And the shrouds hum full of the gale of the grave and the keel goes out to the sea

[sovay]

In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I respectfully wish to submit that if I had just had scurvy, this whole week would have been much easier. Have a suspicious ghost crab, the Changelings' "Port Royale" (1998), and Tim Eriksen rocking out Bellamy's setting of Kipling's "Poor Honest Men" (2011). In keeping with the recent influx of Kevin McNally in the eighteenth century, when I get back to my stack of DVDs I could just rewatch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006). For all the varied and undeniable flaws of those second two films, their sea-iconography has clung to me like dream-wrack for nearly twenty years and I wouldn't have a cycle of stories without them.

Comments

[theseatheseatheopensea]

(Where are some of the places yours came from?)

I might have mentioned before tiny me's obsession with Disney's production of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. As for bird iconography, tiny me really loved Ron Wegen's illustrations for a Richard Bach book. They may be flawed or embarrassing, but sea and birds, those can never be wrong! (Older me eventually got a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea inspired tattoo--maybe one day I'll get one of Wegen's birds?)

[sovay]

I might have mentioned before tiny me's obsession with Disney's production of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. As for bird iconography, tiny me really loved Ron Wegen's illustrations for a Richard Bach book. They may be flawed or embarrassing, but sea and birds, those can never be wrong!

I don't think any of that's embarrassing! I bought the playscript of Conrad Aiken's Mr. Arcularis (1957) practically unread because I opened it and encountered the passage:

"Yes! The voices of the drowned are turned into seagulls—the voices of the wave and the seagull, of death and the seagull! You have only to shut your eyes and they come up from the drowned horrors of your own sea, your own past. I'd know those voices anywhere—I'd know those voices after a million years. The crying of the poor damned seagulls—the crying of the seagull dead!"

after which I had no chance of leaving it on the shelf.

(Older me eventually got a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea inspired tattoo--maybe one day I'll get one of Wegen's birds?)

I think you should!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

"Yes! The voices of the drowned are turned into seagulls—the voices of the wave and the seagull, of death and the seagull! You have only to shut your eyes and they come up from the drowned horrors of your own sea, your own past. I'd know those voices anywhere—I'd know those voices after a million years. The crying of the poor damned seagulls—the crying of the seagull dead!"

Ohh, that would have been an instant buy for me too!

I think you should!

I already have a bird tattoo (a phoenix bird that's even older than the 20,000 leagues one,so it's pretty beat up), but I can't resist having this one on my list of potential tattoo ideas!! (Do you have any, bird or sea or something else-inspired?)

[sovay]

Ohh, that would have been an instant buy for me too!

One of my formative picture books was Holling Clancy Holling's Seabird (1948).

(Do you have any, bird or sea or something else-inspired?)

(No, but I admire them on other people! What form did your Verne one take?)

[theseatheseatheopensea]

One of my formative picture books was Holling Clancy Holling's Seabird (1948).

I can see why! That's some really beautiful art! <3 Tiny me is impressed (and offers another formative thing in return!)

(No, but I admire them on other people! What form did your Verne one take?)

I imagine you with a mermaid tattoo for some reason! <3 Mine is of the phrase "mobilis in mobili".

[sovay]

Tiny me is impressed (and offers another formative thing in return!)

"Loca de risa, la espuma del mar."

What a lovely formative thing!

I imagine you with a mermaid tattoo for some reason!

Thank you so much! If I had one, a mermaid or a dragon would be the likeliest bets: something from out of or across the sea.

Mine is of the phrase "mobilis in mobili".

Nice!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

"Loca de risa, la espuma del mar."

What a lovely formative thing!

Isn't it? She has so many good ones that it's hard to pick a favourite, but that one's right there at the top!

Thank you so much! If I had one, a mermaid or a dragon would be the likeliest bets: something from out of or across the sea.

I knew it! <3 <3 <3

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, those illustrations are beautiful!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

They really are! <3