{"id":577,"date":"2011-03-29T17:36:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T17:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=577"},"modified":"2011-03-29T17:36:30","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T17:36:30","slug":"everybody_strap_in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2011\/03\/everybody_strap_in\/","title":{"rendered":"EVERYBODY STRAP IN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The people who say all press is good press probably didn&#8217;t have an adolescent Egyptian cobra escape from their Reptile House. <\/p>\n<p>Or. Did. They. <\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, the Bronx Zoo discovered a snake was missing and posted a note about it on their website. I&#8217;m not on their press list, but presumably they sent a media alert out as well. Why they needed to tell the public the reason the Reptile House is closed, I don&#8217;t know. I won&#8217;t judge, because while it often feels that way, I don&#8217;t work at a zoo. <\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the note that&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bronxzoo.com\/multimedia\/headlines\/reptile-house-closed.aspx\">on their site<\/a> today:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We understand the interest in this story and that everyone wants us to<br \/>\nfind the missing snake. Right now, it&#8217;s the snake&#8217;s game. At this point,<br \/>\nit&#8217;s just like fishing; you put the hook in the water and wait. Our<br \/>\nbest strategy is patience, allowing her time to come out of hiding. We<br \/>\nremain confident that the snake is contained within the Reptile House. <span><\/p>\n<p style=\"\">\n<p style=\"\">When<br \/>\nwe discovered the snake was missing on Friday, we immediately secured<br \/>\nthe building and conducted a search of all accessible areas. Sweeping<br \/>\nsearches continue on a daily basis. In addition, we implemented a system<br \/>\nfor tracking any movement by the snake that would help aid in its<br \/>\ncapture. The difficulty is that the 20-inch, pencil-thin snake, which is<br \/>\nmonths old and weighs less than 3 ounces, has sought out a secure<br \/>\nhiding spot within the Reptile House. The holding areas of the Reptile<br \/>\nHouse are extremely complex environments with pumps, motors and other<br \/>\nmechanical systems. In this complex environment, she will likely remain<br \/>\nin hiding and not move until she feels completely secure. As her comfort<br \/>\nlevel rises, she will begin to move around the building to seek food<br \/>\nand water. <\/p>\n<p style=\"\">\n<p style=\"\">As this may take days or<br \/>\neven weeks, daily updates should not be expected. As the situation<br \/>\nchanges we will share any information with you. But now, we need to<br \/>\nfocus our attention and energy on recovery strategies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"\"><b style=\"\">Jim Breheny<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"\"><b><span><\/p>\n<p style=\"\"><b style=\"\">SVP for WCS and Bronx Zoo Director<\/b><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/b>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Updated:<br \/>\n3\/28\/2011<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Right now, IT&#8217;S THE SNAKE&#8217;S GAME!&#8221; I mean, isn&#8217;t it always?<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/amYzBQMT4VI?rel=0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"349\" width=\"560\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, this she-cobra (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/online\/daily\/2011\/03\/the-bronx-zoos-statement-about-the-missing-cobra-with-sentences-reordered-from-most-comforting-to-most-frightening.html\">it&#8217;s a girl!<\/a>), has gotten more press in the past five days than my entire client list combined has gotten this season. <i>Vanity Fair<\/i>, <i>CNN, MTV, NPR,<\/i><i> The Huffington Post <\/i>(but I mean come on: you don&#8217;t have to <i>escape from a zoo<\/i> to get on the <i>Huffington Post &#8211;<\/i> ZING!<i>), The New York Times<\/i>, and <i>The Washington Post, <\/i>among others. The lady snake has also <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/BronxZoosCobra\">taken to Twitter<\/a>, which, not unlike similar moves by Kanye West and Charlie Sheen, has resulted in even more media attention. The reptile has 79,774 followers. <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/amandaameer\">I<\/a> have 1,137. <\/p>\n<p>Two possible solutions seem fairly obvious to me: <br \/>1. Go get Harry Potter. He&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtosucceedbroadway.com\/\">on Broadway<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div align=\"left\">2. Hire a honey badger. Apparently, honey badger don&#8217;t care. <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/BronxZoosCobra\/followers\" id=\"follower_count_link\" class=\"link-followers_page\" rel=\"me\" title=\"See who's following BronxZoosCobra\"><span id=\"follower_count\" class=\"stats_count numeric\"><\/span><\/a><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4r7wHMg5Yjg?rel=0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So, Classical Music Publicists of the World, when you&#8217;re sad that another local classical critic got reassigned, bummed that your client didn&#8217;t get to an interview on time, or annoyed that you used the wrong &#8220;their&#8221; in a press release, just remember, it could always be worse: you could have an m-er f-ing snake on the loose. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The people who say all press is good press probably didn&#8217;t have an adolescent Egyptian cobra escape from their Reptile House. Or. Did. They. Last Friday, the Bronx Zoo discovered a snake was missing and posted a note about it on their website. I&#8217;m not on their press list, but presumably they sent a media [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}