X-Nico

unusual facts about The White Deer


Royal Astronomy

The album's title is a reference to an essay by Kurt Vonnegut (collected in Fates Worse Than Death) in which Vonnegut compares commentators on the intellectual and moral decline of society to the Royal Astronomer in The White Deer by James Thurber, who believes that the stars in the night sky are going out one by one, but in fact this is because he is slowly going blind.



see also

Zach Thomas

Thomas and his older brother, Bart, were high school teammates at White Deer High School in White Deer, Texas; in 1988, Thomas' freshman year, the White Deer team went 16–0 and won the Class 1A state championship.