Category: Thurber

3.6.2025 – government of the

government of the
orioles, by, for foxes
must perish from earth

The Birds and the Foxes

Once upon a time there was a bird sanctuary in which hundreds of Baltimore orioles lived together happily. The refuge consisted of a forest entirely surrounded by a high wire fence. When it was put up, a pack of foxes who lived nearby -protested that it was an arbitrary and unnatural boundary. However, they did nothing about it at the time because they were interested in civilizing the geese and ducks on the neighboring farms.

When all the geese and ducks had been civilized, and there was nothing else left to eat, the foxes once more turned their attention to the bird sanctuary. Their leader announced that there had once been foxes in the sanctuary but that they had been driven out. He proclaimed that Baltimore orioles belonged in Baltimore. He said, furthermore, that the orioles in the sanctuary were a continuous menace to the peace of the world. The other animals cautioned the foxes not to disturb the birds in their sanctuary. So the foxes attacked the sanctuary one night and tore down the fence that, surrounded it. The orioles rushes out and were instantly killed and eaten by the foxes.

The next day the leader of the foxes, a fox from whom God was receiving daily guidance, got upon the rostrum and addressed the other foxes. His message was simple and sublime. “You see before you,” he said, “another Lincoln. We have liberated all those birds!”

Moral: Government of the orioles, by the foxes, and for the foxes, must perish from the earth.

From Fables for Our Time by James Thurber as reprinted in The Thurber Carnival, Harper Brothers, New York, 1945.

See more Thurber Drawings here …

3.3.2025 – it is better to

it is better to
have ring of freedom in your
ears than in your nose

The Bears and the Monkeys.

In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”

The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.

Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”

So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.

“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”

Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.

MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.

Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber, New York, Harpers, 1940.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Federal Reserve Bank said today that:

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.8 percent on March 3, down from -1.5 percent on February 28. After this morning’s releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real private fixed investment growth fell from 1.3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, to 0.0 percent and 0.1 percent.

Bills do come due and a fall of GDP from -1.5 to a -2.8 in five days is rather stunning.

This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.

1.31.2025 – laissez faire and let

laissez faire and let
laissez faire what I believe in
fits just right today …

I do miss what someone like Thurber would have done with the current political climate.

I once said that the New Yorker was the Saturday Night Live of its era …

I’ll stand with that.

After all, laissez faire and let laissez faire!

Bella Ciao Baby!

Check out all the Thurber drawings at https://muggsandrex.wordpress.com/

1.28.2025 – misanthropy plus

misanthropy plus
anger characteristic
bleak fatalism

In 1930, James Thurber published a book of drawings titled The Last Flower.

In Thurber’s New Yorker Obituary, EB White wrote. “Although he is best known for “Walter Mitty” and “The Male Animal,” the book of his I like best is “The Last Flower”. In it you will find his faith the renewal of life, his feeling for the beauty and fragility of life on earth.

One week after publication, Life magazine ran a two spread of the drawings and captions under the headline, Speaking of Pictures … Thurber draws a parable on War, that told the story of The Last Flower.

Right now, today, I need a shot of faith the renewal of life, and in a feeling for the beauty and fragility of life on earth.

This is the Life Magazine introduction to the drawings.

The world of James Thurber is a stark soggy word of predatory women, bald bitter little men and melancholy hounds. Created idly on memo pads, long ignored by the New Yorker and doubtfully put into print in 1931, the Thurber cosmology has since been hailed as the creation of a high satirical intelligence. Art critics applaud his economy of line, call him a successor to Picasso and Matisse.

Beneath his cynicism Thurber is an intense, compassionate liberal. When war exploded in Europe he was moved to produce a “parable in pictures,” packed with his characteristic misanthropy plus anger plus a certain bleak fatalism. At his request Harper & Brothers withheld another Thurber volume then ready for release and rushed The Last Flower ($2) into print. Published on Nov. 17, it is sure to land on many a Christmas tree. Below are some of the 50 drawings from the book, with Thurber captions.

You can see the drawings on my James Thurber page, For Muggs and Rex.