Poor author Susan Orlean is just besieged by animal woes. First it was the wistful tale of the dead chicken, and now she's been attacked by a bear. Well, OK, just her house in Aspen was attacked. Do tell, Twitter:

What drama! And this just after the bombshell revelation that her dearly departed chicken had been ill with some sort of chicken disease. Oh and, Orlean had just, ominously, recommended Bear Claw ice cream to a fellow Twitterer.

Is there some sort of cyclic symbolism gnawing at us here? Some small whistling thing perched on our shoulders, telling us to let ourselves be subsumed by the natural world, to recognize our animal insides? Or is it simply a story of a ski house and a bear that met one green-flecked mountain evening? There's so much potential here!

Get on it, Orlean.

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