Here we go – the first New Yorker of 2019. And what better way to start than with a Talk story by the premier Talk writer of all time – Mark Singer. His piece, “Man vs. Mouse,” is about a “situational genius” named Craig Avedisian and his determination to catch an elusive apartment mouse (“A single intruder, all avenues of egress sealed, was now trapped in the apartment, an accidental pet. Avedisian named him Horace, an homage to the building’s architect, Horace Ginsbern”). Avedisian’s pursuit of Horace includes installation of an infrared night-vision security camera that could be monitored from a smartphone, the arranging of “a Maginot Line of glue traps,” and setting out “a pizza box with a mouse-size hole and, inside, pieces of mozzarella and pepperoni surrounded by glue traps.” Singer writes,
This yielded maddening footage of Horace entering the pizza box and, moments later, sauntering out. “We were pissed,” Avedisian said recently. “We’d left a feast for him. He somehow avoided the glue. He’s walking around like he owns the place.”
That “This yielded maddening footage of Horace entering the pizza box and, moments later, sauntering out” made me smile. Reading “Man vs. Mouse,” I found myself rooting for Horace. Brainy Avedisian, with all his technical gadgetry, finally catches him. But an editor’s note informs us that “Horace has gone upstate to live on a farm with a nice family.” I was pleased to read that. It humanizes Mr. Avedisian.
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