A Weird Creature of the Night

Here's one of the many, many narrators of THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA: "Pliny says that elephants have been taught to dance, and that once they were found rehearsing in the moonlight." When I read that, I decided to find out more! I scurried downstairs like a disgusting little rat and nosed around in the bookcase where I knew I had seen my books by Pliny the Elder when I was looking for something else. I had just two volumes out of the huge, sloppy pile of books that make up his NATURAL HISTORY, and I was pretty sure I didn't have the one with elephants in it, and I was right. Noticing that one of my Pliny (the Elder!) books did not have a dust jacket, I recalled that I had bought it used in San Francisco, and as I strolled down the sidewalk with my purchase in hand, that's when (as recorded previously on the "blog" - "click" here, you uncaring monster!) I either spoke to Francis Ford Coppola or some guy with a beard. Then I remembered that after I walked away, I thought, "I should have gotten him to sign this Pliny the Elder book. They're both Italian!" Well, now, in what we call "the present," I'm glad I didn't, because then I would have known for sure whether or not this guy was Francis Ford Coppola, and I might have been disappointed. And humiliated! As it is, we all dwelled in what may have been a pleasant illusion, and what could be nicer? I can keep you in suspense no longer! I got hold of the Pliny volume with the elephants in it, and the reality of the anecdote was much sadder than the light tone of Potocki's narrator would have one believe. That's what I get for wanting to know things. As you can imagine, once I had book eight of the NATURAL HISTORY, in which Pliny promises to tell us all about animals - and delivers! - I skipped greedily ahead to the bird section, hoping to find some owls, which were, indeed, forthcoming. "The eagle-owl is a funereal bird, and is regarded as an extremely bad omen... it inhabits deserts and places that are not merely unfrequented, but terrifying and inaccessible; a weird creature of the night, its cry is not a musical note but a scream." Scarily put! But old Pliny gives the eagle-owl (not to be confused with an eagle) a fair shake: "I know several cases of its having perched on the houses of private persons without fatal consequences." That's a relief! Now let's get back to THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA, which, although it hasn't had a single owl in it yet (except on the cover), does have monkeys riding vicuñas, which I only mention because my list of monkeys riding dogs has so few entries, whereas I am adding to this list of books with owls in them, upon which you never "click" anymore, all the time. Look, put down your quill, I know that a vicuña is not a dog. Which reminds me. I was reading that Lord Byron poem, and there's a character called the Chamois Hunter. And I was like, hey! This guy can't find his chamois, a small, soft cloth for polishing things! That's not really what I thought. What I really thought, given my capability for contextualizing, was, huh, a chamois must be an animal. I'm 61 now and I went my whole life thinking a chamois was just a kind of rag or cloth! I never gave a thought for the poor chamois who gave up its life, I assume, so I could polish up the trophy we won for the battle of the bands in 1989, largely because my brother was one of the judges. Which reminds me. Jon Host and I once rhymed "chamois" and "clammy" in a song.