The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters with StrangersEric Hansen is an intrepid traveler with a keenly perceptive eye and an appreciation for the odd and unusual. He will go anywhere and try anything. Through it all he manages to capture the most revealing conversations and the most transporting moments in his travels, from the Maldives to Sacramento, from Cannes to Borneo and far beyond. Hansen writes about the mind-altering experience of drinking kava in Vanuatu and about heartrending moments working at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying Destitute in Calcutta. He joins a grieving husband searching for his dead wife’s wedding ring at a crash site in the Borneo rain forest. He recounts his miraculous survival of Cyclone Tracy on a fishing boat off the north coast of Australia, and he befriends an elderly Russian woman who would prepare catered dinners for George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky in her tiny Manhattan kitchen while drug dealers were shot to death in the downstairs lobby. He spends time with an ornithologist who studies endangered ants and the sex lives of banana slugs—and takes topless dancers on bird-watching expeditions. Each essay is a passionate experience of life refracted through the eyes and voice of a singularly evocative and original writer. |
Contents
Arlette and Madame Perruche | 3 |
Life at the Grand Hotel II | 11 |
Listening to the Kava | 47 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters with Strangers Eric Hansen No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
afternoon Alfie Argentine Ants Arlette asked Badu Island banana slug beach birds blini boat body cadets Calcutta called club coast coconut Commandant Darwanto condom crash Cyclone Tracy dancers dancing deck Dewa Ruci Dhivehi dhoni dinner Don Tutu door dressed drinking Drummer's Shelter Ebit eyes felt floor forest Friday Island friends front girls Grand Hotel hand head Heart Breakers helicopter J. B. Mukharjee jungle Kadazan Kalighat Kasso kava knew later laughed Leyla listened lived looked Madame Perruche Madame Zoya Maldive fish Middle Bush morning Mother Teresa's mountain moved Nahimah never night OLIVER SPARROW Oliver told pelmeni pilot plane prawn Roger sail ship song sound stay story street talk Tamoy thing thought Thursday Island took trawler trees trunks village walked wanted watch week wind woman women words Yallu Kasso young Zoya's