Comments

  6. Jason Powers says

    On the front page, it looks like you left an open italic on the line:

    “Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.”

    From Friday Cephalopod.

  7. SEF says

    It being only three weeks to the solstice, I’ve been putting some (aka far too much!) thought into Cephalopodmas issues and decorations.

    1. A fat man wouldn’t fit down a chimney, but a cephalopod would.

    2. It’s not reasonable to put goodies into dangling stockings, but they make a lot of sense as misinterpreted sperm or egg sacs.

    3. Twisted garlands of green or red ribbons of fabric or paper resemble seaweed much more than they do European (or even Middle-Eastern) creepers of any sort.

    4. Decorative lights (particularly ones with a multi-function controller) make much more sense as a cephalopod signalling/communications device (think Close Encounters!); and if you happen to need to drape them over something, such as a small indoor tree say, because you don’t have the right body shape or heat tolerance yourself then the cephalopod overlords might overlook that detail.

    I’ve also made a set of octopod decorations which can stand up as table centre-pieces or be suspended upside-down on threads. It’s not particularly feasible to send them to you though. So here’s a photo (assuming my photobucket bandwidth holds out!) and instructions to make your own:

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v101/_SEF_/cephalopodmas/octopod6.jpg

    Materials:

    1. coloured baubles (eg pretend light-bulbs)
    2. tinsel pipe-cleaners
    3. boggley eyes (eg self-adhesive)
    + scissors / wire-cutters/pliers

    Method:

    1. If the pipe-cleaners are longish craft ones, then you’ll want to cut them in half (or smaller if your baubles are very small). You may also need to bend over sharp ends – especially if the tinsel is trying to fall off.

    2. If your baubles have a base like mine, then you can get away without using glue. Bend 4 pipe-cleaner pieces into narrow, flat-bottomed U shapes. Twist the “legs” of adjacent ones to make a ring which you fit round the bauble before twisting together the first and last. Spend a long time getting the tentacles just right.

    3. Fight with the backing paper of a matched pair of boggley eyes (or use glue). Stick them on the body, somewhere nearish to the tentacles – possibly spending ages looking for octopus images and then just making it up anyway.

    4. Look smugly at your creation for a while before realising you have another N to tackle.

  11. SEF says

    Either it’s deemed to be standing on one, or it’s a Cthulhoid thing. It probably ought to have 3 eyes somewhere though …