I know why the blue jay screams

Nineteen years ago, when Jean and I were planning our wedding, we faced a thousand difficult decisions: the menu, the location, the flowers, the cake. On one question, however, we made our minds up in an instant—our first song. Right away, we knew, it would be “Careless Whisper,” by George Michael.

But, just to make sure we were sure, we entertained another option. Would Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You” work just as well? It’s got that wonderful orchestral opening, and Nina’s direct, sultry, almost desperate expression—it’s just so damn hot. But… it wasn’t “Careless Whisper.” It didn’t mean quite as much to us ‘80s kids.

Secretly, however, I’ve always wished we’d chosen “I Put a Spell on You”—but not, as it happens, the Nina Simone version. No, a part of me wanted us to play the rendition by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. This song is not hot. Instead, it’s a deranged, antic declaration of obsession and possession that sounds as if it’s coming at you from a wild-eyed man on a street corner who, despite his threatening aura, exudes a charisma that draws you in and draws you in until, before you know it, he truly has put a spell on you. This is Screamin’ Jay’s genius.

It’s not an easy or obvious genius. Screamin’ Jay was weird and a challenge to make sense of. Born in Cleveland in 1929 and promptly orphaned, he was adopted by a Blackfoot couple, dropped out of school at 13, forged his birth certificate so he could join the Army, became a boxer, then got into the nascent rock and roll (and R&B) scene in the 1950s. Not all of his songs were bizarre—”Portrait of a Man” is beautifully downbeat—but a whole lot of them were, and Screamin’ Jay seemed only too happy to embrace that seemingly unhinged persona. When he died, in 2000, at the age of 70 (or maybe 71), a friend of his began searching for the dozens of children Jay claimed to have fathered; he found at least 33.

Here he is doing a duet with Serge Gainsbourg in 1983. The song: “Constipation Blues.”

For all the decades I’ve known of Screamin’ Jay, I never once questioned his name. I mean, listen to the guy! Yes, he could unleash an operatic baritone, but he could also jabber and yell and croak and scat and grunt—and scream.

But one day last spring, as I was sipping my morning coffee in the orange IKEA armchair next to the open window, I saw a blue jay land on the fire escape on the other side of the screen. Now, blue jays are cool—and I’m not just saying that because they’re the mascot of my alma mater. Obviously, I like the color blue, but really, it’s those geometric patterns that get me, the cascade of blue, white, and black squares that ripple down the back, plus the thin black necklace-like cowl. This is a bird that looks designed, and designed by someone with good taste, maybe in the 1920s or ‘30s. Frankly, I wish whoever made the blue jay had worked a bit harder on us Homo sapiens.

Anyway, this blue jay landed on the railing outside the window, paused for a moment, then let out a sound: {{ first_name | Reader }}, it screamed! All of sudden, everything came together, and Jay Hawkins made sense in a way he never had before. Whatever he may have decided about his voice and his act three quarters of a century ago had the weight of logic behind it, a knowing irony that had escaped me till now. At last, I was in on the joke.

Look, I’m not about to become a birder. I have enough middle-aged hobbies, thank you very much, and don’t relish the idea of investing in fancy binoculars, finding a new reason to wake up early, or—god forbid—following in the footsteps of Jonathan Franzen.

Still, I have been trying to pay attention to the birds. I listen to the house sparrows tweeting madly every morning; I’ve watched European starlings gather up straw and twigs and whip them against the ground before transporting them to their nests. I have stopped in my tracks while walking down the block to identify an American robin’s call with the Merlin app, and paused to ogle a bright yellow Baltimore oriole in the tree branches. Our building’s garden is often occupied by a robin that seems friendly, or at least unafraid, as it walks around under our trees or perches at the birdbath, ignoring me as I take out the compost or return from a run. Mourning doves visit the fire escape. Cooper’s hawks wheel above, hunting pigeons on clear days. Red-bellied woodpeckers rat-a-tat in Prospect Park. Unknown species thump into my bedroom window mid-flight and tumble to the sidewalk below.

Before the pandemic, I don’t think I ever noticed much of this. Maybe the hawks, maybe the woodpeckers. Once, when I was 8, I traced the movements of birds hopping around my backyard; that was the last time I paid attention. But that spring and summer five years ago brought a new era of quiet, and into that quiet flew the birds with their calls and songs and color. While a few contagious strands of DNA were bringing down millions, my attention was on the airborne descendants of the survivors of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. The brick walls of my apartment were a protective barrier in so many ways, but right on the other side was a zoo I’d ignored till now.

When you live in a city like New York, it’s easy to forget that nature exists—that nature rules the city with a confident ferocity no mayor will ever match. We remember at times of crisis, snowstorms and superstorms and heat waves, but in normal weather we can be oblivious. So I try not to be. I harvest the wild chives that erupt in Prospect Park (and beyond) every March and April. I remind myself that here at the edge of the Gowanus Canal there used to be dozens upon dozens of streams, and that in many senses they still exist, channeling water aboveground and underground out to the harbor. Right now, as the last light fades from the sky, I know I’m surrounded by hidden raccoons and opossums, and I wonder how long till they’ll be joined by deer and coyotes. The other day, after I watered my plants—tomatoes, chilies, mint, basil—I lingered over the damp sidewalk and caught a brief scent of petrichor.

I have to say I like this feeling of connection. It’s like witnessing another city inside the city, with different rules and customs I’ll forever try and fail to learn. Or maybe it’s my city that’s inside theirs, a concrete-and-steel park within a vast agglomeration of xylem and phloem, chitin and chlorophyll, fur and feathers. Our sidewalks and subways thread delicately—well, relatively delicately—through the dirt and rock and water, tenuous membranes keeping us just barely to one side of nature. We’ve built a zoo for ourselves, and the natural world can enter our enclosure any time it likes.

Knowing that helps a little, in very, very minor ways. I am no naturalist. Not a farmer, not a conservationist, not an activist. I’m not observing the world around me to change it, or to change myself, to become somehow a more effective human being, or to draw deep insights that would make for a highly shareable listicle. I expect no grand understanding of our planet, and I feel no deep connection to any particular one of the species I observe around me. (Well, except the chili pepper.) But being able to observe is what I appreciate: Like Hitchcock’s birds, I can simply watch. I can take note of what passes before me and at least feel as if I’m present for the life and lives that surround me. I can choose not to be oblivious. I can be thoughtful, intentional. I will put a spell on myself. My whispers will never be careless. And, if the mood strikes, I might even peck someone’s eyes out, just to hear the scream. 🪨🪨🪨