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I am looking to buy a ride-on lawn mower and I borrowed today from a neighbor a nice Zero-Turn  mower with two stick operation, to try what it is and if I like it. I thought that I will be comfortable with two stick operation. During my military service I drove light tank once and a few times I drove 40T caterpillar-based UHF target acquisition station:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-40_radar

To my surprise I was absolutely not able to drive the Zero-Turn mover as the operation sticks are very sensitive and it take time to get use to. However, while I was playing with that ZTM mower I realized that to drive it is very similar to listening Bruckner, you need just to close your eyes while you drive ZTM.

Listening Bruckner is about a relationship between own sense of posture.  Now you sit up straight and a very soft note later you are ether standing in your knees of lying on the floor, absolutely shattered by those dangers and unspeakably beautiful phrases, of the absence of them. Riding the ZTM blindly is very much the same – a very soft touch of the sticks and you drive god know where. To drive the ZTM blindly you need to know very much where are you, who you are, where you are going and to have immaculate control over the machine – otherwise you find yourself in bushes. Listening or conducting Bruckner you need to do absolutely the same – one very small, unconfident or showy movement and Bruckner will turn into irrelevant sequence of sounds.

I am sure that people who are accustomed to ZTM have no problem to navigate them but the fun of riding it for a first time is very Bruckner-like. In a way it remind me what I operate a plane one. Well, I did not “operate” it. It was a single engine plane and a friend of mine, the pilot, took me up and let me move the control for 15 second. The responsiveness of the airplane was very sensual. This machine-human interaction always was the subject of my fixation…. When I was a child and just learned to ride bicycle I asked my father what will happened if I close eyes and will drive bike. You understand what he answered.  To drive the ZTM and to feel where you are doing and to sense if the ZTM is turning is “almost” possible (after U buy my own).  But with Bruckner there is no father and there are no trees on the lawn. You have the same ability to fly, only you are free and you are running the show…

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