B Flat

This is when video works. And don't miss Klinkenberg's story: On the way to playing tuba for an audience of alligators, William Mickelsen felt cocky enough to talk about his musical chops.

His well-trained jaw muscles, his lips and his tongue felt up to the task. His majestic lungs felt strong and elastic. He and his tuba were ready for whatever reptilian drama lay ahead. The night before, he and his fellow artists in the Florida Orchestra had played at Ruth Eckerd Hall behind composer Marvin Hamlisch, the Oscar winner for The Way We Were. Everything had gone swimmingly.

At Gatorland, the old tourist attraction near Kissimmee, Mickelsen was going to play a deep B flat for a battle-scarred, amorous male alligator named Toxic.

During mating season, alligators are known to do astonishing things. They swim miles looking for mates, crawl over land to find new girlfriends and scrap with other leathery Casanovas that happen along.

In the spring, feisty alligators, usually males, grunt and hiss.

They roar like thunder.

My ambition: to learn whether Toxic and his gator colleagues might answer Mickelsen's tuba with earth-shaking roars of their own.

If Toxic fell in love with the tuba, or even if he attacked it, we'd have a grand story to tell. Come to think of it, whatever happened would be grand.