Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Why No One Wants To Vacation With Me

I have an absurd fascination with Antarctica and Alaska. They are places I would really like to vacation. I know, I know. Faithful Readers have suffered through my many weather reports this year, of me bitching about the snow, but there you go.

When reading the great Terra Incognita by Sarah Wheeler a few years ago, I was really annoyed to learn that many places she was visiting in Antarctica were warmer than it sometimes is in Ohio.

All of that being said, I wanted air conditioning and went to see the documentary, March of the Penguins. Walking out of the theatre, it is very difficult to not think that God was sitting around, smoking dope, having finished off a Domino's pizza, and was like,

Dude...so I'll make this bird, right? But it won't fly! It'll swim. And..and...I'll make it walk 70 miles in the snow and ice to a breeding ground. Yeah. And..when two of these, let's call them penguins, mate, the female will lay an egg...and..get this...then will pass it off to the male, who will hold it on top of his feet ( burst of giggles) for like, say, three more months, while the women penguins walk BACK 70 miles in the snow and wind to swim in the ocean for food, 'cause, like, there's no food there..just...snow! (Great guffaws of laughter)...ok, ok...so then the women penguin comes back, feeds the chick, gets the chick transferred to the top of HER feet, and then the dude penguins, now weighing 50 percent less because they haven't eaten for four months...they've just been standing there in 100 mile an hour winds out on the ice with a really fragile egg on the top of their feet, which could freeze solid in like a minute if it hit the ground. Right! Ok...yeah, so they do this a few times till the chicks are old enough to live in the cold, then the parents take off, leaving the chicks unattended, until finally the ice starts melting and the chicks leap into the sea...with no lessons or nothing. Ohh...dude, I can't do that....it's too mean. Oh, wait wait...I know. I'll dress 'em up in tuxedos....

This is why no one vacations with me. Its not so much the destinations as it is the fact I come up with crap like the above...

And also this...I heard you, Morgan Freeman, narrating this film. You were in Batman Begins, weren't you? Batman = Penguins. Wheels within wheels.

Anyway, this is a marvelous, amazing film, which really points out the dedication, and I suppose you can read into it and call it love that emperor penguins have the capacity for. And what is cuter than a fluffy emperor penguin chick learning to walk? Nothing. Go see it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

okay,so like, batman begins is like PENGUINS begin. and if you're really f*cked up, that's like begin the beguine, which is from the west indies, which is on the ocean, which is where the penguins are, right? and, like, burgess meredith, who used to PLAY the penguin, probably danced the beguine (i mean this guy was really, really OLD) and was probably IN the ocean at some point right? and he almost fer sure ATE some eggs, right? unless he had some weird aversion to eggs, like some EGGOPHOBIA or something. maybe he was VEGAN, man! maybe he NEVER ate eggs or meat or fish or poultry. except for this one time, when he was at this RIDICULOUSLY fancy dinner party, and like the host didn't know he was vegan, and they were serving all this exotic meat, and like one of the courses was filet of PENGUIN! and everyone like totally cracked up 'cuz burgess PLAYED a penguin on TV. plus, they had just smoked this humongous spliff before they sat down at the table and they were all FLYING.

or something like that...

Layne said...

like, totally. That's what I'm saying...

And to like make for the swimming-bird-that-can't-fly, God cracked himself up more and said, "Oh, dude, check this out - now I'm making a FLYING FISH!" (incontrollable laughter, fading to sobs of joy...)