Friday, April 23, 2010

Friday Nudibranch Blogging


The bride has adorned herself with stars,
The pure myrtle
Which bends over the adoring countenance of the dead.

Full of blossoming shiver
The blue coat of Chromodoris loringi finally embraces you.

(Photo by doug.deep.)

8 comments:

four legs good said...

Oh. That is just lovely. thanks - and how are you? long time no talk.

Phila said...

I'm OK, 4legs. Starting a new job, getting bitten by the kitten a lot, trying to do too many things at once. Etc.

How about you?

charley said...

let me just say i've always hated phila for not linking to my blog.

wait, let me check... yup, fourlegs is there.

well that's ok, i come here for the photo links, and most of them are a lot better than mine.

the reason i love phila, and this guys own work is mediocre, tho at times compelling. (yeah, i can hear it now...) wood's lot.

it's always chock full. phila probably gets the literary allusions better than i, but damn man it's intelligentsia, with pictures!

i'm just say'n, checkitout.

Phila said...

let me just say i've always hated phila for not linking to my blog.

It's nothing personal! I just needed a reminder from you, 'cause I'm slow and distracted and lazy.

I'll get to it soon, though...it's high time I updated my links.

charley said...

no, i didn't take it personal.

i just really appreciate what you do with your little corner.

sumth'n for everybody. of course most people just like the bright colored slugs. nuth'n wrong with a hook.

another thing i like about you, you are an egalitarian.

good luck with the new job.

Phila said...

you are an egalitarian.

There aren't many compliments better than that! Thanks, pal.

Anonymous said...

Lovely, and that includes the poetry - is it your own, Phila? I tried googling the "adorned with stars" line, and got a bunch of Old Testament links.

I assume the whole metaphor in its original non-nudibranch form is related to vinca minor, the periwinkle. Robert Graves averred that vinca - which in English tradition is connected with death and was used to carpet graves - was thought by the medieval poets to be connected with the divine female principle in her erotic but dangerous aspect.

He quoted an old French song about a "little shoemaker" who is taken by a beautiful lady to her great bed, which has bunches of periwinkle - "pervanche" in French - at its four posts. Graves said the implication was that the shoemaker was tied to the bed, as "vinca" means "binder", due to its tough vines and strangling. Anyone who's tried to weed it out of a garden learns to respect it!

Li'l Innocent

Phila said...

Lovely, and that includes the poetry - is it your own, Phila? I tried googling the "adorned with stars" line, and got a bunch of Old Testament links.\

It's by Georg Trakl.