Play Doe

Here is a gratuitously cute picture of a doe with her two fawns, to help set the tone.

Three deer just off Main Street in Ouray.

I previously blogged about American Halloween traditions, such as Trick or Treat, pumpkin pie, Easter egg hunts, shoe trading, rabbit rodeos, and Kiss the Neuroscientist. I never covered Jack-O-Lanterns. Americans like to buy pumpkins and carve them up so they look like Jack Nicholson's head. Then, they put lanterns inside, because bright lights attract deer and moths. Deer cannot see orange, so they think the pumpkin is actually a real head, and we all know that deer love to eat human brains. But when they get too close to the light, they of course are stunned, and then Americans like to put costumes on them and take pictures. Fat children sometimes ride the deer when trick-or-treating. It is legal to kill and eat a stunned deer if it tried to eat from the pumpkin, since this proves it is dangerous to humans. It gets more vulgar in very rural areas, but that's illegal.

Two real pictures of a doe eating from a Jack-O-Lantern, one house north of the first picture.

Austrian pumpkins are small and green, and unappealing to deer. Pigs, however, love the Austrian kürbis, and so Austrians carve them to look like their most famous and talented composer, Falco. And they sometimes dress up pigs like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Otherwise the same.

How do Austrians kill deer, then? They put these unsportsmanlike hunter-huts out in the mountains.

A jagerstand I saw while hiking Graukogel near Bad Gastein, an hour from Salzburg.

Hunters will just hang out there all day and drink heavily and blow away passing deer. This seems too easy. American hunters have to cover themselves in deer urine and hike and hide and drink cheap beer all day to try to get off one shot with a bow and arrow. Sometimes they confuse the deer urine and beer, or just use that as an excuse to indulge their addiction. Meanwhile, deer are sneaking around, covered in human urine, trying to gore the hunters and eat their brains. Now that's a good sport. And very fair. Except the deer are not allowed to drink beer because they aren't 21.

Salzburg is the land of the second most famous and talented composer in Austria: Roger San Hammerstein, who is actually American. He wrote The Sound of Music, set in Salzburg, which Austrians really appreciate for its accuracy. They like him so much that most Austrians cannot name any Austrian composer from Salzburg, and sometimes argue that Roger is one of them. In appreciation, I rewrote the most famous song:



(Original Version)
Doe- a deer, a female deer
Ray- a drop of golden sun
Me- a name i call myself
Far- a long long way to run
Sew- a needle pulling thread
La- a note to follow so
Tea- a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to do oh oh oh



(New official version)
Doe, a deer, a tasty deer
Ray - my laser scope on gun!
Me, eat game, eat all myself
Fawn - you better start to run!
So - the baby deer is red!
Law: I'm glad that they don't know!
Tea - a drink for throbbing head
That will bring us back to so-o-ober.