, and literati on your gift list—and, of course,
also you!

Peter Wortsman is the author of works of fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry. He is also a critically acclaimed translator from German into English, including works such as The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann, which was shortlisted for the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. A former fellow of the Fulbright Foundation, The Thomas J. Watson Foundation, and a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, his writing has been honored with the Beard’s Fund Short Story Award and an Independent Publishers Book Award. He divides his time between New York City and the French Alps. Aurélie Bernard Wortsman is an artist, cartoonist, and the director of Andrew Edlin Gallery in downtown Manhattan, where she curated “Beverly Buchanan: Shacks and Legends, 1985-2011,” “Agatha Wojciechowsky: Spirits Among Us,” and “Beverly Buchanan: Northern Walls and Southern Yards.” Co-founder of the artistic cartoon duo Zou and Lou, her work has been exhibited at Wynwood Arts 29 in Miami and elsewhere. She first published her drawings at age five in her father’s column in the literary review Courants d’ombres. 

Contents

Whose Zoo Is It? (A Foreword)   13





I * Odd Birds

Pigeons   20


Seagulls   22


The Raven and the Swift (Berlin, Germany)   24


Le Corbeau (Paris, France)   26


The Crow (Kyoto, Japan)   29


Red-Tailed Hawk   30


Rooster on the Loose   31


Chicken (Tel Aviv, Israel)   32


Praise for the Lone Peacock in the Valence Zoo (Valence, France)   33


The Monk Parrakeets of Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, New York)   34





II * Bugs & Microbes

Ants   38


Spider   40


A Spider in Paradise (Cognac, France)   41


Enculeur de Mouches (Paris, France)   42


Conjoined Firebugs (Berlin, Germany)   44


Dust Mites 46


A Milliliter of Love   48


The Vespa, a Wasp on Wheels (Rome, Italy)   50


Gutsy Bacteria   51


Water Bug   52


Retroviruses   54





III * Canines, Felines & Foragers

Cave Canem!   58


Beware of Cat!   60


The Riddle of the Sphinx   62


Waltzing with a Tiger   64


Like Pigs to the Slaughter (Ziguinchor, Senegal)   66





IV * Rodents

Squirrels   70


Subway Rats   72


Mouse Mummy   74


Experimental Guinea Pigs   77





V * Big Game

Buffaloes (Taos, New Mexico)   80


Texas Longhorn Cattle (Houston, Texas)   83


Whales Washed Up at Rockaway Beach (Queens, New York)   84


Going Ape Shit   86


Elephants of Forgetting (Paris, France)   89





VI * Anthropoids

Little Alien from the Planet Uterus   92


Family Members   94


Musclemen   95


Preserved Body Parts   96


Pedestrian Types   98


The Baby Carriage Contingent   100


The Disease of Self   101


The Smile   102


Size Places   104


Where Names Come From   105


How the Face Ages   106


Faithful Fear   108


Smells  109


The Uninterrupted Kiss   110


Looking Is a Faulty Glue   111


The Garbage Waltzes with the Wind   112





About the Creators   115

Acknowledgments   117





 

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo full color
Verlagsort Chappaqua
Sprache englisch
Maße 158 x 234 mm
Themenwelt Literatur Essays / Feuilleton
Kunst / Musik / Theater
Sachbuch/Ratgeber Natur / Technik Natur / Ökologie
Reisen Reiseführer
ISBN-10 1-885983-59-X / 188598359X
ISBN-13 978-1-885983-59-6 / 9781885983596
Zustand Neuware
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