Thursday Spill: “Lights! Cameras! Christmas!”

— From The New Yorker, December 23, 1985

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Over my near half-century at The New Yorker I’ve paid tribute to James Thurber — sometimes in small ways — the art hanging in rooms — to more obvious ways (such as here and here). In this week’s New Yorker there’s another drawing of mine that came about from thinking about a specific Thurber drawing that was originally published in the May 3, 1930 issue of The New Yorker as part of the series, Our Pet Department. It was used as the title of Thurber’s 1931 collection, The Owl In The Attic And Other Perplexities (I’m showing a paperback edition I’ve had for many years — the “owl” in the attic appears on the cover). Thinking about Thurber’s “owl” I drew this:

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James Thurber’s A-Z Entry:

James Thurber Born, Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 1894. Died 1961, New York City. New Yorker work: 1927 -1961, with several pieces run posthumously. According to the New Yorker’s legendary editor, William Shawn, “In the early days, a small company of writers, artists, and editors — E.B. White, James Thurber, Peter Arno, and Katharine White among them — did more to make the magazine what it is than can be measured.”

Key cartoon collection: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (Harper & Bros., 1932). Key anthology (writings & drawings): The Thurber Carnival (Harper & Row, 1945). There have been a number of Thurber biographies. Burton Bernstein’s Thurber (Dodd, Mead, 1975) and Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1995) are essential. Website