I have no idea what the cephalopods flying over the city have to do with the ecological message in the small print, but heck, it’s a cool picture anyway.
Maybe it has something to do with octopuses swimming over flooded cities, but they look airborn to me.
John Bentley sent me an issue of Seven Days with this interesting illustration on the cover: it’s titled “California”, by Chris Varricchione. Excuse the smudginess, but I just scanned it in from newsprint, so it isn’t exactly the cleanest image to start with. Still, I had to make it my desktop image—who can resist a flying mollusc/bird chimera? Now if only someone would point me to a sharper original source…
Thanks, John!
I’ve been told that there is a drop of old Dutch blood in my ancestry—that way back in the 17th century, an intrepid few Dutch immigrants mingled their seed with the mongrel mess of my father’s line. I think now I sense a kindred spirit. Adriaen Coenensz, a fisherman and fish seller from Scheveningen in Holland wrote and illustrated a book between 1577 and 1580 titled Het Visboek (“The Fishbook“). It’s an amazing browse. Apparently, Coenensz was interested in adventure and exotic dining experiences…
…he was an early devotee of science fiction…
…and most of all, he was obsessed with squid and fish. There’s page after page of aquatic organisms.
It suits my fancy to imagine that Old Adriaen had a few grandchildren who emigrated to the New World, intermarried with English and Scots and German settlers, had families that drifted west with the frontier, ended up on the Pacific coast where they blended with Swedes and Norwegians, and the end result is me, here to carry on the long-hallowed family tradition. Frater, ave atque vale!
Whoa. A reader sent a link to this lovely print—I wouldn’t mind having that on my wall.
(please don’t hate me for my title; it’s actually called “Stay, and I will love thee,” but I couldn’t resist.)
I saw it first at Virge’s place, but Mike Snider is also on the blogroll and I would have gotten to it eventually…but hey, if you’re a fan of fossil tetrapods and poetry, here’s a treat: a Tiktaalik sonnet. You can also view some drafts of its construction, which is developmentally interesting, I think, and not quite as messy as chopping up embryos.
I think my title reveals why I’ll leave the poesy to the pros.
