Otis Escapes, parts 4107 - 4110

 4107. “The crows, as you probably know, are our most astute judges of plays. Since most of them can’t read, and the ones that do read only manage about three or four words a minute, they restrict themselves to live presentations. They also often offer valuable observations about painting and sculpture as well.” 

 4108. New works among we fowls are always presented to a tribunal of a few crows, and there is hardly any example of a work succeeding if a few crows have rejected it. Crow authority in the arts has a long history, but was unfortunately discredited in the Roman era when it was discovered that some crows were accepting bribes to make favorable judgments about mosaic murals. 

 4109. Since mosaic murals were not an important branch of the visual arts at that time, the fraudulent favorable assessments of the works by the crows went unnoticed except by the pigeons.  The pigeons noticed it immediately and created a commotion. 

 4110. Unfortunately pigeon critical judgments had never been respected because they tend to be too abstruse and convoluted for ordinary animals to understand, and so their accusations were ignored. The bribing of the crows went unnoticed for a few years, and then the mosaic artists began to lose all restraint, as often happens when critical opinions are for sale in the arts.