Joy Harjo's Web Log

I can’t help but think of all the animals getting together to decide who was going to finally take care of Steve Irwin the “Crocodile Hunter”. Irwin seemed like an otherwise good soul whose obsession with harassing animals finally did him in. He was stung in the heart by a stingray while he was filming out in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef. Stingray killings are rather uncommon. It was a direct hit. Irwin’s face always betrayed a possible death via his heart. I figured it would be a heart attack. Guess it was.

I know this isn't anecdote isn't poetry, literary or musical but Irwin is part of the cultural weave bred by television. I'm a sucker for stories and characters, just as anyone else, be they on tv, in the movies, other oral stories or literary. And we humans will always hunt and search for stories, no matter the medium. My story sources of the last few days include primarily: person-to-person, via cellphone and telephone (the family stories that lately are very disturbing and involve drinking incidents, cataracts, husbands who refuse to go to work, low fishing quotas and excessive gambling), a Netflix movie, the tv news one night this week, a couple of tv shows, newspaper, online news, memoirs, an autobiography, text messaging, a butterfly, cricket, geese flying overhead, dreams, student stories and other modes. It's what we do.

So enjoy your storygathering today. And be nice to the animals.