Flickr Friday: Welcome to Kabejima
June 18, 2010
In 2007, my friend Stuart (aka, Flickr user TheKingInYellow) toured the Japanese island of Kyūshū. While there, he visited the town of Kabejima (pronounced “Kabeshima”) in Saga prefecture, which is apparently renowned for its squid.
Here are a few squiddy pictures from the trip:
"Welcome to Kabejima"
squid tank
Ika sashimi!
I don’t know what species of squid this is, but it’s pretty big…a good 1-1.5 feet long. At this particular restaurant, live squid are kept in tanks (shown above) and served, erm…just about as fresh as possible. Kind of gruesome, but I’m told it was quite delicious.
cephalopod refrigerator magnets
August 31, 2009
Both of these magnetic cephalopods came from the gift shop at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. Their arms and tentacles are spring-mounted so they wiggle when the refrigerator door is opened. I’m not sure what kind of octopus that is supposed to be (if any), but the squid seems to be Humboldt—it’s arms are even splayed out in a manner that I’ve seen in footage of the large Pacific squid. The two mollusks are enjoying a snack of delicious-looking mini sushi magnets from Morgan Imports in Durham, NC.
Art Week: “Never Look Back” by Andrew Bell
July 9, 2008
Never Look Back, originally uploaded by Cryptonaut.
And now Art Week takes a dark turn…
I feel slightly ashamed to say so, but I find this picture endlessly amusing. It’s something about the shock in the poor little guy’s eyes…the horrible realization…the fact that it seems to have taken him quite some time to realize that something was wrong…
This also makes me hungry for sushi…does that make me a bad person?
I bought this print from the artist, Andrew Bell (who signed it), a few years ago at his art show at Wootini, an art gallery and vinyl toy shop in Carrboro, NC. It is still available for sale (along with its equally disturbing companion piece) at Andrew’s website, DeadZebra.com. For a daily dose of adorably creepy monsters (both with and without tentacles) by Andrew Bell, check out the Creatures in my Head.
Also, for the record, I don’t know what kind of cephalopod this is supposed to be, unless he has four more stumps on the other side…
