Rarae aves doin’ it
A friend sent me the following video, which amazed me at the same time it warmed the cockles of my susceptible sentimental heart. Perhaps this birdy theme will become a recurring feature of my blog, replacing for a time the ubiquitous jello posts that used to be a regular escapist feature here.
Birds do it, bees do it—often with great flair:
[NOTE: If you examine the lyrics to Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It” referenced above, you may be interested to learn how slyly risque they are, and that most of the versions (including that one) are shortened and expurgated. Here’s a Wiki article on the history of the piece, and here’s a longer (although hardly complete) version of the lyrics.]
I knew at the end of the title that Cole Porter was coming right up.
Neo,
That was amusing!
I recall, very vaguely, reading somewhere about a decade ago that the long-tailed species at the end of your YouTube video had been the subject of some ornithologist’s experiments, wherein he glued extra tail feathers to further lengthen the tails on some captured birds, turned them loose and — surprise! — they were even more successful with the females, although some of the more ridiculously encumbered ones could scarcely get airborne!
You should do a piece on Cole Porter some time; a fascinating guy! Read up on his wartime “heroics” for a good laugh. He wrote most of the Yale songs we used to sing when drunk back in the day…
I have a number of recordings of him singing his songs, including my favorite (which I always warble to my beloved) “You’re the Top.”
Jamie Irons
I’m reminded of two instances.
First was me riding a jet ski, my parents had purchased a Sea-Doo XP that was the current top model for racing – fast and could corner really well. The lake they had a camper at also had a slalom course for regular skis but is still quite a bit of fun for jet skis.
(High school age – I was probably 16-17) Me and one of my friends went to play on it and were having a great deal of fun when up rides a quite attractive female. She watches us for some time and eventually chooses to talk to us about it. Turns out she was afraid of wrecking – well that normally isn’t something that hurts. So I figure I’ll show off and show her how little it hurts (I’ve done this many many times). Since she is, well, quite attractive I choose a fairly high rate of speed, turn the handles hard, and let myself fly off the jet-ski. For whatever reason I did for the first (and only) time come off wherein my feet contacted the handle bars. Not only did this result on a major bruise to both feet but it made me flip rapidly through the air and land in the water in a not so nice way. I float up and say “See, No problem!!” (while in a great deal of pain). About 10 minutes later and a run or two through the course her boyfriend shows up and off they go (Yay!).
The other was a friend whilst I was in college going to demonstrate for a female how fast he could retrieve a tennis ball. As he did this nice pretty jump over the net his toes caught on the top of it. The really funny part is that he didn’t just flip over but since both feet caught and he was running there was a clear moment where his feet did these *really* rapid little circles trying to balance – then the whole face smash into the concrete. The female he was trying to impress never even looked at him through the whole thing (not sure which was better – her to look or not) – she was looking at her car.
Now, in my mid 30’s (and single), I figure if I need to impress her then too bad. Indeed at this age and my profession I generally do not want to impress in the easiest way I can (easy to say I’m a software engineer and note the eyes go from disinterest to looking at me as a dollar sign – there is nothing that is a bigger turn off), plus I’m beyond doing those physically impressive things that I may have been able to do in the past.
Oh, come on, stringcopy, where’s your sense of playfulness? 😉
As for the Cole Porter tune, I don’t know that birds and bees do fall in love…but maybe they do. I’m no zoologist… 🙂
Didn’t know your into animal porno…
[just to let you know, given humans variablity, there ARE people who do look at this kind of stuf that way.. heck, there are people who get their kicks from balloons!!!]
Well it is animal pr0n, or at least like a night at the bar.
Hey baaaby, your place or mine? like my plumage?
It’s a little more cut & dried than what’s your sign?
i usually blink and answer neon…
they never get it… 🙂