hobitbob wrote:What's a kookaburra, and with therapy would it become a sane-oburra?
here is a kookaburra - (though there are several species)
They are a quite large bird, of the kingfisher family, the ones famous for their wonderful, raucous, laughing call - which you will often hear used, quite mistakenly, as a jungle sound effect in Tarzan and such films.
They are quite sane.
Neat, are they the ones you always hear after someone says: "Its quiet...too quiet..." ?
Hmmmm - could be.....it is an amazing sound - they let fly at dawn and dusk, like other birds do - there are some sort of warm-up noises, then they really let rip - and then lapse into chuckles...
Imagine a lake of ice. About its edges, here and there, a pine tree as skinny as a heroin-shooting ex-runway model in an alley at midnight, her spine frozen a thousand years ago. Imagine further, a basson with broken reed, slowly tumbling through the crystalline Canadian air, thrown out of the window of a Cessna by a the only child of a crazed evangelical missionary. The Cessna long since gone, for a hundred miles there is no sound but for the bassoon with broken reed falling. That's sort of what our loon sounds like. No chuckling.
Heheheheheheheheheheeheheheheehehehh.....
Hmmm..I'm now imagining the opening bars of "Le Sacre du Printemps..."
Yes, with the essence of a primeval twittering. When the huge pounding bars of the next tablau thundering in, one could imagine Vidal entering the picture.
(I have exactly sixteen different recordings of "Le Sacre" and my favorite is still Dorati).
To be fair, Gore Vidal did fail some classes at Exeter -- apprantly he did not like French! After the Dean layed down the law, he put his mind back on his classes and his grades came up. That someone didn't do extremely well in school but later proved themselves as much as Vidal has done, this is truly a moot point. Like one of my English professors in college told me, schooling teaches one how to teach themselves. Cramming a lot of information into one's head for a test doesn't do it -- it takes a lifetime of gathering knowledge that makes the man. Too many stop educating themselves the minute they get the diploma.
That's true but they do seem to read the Bible like it was a textbook.
"ok now class...let's conjugate the verb 'smite'"
smite
smitten
smote
smut?
smate -- that's when someone slaps their spouse.
A few years ago I spent two weeks in Ravello, a gem of a village high above the Amalfi Coast. A place without cars, like a balcony hovering over the Golfo di Salerno. After a long walk through narrow, walled paths you arrive at Villa Cimbrone, an old mansion/hotel in a magnificent garden full of sculptures.
.
At the end of that incredible garden you arrive at la Terrazza dell'Infinito, the most breathtaking terrasse/ belvedere on earth. The sea far below stretches toward the horizon. From there, looking towards the left, you can see a villa several hundert yards away, glued to a sheer cliff.
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It is the home of Gore Vidal, easily one of the best-placed villas one can imagine.
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A few months ago I saw that it is for sale, if you have a two duffel bags full of $100 bills.
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Thought I throw that in, to show you that the man has good taste as well.
And he's living back in the Hollywood Hills, not that far away from where Stravinsky resided.
hmmmmmmmmm.....interesting.......why?
