Bird Brain

Brookie Phipps Williams — Bird Brain

So, I’m walking back from the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, and I’m with the director of the institute. And this is someone I know, but I’m not friendly with. We don’t speak that often, and the conversation’s a little forced. And so, I’m talking to him, and out of the corner of my eye, this bird leaps off its perch.

And I want to make it clear the bird gets nowhere near us, but it passes over. The shadow of the bird goes by my feet, and I literally dive to the ground [audience laughter] and I’m just laying there.

So, at this point in my life, I had been scared of birds for about two months. [audience laughter] It started at physics camps. So, if you don’t know this, physicists have camps, [audience laughter] and they’re usually in these exotic locations and this was in Corsica. And so, I arrived, and one of my fellow campers was already there, and he had this huge, gaping gash on his forehead and I asked him what had happened, and he tells me this very funny story about how he had been waiting for his ferry over to the island, and he was reading this sign, and it said in great detail about how be careful of the birds because they will swoop off and then turn around and fly into you, and he’s reading this, and he looks up, and there’s a bird like three feet from him and it just bashes him in the forehead. [audience laughter]

So, much like you guys I laughed at him. And then I didn’t really think about it for the next few weeks. And then camp was over, and I’m traveling around the island with a couple of my friends, and we go out to this parking lot that kind of is on the edge of these cliffs looking at the ocean, and it’s totally beautiful. And we get out of the car, and I look off, and there’s this meadow off to the side, and there’s this house that’s mostly fallen down, but there’s still a foundation and a few walls kind of up against these cliffs and I go through this field, and I climb up on one of these walls, and I’m looking out at the ocean, and it’s just gorgeous.

And I’m sitting there, and this giant– this huge bird flies over and lands nearby. And I look up at him, and he looks at me and goes, ​“Wah.” [audience laughter] And so, I look at the bird and I say, ​“Wahh,” And then the bird’s like, ​“Wah, wah.” And I’m like, ​“Wah, wah.” And this continues and I’m getting really, really excited because I’ve developed this rapport with the bird [audience laughter] and we’re friends and I’m so, so happy, and then he swoops away. And I immediately am like, ​“Oh,” and I like, jump off the wall and I run and I’m scared. And I’m running through this grassy field trying to get back to the parking lot where my friends are. And about halfway through this, I realize that I am a complete spaz. And I just like–

So, at this point, I’m still kind of running, but I’m laughing at myself. And I get to my friends and I’m trying to catch my breath and I’m laughing and I’m trying to tell them what’s happening. And about that time, both my friends’ eyes just, like, went like this. And they dropped to the ground and instinctively I dropped too. And as I’m dropping, I feel this gush of wind bash over the back of my head [audience laughter] and I’m just like, ​“Ooh.” And my friends, they pop up and they kind of scurry off to the side. I get up and the bird’s up there with friends, [audience laughter] there’s about five or six of them, they’re swooping around, and they start swooping down at me and I just start running. And I’m running through this parking lot and they’re swooping and I’m dodging and I’m trying to run in a zigzag line because they’re an alligator or something. [audience laughter] And I’m going, and I’m going, and then poop starts, like, exploding at my feet. It felt like being in this war world– like this war movie, and there’s just pshh, pshh.

And I’m running and I’m running and I run. At the other end of the parking lot, it’s this hotel, and I go into this hotel and I close the doors and I’m looking. There are these big glass doors and these birds circled over the doors for 20 minutes, and I’m just like ​“Ugh.”

So, I’m laying in the middle of the street with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist standing above me, [audience laughter] and I’m trying to decide how to explain this to him. And then I remembered how awkward and uncomfortable the conversation had been. So, I simply got up and I dusted myself off and we walked back to the physics building and we didn’t speak anymore.