You're So Vane!

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They are everywhere around us, but sometimes we don't take the time to look up and see them! Here we present the slightly bizarre world of the weather vane. Whether or not those responsible for them will put their hands in the air and own up is anyone's guess. What is obvious, however, is that there is certainly truth in the old saying - vanity, vanity, all is vanity!

People are often labeled as obsessive or compulsive or both. Many, when they hit up something that takes their fancy will cling to it for dear life. Some people collect china dolls of Princess Diana. Others will gather a million cats around them and reduce their house to a giant litter tray. At least the owner of this rather plain erection in Cuddington, near Thame, England, has more than an ounce of originality when embarking on their collection.

The first collection, although a vast array, erred towards the traditional vane. You don’t have to go far these days, however, to get a thoroughly modern take on an ancient form of functional art. This very much larger than life fish, swimming majestically through the air in Hood River, Oregon, delivers a new take on the vane both majestic and not a little scary.

If you were asked to draw a weather vane, your piece would probably include the four cardinal directions, signified by their first letters at ninety degree angles to each other. On top there would probably be a hen or maybe a rooster. Historically, though, weather vanes have often reflected the local industry of their site. Here, in Charlestown, this somewhat bizarre impaled milking cow reflects the dairy produce produced locally. Udderly Weird.

That is quite fair enough, you might say. Fish at fisheries, cows at dairies and so the world turns. However, one balancing bovine can indicate something pretty different from another. Quite what the local industry in the part of Dallas, Texas where this creation rests may be is anyone’s guess. Or perhaps not. Over to your dirty mind in three, two, one.

Still, there is a lot to be said about tradition, even when given the gilt edge gleam of the twentieth century. The golden lobster weathervane at Boston Harbor sits proudly atop the James Hook Lobster Company. Clicking its pincers at passing planes and birds, it still proudly denotes an industry cherished in the area.

Pysanka! Bless you! Actually, this enormous, round, decorated thingy is in fact the world’s largest Pysanka. For those of you without a basic knowledge of Ukrainian, that’s an Easter Egg from the aforementioned country. Having said that, this one is located in Alberta, Canada and as well as being ‘decus’ it is also ‘tutamen’. In other words it has a function. Knowing what this article is about, we will leave you to guess as to what its mysterious purpose is! Other than, that is, to make people point, gawp and say ‘Look at that huge Easter egg! Awesome!’

You must cross the border to see the world’s largest weather vane. Welcome to Whitehorse Airport in the Yukon has this outrageous example of a vane of brobdingnabian proportions. And yes, it does move with the wind. Ever so slowly. Although not an immediate indicator of a high wind, at least one DC-3 is assured of a home at an airport for the foreseeable future.

From one flight of fancy to another. If your tastes are more Lilliputian, then you won’t feel left out with these, much smaller examples in the vane game. Over to the left, out of picture, is a dam they are just about to bust. Hardly likely, particularly in their home ground of Yosemite! They provide a great big prod to the imagination, though!

Returning to connections to the sea, can you guess upon which type of structure this wonderful product of the school of twentieth century art cum kitsch sits atop? It is none other than the New York Aquarium at Coney Island. A thing of marvel, how the whole culture of a city can be encapsulated in a single weather vane!

It may be strange for lobsters to chase planes, but what is so unusual about dogs chasing birds? Not a great deal, unless they are rendered from metal and hover precariously forty feet above the ground. From the looks of the Dalmatian at the end, one hundred and one is about to become one hundred.

What European country is overly fond of its beer and regularly ‘invades’ other countries to make sure they know it during the summer? After responding with ‘every country in Europe’ please rethink and be a little more National Lampoon. Yes, it’s the Brits and this anthropomorphized toad is telling of another national obsession. No, not that, it’s the fondness the British have for animals of course! Dartmoor, well known for its American Werewolves, is where you can find this particular Mister, without Ratty and Moley for company perhaps but still enjoying life (and beer!) to the full.

From the natural home of inebriety to that of subtlety. They say that everything is bigger in America and so must be the wind. A little west of Carmen in Oklahoma, someone had the bright idea for this early warning tornado system. It should perhaps be called a weather vane-r. Or even vane-st. If this boy moves, head for the cellar!

Trust the Finns to get all minimal on us! This ever so slightly surreal attempt at the vane can be found in Helsinki. It has some of the usual accoutrements of the genre (if it can be so called) but lacks the usual directive pointers, having only four identical white ships to guide the would-be forecaster. They would, necessarily, try in vain to discover the way the wind is blowing! And yes. That particular play on words just had to be used. You were waiting for it, come on!

