``Thurber's biographers like to say astounding things such as that the loss of an eye in childhood was what accounted for his genius. For instance, according to Charles S. Holmes in _The Clocks of Columbus_, ``The psychological impact of the injury was more significant than the physical ... In compensation he cultivated his already crowded fantasy life ... Some of the intense competitiveness which marked his character throughout his life obviously derived from this childhood injury and his natural desire to make up for it.'' Holmes is not the only one who talks this way, and it is a very strange way indeed to talk. It is not unusual, of course, being just a new version of the theory of the writer as a human being manque. Or, as in this case, the writer as a baseball player manque. I suppose that Thurber's brothers would also have been geniuses if only they had been in some way maimed early on. My suspicion is that if Thurber's eye troubles can be said to account for anything about his life and career, they probably account for the difficulty he had seeing, for his having submitted to five eye operations, and maybe for his habit of writing short pieces, which are less physically (not psychologically) demanding than long pieces are. ``Astrology serves as a much better candidate for the Explanation of Thurber than psychology does. Thurber was born under the sign of Sagittarius, which rules, among other things, archery. The placement of the sun is what rules a man's health, so a man born with any afflictions to the sun in Sagittarius is going to be vulnerable to health problems associated with archery. I don't have an ephemeris handy for December 8, 1894, the date of his birth, but I bet there is either an affliction of the sun to Mercury, the planet of the eyes and of sense perception in general, or else an affliction from his sun to some planet in Gemini, Pisces, or Virgo. An affliction to Virgo, however, is made fairly unlikely by the enormous intellectual and domestic pleasure Thurber got from dogs - Virgo rules animal training. But Gemini rules dogs, so that lets Gemini as a source of affliction out. It was therefore probably an opposition to Mars in Pisces, which would also account for Thurber's excessive dreaminess and his problems with alcohol, as well as the tenderer and more romantic spheres of experience, as Pisces rules love and all other intoxicants. I would also expect to find Uranus, the planet of the inexplicable and especially the planet of misunderstood geniuses, in the constellation Scorpio, which rules erotic thought, since his brilliant visions of the wars and comedies of the sexes are so persistently misunderstood. ``So his life is explained, but his life is not what Thurber left behind for us, and it is too late for me to tell him that the placement of his sun in Sagittarius indicates that he ought to have come to terms with horses ...'' _Animal Happiness_, Vicki Hearne, p.110 ==== cf. Douglas Adams _Mostly Harmless_ p.19 : Two minutes later, Tricia swiveled into the bar seat next to Gail Andrews, who was sitting in front of a glass of white wine. ``You struck me as the sort of person who perferred to sit up at the bar rather than demurely at a table,'' she said. This was true, and caught Tricia a little by surprise. ``Vodka?'' said Gail. ``Yes,'' said Tricia, suspiciously. She just stopped herself from asking, How did you know? but Gail answered anyway. ``I asked the barman,'' she said, with a kindly smile. The barman had her vodka ready for her and slid it charmingly across the glossy mahogany. ``Thank you,'' said Tricia, stirring it sharply. She didn't know quite what to make of all this sudden niceness and was determined not to be wrong-footed by it. People in New York were not nice to each other without reason. ``Ms. Andrews,'' she said, firmly, ``I'm sorry that you're not happy. I know you probably feel I was a bit rough with you this morning, but astrology is, after all, just popular entertainment, which is fine. It's part of showbiz and it's a part that you have done well out of and good luck to you. It's fun. It's not a science though, and it shouldn't be mistaken for one. I think that's something we both managed to demonstrate very successfully together this morning, while at the same time generating some popular entertainment, which is what we both do for a living. I'm sorry if you have a problem with that. ``I'm perfectly happy,'' said Gail Andrews. ``Oh,'' said Tricia, not quite certain what to make of this. ``It said in your message that you were not happy.'' ``No,'' said Gail Andrews, ``I said in my message that I thought _you_ were not happy, and I was wondering why.'' Tricia felt as if she had been kicked in the back of the head. She blinked. ``What?'' she said quietly. ``To do with the stars. You seemed very angry and unhappy about something to do with the stars and planets when we were having our discussion, and it's been bothering me, which is why I came to see if you were all right.'' Tricia stared at her. ``Ms. Andrews --'' she started, and then realized that the way she had said it sounded exactly angry and unhappy and rather undermined the protest she had been trying to make. ``Please call me Gail, if that's okay.'' Tricia just looked bewildered. ``_I_ know astrology isn't a science,'' said Gail. ``Of course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or - what's that strange thing you British play?'' ``Er, cricket? Self-loathing?'' ``Parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there. They don't make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the differnce it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just got to do with people thinking about people. ``So when you got so, I don't know, so emotionally focused on stars and planets this morning, I began to think, she's not angry about astrology, she really is angry and unhappy about actual stars and planets. People usually only get that unhappy and angry when they've lost something. That's all I could think and I couldn't make any more sense of it than that. So I came by to see if you were okay.'' Tricia was stunned.