Word: kite
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...community that can work together to transform their common environment into an arena in which to celebrate the rites of spring. They will meet and mingle throughout the Square and the University in a 14-day orgy of opera and auctions, ballet and children's workshops, drama and kite-flying contests, cabaret and Festival sales at the Coop. The brick walls around Harvard Yard may come tumbling down to the vibrations of a rock concert, and colorful banners may break the drab facades of many a store-front--music and merry-making might even wreak havoc with the traditional apathy...
...broke, we ran, we scattered on the face of our favorite hill like birds or like children, and because I was last in line, lowest figure in that bright pattern, and was holding back as usual (tall of the kite, conscience and consciousness of our little group), I found myself generalizing the visceral experience of the moment itself, found myself thinking that our days were idyls, our nights dreams, our mornings slow-starting songs of love...
When scoffers tell Dave Kilbourne, a 31 year-old Californian, to go fly a kite, he is only too happy to oblige. He flies over them in a delta winged kite that looks like a large version of a child's paper dart. "My family all think I'm nuts," he admits, "but this kite flying, launching yourself off a cliff into a breeze, has got to be the most satisfying thing ever...
Kilbourne does, literally, jump off cliffs. His avocation, shared by about 50 adventurous spirits in the San Francisco area, is a new and considerably more dangerous version of the familiar takeoff on water skis. The water skier uses a flat kite, and must remain attached to a boat's towrope, but, theoretically at least, the delta-wing can go anywhere. Kilbourne first saw one being used three years ago by a touring Australian and built a copy of nylon and aluminum. Says Kilbourne: "One day I didn't have much else to do, so I decided to hike...
...Manned kites are maneuvered by changing their center of gravity. The pilot sits in a swing seat near the center of the kite, holds a handle bar and shifts his weight, thus controlling the attitude and direction of the kite. Although it sounds simple, flying the contraptions is, as Kilbourne says, "no game for kids." In November, two kiters were killed. One, a Los Angeles beginner, died when he crashed during an auto tow. The second, a friend of Kilbourne's, plummeted 200 ft. straight down when his auto towline snapped...