Adam Blatner

I love these guys: They’re my totem animal. I like that they improvise, and do it so well. One of my mentors, the noted philosopher Charles Hartshorne, was also an ornithologist who wrote a book titled “Born to Sing.” He suggested that while birds may not have much capacity for reflective thought, they do have an aesthetic sense, and he loaned me a record with numerous of the more musical bird-songs on it.

I thereupon listened to the more common species of Mimus Polyglottos, the mockingbird, which has charmed me all my life, during my youth in Los Angeles and now in Texas. Here are some more signals.