Often the traditional and the modern can come together in a spectacularly successful fashion, as in this vane from windswept Cumbria in the UK. This art deco re-imagination of the conventional elements of the vane does not go against the time honored ‘must haves’ of the form. Just wonderful!

Oh and pigs might fly? After any pseudo arty ramblings, something has to bring us down to earth. Oinking skyward, this flying pig shows how British humor can be subtle and, well, not all at the same time. The denizens of Derby, however, need beware. This porcine wonder has a somewhat vampiric look to him! It would be fantastic if below this vane was a pub called something like ‘The Slaughter’d Lamb’.

Straight from pigs to beef. Most people believe that a certain fast food restaurant (cough) opened in the nineteen fifties. Here is absolute proof, from the Appalachians, that the firm was opened many years before. Unfortunately, they didn’t quite get their marketing right first time around and after due consideration decided on a logo more or less at eye level. They also thought later that a color change might be appropriate. Please note, if you want a global brand, this is one lesson you should learn. Use color.

In North Carolina, a local arboretum hides in its chimney tops some beautiful vanes. Is it a leaf, a flower or is it even a shooting star? With so much art, some of the pleasure is in deciding for yourself!

Reminiscent of a flight to Oz this modern day vane fulfils its time-honored purpose with a twist of the New World Gallic. Almost guaranteed to raise a smile on the face of the average Quebecois it’s a subtle piece of modern architecture serving a conventional purpose. Is there any need to dispute which is the more important?

Which way does this bird fly in winter? This uber modern vane brings us completely up to date with established functionality sharing pride of place with innovative design. If you didn’t study Latin at school and are still wondering what the phrase ‘Decus et Tutamen’ means, it is this: ‘an ornament and a safeguard’. What better way to describe the above vane?

Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon, must have the most beautiful modern weather vane on the planet. A new city by some standards, it is unashamedly proud of the fact and that is reflected in this stunning chrome colored construction.

In a similar vein, the juxtaposition of the old and new can send a delighted shiver down many a neck. When the vane itself is not thoroughly modern, the evolving environment around it can be a ready made history lesson for the eyes.

Sea Slug Symphony

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Sea Slugs may not have the most beautiful of names but it can be argued that they are among the most beautiful of creatures on the planet. There are many species - an astounding array of color, shape and size. Join us and witness the Sea Slug Symphony below the sea!

This beautiful creature is found in the Western Pacific. A rich pinkinsh purple color, they have a white border on their mantle. They would be startling enough without, but their rhinophore clubs are an orange-yellow color that is a startling juxtaposition with the rest of their bodies. This exquisite creature is formally known as Hypselodoris apolegma.

This is Flabellina iodinea, an elegant species if ever there was one. It is also known as the Spanish Shawl because of its rich purple coloring. You can find it from the West Coast of America all the way to the Galapagos islands. The rhinophores – what we might call its horns – are used to find possible mates and its prey as well. The appendages you can see are actually gills which draw oxygen from the sea water.

Glossodoris atromarginata is found off the coast of Australia. It has a black line along the border of its mantle edge which gives it an almost modern art look. Its gills often wave in a rhythmic motion as it moves, giving the sea slug an other-worldly quality which has to be seen to be believed. It can reach six centimeters in length and is the most common species in its group.

The Hammerhead Nudibranch is a specialty in some parts of the world and you can see why it might be found attractive. A gorgeous black color with vivid, almost neon markings around its mantle, this could perhaps also be named as the Prince of Darkness of the nudibranch world. Its Latin name is Chelidonura varians and its dark beauty is a perfect contrast to the vivid brightness of other sea slug species.

Trtonia festiva, as this gorgeous specimen is known, can be found from Alaska to northern California and can be even found in the waters off Japan. Its food is the soft coral called gorgonians. Their frontal veil is used to position itself over these soft corals and then it waits to launch a surprise attack. It attacks its prey very quickly and bites off polyps before they can get back in to their protective cover. So, it may look like a delicate and peaceful creature but it is far from it!

You really would be forgiven for thinking that this is a creature recently discovered on another planet by one of the Star Trek crew. However, it is in fact Janolus barbarensis and this fabulous creature is distributed from California down to Mexico. It is named for its proximity to Santa Barbara and is in fact one of two incredibly alike species that for a time were considered the same.

These two strikingly different looking specimens are in fact the same species. Hermissenda crassicornis can look quite different and these color variations are in fact quite common. The white lines on the species can also appear blue. How they tell that they are the same species is anyone’s guess.

