The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 April 2009
by Mark Bittner
Those of us with a history of living in San Francisco may remember the day when we looked into the sky over Telegraph Hill and said Hey, that's a flock of parrots! That feral parrots thrive in San Francisco, a chilly climate, makes one wonder how they got there, how they survive. Nevertheless, there they are, and there they have lived in the gardens of Telegraph Hill since the 1980s. Today, the flock numbers in the hundreds and makes a raucous noise in the trees from the Embarcadero all the way out to the Presidio (this, of course, if you are familiar with the geography of the City). Mark Bittner came to the city sometime before the parrots made themselves well known. After a furtive and unsuccessful career as a musician, he was living on the streets of North Beach, a neighborhood generally tolerant of Bohemian lifestyles and certainly familiar with its fairly sizable homeless population. Bittner lived on the street more or less by choice. His was a spiritual quest, a decision to live life with the expectation that the Universe would somehow provide for him. Not surprisingly, this resulted in long waits for the Universe to deliver on its promises. The Universe, after all, works in mysterious ways and doesn't owe its residents anything. Still, Bittner's quest was his own. Eventually, through quite astonishing good fortune, Bittner fell into a free living situation in a house on one of Telegraph Hill's garden slopes. It is a neighborhood which is now cozy, attractive, highly desireable and mostly wildly expensive in an already expensive city. He becomes the caretaker of an empty house, the helper of an elderly woman, a pickup laborer, and, eventually, the one human member of the flock of parrots then securing their own living on the hill. Like the rest of us, he was amazed to see presumably tropical parrots living in temperate San Francisco. Inspired by the writings of Gary Snyder, he wanted to learn about how nature exists everywhere, even in the big city. But he continuously yearns to go live in the country. Bittner insinuates himself into the lives of the flock, numbering just 26 when he discovers them. He puts food out for them, and soon is standing among the birds, feeding them from his hands. He explores their origins (some of them were once pets) looks out for the sick ones, taking them, so to speak, under his wing. All the while, he struggles with his living situation, for years, constantly expecting his free situation to expire, to be required to abandon the birds and go on his way. Bittner, we soon discover, was somewhat of a ditherer. He wants to move away from his involvement with the birds, to get his life in order, but he remains in this awkward living situation for years. Living this way is part of his spiritual "practice". He loves the freedom the birds enjoy, but keeps several of them in captivity, arguably well beyond the point they should have been returned to the wild (not that it is particularly favored to release non-native birds to the city's environment). Frankly, the author comes off as a little bit unsteady. For the birds, though, he is entirely reliable. And, in the end, he manages to convey a little of what he has learned from his spiritual meditations. By then, he has drawn the interest of the press and at least one filmmaker. She works with him to produce a documentary about the parrots, a popular movie that was released under the same name as this book. Through the book, we learn about the individual and idiosyncratic lives of the parrots. Bittner gives them names and falls into particular relationships with many of them. His bird stories are drawn out a bit long in this book, but we keep reading to see what will happen to them and, particularly, to him. What event will change his life? How will he move on and away from the parrots? The reader may find himself thinking about his own relationship with animals both wild and domestic. They do, after all, have lives of their own. Do we attribute too many human characteristics to their behavior? Sure, but how else can we relate without being coldly clinical? The book will get you thinking about these questions if you're patient with its author, a somewhat more challenging task here than in many books of its type. In the end, the Universe comes through for Bittner, his faith in good fortune is almost paradoxically vindicated.