LEVIATHAN Comedy
I didn't want to sully the comments section of the grief-drenched pro-Irwin post below with my own sentiments on the matter, hence ...
Three cheers for the animals of the sea, and their glorious representative, the stringray who shivved Steve Irwin, enacting a revenge much wished for both above and below the waves.
I give you an appropriately detached report, which lists these events as "Veterinary News."
A "sad irony" indeed. According to Aristotle, a tragic drama requires a hero, of a moral standing slightly higher than our own, who goes from fortune to misfortune, by bad luck that springs from the essential nature of his character. If one empathizes with Irwin, our tale fits the model perfectly. (Those who claim Irwin was in the wrong place at the wrong time have missed the story entirely - he was in precisely the place that he always is.) But I have observed a specimen of the same species that lashed out, Zidane-like, at the unrelenting gaze of Irwin's cameras, and at a purportedly "civilized" and "rational" human society which has systematically excluded members of Dasyatidae for millenia, and my sympathies lie with whatever vulgar intellegence lies behind those dark, knowing eyes. Let those eyes strike terror in the heart of every human, all-too-inhuman land-dweller who has tread lightly across the sandy bottoms, or enjoyed a plate of all-too-perfectly-round "scallops."
Our recumbent barb-weilding friend is the hero of this tale; it is no tragedy. For her fate is unaltered in the course of this story. Let us classify it as an absurd comedy, then, and chalk up the score board: Marine life, 1; terrestrial life, 0.
Three cheers for the animals of the sea, and their glorious representative, the stringray who shivved Steve Irwin, enacting a revenge much wished for both above and below the waves.
I give you an appropriately detached report, which lists these events as "Veterinary News."
A "sad irony" indeed. According to Aristotle, a tragic drama requires a hero, of a moral standing slightly higher than our own, who goes from fortune to misfortune, by bad luck that springs from the essential nature of his character. If one empathizes with Irwin, our tale fits the model perfectly. (Those who claim Irwin was in the wrong place at the wrong time have missed the story entirely - he was in precisely the place that he always is.) But I have observed a specimen of the same species that lashed out, Zidane-like, at the unrelenting gaze of Irwin's cameras, and at a purportedly "civilized" and "rational" human society which has systematically excluded members of Dasyatidae for millenia, and my sympathies lie with whatever vulgar intellegence lies behind those dark, knowing eyes. Let those eyes strike terror in the heart of every human, all-too-inhuman land-dweller who has tread lightly across the sandy bottoms, or enjoyed a plate of all-too-perfectly-round "scallops."
Our recumbent barb-weilding friend is the hero of this tale; it is no tragedy. For her fate is unaltered in the course of this story. Let us classify it as an absurd comedy, then, and chalk up the score board: Marine life, 1; terrestrial life, 0.
posted by Allan Hazlett | 3:11 PM
4 Comments:
Can we wear stingray hats as we watch this epic battle unfold? How does one "call the stingrays"? (I'm guessing that screeching "Woooo Stingray, SOOOIIEEE!" would only end in more violence, and rightfully so.)
If I were to call a stingray, I would want to make a fierce stinging sound--very much like the sounds that is made when you shock yourself accidentally when using a faulty switch or outlet, only 10 times louder. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to summon the sting rays with this sound without also shocking the living daylights of out myself. Those sting rays...they are crafty creatures. Clearly, Irwin failed to heed their fatal, shocking call.
In other Irwin news, I listened to a fantastic interview with one of his friends on the radio last night. The friend was clearly quite upset--he kept breaking down and weeping--but this reporter was merciless. He kept asking the friend whether he knew if the stingray's barb had gone right through Irwin's chest, if he knew how much blood Irwin had lost in the water, and if he thought Irwin's blood might have attracted any nearby sharks, etc. The crowning moment came when the reporter said (gleefully) "I understand there is a video recording of the whole attack. Have you seen it?" The poor friend, who was at his wits end, cried "No! No! Why would I want to see a video of my friend die?!"
The reporter, obvlivious to the friend's pitiful weeping said, "For the interest of science!"
Simon: was this "reporter" perhaps...you?
Am I that cruel? Or is it just my detached interest in the brutal facts of life?
Last night, promted by the Irwin news, I was regaled by my new bartender's extended stories of "swimming with the stingrays" in the Bahamas (as part of a nautical guided tour that was, apparently, her honeymoon). I love that eco-tourism has gone so far that there are package LEVIATHAN honeymoons!
Post a Comment
<< Home