Some time ago, I mentioned that I had sold a story that was inspired by a photo taken by the notorious bird blogger and swamp monster Corey Finger.
That story, Plastic Sargasso, is now available online for your reading delectation.
I will also note that I had a beautiful and perhaps too exciting weekend, of which more in due time.
April 6, 2010 at 10:06 am
I am a bit reminded of “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket”.
When studying zoology at Greifswald, I was also attending a few classes of marine ecology. One day, we had a guest lecturer from the rostock oceanographic institute who had conducted research on the biocoenosis of the Mediterranean deep sea floor. He had been on a research vessel there and taken a few samples, which means a dredger bucket is lowered for a few 1,000 metres onto the sea floor where it fills with sediments and its critters, to be pulled up again and investigated.
The whole process for one sample took 48 hours – that’s two full days without sleep – and had cost more than 100,000 Euros, each!
He had this exciting slide show of the process and had built up suspense brilliantly to what was in the first bucket from the deep sea, what fabulous critters, and alien species we’d now see, and then the great finale, the first slide of the bucket’s content:
Bits of polystyrene – nothing but bits of polystyrene. not even some muck – just plastics.
The deep sea – humanity’s last frontier? Bullshit!
April 16, 2010 at 4:07 am
Any day when I’m compared to Poe is a good day!
Any day with plastic on the ocean floor is a bad day, though, so I guess it cancels out.
April 16, 2010 at 7:13 am
Actually, walking home that day and reflecting on your story, I also thought about Poe’s Descent into the Maelström.
Therefore, it’s 2:1 and the good prevails.
April 6, 2010 at 11:43 am
Disturbing. Not to say that it isn’t good, in fact, that is a large part of what makes it good…
April 16, 2010 at 4:07 am
If it wasn’t disturbing, I wouldn’t be doing my job.
Maybe I should do a story about a swamp monster next.
April 15, 2010 at 9:10 am
I hope the silence means all things go as planned.
Please, don’t forget about the Eastern Palm Warbler. I rely on you, as Corey’s flight shot recently didn’t satisfy.
April 16, 2010 at 4:08 am
As if you don’t know where I am, Mr. Illuminati.
Or at least with the new post perhaps you can guess.
April 16, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Does this mean no more Eastern Palm Warblers for quite a while?