Flying Priest Missing
In an attempt to break a world record for most hours flying using party balloons, a Brazilian Roman catholic Priest, suspended by 1,000 helium balloons, is now missing. His aim was to raise money to build a rest-stop church for truckers.

Even on my best day I couldn’t make this shit up.

Wacky news story of the day or sign of the impending apocalypse? Either way, this is why I listen to the BBC in the morning:

“Father Adelir de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday, equipped with a parachute, thermal suit, satellite phone and a GPS device.

A sea and air rescue operation is under way after he lost contact with port authority officials late on Sunday.

He wanted to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons.

Father Carli was hoping to raise money to fund a rest stop for lorry drivers in Paranagua, one of Brazil’s major ports for agricultural products.”

Yeah, I don’t think I have anything else to add. Complete lyrics to Jimmy Webb’s “Up, Up and Away” and a full wikipedia synopsis of The Flying Nun after the jump.

“Up, Up and Away” by Jimmy Webb

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Suspended under a twilight canopy
We’ll search the clouds for a star to guide us
If by some chance you find yourself loving me
We’ll find a cloud to hide us
We’ll keep the moon beside us
Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon
Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon
If you’ll hold my hand we’ll chase your dream across the sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Balloon…
Up, up, and away…..

The Flying Nun

The Flying Nun is a sitcom produced by Screen Gems for ABC based on the book The Fifteenth Pelican, by Tere Rios. The sitcom ran for three seasons, and produced 82 color episodes from 1967 until 1970.

Developed by Bernard Slade, it centered on the adventures of a group of nuns in the Convent San Tanco in Puerto Rico. The comic elements of the storyline were provided by the flying ability of a novice nun, Sister Bertrille, played by Sally Field in her second sitcom role after Gidget. She could be relied upon to solve any problem that came her way by her ability to catch a passing breeze and fly (attributed to her small stature and heavily starched cornette—the headgear for her habit). Her flying talents caused as many problems as they solved. She once explained her ability to fly as, “When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly.”

The unusual premise caught the attention of the public and the program was a success, yet the storylines were limited, and by the end of the show’s run, the writers were struggling to create new situations that would allow the heroine to take flight. Critics never responded favorably to the show, and credited most of its success to the appeal of Sally Field.

Madeleine Sherwood played the Mother Superior, Marge Redmond played Sister Jacqueline, Shelley Morrison played Sister Sixto, and Alejandro Rey played local playboy Carlos Ramirez, who Sister Bertrille would run into with alarming frequency.

The show was commended by several Roman Catholic orders in the late 1960s for humanizing nuns and their work. It also offered a difficult typecasting obstacle for star Sally Field to overcome. Its three season run left such an indelible impression upon its viewers that, more than 30 years after it ceased production, it continues to be satirized and referenced in modern films and television. These concerns are what has kept the series from being revisited during any of the “nostalgia” or “retro” phases of modern pop culture. In fact, a TV movie had been proposed by ABC in the late 1980s, where Field’s character would have appeared as the new Mother Superior, Mother Bertrille, for the convent, and having to deal not only with another diminutive nun who learns that she too can fly, but the fact that she is jealous of this new “flying nun” because she can no longer fly due to her finally putting on weight over the years. Field, seeking to distance herself from this role further, vehemently declined the offer.

Tags: balloon | baloon | brazil | brazilian | Church | flying | helium | missing | priest | record | truck stop | vanisned

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