Prolegomenon to a Foxy Intervention
By:
March 14, 2010
Word is, a fox is coming to live in HILOBROW’s garden. Have you seen it? He’s already showing up in the sidebar — skulking at the bottom, yawning & feigning nonchalance. Tomorrow, we’ll have more news about picaresque vulpine adventures coming soon to HiLobrow. For now, let’s see if we can catch a bit of the foxy musk and its hilo glamor.
What is biting you, fox? It’s good to be the trickster, isn’t it? Unless being the symbol of artful deceit and double-dealing gets you down.
The hungers of the fox are shared by every one of life’s kingdoms. And yet while the lion’s hungers are styled noble, and the wolf’s eldritch and primordial, those of the fox, when not pronounced craven, are called diminutive, fey, cute. Too rarely do humans take notice of fox’s uncanny powers.
In fact, sometimes, people sing about fox in grocery stores — accompanied by the ukulele.
So if fox seems a trifle unhinged— if he betrays a murderous temper, if his eyes go vacant and grim — well, can you blame him? For beyond folklore and magic, fox is a creature with his wants, his needs, and perhaps even his ambitions. He’s just a bloke trying to get by, avatars and archetypes be damned. You may be inclined to call him the hilobrow creature par excellence — bushy of tail and sharp of jaw, sprite of leg and long of vision; fox, for his part, may be inclined to spit in your eye.
As for crows? Don’t get a fox started on the crows.