Word: cockatoo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...talkative bird is the Australian cockatoo (katkatoö), who so nearly resembles the Australian politico on the hustings that cartoonists often represent the one by the other. Last month, facing up to their fifth general election in six years, Australians wearily resigned themselves to a prolonged burst of cockatoo talk, and the sight of sulphurous crests raised in simulated alarm and indignation over the state of the nation. What they got instead was a beak-and-claw fight that made the political feathers fly as they had not done for a decade...
Nearly as impressive was Karl Kohn's The Red Cockatoo (1954), based on three Chinese poems of extraordinary beauty. Lime Woollen, Kohn understands how to emphasize a world without a shout from the singers or an unnecessary consonance. The percussive piano solo functions as a commentary on the singing piano solo functions as a commentary on the singing and only rarely stoops to outright chinoiserie. The Monk from Shu is especially effective in its delicate evocation of "icy bells." The climactic poem, however, fails to give the work a proper finish. The fate of the red cockatoo in the poem...