Tigers in Times Square "Is that legal?" Dennis, from Brooklyn, asked. He was standing on a traffic triangle in the middle of

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问题    Tigers in Times Square
   "Is that legal?" Dennis, from Brooklyn, asked. He was standing on a traffic triangle in the middle of Times Square, next to a policeman. It was just past noon. In front of them, two nearly naked women were kneeling in a pair of small metal cages, holding signs that read, " Wild Animals Don’t Belong Behind Bars. " As it happens, cops in Shreveport, Louisiana, encountered a similar scenario last spring and concluded that no, it was not legal to impersonate an animal while nearly naked. But in Times Square, even post-Giuliani, traffic flow trumps decency, and the officer’s answer to Dennis was a blithe command: "Keep it moving, please!"
   The women — Kayla Worden, tall and blond, and Brandi Valladolid, a petite brunette — were made up to look like tigers, or the nearly naked human version of tigers, which requires body paint, a bikini bottom, Mickey Mouse ears, a brown nose, and drawn-on whiskers, but no fur. Fur might have helped, given that the temperature was below forty and rain was pouring down. But fur was out of the question, since this stunt was staged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to protest the Ringing Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which had come to town that day. ("We’d rather bare skin than wear skin" is a PETA slogan. ) Betsy Thomson, a PETA volunteer, held an umbrella over Valladolid’s cage and said, "All living things have a right to live without being harmed, tortured, and violated. " Beneath her, Valladolid was squirming and shivering. "I’m, like, soaking right now," she said. Dennis, meanwhile, was on his cell phone: "Yo, they got some crazy shit back here. Two naked ladies in cages, man. "
   A tourist from Philadelphia, in town to see "Phantom of the Opera" , stepped up to take a photograph. " You know, looking through this wire, this is how circus animals see the world," Worden said.
   Down at Madison Square Garden, the real Ringing Brothers tigers were warm and dry, asleep in their cages. "Some of them won’t get up until one or two in the afternoon," Sara Houcke, a trainer and seventh-generation circus performer, said. "And I’ll be, like, ’My God, how can you sleep so long?’ It’s a known fact that cats sleep twenty hours a day. " Houcke is tall and blond, like Worden, but when she’s in a cage, tending to her tigers, she wears jeans and a T-shirt (which may or may not reveal her navel ring). She feeds them by hand: raw beef, whole chickens, and horse meat.
   Houcke’s circus routine doesn’t involve nudity, but is not without its own primitive appeal. "All my tricks are based on natural behaviors and instincts from the wild," she said. Houcke performs, alongside nine Bengal cats, as Sara the Tiger Whisperer. She is fluent not only in English, French, and German but also in " wuffling" , her own form of tigerspeak. The relationship she has with her cats "is the most amazing thing I’ve ever, ever experienced" , she said. "It’s not that I go up there and I force them and say, ’ You need to lick my face or you need to kiss my face. ’ But if a tiger wants to put its head on my shoulder and, you know, cuddle up to me..." Houcke will even stick her head inside a tiger’s mouth, if that’s what it wants. "I have more patience with my animals than I do with humans," she said. "My patience level for humans isn’t very high. "
   Up in Times Square, the PETA tigers were released from their cages, after forty-five minutes of cold rain. (The plan had called for an hour, but, as Worden explained, "I was freezing my ass off. ") Volunteers wrapped the women in bathrobes and lugged away their cages. "This was nothing compared to a lifetime of captivity," Valladolid said.

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答案 时代广场老虎现身 “这合法吗?”布鲁克林来的丹尼斯问道。他站在时代广场三叉路口的红绿灯下,向交通警察发问。时间刚过正午,在他眼前,两个几乎一丝不挂的女人跪在一对小铁笼子里,举着标语牌,上面写着:“野生动物不应该关在笼子里”。事有凑巧,去年春天,路易斯安娜州谢里夫堡的警察遇到一件同样的事情,他们当时的回答是,这样做不合法。赤身露体装扮成动物是违法的。然而在时代广场,即使已经过了吉瓦尼时代,交通畅通还是要比文明廉耻更加重要。警察对于丹尼斯的提问,随口答道:“请别在此处逗留。” 这两个女人一个叫凯亚-沃登,高高的个子,皮肤白皙,金发碧眼;另一个叫白兰蒂-瓦拉多利,小个子,肤色较深。她俩装扮成老虎模样,或者可以说是几乎不穿衣服的人形老虎,身上涂上油彩,穿着一条比基尼式裤衩,带上米老鼠耳朵,棕色鼻子,画上胡子,但是却没有披虎皮。她们要是穿上虎皮也许不错,当时气温在华氏40度以下,还下着大雨。然而披上虎皮却是违反初衷的。这是人类善待动物协会举办的一场特技表演,以抗议那天到纽约表演的银铃兄弟和巴鲁姆巴雷马戏团(“我们宁愿赤身露体也决不披上兽皮”是人类善待动物协会的口号)。班齐?汤姆逊是人类文明对待动物协会的志愿者,为瓦拉多利打着雨伞,他说:“所有生物都有权在不受损害、不受虐待、不受侵害的情况下生活。”雨伞下面,瓦拉多利坐立不安,瑟瑟发抖。“我浑身湿透了,”她说。丹尼斯此时正打着手机:“哟,这儿的人发疯了,两个光屁股女人呆在笼子里,伙计。” 从费城来观看魔幻戏剧的游客沃登走上前去拍照。“你瞧,从笼子里往外看,就像马戏团动物看外边的世界一样”,沃登说。 往南走到麦迪逊花园广场,银铃兄弟马戏团的真老虎正在笼子里安睡,既没挨冻也没挨浇。“这些老虎有的要睡到下午一、二点才起来,”驯虎员、马戏团第七代演员萨拉-赫克说。“我会说,‘天哪,你们怎么睡这么长时间?’大家都知道,老虎每天要睡20个小时。”赫克个头很高,她同沃登一样,皮肤白皙,金发碧眼。然而每当她进到笼子里照看老虎的时候,她穿牛仔裤,T恤衫(她的脐戒若隐若现)。她手把手地喂老虎吃饭,饲料有生牛肉、整只鸡,还有马肉。 赫克在马戏团的工作不需要她赤身裸体,但是她的表演也不乏野性。她说,“我的表演是根据人野生环境下的自然动作和自然本能编排的。”赫克艺名叫“虎语者萨拉”,她带着9只孟加拉虎一起表演。赫克不仅会说英语、法语、德语,还会讲她自己发明的老虎语。她同老虎的关系“是我人生经历中最美妙的事情”,她说。“不是我凑上去逼着它们,对它们说‘来舔舔我的脸,来吻吻我的唇’,而是老虎自己要把头搁在我的肩膀上,你瞧,它会依偎在我的身旁……”如果演出需要,赫克甚至可以把她的脑袋伸到老虎的嘴巴里。“我同动物在一起比同人在一起更加有耐心,”赫克说,“我对人可没有那么大的耐心。” 在时代广场,人类善待动物协会的老虎在冷风冷雨中呆了45分钟,最后从笼子里放了出来(原计划要在笼子里呆一个小时,后来缩短了,沃登解释道“我差点冻死了”)。志愿者用浴巾把两位女士裹了起来,把笼子拖走。“老虎终身监禁,同它相比,这算不了什么,”瓦拉多利说。

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