Birdman, hello?

A rewatch of the absolutely brilliant pilot of The Sopranos last night might’ve hit a little close to home. (A few years ago writer Willy Staley wrote a great piece about why everyone seemed to be watching the show.)

I was offered money by an editor to write about owls today and I was too bereft by them being gone to say yes pic.twitter.com/yCDuukfNqo

— Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) January 14, 2022

“Those goddamned ducks,” Tony cries in his therapy session. When Mike Wilson visited last Sunday, he talked about how attached people get to their owls. I told him that even though ours have stuck around longer than they ever have before, I was actively trying not to get too attached to them this season because it was so painful last spring when they didn’t stick around to have babies.

(By the way, the book Tony is reading — a subtle, terrific visual gag — is The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds.)