People Keeping Parrots

The famous African Grey Parrot, Alex, died recently.  His fame resulted from the studies of language and cognition that Dr. Irene Pepperberg did with him.  You can listen to some samples of Alex talking or watch Alex at work.

Our point today though is not to talk about Alex.  Rather, we wanted to post an ambiguous quotation from Mark Twain.  Here it is,

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

Here is a self-portrait by Freda Kahlo, who clearly was the kind of person who kept parrots, what ever that may say about her.

Tags: Kahlo, Mark Twain, Parrots