Filtering through my old closet back in my childhood home is an archaeological dig into a personal history. Some artifacts are completely inexplicable and puzzling. Take this bit of text printed in an elegant italicized font on light blue paper:
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports “The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs.”
- Audubon Magazine
I probably saved this piece of paper as a girl because the image struck me as funny then. Now, I wonder why the RAF pilots needed to be stationed there in the first place. It’s an expensive game to be toying with the local penguin colonies for imperialistic amusement. But I also feel some affection for that self who treasured this offbeat detail enough to save it with such care. To sift through an archive created by one’s younger self is an exercise that oscillates weirdly between alienation and familiarity.
And then again, I guess I haven’t changed all that much. I still love oddities:
Alan's interview for the BBS documentary
I believe you’re my only barefoot interview.