Alliteration drives content on some blogs like fish on fridays, mermaids on mondays, tritons or trolls on tuesdays . . . . But I’m not committing to sirens: it could be scales, sea monsters, … In fact, in doing this post, I learned anew what sirens really are. Not at all synonymous with mermaids, these beings, which Ulysses plugged his ears for, live in the air, bird women as well as make-make of the birdman cult. Scroll through this link.
I’m not sure of the function this bowsprit serves except to keep the anchors well away from the bow of this steamer, but I love the Lady’s wings. She’s a siren. And here’s a Kafka quote on sirens: “Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.”
So’s this one, possibly a swan, whose feathers stolen, choses to look for the culprit from the facade of a building in a city nearby. I wonder why birdfolk–sirens and otherwise– appear in folklore of so many peoples.
Which brings me to puffins. Where might puffin folk reside? How about a puffin figurehead? In earlier posts here and here, nothing’s approximated puffins, yet.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp
PS: Check out Day-Tripper’s “The Peking and the Star.”
2 comments
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January 19, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Biffle French
I love your Nietzsche quote, Will. My favorite one is about artists (including writers) “The artist is only the soil, or possibly the manure out of which the work grows, and must be washed clean of it if one is to enjoy the work itself.”
January 20, 2008 at 12:18 am
David
Sweet figurehead, and double mermaid props for shooting your own photos!
Cheers
David