Person of Interest | James Thurber
James Thurber (1894-1961)
“...[Thurber was an] American writer and cartoonist, whose well-known and highly acclaimed writings and drawings picture the urban man as one who escapes into fantasy because he is befuddled and beset by a world that he neither created nor understands.”
James Thurber worked for The New Yorker and wrote tons of stories including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He was also going blind as he worked.
This is my Thurber-esque drawing of James Thurber. Since he was mostly blind from a childhood accident, he would write page after page of giant words and doodles in pencil because, eventually, he couldn’t see his typewriter.
How did he go blind, you ask?
Just a simple game of William Tell.
That’s right, his brother missed the apple on top of his head and instead shot him in the eye with an arrow when he was seven.
...You know how kids are.
“History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.”
His dad was a low-level politician and his mom was a “born comedian” and he has said she was “one of the funniest comedic talents, I think I have ever known.”
Apparently, she went to a faith healer revival and pretended to be crippled just to jump up and “be healed.”
Pretty cool mom move.
And there’s even an award named after him, awarded annually, and is one of the highest recognitions humor writing in America. Past winners and finalists include Al Franken, David Sedaris, The Onion, John Stewart, Trevor Noah, and John Hodgeman.
A neurologist from India, V.S. Ramachandran, thought his imagination was caused or enhanced by “Charles Bonnet syndrome, a neurological condition which causes complex visual hallucinations in people who have suffered some level of visual loss.”
(Thank you Wikipedia)
What’s so interesting about Ramachandran? He invented Mirror Therapy, a form of post-amputation treatment for patients who suffered from phantom-limb pain.
Any hoops, there’s your first Person of Interest in The Kove.
You can learn more about James Thurber through The Thurber House, a nonprofit literary arts center, James Thurber museum, historic landmark, and gathering place for readers, writers, and artists of all ages.