This is Hypselodoris bennetti and can be found off the coast of New South Wales in Australia. It can grow up to about five centimeters but is normally somewhat smaller than that. The spots are arranged randomly, so each one is unique. It is often thought to live a distance from its food, but the sponge it lives off is covered over with algae, hence the mistaken belief.

This is the aptly named Chromodoris magnifica – and so it is indeed. The name means magnificent colors and as you can see this denizen of the sea is truly gorgeous. It is from Indonesia, Australia and Papua New Guinea and feeds off red sponge. It lives in depths of about five meters and can be found as deep as thirty.

A translucent species, Chromodoris lochi has several dark bluish or black longitudinal lines that set it apart from other species. This sea slug lifts itself up and seems to be “sniffing” around. They are hermaphrodites and as such have fully functioning female and male organs. So, this species produces both eggs and sperm. When mating they position themselves by the side of another and align their genitalia to enable the passage of sperm.

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Book Autopsies

Old encyclopedias sit on the shelf and gather dust with no one much to bother them. If they had minds and souls perhaps they would quietly despair at the disregard the vast bulk of humanity pays them as they quietly molder away. They might even become introspective and look up the second law of thermodynamics within their own pages to ascertain how much time they have left before they go the way of all things. An American artist has, however, been saving these books (at least for a while) from the vicissitudes of entropy by giving them a new form and shape – a new lease of life, if you like.

He has done this by creating what are known as “book autopsies”! The words do not form an oxymoron but raise the eyebrows with enough curiosity for the mind to demand greater clarity. Since 2000 a young artist called Brian Dettmer has been producing extraordinary pieces of fine art by performing literal autopsies on the books themselves. This is the culmination of previous works which feature language – and its communication – in a central role, an almost trackable fluidity of thought which to the onlooker only becomes so in hindsight. Only the artist could imagine how one might lead to the other!

His early work involved paintings based on coded languages, such as Braille and Morse. Moving on to pasting newspaper, magazine and book pages to canvas, he would detach parts of the layers of the written media exposing what lay within.

Finally his experiments with language and the written word reached its pinnacle. Using skills which could surely have led him to a career in surgery, had fate had different ideas, Dettmer skillfully makes incisions in to old books and exposes their long hidden content to the air. Although to many it is an act of vandalism to deface a book in such a way, Dettmer has brought new life to tomes that may never have been opened again, but for his intervention. The only difference now is that the ‘reader’ does not have to flick through the pages to discover their content.

When the role of certain media decreases – or even deceases – Dettmer revitalizes their form to reveal their content to a new generation of ‘readers’. The idea behind the art is to take the ‘dead’ content and convey it again – albeit it in a radically changed format. A new approach to substance and form arises from the redundancy of the original article. So the phoenix rises from the ashes as, perhaps, another beast altogether.

Altered states, indeed. Dettmer begins by sealing the old book and then he cuts in to it. The choice of book often seems similar in content – they contain plate illustrations which we would consider old fashioned as they are generally in black and white. This gives the finished piece a slightly macabre air of the Victorian gothic.

However, the imagined brutality and butchery of eighteenth century autopsies are not imitated – these books are taken apart with the skill of a modern day surgeon and lovingly sliced to reveal their innards. These are, one might conceive, the kind of books that the monsters from the “Hellraiser” films might settle down to read on an evening when they had no living souls to torture.

The overall impression leaves people open mouthed. The art takes on an even greater ‘gasp’ effect when it is realized that there are no deliberate inserts in the new content. Neither does Dettmer move any of the original content – they are exactly where they were when the book was first published. The intricacy of these three dimensional works is astonishing.

Can these pieces of work be labeled derivative? Certainly, they display and express ideas that were first put on the printed page by others. However, those others are long dead and, in no way shape or form would ever have envisaged their ‘copyright’ being breached in this manner. One wonders whether they would have approved or not!

Dettmer's work has been exhibited all over the world. If you would like to see his work in the flesh, as it were, it can be found in art galleries. North Americans are by far the luckiest – perhaps reflecting Dettmer’s nationality. His work is currently on display in San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Toronto. If you are in Europe you would have to venture to Barcelona in order to see his work. Not that most people ever need an excuse to visit Barcelona!

Could You Handle a Slippery Dick?

The Slippery Dick is actually a fish. It comes from the Western Atlantic and can be found all the way down, from North Carolina to Bermuda and Brazil. You will find it in grass beds and shallow reefs close to the shore. Why, does it get its name? Well, the slippery bit is because it coats itself with a kind of mucus when alarmed as a form of defense strategy. So, if you were to take hold of a Slippery Dick you would have to be very careful it didn’t slip out of your grasp! Where the “Dick” part comes from is anyone’s guess. Ahem. Do you think you could – or would want to – handle a Slippery Dick?

