Oh the Huge Manatees
January 18, 2006 10:06 PM Subscribe
Wonderful. And the noises themselves are almost overshadowed by the voice of the narrator. She obviously went to aloof narrator school.
posted by brundlefly at 10:29 PM on January 18, 2006
posted by brundlefly at 10:29 PM on January 18, 2006
Oh, man, the fart is totally worth the wait. The narration and the three other completely boring sounds in the last clip (surfacing to breathe, swirling water, and chewing) build such delightful anticipation, and the big finish does not disappoint in the least. If that noise does not make you laugh, you need to reexamine your outlook on life. Brilliant post.
posted by ulotrichous at 10:44 PM on January 18, 2006
posted by ulotrichous at 10:44 PM on January 18, 2006
The narration and the three other completely boring sounds in the last clip (surfacing to breathe, swirling water, and chewing) build such delightful anticipation...
Totally. "Is that the fart? That's the fart! No, no. That's the chewing... Is that the fart?"
posted by brundlefly at 11:05 PM on January 18, 2006
Totally. "Is that the fart? That's the fart! No, no. That's the chewing... Is that the fart?"
posted by brundlefly at 11:05 PM on January 18, 2006
Right! Who cares when they're hungry, frightened or annoyed?
posted by DonnieSticks at 11:13 PM on January 18, 2006
posted by DonnieSticks at 11:13 PM on January 18, 2006
Gassy little sea cow.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:57 PM on January 18, 2006
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:57 PM on January 18, 2006
Top banana.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 12:01 AM on January 19, 2006
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 12:01 AM on January 19, 2006
The sailors of yore thought the manatees they saw were beautiful mermaids. They had been months and years at sea, and the portions of their brains designed to recognize beautiful women were so starved for stimulation they would fire pretty much at random. We just hear less about the times they thought the sea turtles and the water kegs and the other sailors were beautiful women. This is not, however, the reason they thought the manatees to be mermaids. From afar, the rolling sleek corpulence of the manatee might well appear voluptuousness to any observer - yet this is also not the reason they thought the manatees to be mermaids.
They thought the manatees were mermaids because they were in fact mermaids. A long lived race of beautiful women who breathed and lived beneath the waves, they had survived the fall of Atlantis as the last dying effort of a group of scientists trapped in the doomed city. They had taken the very height of Atlantean knowledge, supplemented by then with the fruit of regular visits from the Pledians, to breed a race they hoped would survive them and their ancient civilization. However, being both dirty old men and poor communicators, they neglected to coordinate the project well and all ended up creating their own fantastical women with no male specimens to breed with.
So while the mermaids lived long lives measured in centuries, in order to keep their race - and the last hopes of Atlantis, preserved as oral tradition and ritual they no longer understood - alive, they needed to breed with the males of other species. This underlies the old folk tales of irish selkies and native american ocean women, and all manner of creepings ashore to breed surreptitiously with human men. Yet paradoxically, as they of necessity diluted their gene pool with the lesser waters of human stock, the piscine portions of their chimeric natures came to dominate their physical appearance.
Specifically, over the millenia, the fishy part of their bodies slowly crept upward. At first they merely had webbed toes, to aid them in their playful swims and fierce hunts. Then the bottom portions of their legs became scaly and sinuous as they danced in the tides, and their legs grew together. By the era of the european sailor, this upwardly mobile fishiness had reached their waists, and the sad songs they sang out across the seas were songs of loss and unimaginable nostalgia for a civilization they had never known, and a body morphology they watched slipping above their heads - sung in a language they no longer fully understood. Accelerated perhaps by modern pollution, the process finished far more quickly than it started, and the mermaids of today wallow about in the artifical reefs and tidal passages of developments in florida fully converted. Just a few generations past, they still had human heads and flowing locks of hair, atop bulky and waterbound bodies like fish and seals, and still spoke with something like the human tongue they always had - though their language was far fallen from the ancient atlantean language that birthed sanskrit.
Now they have no human throat or face. The squeals and chirps and grunts recorded here are the songs and cries of a race of women who no longer have the voices and lips to speak the language they think in, nor to sing the songs their race has preserved orally for eons. With no way to pass on this oral tradition, the myths and dreams of a hundred thousand years die with this generation, lashed by propellers and fishing lines in Tampa Bay.
