PRESS RELEASE OF THE MONTH

Press releases. We get them all the time. It’s a fundamental in the media biz. From bank openings to baseball scores, from new movies to new meat-grinders, press releases are the blood cells of the media lifeline. Often they are boring. Often they are obscure. Often they are ridiculous. Usually they retire quickly to the trash can. But sometimes they are so boring, so obscure, or so ridiculous that they force you to sit up and take notice. Which means they have served their purpose. This month’s release, from Lion Country Safari Park, is so gushy it worked.

We knew we were in for a treat when we first read, “The setting of Lion Country Safari is one of dream-like improbability – a near perfect simulation of African savannah.” That’s Grand Prairie they’re talking about.

But it was the descriptions of the animals that really won us over. “Just watch the eyes – those of the lions, incredibly golden orbs . . . Consider the distant, gentle eye of the giraffe, a marvelous chocolate oval. Surely there is a pupil in those limpid pools the size of cue balls . . . The heads of the ostriches are visible, bobbing slightly like ships sailing an inland sea . . . The demure dik dik reacts with instant, soaring leap . . . The rhinos, antique sentinels in armor hide that looks as though it is riveted on with nuts and bolts . . . The hippo with lithesome jog crosses the road.”

The demure dik dik?