I have to record my playing test, do some other crap and chores, I have a stomach ache, I got home all hot and bothered, it's hot as balls out, I'm so ready for the end of the year, I'm touchy and jumpy and gahhhhhhh.
Bad day.
But let's see if I can turn this post into something remotely interesting. So, the book I'm reading right now, Voyage of the Turtle by Carl Safina, is actually a zillion times better than I expected. It was recommended to me and I thought it would be a book of facts and statistics. However it has some really artful lines in there. I dog-eared a few. Maybe they'll inspire you to write opuses (opi? what's the plural?) or long epic poetry, and maybe you'll do what I do, be like, oh, that's pretty, and be jealous all day and ticked off at yourself for only being able to appreciate art, not make it. *sigh* Again, rambling. Here are the lines.
~*~
"Watching her, and the people, I'm reminded of humans' strange range of treatment of other animals, our deep capacity for kindness and our equal one for cruelty."
I like the way he says OTHER animals, as in, we are animals too. I also love the last phrase... our capacities for kindness and cruelty. I stared at that paragraph for a few moments and thought about it.
"Is this the only thing we give generously and abundantly to nature, such pain?"
Wow. Guilt trip. Thank you.
"A tiny sea horse falls from the net into the boat like an elegant living question mark."
I will never think of sea horses the same.
"Like sacred Egyptian icons passing below us, six White Ibises bestow on us the lofty sensation of gazing down upon birds in flight... Soon we're over a mosaic of wooded islands inlaid into emerald marshes, grouted with wriggling creeks, spanning expansively toward the coastal contour."
I love the language he uses here. A mosaic of islands, emerald marshes, wriggling creeks. Love it.
"Exposure to petroleum can damage [sea turtles'] skin, blood, digestive and immune systems, and salt glands. ... In a Japanese study, 26-36 Green Turtles (72%) had consumed plastic sheets, rope and line, foam, rubber, and/or cloth. Of 54 juvenile Leatherbacks in Mediterranean waters, 80% contained tar, paper, polystyrene foam, hooks, lines, or net fragments. Of 50 hatchlings captured at sea off Florida, a third had eaten plastics and synthetic fibers. Turtles can absorb toxins from plastics. Eating plastics and latex (as from balloons mistaken for jellyfish) also interferes with the absorption of real food."
There are some hard-hitting statistics, a set of many. If that doesn't tug at your heart, I don't know what will. Maybe you, my lovely readers, understand all my sea turtle craze and nonsense, at least those of you who know me and think I'm crazy.
"They're the ocean's camels, traveling long distances across watery deserts."
I adore the juxtaposition and irony in this sentence. He's talking about turtles, of course.
"I spot a large yellowish jelly - a Lion's Mane, Leatherback food - like a smudge of rust pulsing through the sea."
He uses such good imagery! I went ... what's that called when you go up on a parachute behind a boat? Parasailing? Whatever. I did that with my sister a year or two ago but I had to leave my glasses on the boat. I saw this far below, rust pulsing through the sea, but I didn't know what it was. And now I do. Verdict: awesome.
And that's it. Maybe I'll post more another time, but I actually really do need to record my playing test.
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