The flatulence, however, is pretty much unchanged from Ancient Atlantean flatulence.
posted by freebird at 12:15 AM on January 19, 2006 [6 favorites]
They thought the manatees were mermaids because they were in fact mermaids. A long lived race of beautiful women who breathed and lived beneath the waves, they had survived the fall of Atlantis as the last dying effort of a group of scientists trapped in the doomed city. They had taken the very height of Atlantean knowledge, supplemented by then with the fruit of regular visits from the Pledians, to breed a race they hoped would survive them and their ancient civilization. However, being both dirty old men and poor communicators, they neglected to coordinate the project well and all ended up creating their own fantastical women with no male specimens to breed with.
So while the mermaids lived long lives measured in centuries, in order to keep their race - and the last hopes of Atlantis, preserved as oral tradition and ritual they no longer understood - alive, they needed to breed with the males of other species. This underlies the old folk tales of irish selkies and native american ocean women, and all manner of creepings ashore to breed surreptitiously with human men. Yet paradoxically, as they of necessity diluted their gene pool with the lesser waters of human stock, the piscine portions of their chimeric natures came to dominate their physical appearance.
Specifically, over the millenia, the fishy part of their bodies slowly crept upward. At first they merely had webbed toes, to aid them in their playful swims and fierce hunts. Then the bottom portions of their legs became scaly and sinuous as they danced in the tides, and their legs grew together. By the era of the european sailor, this upwardly mobile fishiness had reached their waists, and the sad songs they sang out across the seas were songs of loss and unimaginable nostalgia for a civilization they had never known, and a body morphology they watched slipping above their heads - sung in a language they no longer fully understood. Accelerated perhaps by modern pollution, the process finished far more quickly than it started, and the mermaids of today wallow about in the artifical reefs and tidal passages of developments in florida fully converted. Just a few generations past, they still had human heads and flowing locks of hair, atop bulky and waterbound bodies like fish and seals, and still spoke with something like the human tongue they always had - though their language was far fallen from the ancient atlantean language that birthed sanskrit.
Now they have no human throat or face. The squeals and chirps and grunts recorded here are the songs and cries of a race of women who no longer have the voices and lips to speak the language they think in, nor to sing the songs their race has preserved orally for eons. With no way to pass on this oral tradition, the myths and dreams of a hundred thousand years die with this generation, lashed by propellers and fishing lines in Tampa Bay.
The flatulence, however, is pretty much unchanged from Ancient Atlantean flatulence.
posted by freebird at 12:15 AM on January 19, 2006 [6 favorites]
The only thing more amazing is the ability to harvest "Metafilter: xxx" taglines from this group of comments.
posted by eriko at 5:16 AM on January 19, 2006
posted by eriko at 5:16 AM on January 19, 2006
Such as...
Metafilter: Pretty much unchanged from Ancient Atlantean flatulence.
posted by emelenjr at 6:13 AM on January 19, 2006
Metafilter: Pretty much unchanged from Ancient Atlantean flatulence.
posted by emelenjr at 6:13 AM on January 19, 2006
Gassy is a mood? I learn something new on Mefi every day.
posted by Rothko at 6:45 AM on January 19, 2006
posted by Rothko at 6:45 AM on January 19, 2006
Gassy is a mood?
Damn you, LiveJournal! Damn you to HELL!
posted by eriko at 7:13 AM on January 19, 2006
Damn you, LiveJournal! Damn you to HELL!
posted by eriko at 7:13 AM on January 19, 2006
Of course gassy is a mood. Didn't you know? Afterall, babies do not smile; they have gas.
posted by onhazier at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2006
posted by onhazier at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2006
I like spending time watching the manatees at Sea World here in San Diego. It's pretty obvious that they enjoy farting. A lot. Frequently they'll turn over and swim on their back so they can watch the bubbles. And sometimes they'll even swim through the bubbles playfully. It's hard to believe until you actually see it, but they are really into farting.
Manatees are nature's premiere farters.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:41 AM on January 19, 2006
Manatees are nature's premiere farters.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:41 AM on January 19, 2006
If I could just get my bulldog to sit in a bathtub while she is "digesting," she could give those manatees a run for their money.
Fart On, Little Mermaids!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:55 AM on January 19, 2006
Fart On, Little Mermaids!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:55 AM on January 19, 2006
10,000 manatee fans can't be wrong!
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:46 AM on January 19, 2006
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:46 AM on January 19, 2006
Manatee Fart = my new rington
posted by coach_mcguirk at 9:53 AM on January 19, 2006
posted by coach_mcguirk at 9:53 AM on January 19, 2006
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