Cuckoo

The cuckoos are a family of birds, Cuculidae, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes. The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae respectively.

The cuckoos are generally medium-sized slender birds. The majority are arboreal, with a sizeable minority that are terrestrial. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority of species being tropical. Some species are migratory. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Many species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, but the majority of species raise their own young.

In Greek mythology, Zeus transformed himself into a cuckoo so that he could seduce Hera; the bird was sacred to her.

Description

Cuckoo's Nest (nightclub)

The Cuckoo's Nest was a punk rock nightclub that was located at 1714 Placentia Avenue in Costa Mesa, California. There were often confrontations with the punks from the Cuckoo's Nest and the cowboys from Zubie's, which shared a parking lot. The police were constantly harassing the punks. Club owner Jerry Roach fought a number of court cases in an effort to keep the club alive, and in his 1981 film on the subject Urban Struggle he suggested that perhaps this was the first time that the authorities would stamp out a fad. The club was a hub of the punk rock in California. The club is notable as being home to the first slam pit. Bands such as 999, The Ramones, XTC, The Damned, the New York Dolls, Black Flag, T.S.O.L., Circle Jerks, Bill Madden and The Redeemers, D.I., the Vandals, Symbol Six, Agent Orange, JFA, Blondie Chaplin, Squeeze, the Adolescents, X, the Go-Go's, Bad Brains, the Cramps, Iggy Pop, Dead Kennedys, the Dickies, Violent Femmes, Ultravox, the Motels, the Bangles, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, John Cale, Suicidal Tendencies, Los Lobos, Fear, Wall of Voodoo, the Misfits, the Knack, the Crowd, Social Distortion, and Jericho Shaxe all played gigs there. The club was memorialized in the Vandals song "Pat Brown," a song about a club goer who actually tried to run the cops into the ground.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional processes and the human mind as well as a critique of behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. Published in 1962, the novel was adapted into the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Dale Wasserman in 1963. Bo Goldman adapted the novel into the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest directed by Miloš Forman, which won five Academy Awards.

Time Magazine included the novel in its "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005" list.

Plot

The book is narrated by "Chief" Bromden, a gigantic and docile half-Native American inmate who presents himself deaf and mute. Bromden’s tale focuses mainly on the antics of the rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy, who faked insanity to serve his sentence for battery and gambling in the hospital rather than in prison. The head administrative nurse, Mildred Ratched, rules the ward with an iron fist and with little medical oversight. She is assisted by her three black day-shift orderlies, and her assistant doctors.

Nest

A nest is a structure built by certain animals to hold its eggs, its offspring, or occasionally the animal itself. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves, or may be a simple depression in the ground, or a hole in a rock, tree, or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, or paper, may also be used. Nests can be found in all types of habitat.

Nest building is driven by a biological urge known as the nesting instinct in birds and mammals. Generally each species has a distinctive style of nest. Nest complexity is roughly correlated with the level of parental care by adults. Nest building is considered a key adaptive advantage among birds, and they exhibit the most variation in their nests ranging from simple holes in the ground to elaborate communal nests hosting hundreds of individuals. Nests of prairie dogs and several social insects can host millions of individuals.

Ken Kesey

Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey (/ˈkiːziː/; September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.

Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1960 following the completion of a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. Subsequently, he moved to nearby La Honda, California and began hosting happenings with former colleagues from Stanford, miscellaneous bohemian & literary figures (most notably Neal Cassady), and other friends under the imprimateur of the Merry Pranksters; these parties, known as Acid Tests, integrated the consumption of LSD with multimedia performances. He mentored the Grateful Dead (the de facto "house band" of the Acid Tests) throughout their incipience and continued to exert a profound influence upon the group throughout their long career. Sometimes a Great Notion—an epic account of the vicissitudes of an Oregon logging family that aspired to the modernist grandeur of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha saga—was a commercial success that polarized critics and readers upon its release in 1964, although Kesey regarded the novel as his magnum opus.