Tag Archive for 'animal'

My life as a tiger

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 5 Comments

Once there was a Bengal tiger in Russian zoo. It was born and spent most of his life in a small cage. He had just enough space to make a couple of steps, jump, make a couple of steps and jump again. Then the tiger had to turn around and repeat the same routine in opposite direction. I have read somewhere that usually in wild a grown up tiger needs something like 16 to 20 sq.km of habitat, otherwise it get stressed. I wonder how much space a human being needs. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that particular tiger lived in a cage the size of 16 or 20 sq.m, and, obviously, was very stressed. When such an animal as tiger get stressed, it feels uneasy, and can’t rest. That tiger was restless. All it did from dusk till down is pacing the cage. 2 steps, jump, 2 more steps, another jump, turn, 2 steps, jump, 2 more steps, jump, turn around, 2 steps, jump… You have the picture. Naturally, tiger’s living conditions had to be improved. The story goes in the time just after the collapse of the Soviet Union and total collapse of everything on the 1/8th of planet’s landmass, circa middle 1990’s. As it happens in times like this, some people used the situation to the full, and made crazy fortunes. If you ever tried to get from 0 to 100 in just above 3 sec., let’s say on a powerful motobike, you can figure out how it is. Somebody, let’s call him Mr.S., made it from living in a shared with few our families run down apartment in sleepy suburbs to amassing a fortune Imelda Markos could only dream of, comparing to each a budget of a middle size African country is just a pocket money, in a couple of years time. So one day this Mr.S. visited zoo by chance. He spent a good deal of time in front of this cage with Bengal tiger, watching it moves. Maybe he was in nostalgic mood, maybe this cage reminded him the apartment he grown up in, or probably deep down he was a very sensitive person. Some say he was bored, some he was drunk. Whatever the reason, Mr.S. was touched. He went to the zoo director straight away, and asked him, how much money zoo needs to improve tiger’s living conditions. I know this story from the first hands, as a friend of mine, non compromise poet and alcoholic, worked there as a zookeeper, as it was one of very few jobs he could fit himself in. Next day the construction has begun, and soon everything was ready for the grand opening. They set an artificial landscape, so tiger could have a little lake to bath, a cave for him to hide and a little forest resembling jungle; that small provincial zoo somethat tripled in size. In attendance of TV crew, press and Mr.S., they brought in crane and lifted the cage.

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An illustrated post, regarding Dr.Lorenz, animal behaviour and choices we make

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 0 Comments

There was one scientist called Mr. Lorenz quite a while ago. He was a peaceful man and naturalist, one of the founders of behaviourist theory for which he was awarded a noble (The Nobel?) prize. He studied birds’ and animals’ behaviour and discovered imprints, or programmed patterns which all of us follow.

Illustration 1: portrait of programmed chicken

8 differencies

In one of his famous experiments he separated ducks from their eggs. He fed and took care of the new born ducks. They accepted him as a mother duck and after they grew up even tried to copulate with his shoes. Red wellington boots, named after an English aristocrat with a surname starting with a capital W, not the ducks of other sex were the object of their lust. I know what you are probably thinking about. No, I am not going in that direction. I am not going to make a parallel with “as seen on TV” culture, e.g a pair of trainers, named after Greek goddess of victory. I will not bore you with my thoughts on how Goddess Nike became Nike TM. I will not spoil your pleasure of coming up with allegories yourself. I will merely stick to the subject of this post, which is memory.

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A dream of being linched

Published by
abraxus
 in dream. 0 Comments

I don’t usually remember my dreams. I wake up, and in few minutes they are gone. Or, much more often, I wake up and I don’t know if I have any. I’ve heard scientists were studying REM (rapid eyes movements) of a sleeping person; on average we dream every 14 minutes. Whatever the case, one dream I saw still stays in my mind very vivid. I guess I had it when I was 17 or 18 years old, a good while ago.

In this dream I walk the streets of the city. It’s probably an early morning, judging by light, and the streets are absolutely empty. I walk in the middle of the road, as there are no cars. Then there appear a stray cat, and a couple of dogs. They follow me. All the kind of animals appear from all the sidestreets and join the procession, birds circle in the sky above my head, some sit on my shoulders, hands and head. I walk. Soon there are many of us, and first people appear. They stand by the sides of the road and watch as we pass by. In a short while, there are crowds on pavements, watching me. It’s like in documentary about JFK: he just elected as a president and goes in an open car, and people greeting him and wave hands. The difference is: everything is silent and people hardly move and I walk surrounded by all sorts of animals, including a giraffe. Suddenly in this silence I can hear a whisper in the crowd: Here he comes! The hero came! I say then: No, I’m not. You have mistaken me for someone else. As soon as I say this words, everybody cries and yell, people jump on me and start beating me up, birds attack me from the sky, dogs bite and cats scratch…The crowd and animals are justing tearing me apart. Black out.

The next thing I remember I stay on the top of the highest mountain (I don’t know how I know it, but there’s no doubt about that :) ). I stay like Jesus Christ’s statue over Rio de Janeiro, hands apart. I’m all covered in caked blood, and my clothes are shred to pieces. I don’t feel pain though, all I feel is a strong wind, which comforts me somehow. And this is it. The next thing I know is I’m wide awake on the floor nearby my bed.

abraxus

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My African childhood memory

Published by
muriel
 in memory. 0 Comments

This a memory of my childhood. I grew up in Gabon in the jungle, in African beautiful incontaminated forest. This great refugee for animals is in danger now, though Aspinall foundation is creating a gorilla reserve there… My father is Italian/ French, my mother Jewish/Persian and Austrian plus, as other races are mixed in my mom’s blood. She was raised in England from 7 years age and at 21 she was working in the jungle of Gabon. 

So I have grown up with tribes and pygmies in the forest. Sometimes people think I’ m a savage ba lu ba’. Silly pumpkins…he he he!!!! …Most of them don’t have even a clue where Gabon is…. and how special it is… Yes, I grown up in a bamboo beautiful tribal home on the river by a montain, close to ocean. This place had many tiny antilopes and “black” elephants: with darker skin little ones of the forest and amazing swimmers.I grown up moslty naked, with no shoes, playing games in other dimension… My friends were  mostly pygmies and a giant chimp, and antilopes, elephants… Forest, trees, river, mountain, light life noise and moonlight… abundant flamboyant nature and sunlight… sometimes deep silence and isolation. Going swimming and trekking and spending great time by the ocean is my first big love! I remember eating a lobster cooked in palm leaves given to us by a local fisherman on the beach…  The postal office was a tiny aeroplane dropping mail mostly in the a river full of crocs :)…

With time I had a more close encounter with civilisation in the school made in bamboo and wood and stone. We often had to hunt with tribes for food … no supermarket at all :)… weheee… All we had was two jeeps, one radio and a lot of animals and nature, a german wolf and two cats and a cocktail made by people from all over the world dropping by to visit us… We had barbecue every 6/8/9/ of month. They all were speaking different languages.

 I’m an artist now, living in London, trying to fulfill my dream to master Tibetan art, a difficult and amazing technic, complex and sacred; and blend it with unique color techniques like Japanese and Indian  art… to create out of that learning great new graphics … Write me if you like my painting.

Muriel

Muriel1

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