“kent” call<\/a> of the last-seen-70-years-ago ivory-billed woodpecker? Q.E.D., or do I have to put in all the missing steps? Sheesh, peckerwoods, as we used to say in Fort Smith.<\/p>\nMimics are long gone from the late-night TV variety show so maybe we’re not used to thinking about it. (Leno, Letterman et al aren’t truly talk shows; “variety show” is nicer than “shill show” as essentially all their guests appear only to promote their latest what-evers.) Whither Rich Little and Frank Gorshin? Rich doesn’t get the big stages in Vegas any more, and Frank’s dead. The answer is where are the actors with unique voices? No movie or TV (live) actor (or actress) under 50 has a discernible voice, this side of Sarah Vowell and Holly Hunter or maybe Christian Slater and Adam Sandler.<\/p>\n
You pick up the phone and Reese Witherspoon is making a prank call, “Hi, this is Lindsay Lohan”; you wouldn’t know the difference.<\/p>\n
And you, you pick up the phone and Brad Pitt is on the horn as a practical joke, “Hi, this is Johnny Depp.” You couldn’t tell one from the other just on the phone — and, ladies, don’t say either will do.<\/p>\n
Blue jays picked up the sound of the ivory bill that differentiates it from pileateds — from a loudspeaker in the rowboat of the Cornell boys? No, they carried only recording equipment — and insect repellent. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock “[Russ A. Charif, a research biologist at Cornell Lab of Ornithology,] said after his talk that the ‘kent’ sounds alone were not conclusive because scientists could not completely rule out a blue jay mimicking the sound of an ivory bill. …” — The New York Times, Aug. 25, 2005. Yeah, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1862,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/04\/japery-and-ivory\/","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":0},"title":"Japery and Ivory","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"April 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY -- You expect government to be naive sometimes, but some prominent research universities -- that's you, Cornell -- treat animals like birdbrains. This week, they formally gave up on finding the ivory-billed woodpecker. This was reported in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which for a half-decade has kept a special\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Birdberg Blotter"","block_context":{"text":"Birdberg Blotter","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/birdberg-blotter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7104,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2021\/09\/reopening-birdberg-blotter\/","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":1},"title":"Reopening Birdberg Blotter","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a9 2006 Ben S. Pollock If Twitter had been up in February 2006, these listings from a mirthological police blotter log would have been tweets. But that social medium came about weeks later. The ivory-billed woodpecker, unofficially considered extinct, had been spotted the previous two years in rural Arkansas. Ivory-billed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Birdberg Blotter"","block_context":{"text":"Birdberg Blotter","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/birdberg-blotter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail of Audubon engraving of ivory-billed woodpecker","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Campephilus_principalis-Ivory-billed-Woodpecker-Audubon-16x9-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Campephilus_principalis-Ivory-billed-Woodpecker-Audubon-16x9-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Campephilus_principalis-Ivory-billed-Woodpecker-Audubon-16x9-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Campephilus_principalis-Ivory-billed-Woodpecker-Audubon-16x9-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Campephilus_principalis-Ivory-billed-Woodpecker-Audubon-16x9-1.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/01\/johnny-carson\/","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":2},"title":"Johnny Carson","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, January 26, 2005: My newspaper rarely does front-page obituaries, particularly of celebrities. The last was Marlon Brando's. Monday morning it gave top-of-2A play for Johnny Carson, the penultimate spot. The front page would have been appropriate. Carson was a significant icon of the 20th\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":122,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/08\/introduction-or-transition\/","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":3},"title":"Introduction or transition?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005. News item: Not now. \"News item\" is a decades-old method to prepare the reader for an essay or column, especially a humorous one, whose subject, or just an allusion used in it, may be borderline obscure. If it truly is obscure,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":193,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/05\/cannibalizing-the-american-sportsman\/","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":4},"title":"Cannibalizing “The American Sportsman”","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Which self is awed, which one is angry, which is embarrassed, which is confused by some ol' story that ran in the newspaper days ago? My colleague the columnist Jay Grelen in Little Rock wrote Sunday of his long pursuit of an interview with novelist Harper Lee. He didn't write\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":146,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/05\/confusing-the-issue\/","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":5},"title":"Confusing the issue","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, May 11, 2005: Morning after a local millage election. The Fayetteville Public Schools lost its request for a property tax increase of 43 mills. This is one Arkansas town that doesn't hate tax increases. What was wrong with this one? The things this one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}