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Your average Slippery Dick reaches about thirty centimeters or so in length. For those of you who are still using the imperial scale, that’s a whopping twelve inches. So if you were to catch one you could well exclaim that your Slippery Dick was larger than anyone else’s – if that of course were the case. Men, old and young alike, have been known to compare the size of their Slippery Dicks in public, usually at the sea shore. It is said that these men are usually angling for something.

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The Slippery Dick looks as if it is reluctant to own up to its name – or perhaps it is even ashamed! Anthropomorphism aside, the Slippery Dick swims with its tail down, as if it is dragging it along. Perhaps weighed down by is own name? Another theory might be the fact that, despite the name it is a protogynous hermaphrodite. This is when an animal begins its life as a female. Yes, it’s true! Every single Slippery Dick in existence was born female. Later, many of the population will shift sex to become male and the Slippery Dick will be able to continue the circle of life!

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The Slippery Dick comes in several shades. The colors vary hugely. They can be a light purple color, to shades of green and brown. Younger specimen of the species – whose Latin name is Halichoeres bivittatus – are commonly white. Adult specimens have a large and dark stripe running from the base up to its eye. The other stripe is situated on its under side. Juvenile Slippery Dicks are, of course, significantly smaller than the adult and their lower stripe does not develop till it is in the adult phase.

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When mating, the (now) male Slippery Dick acts in a very masculine way indeed. The males form what is known as a lek. This is a kind of territory in which the males show off their prowess. If you think of a fishy kind of WWF, then you are fairly close to the mark. Wondrously, the male Slippery Dick comes in phases, known as initial and terminal. The initial phase male Slippery Dicks are not aggressive or territorial. They will spawn together with a single female. The older, terminal phase Slippery Dick, however, will only mate with a single female a time.

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As a footnote, a Slippery Dick is considered quite a tasty bite to eat by many. In fact there are a number of ways to eat one. If you fancy having a gobble of a Slippery Dick then there are many recipes. For some reason, the name has also been adopted by Festival Organizers for bars where young people meet to get to know each other better and there was a recent Slippery Dick Love Shack at Glastonbury Festival in the UK. It is also the name of a cocktail (another word, the etymological root of which could do with some investigation). Many young ladies have been spotted at events like these with a Slippery Dick in each hand, which they will then swallow almost simultaneously.

So, there you have it. The Slippery Dick is, in fact, a harmless fish whose common name has been callously abused by spaced out hippie types, cocktail swigging party animals and numerous school boys down the years. Oh, yes – and this writer too.

Is This The Planet's Most Peculiar Parasite?

Don’t read this if you are in any way squeamish or have nightmares after watching TV movies!

There are many parasites the world over. This example is known only by its scientific name - Cymothoa exigua but it is generally considered one of the weirdest out there! Parasites often mean the demise of their host after a close and prolonged association with it. In general they tend to be a great deal smaller than their host – think about us and the lovely tapeworm! This one goes one better. If you think about a tapeworm replacing your liver, for example, you are along the right lines!

Like most parasites, Cymothoa exigua is small and only usually grows to about three or four centimeters in length. It is also classified as a crustacean and lives off the coast of California. Its host is the Spotted Rose Snapper, a harmless fish that no doubt would not have asked for a close friend such as this if it could!

Cymothoa exigua enters the snapper though the gills and then proceeds to its mouth. It then attaches itself to the tongue of the snapper. On the pictures, you can see the front three pairs of legs. It uses this to extract blood from the snapper using these legs. It takes so much blood that the tongue eventually atrophies and withers away.

So far, so gruesome. Could it get much worse than that? Well, the answer is of course, yes! With only a few muscle stubs left for a tongue, the snapper is left without a fairly important organ. So, what Cymothoa exigua does is attach itself to the muscle stubs and replaces the fish’s tongue with itself.

The fish then uses the parasitic crustacean as a normal tongue. The fish gets the use of a ‘tongue’ and Cymothoa exigua gets a constant stream of blood from its host via the muscle stubs of the tongue. Apart from replacing its host’s tongue, Cymothoa exigua does not seem to do any extra harm to the fish at all.

This is the only reported case in the whole of the animal kingdom of a parasite functionally replacing an organ belonging to its host. As such Cymothoa exigua is unique and, despite its obviously gross appearance, celebrated as such!

A few years ago, one of these little beauties was found in a fish in the UK that had been purchased in a supermarket. It led to speculation that the parasite had somehow moved to the European waters but this speculation was unfounded: the fish had been caught off the western seaboard of the United States and so was from its own area.

Written by RJ Evans