Are you lonesome tonight?
If you thought that cats are the only animals that purr, think again. Researchers have recently reported that elephants purr too. See “The Mystery of the Purring Elephant” by Veronique Greenwood in TIME.com (August 3, 2012).
A Spoof reporter who understands animal talk was sent to observe some elephants purring by a river in Africa. It turns out the elephants were “talking” about the late megastar Elvis Presley, dead 35 years on August 16th.
They say that elephants never forget, and the reporter said this was evidenced by the “purring” chat about Elvis that she listened in on. The elephants talked about the fact that the career of Elvis spanned such interesting times — the early days of television, the birth of rock and roll, the Nixon era. But most of all, they talked about his music. That glorious music which is such a unique and joyful blend of many different styles — the blues, jazz, rock and roll, gospel, etc. They remembered what Roy Orbison said about Presley: “He was the firstest with the mostest.”
The elephants reminisced about the sheer force of The King’s personality, so evident in those swivel-hipped performances considered shocking in the fifties. They laughed when they thought of his third appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, the one in which he was shown on camera from the waist up only.
And one of the elephants recalled the classroom scene that opens the movie Sister Act. Under the watchful eye of a stern nun in full regalia, a confident pre-teen playing the younger version of the Whoopi Goldberg character swaggers to the blackboard to write the names of the apostles: John, Paul, Peter — and ELVIS. The shocked Sister exclaims, “I wash my hands of you!”
Apparently many nuns had similar reactions, another elephant told the group, as he told a story he had heard long ago about an eager-to-please first grader who was not reticent when called upon to provide an example of a word beginning with ‘L.’ “Elvis” she said. Sister was appalled and promptly escorted her bold student to the principal’s office.
As The Spoof reporter was taking her leave, the haunting strains of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” sung by Elvis could be heard. One of the elephants had produced a boombox from behind a tree and used his powerful trunk to turn it on!
According to Aristotle, the elephant is “the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind.”
Those ancient philosophers knew of what they spoke.
Source:
http://ghaoui.com/blog/2012/08/elvis-presleys-death-35-years-ago-noted-by-purring-elephants/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=elvis-presleys-death-35-years-ago-noted-by-purring-elephants