our octopus, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy tentacles.

This may be the weirdest cephalopod related thing I have ever posted on this blog. Please go and check out the octopus faith site. Let me warn you, dear uninitiated reader, that at first you may be frightened by the pictures of the perky octopus woman that come up. Don't worry, so was Jesus.

There is no point in me trying to summarize the site since it is so weird and fantastic. A direct quote:

"Do you want to go deep? Let 'deep sea travel guide' and Christian Women's Speaker, Janet Drez, take your women on an "under-sea" adventure using the attributes of the octopus as a unique and profound word-picture to discover and grow their "Octopus Faith®."

(Why is she taking "your" women? Who do these women belong to? Does she have to get permission first? Do they have a curfew? Why are there no men allowed? Is this actually about menstruation? OH MY GOD IS IT A CEPHALAPOD LESBIAN PLOT?!?!?! If so, can I attend??????)



But, most importantly, I feel the need to share the...

8 Tentacles of Octopus Faith®:

1. Praise: Do You Know Who God Is?
2. Pearls: Do You Know Who You Are?
3. Prayer: An Octopus Conversation
4. Pressure: How to Survive the Underwater Pressure
5. Power: Wrestling with an Enemy
6. Play: The Joy of Octopus Faith®
7. Passion: Longing for Octopus Faith®
8. Pass It On: Lead Someone Else into the Deep

(Okay, after reading number 6 and 7, I hope all of these women are given a complimentary octopus vibrator. Maybe that's why men aren't allowed.)



And finally, a quote from a satisfied octopus faith customer:

"Octopus Faith was exactly the message that was needed to springboard us into a season of 'deep sea diving' with Christ. Each and every lady was amazed and surprised at the analogy of our faith to octopus. All loved it and you!"
Michelle Gale, Director, First Ladies Women's Ministry
First Southern Baptist Church of Phoenix

Let's go deep sea diving with Jesus, y'all! Last one in the water is washed up jumbo squid servant of satan!

BREAKING COLOSSAL SQUID NEWS!

Despite being on vacation, what kind of loser would I be if I didn't link to a story about a colossal squid the size of a bus that was found on the beach in Australia? A really big loser, that's what (although, I am already kind of a loser because it was my mom who saw the story and informed me. thanks again, mom.)

The article states that a beach comber found the squid this past Wednesday. How amazing would it be to find a colossal squid washed up? Usually I find rubber gloves, used condoms, hypodermics, and diapers. I've never even found a human head. This beach comber just won the cephalopod lottery.

More news as it unfurls its tentacles...

interspecies cephalopod love?

Alert reader Tim sent me an amazing story about an "octosquid" that was found off the coast of the big island of Hawaii. The story states that "It appears that the creature was sucked up in a deep seawater pipeline at the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority at Keahole on the Big Island. The pipeline pumps cold water up from 3,000 feet below sea level. Occasionally deep-sea marine life will get caught in a filter in the line, officials said." (How cool is that! A filter that actually sucks up neat things, not wads of hair and day old cheerios!)

Can't you picture it? An octopus and a squid get together to gripe about their giant brains, short life spans, depleted oceans...they have a couple of martinis, and BOOM, a few months later an octosquid appears out of a lovingly hidden egg sack.

Well, as one of the octosquid's parents has surely realized, it will take a DNA test to find out what is really going on here...

cephalopod fashionista?

While perusing boingboing today, I saw a post on "Diesel's 'bioluminescent mechanical cephalopod' runway show." Basically, the fashion line Diesel had their 2008 show in Florence, Italy. When I read the headline, I became a bit shivery with excitement (like a tiny terrier about to go for a walk). But the Youtube video was a little disappointing. It was 17 minutes long and I may have seen a cephalopod at minute 10:37, but everything else looked like angler fishes, models in little submarines, some deep sea worms, and a lot of jellyfish. Not that those rare and mysterious creatures (excluding the jellyfish and models, of course) aren't interesting--but don't put cephalopod in the title of your fashion show and then not deliver. There were some mechanical objects that might have been cephalopod like...but I'm not sure. Here is the video:



As I watched the video I had completely conflicting emotions. First I was like, oooh, fashion. And clothes! And cephalopods! My favorite ever! But then after a while, I wanted the giant holographic sea turtle to eat a model. Okay, maybe a few models, because we know eating one model would not be enough nourishment for a giant holographic sea turtle.

Plus the whole thing made me feel weird. On the one hand it was cool-everyone looked cool, the music was cool, the weird blue swimming things, although not cephalopods, were kind of cool. But, seriously, how is high fashion helping out the oceans? Will they give the jellyfish free Diesel hoodies? Will the models lovingly keep the angler fish in their giant Yves Saint Laurent purses (which they will have to pressurize.)? I doubt it. Perhaps it is just fashion and art and I should let it go. Or perhaps Diesel should donate some money somewhere for using all these images. Or perhaps someone should punch me in the face to tone down the self righteous hag that emerges from time to time.

keeping your octopus entertained.

As we all know, a bored creature is a generally unhappy creature. While people can start blogs to combat the problems of boredom, what can our cephalopod brethren do to not fall asleep in their tanks?

The octopus known as Shania (oh my god, who named this poor creature? obviously a lover of pop country music), at the Washington National Aquarium dissembles smelt-filled Mr. Potato Heads for entertainment:


Meanwhile Ollie the octopus (note the improved name-must the British exceed us at EVERYTHING?) who lives at the Sealife Park in the UK has been given "lego" (for some reason British people do not use the term "legos") to entertain itself.


Other octopuses can be kept busy with the "squishing yourself out of a really tiny hole" trick. Which I sometimes have to do when I park really close to another car and am trying to get out of my car. I wish I could say it was the bones in my ass that prevented me from getting out, but I fear that is not the truth.

d.i.y. cephalopod

An alert reader (thanks, Mom!) informed me of an article in the N.Y. Sunday Times Style Section on the Renegade Craft Fair which took place last weekend in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. According to the article (which is hilarious), cephalopods are TOTALLY IN with the do it yourself crowd.

According to the article (by Melena Ryzik) "while the sparrow and the owl — last year’s favored animal and the symbol of the fair — are out, the octopus, a burgeoning contender for creature of the moment, has been joined by other sea dwellers, like the squid."

This makes me a little bit fearful because it means that soon cephalopods may go the way of flannel shirts, hypercolor, and more recently, getting sparrows tattooed on each shoulder.

However, I believe in the strength of the cephalopod to ride this wave of popularity without becoming annihilated through ubiquitousness. I.E. I believe cephalopods can be the Justin Timberlakes of ocean trendy, not the Vanilla Ices.

wearable cephalopod and a divine deep sea book.

Cephalopodcast kindly informed me that it is now possible to purchase a dumbo octopus t-shirt on McSweeney's. This is perfect timing since a) McSweeney's is having some kind of financial trouble, and b) there just can't be too much cephalopod inspired kitsch out there to please me. I feel this t-shirt would be good for many professions: the office (business casual! or dress it up with a tie), grad students (don't eat this weekend, order this shirt instead), strippers (can get extra small and wear over a tiny sequined thong), etc.

Apparently the original dumbo picture (and the inspiration for the shirt) are from the book, "The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss" by Claire Nouvian, which is full of stunning pictures that made me pee a little in my office chair.

Here is our dumbo octopus again, giving us a sort of coquettish, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's side long glance:



And here, a frothy pink deep sea delight:



And finally, a cephalopod made out of saran wrap: