In the interpretation of Zizek the birds in Hitchcock´s „The Birds“ symbolize the Lacanian Real, the register of human reality which resists symbolisation, which is traumatic and with which no rational exchange is possible. – When I was young I was quite fond of radical and abstract theory, the more detached from reality and my immediate surroundings in terms of concept and language the better. But now I´m old and tired. The day before yesterday I took an old book by Zizek out of the shelf (the one about Kieslowski) and wanted to read it but only made it up to p.11 or so.