Una cosa rara.

A strange thing.

Lately I’ve been investing a fair bit of over-achieving energy in a presentation I was giving today on the geography, climate and natural history of the “Southern Cone” countries of South America - Chile, Argentina and Uruguay - in my Spanish class. I planned very carefully what I would say, and fretted because the words didn’t always come out perfectly in my rehearsals, making me worry endlessly about the future of my Spanish voice-over aspirations. I really enjoyed the preparation, though, because I was learning a lot about the region, which is a fascinating one, and the language is beautiful and I loved learning how to say things like “temperate rain forest” (bosque pluvial templado) and to describe the habits, in Spanish, of birds that I already knew well.

So, today was the day. I had my notes carefully typed up with cues to tell me when to change the slides. The time came to start my talk, and I set those notes down and never even looked at them except to double-check the name of a certain volcano. It was as if “the smell of the grease-paint” took over and I forgot all about mispronouncing words and just tried to make the subject as interesting as possible for my fellow students. It was more fun than I’ve had in quite a while and the words flowed effortlessly. I was so pleased when my professor told me afterwards that my experience as a teacher and public speaker showed!

So, there’s a lesson here – when you have an audience, whether they are right there in front of you or just in your imagination in the voice-over booth - get out of your own way and try to speak to them the way they would like to be spoken to. The strange thing is that I was not really conscious of doing this today – only in hindsight do I realise that it happened. Speaking to a live audience is a great way to remember how to do this. So many of you do it on a regular basis but it has been a while for me and I had forgotten how much I enjoy it. I recommend it!

Las focas de Patagonia

Bird gives clue to location of Springfield.

At the very end of the new Simpsons Movie, a single bird song is audible. That bird is the Bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus, a member of the blackbird family that has sometimes been called skunkbird because of its contrasting light and dark plumage. The bird is a long-distance migrant, traveling from its wintering grounds in southern South America all the way to the northern United States and southern Canada where it breeds. If the Simpsons Movie is set during the breeding season rather than spring or fall, it’s possible that we can narrow down the number of possible Springfields by over fifty percent.

Click here to hear an exclusive MCM Voices news report about this important clue to the location of America’s favorite family.

Bobolink – photo courtesy USFWS

Breeding distribution of the Bobolink