Word: stilts
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Long before Hollywood dreamed up Waterworld, Laura Roberts grew up in it. Her family owned a stilt house in Miami's Biscayne Bay--one of seven that still remain in "Stiltsville," an eccentric collection of homes standing like flamingoes in the shoals seven miles off the coast. In Al Capone's day, the community doubled as an aquatic red-light district. Bygone booze-and-broads joints like Pierre's Bikini Club are etched in Miami's nefarious past. But today Laura, 35, and her husband Jeff, 36, use her family's stilt house as a weekend retreat, an octopus' garden...
...which become compost machines for falling leaves, which in turn sustain the trees. Since the soil is not deep enough for roots to penetrate, the larger trees like the ceiba have buttresses that lie flat on the platform of the forest; some of the narrower trees are supported by stilt-roots at the base that look like whisk brooms. The Parkia tree rises to the sun and spreads a flat umbrella over the others. There is full employment. Trees support lizards and insects, which themselves support birds and monkeys. Army ants bivouac and hang from tree limbs in living nests...
...heritage, Vancouver is linking up by satellite with London, Tokyo, Beijing, Berlin, Sydney, New York City and Rio for a 24-hour global toast. The locally renowned "low-tech magic" performers, Public Dreams Society, are coordinating with other community groups to design an interactive spectacle featuring live music and stilt dancers, whose costumes will literally burst into flames. There will be a black-tie gala, at least two fireworks displays and a laser light show. And to ensure that no one goes hungry, food will be served to the needy on the downtown east side. Throughout...
Animal Kingdom boasts other shows: a zesty Jungle Book presentation, with gaily colored puppets; and a Festival of the Lion King (the fourth stage show Disney has spun off from its 1994 animated smash) that blends audience participation with tumbling, stilt-walking, Cirque du Soleil-style big-topicality. In Dinoland U.S.A. there's a dinosaur thrill ride, Countdown to Extinction, that uses the technology of the popular Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland, California. But the best spectacles are the ones visitors create, discover or stumble into on their...
...high heel goes way, way back. Sixteenth-century Turkey witnessed the birth of the stiletto heel's earliest ancestor, the chopine, a wooden clog that could reach stilt height. Later, a more narrowly heeled shoe for women emerged during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. And in the eighteenth century, the French began their fashion influence with lovely decorated leather or silk shoes on high heels set under the arch of the foot...