A Day at the Aquarium - Manatees and Things

Nice how sitting round can turn into a walk can turn into a day at the aquarium ... depending of course on the direction the wandering takes.


Inside, we looked around a bit - and then realized the blog post potential of the outing. Though these images and the footage do not pretend to be anything other than dead dead ordinary!

I made a beeline for the manatees - a kind of ocean-going version of my favorite land-dwelling mammals, the orangutans ('Traveling Round The Philippines - Zambles, Vigan, and 100 Islands').


I think also I love them cos of their common name - 'sea cows'.

And cos their closest relos are elephants and hyraxes - somehow this adds to the warm fuzzy feeling.

These herbivores always seem so friendly and gentle and empathetic and cuddly - no mean feat for an aquatic creature! Obviously lots and lots of anthropomorphizing going on here!


From the excessive amount of footage I took, I've put this together ...

... with what I think is just so right as the audio track - the Gregorian Chant 'Kyrie Eleison'!

Then on to the more ordinary denizens of an aquarium ...

... which in fact included the less-than-ordinary weedy sea dragon ...

(Not my photo - Included to give a better idea of how beautiful dragons are)

... and some of its more flora-imitating relatives ...


We then fortuitously meandered into the anemones and sponges department ...




... before we plunged into reef fish ...






The big finale was the bovver boys of the seas - the sharks.


I thought I'd been over-exposed to these guys but up close and personal they still managed to send a chill ... just about everywhere.


This last image has a curious resemblance to mid-nineteenth century naturalistic animal painting ...


... don't you think?

Okay, now for the scary stuff ...

... which I felt needed a counterpoint music track - and so George Michael's 'A Different Corner'. It works so perfectly - just listen to the words with images ... and chuckle! And it wards off the chills - very nicely!

When Life and Dreams Merge

I don't know about you, but I've been pestered by dreams of flying ... for years ... and years.

Usually it goes like this - I run along the ground to gather speed, and then, slowly, spread my arms and take to the air. No flapping seems to be required - I just have to keep the arms out.

And then, after a suitable period, I say to myself 'This is not a dream - I really am flying!'.

At this point, things usually go either of two ways - elation as I continue ever upwards, or dismay as the very words themselves seem to bring me crashing down. No Freudian interpretations, please!

Yesterday I sensed a way out of this life-long dilemma, while watching the video below - all I need to do is get onto the NASA program as an astronaut! I guess anything is possible ... and, as you must have understood by now, my need is great!


For a bit of variation on the flying thing, I could do mid-air hovering - it'd would work for me ...


Other fun extras would be sleeping standing up ... though, come to think of it, this might not be quite as exciting as flying or hovering ...


Where lifting heavy objects with a single finger would be ...


... and would also satisfy any latent superman fantasies.

Water sports could be high on my 'to do' list' ...



Anyway, here's the video that inspired all these ruminations ...

... cool, eh?

Long Lost Siblings

'Quiet Waters' Haughton Forrest (1826-1925)

You might have noticed some paintings wandering round the blog.

The work above was one happenstance of the rabid auction phase of our lives. Which luckily came to a close about five years ago.

My partner had spotted 'Quiet Waters'. It was almost unnoticed by other previewers, right down on the bottom level of three rows of hung paintings. But then, not much gets past his eagle eye. And the canvas was knocked down to us for way under the pre-auction estimate, justifying - so it seemed - our impetuosity!

Then yesterday, like a previously unknown relative, the following painting came across my internet radar ...

'Hobart Town' Haughton Forrest (1826-1925)

... obviously similar to the one we have but very different from most of Forrest's other mainly marine work ...






Born at Boulogne-sur-Mer in France of British parents, Haughton Forrest (1826–1925) ...


... worked in various public service spheres in England - the Army and the Post Office - before, in 1875, taking up 60 acres of land in Kittoland, Parana, southern Brazil, and then, in 1876, 100 acres on the Ringarooma River outside Hobart in Tasmania. He later returned to the public service sector - as bailiff of crown lands and of the court of general sessions, as inspector of nuisances, weights and measures, and thistles and stock, and as superintendent of police.

And continued to paint all the while.

In 1899, his images of Mount Wellington and Hobart formed the basis of Australia's first pictorial stamps.

But getting back to our extending 'family', I think the similarity between 'Quiet Waters' and its newly found long lost relative is mainly in the chromatic scale. And the almost obsessive attention to detail - which may stem from often working from photographs. In both paintings, there is also an almost human intimacy, created by small leafy outcrops comfortingly jutting into the landscape, with an effect like arms enfolding a loved one.

As the advertisement says 'But there's more'. And we certainly seem to be developing a curious quirk for acquiring one of pairs.

Having not so long ago purchased this work ...


... by modern aboriginal artist, Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996) ...


... we noticed its twin in an old Christie's catalogue ...


Mmm ... So what's next!

I'll keep you posted.

States of Mind

I suspect this post says something bout my state of mind today - variation, of course, being a good thing!




And says something about my admiration for cartoonist Michael Leunig.

A Fairly Decent Capitalism Working At School?

Now the photograph above may very well look as though it shows the usual quadrangle of a boys' school. Somewhere in the Anglo-Saxon world. Not so long ago.

And it does ... as far as it goes.

But an arrow ...


... and some explanation is needed to make full sense of the image.

So here we go.

At the tip of the arrow are lockers for boys to keep their textbooks in. Nothing strange bout that of course.

But - and this is the confession you'll have probably have been anticipating in the last few seconds - something less than usual and seemingly anarchic used to take place in my particular locker - located in the bay indicated by the red circle ...


That something was exposed to a seriously disapproving world ... by a very disloyal and non-collaborative geometry book.

The truth of the matter was that I used to breed white mice there - dear little rodents who had understood the cosy bedding qualities of my textbook ... when all chewed up.

The discovery of my enterprise caused an uproar with the authorities ... which truly surprised me at the time.

Cos - at twenty cents a mouselet - it seemed like a pretty solid if perhaps somewhat unconventional beginning for any budding captain of industry!

Don't you think?

Or am I wrong here?

Sensory As Opposed To Between-The-Ears Experience

I always look with more than a little pleasure at this photo - taken in central Paris the trip before the trip before last. I think somewhere near the Pompidou Centre, which as you probably know houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne ...

(Not my image)

(Not my image)

(Not my image)

... with the amazing exposure and colour-coding of its structural functionalities.

There's a space area out front ...



... where we watched this Japanese guy doing a performance piece.

But I digress.

So I remember watching the kids play in and round The Face, particularly the one in The Hand - and registering the tactile sensory nature of their activities.

And recalled that this was the way I mostly (or preferentially) began to experience the world.

Like lying down on the patio at home at the height of summer just to savor the smell of water evaporating on the hot hot concrete. At 3 or 4.

And the aroma of fresh grass cuttings spread over the compost heap. And of seaweed washed up and rotting on the sand at the waters's edge near. On the beach opposite our week-end away holiday house. The sensations literally tingling in my nose.

The distinctive almost plastic smell of the pages of my first 'John and Betty' book ...


... and the cold silky texture of the pages as I pressed them against my face.

The unexpected erotics of the stale aroma of Martin Davies' furry crotch - when at 11 I was kneeling in front of him just to look at his dick. And the warm intensively pleasurable smell of his hairy muscular legs and broad fleshy naked feet.

Renewal of any one of these early olfactory experiences brings almost unimaginably intense pleasure. That between-the-ears memories can't begin to match.

Same for you?