Monday, 1-17-11

Monday, 1-17-11

Yesterday at 8:50 AM I boarded a bus with fellow CMU freshmen (including Kyle Wilson and Sam French) heading to the Pittsburgh Zoo. We stayed for about three hours; each of us hoped to finalize our decisions for Animal Projects while there, despite the rather daunting fact that many animals used to warmer climates had been shipped away for the winter so that they wouldn’t die.

The zoo didn’t seem to have any marmosets, but there were sparrows all over the place. So after I’d wandered around observing other animals I thought I would try being a sparrow. A sparrow! A small, scared little bird. Perfect.

Today in class however, I found that being a sparrow was going to be quite nearly impossible. The physical requirement of my body to take the rough shape of a sparrow were so demanding that it was difficult to have any sense of ease, let alone for an extended period of time. Since this project is, in essence, all about finding ease in an unfamiliar physicality, it became very quickly apparent that I needed to look elsewhere. Even though we started with just half an hour of basic animal exploration today, it was numbingly painful and exhausting to move with my legs crunched into my chest, approximating the sparrow’s anatomy; and since they almost always have their wings tucked into their sides when not in flight, my whole upper body was constricted. The only aspect of my observation that I was able to carry into my explorations today with any accuracy or comfort was the sharp adjustments of the head, and even those could get painful over a long period of time. Matt and I agreed that the sparrow was not an optimal choice. But as Matt says, “the most important thing about making a choice is being able to put two bullets in the back of its head and kick it into the river if you need to.” So enjoy the river-bed, sparrow.


(Yeah, I can't do that.)

Where to look next? Matt suggested that I might consider the flamingo. Though it isn’t really tiny, it’s still a petite and dainty creature, and what it lacks in speed it makes up for in its vulnerable but nevertheless graceful persona. The flamingo can also move quite quickly and sharply at times, such as when washing itself. The flamingo's method of feeding is also quite unique, and would be a challenge to imitate…but hopefully not the same kind of challenge that the sparrow posed. Physically, taking on the shape of a flamingo seems less exhausting and therefore less daunting (though I certainly will not be undergoing surgery to make my knees bend backwards) than compressing my body into the feather-ball that is the American Tree Sparrow.

(This is basically how I eat my cereal already.)

Since we must be as specific as possible while still working within the bounds of our physiology, the main challenges I'll face are 1) the backwards bending knees, 2) the long, flexible neck, and 3) the proportional discrepancy between the large fluffy body and the long, linear, and thin legs. Probably, I'll have to do the best I can with my forward bending knees, focusing instead on the deliberate placement of the feet, and the way the flamingo must lift their foot vertically out of the water (which in turn is influenced by the depth of the water) before moving it forward.


(Note how their feet are curled to give them a minimum of water resistance on the rise out of the water before splaying out to be placed ahead.)

The long flexible neck is another one that's going to be hard to approximate with my own anatomy, but I'll work on my flexibility and will try simply bending at the waist--essentially converting some of my torso to serve as the flamingo's extended neck. If that ends up working, straightening up completely should approximate the flamingo extending its neck upwards, while bending over completely will approximate bending the neck downward to feed. As for the discrepancy between the flamingo's body and its legs, costuming will be of great help. I'll try to find or create a piece that will give my upper body more volume, and that will particularly extend my rump and give me tail-feathers.


(I don't know how I'll do that thing where they tuck their head into their chest though.)

Compared to these challenges, I expect the wings should be fairly straightforward, so long as no one asks me to fly off the roof of Purnell.