Home > Topic > Llamas
1 " Llamas can drive... they just don't know it yet... "
― Llama Queen
2 " A sprawling North London parkland, composed of oaks, willows and chestnuts, yews and sycamores, the beech and the birch; that encompasses the city’s highest point and spreads far beyond it; that is so well planted it feels unplanned; that is not the country but is no more a garden than Yellowstone; that has a shade of green for every possible felicitation of light; that paints itself in russets and ambers in autumn, canary-yellow in the splashy spring; with tickling bush grass to hide teenage lovers and joint smokers, broad oaks for brave men to kiss against, mown meadows for summer ball games, hills for kites, ponds for hippies, an icy lido for old men with strong constitutions, mean llamas for mean children and, for the tourists, a country house, its façade painted white enough for any Hollywood close-up, complete with a tea room, although anything you buy there should be eaten outside with the grass beneath your toes, sitting under the magnolia tree, letting the white blossoms, blush-pink at their tips, fall all around you. Hampstead Heath! Glory of London! Where Keats walked and Jarman fucked, where Orwell exercised his weakened lungs and Constable never failed to find something holy. "
― Zadie Smith
3 " As llamas have never heard of oxygen, they do not miss it. "
― Will Cuppy
4 " When Magnus looked at Imasu, he saw Imasu had dropped his head into his hands." Er," Magnus said. " Are you quite all right?" " I was simply overcome," Imasu said in a faint voice.Magnus preened slightly. " Ah. Well." " By how awful that was," Imasu said.Magnus blinked. " Pardon?" " I can't live a lie any longer!" Imasu burst out. " I have tried to be encouraging. Dignitaries of the town have been sent to me, asking me to plead with you to stop. My own sainted mother begged me, with tears in her eyes - " " It isn't as bad as all that - " " Yes, it is!" It was like a dam of musical critique had broken. Imasu turned on him with eyes that flashed instead of shining. " It is worse than you can possibly imagine! When you play, all of my mother's flowers lose the will to live and expire on the instant. The quinoa has no flavor now. The llamas are migrating because of your music, and llamas are not a migratory animal. The children now believe there is a sickly monster, half horse and half large mournful chicken, that lives in the lake and calls out to the world to grant it the sweet release of death. The townspeople believe that you and I are performing arcane magic rituals - " " Well, that one was rather a good guess," Magnus remarked." - using the skull of an elephant, an improbably large mushroom, and one of your very peculiar hats!" " Or not," said Magnus. " Furthermore, my hats are extraordinary." " I will not argue with that." Imasu scrubbed a hand through his thick black hair, which curled and clung to his fingers like inky vines. " Look, I know that I was wrong. I saw a handsome man, thought that it would not hurt to talk a little about music and strike up a common interest, but I don't deserve this. You are going to get stoned in the town square, and if I have to listen to you play again, I will drown myself in the lake." " Oh," said Magnus, and he began to grin. " I wouldn't. I hear there is a dreadful monster living in that lake." Imasu seemed to still be brooding about Magnus's charango playing, a subject that Magnus had lost all interest in. " I believe the world will end with a noise like the noise you make!" " Interesting," said Magnus, and he threw his charango out the window." Magnus!" " I believe that music and I have gone as far as we can go together," Magnus said. " A true artiste knows when to surrender." " I can't believe you did that!" Magnus waved a hand airily. " I know, it is heartbreaking, but sometimes one must shut one's ears to the pleas of the muse." " I just meant that those are expensive and I heard a crunch. "