Our long national nightmare is over.  Quentin Tarantino’s lawsuit against his neighbor, American Beauty writer and Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, has been settled.  Almost too predictably, the suit had accused Ball of owning a gaggle of noisy parrots.  The birds reportedly disturbed Tarantino to the point that he was unable to do lots of coke I mean work.  The complaint was notable for containing the words “exotic bird menagerie” and “obnoxious, pterodactyl-like screams.” Comparing a noise to the sound of something that’s been dead for millions of years seems to me very unscientific, but you know these grandiose Hollywood types.

News that the case had gone the way of the birds was delivered matter-of-factly by Tarantino’s attorney, Marty Singer, in a flattering [read: boring -Ed.] New York Times profile of the celebrity litigator.
According to the lawsuit, after Tarantinto complained about the birds, Ball promised to build a soundproof outdoor aviary to reduce the noise, and until then, the birds would be kept inside until the structure was built. The move temporarily relieved Tarantino of some of the noise, he claimed, but by last June, the exotic birds were allegedly once again left outside for several hours per day, which prompted Tarantino to get Singer involved. [THR]

[The passage in question from the NY Times] “That’s been resolved,” Mr. Singer says. Mr. Tarantino has since finished his latest screenplay.
“Some people said it’s the best script he’s ever written, because he had the peace and quiet,” Mr. Singer says. [NYTimes]

Hence the old saying: behind every great writer is a great bird lawyer.  This also marks the first time one of Tarantino’s complaints about noisy birds wasn’t thrown out on account of him hallucinating.  He and the coke wizard usually settle out of court.