I can feel it in the way you keep time

[sovay]

And this afternoon derspatchel and I went out to Long Wharf to pick up tickets for a whale watch with teenybuffalo on Wednesday. We did so successfully (no tickets left for the sunset watch, but we like the afternoon just as well) and continued the streak with pizza at Regina's right before the dinner crowd got in. (I ordered eggplant on my half, not realizing it came breaded and lightly fried: I basically made myself an eggplant parmesan pizza. No regrets; it was great.) Coming out of the North End, instead of routing back through Haymarket and Government Center on our way to Park Street, we decided to walk back to Lechmere over the Charlestown Bridge.

There were jellyfish in the water! I'd never seen them in the Charles before, even below the dam. Usually Rob sees them in Fort Point Channel around this time of year. We believe them to be moon jellies, recognizable by the reproductive cloverleaf at the top of the bell. The center of the river was dappled with them. We had to detour around some hotels and an office park at the end of the bridge to get down to the water where we could take a closer look, but there they were there even in the shallows by the footpath, flowering slowly open and closed in the green scale-rippling water as traffic banged and rumbled overhead. I didn't take any pictures; my phone is only good for blurry things. They were beautiful. We stayed to watch them even when a photographer came by, more interested in the rust blotches and the overhanging stalactites.

And it was brutally hot, so I pretty much passed out as soon as we got on the 80 at Lechmere; I'm not quite sure why I'm still awake. Possibly because we're still hoping to use the Brattle passes we got from mrbelm at the beginning of this month to see a movie before the clock ticks over into July. Possibly just because I don't sleep anymore. But there was unexpected sea today, and on Wednesday I hope to have more of it. And that I can live with.

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Aubergine and parmesan pizza. Moon jellies. I'd count that as a good day.

I like Laura Viers too; I don't know much beyond "Year of Meteors", but that's a great little album. Wishing you movies. And all the whales you can see.

(ETA: I've found it hard to take pictures of jellyfish too. It may be just the result of my own bad mobile, but the results I got looked like spirit photographs minus the medium.)

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

I may have been on a boat, talking away, as you were crossing the Charles. It was a beautiful day for the harbor. I may have seen the very same moon jellies that you saw. Goodness knows I'm wilting in the very same heat. I envy you the time spent on foot under the bridge; it looks pleasantly cavernous and secret under there.

When we're on the waterfront, I can probably introduce you to some sea bass which are self-tamed and like to eat crackers people throw them. Not to name-drop or anything, but I move in some unusual circles. Sea bass circles.

I'm psyched about our trip on Wednesday. I haven't been out that far in a long time either.

[negothick.livejournal.com]

Give my regards to the whales. I'll bet they're spreading the word even now--hope it's "They're coming--hey, kids, let's put on a show!"

[sovay]

Aubergine and parmesan pizza. Moon jellies. I'd count that as a good day.

Ja. Except for the brutal heat and concomitant exhaustion, it was pretty much a success! In the evening we made it out to the Brattle for a digital restoration of Orson Welles' Othello (1952), which was a fascinating piecemeal of beautiful cinematography, recut scenes, severe technical issues, casting decisions that really worked, and directing that really didn't. Unilaterally, Welles should not have played Othello himself—Rob nominated Paul Robeson, with Welles as Iago, which I am now very sad did not happen. The wordless opening sequence, the funeral procession of Othello and Desdemona, Iago forced into a gibbet-cage to swing above their bodies, staring down through the heat and dust at his handiwork, is stunning and in some ways the best thing in the film.

I like Laura Viers too; I don't know much beyond "Year of Meteors", but that's a great little album.

I'm really fond of Saltbreakers (2007) and July Flame (2010). And I've been playing the song from the new album asakiyume sent me all day. Have a bunch of songs you didn't ask for!

"Pink Light"

Oh, how the night drags on
But in the fading of the constellations, I am growing strong

"Wandering Kind"

'Cause the sun's been known to shine on our wandering kind

"Saltbreakers"

Ringing all the underwater, underwater, underwater bells
Look inside a space and you can tell
What you need to sow, what you need to know by any means

"Wrecking"

We can do some wrecking here
Till a little color comes into your face
We can do some wrecking here
And find something to love in this broken place

"Sun Is King"

Innocent as a summer flower
With a serpent coiled under his collar

"Sleeper in the Valley"

Sleeping in the sun, his hand on his breast
The nape of his neck in the blue watercress
He's just a kid and he never knew
He would be the sleeper in the valley so soon

"Wide-Eyed, Legless"

Will we evermore kiss on the boardwalk's fading rail
In the light of the waves and the comet's waning tail?
I don't think so

"That Alice"

I never had a chance to see her play
I listen to her records and I feel the grace

What kind of jellyfish do you get where you are? "Spirit photographs minus the medium" belongs in a story.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm glad for the unexpected sea and the other good things.

I wish ye a whale-rich Wednesday, and I wish I could think of a more alliterative way of saying that.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Thank you for giving us the moon jellies!

I am glad there was sea.

Nine

[sovay]

I envy you the time spent on foot under the bridge; it looks pleasantly cavernous and secret under there.

It was lovely! It was just the time in the sun—i.e, everywhere else we were walking all afternoon—that was hammering.

When we're on the waterfront, I can probably introduce you to some sea bass which are self-tamed and like to eat crackers people throw them.

You totally should. I had no idea we had cracker-eating sea bass in Boston Harbor.

Not to name-drop or anything, but I move in some unusual circles. Sea bass circles.

(Poem.)

I'm psyched about our trip on Wednesday. I haven't been out that far in a long time either.

I haven't been on a whale watch since 2009, when the seas ran so high that rushthatspeaks and I were the only people in our group not throwing up. I'm so looking forward.

[sovay]

I wish ye a whale-rich Wednesday, and I wish I could think of a more alliterative way of saying that.

Eh, put it in Anglo-Saxon and we'll call it even.

[sovay]

Thank you for giving us the moon jellies!

You're welcome! They might be around for the next few days if you want to trek out to the harbor and look for them. I asked if they were late this year and Rob said he usually sees them in June; they got in just under the wire.

I am glad there was sea.

Just a little, but it was there.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I saw them once on the Charles--I remember leaning over a bridge and looking at them. (But with whom? Maybe my sophomore-year roommate? But maybe it was later, in grad school.) They were beautiful.

Fun pizzas are fun!

[sovay]

I saw them once on the Charles--I remember leaning over a bridge and looking at them.

Oh, nice. Do you know much about why they come up the river? Rob said they are migratory. I remember seeing them years and years ago on Cape Cod.

Fun pizzas are fun!

And delicious leftovers in the refrigerator!

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

*What kind of jellyfish do you get where you are?*

I'm thinking of the ones I've seen at the Sea Life Centre down the road from here. They're definitely moon jellyfish.

I'll consider that story! Thanks for the Viers songs. :)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Eh, put it in Anglo-Saxon and we'll call it even.

My Anglo-Saxon is so terrible at this point that it's not even funny.* This is as close as I can get, and I'm sure it's wrong:

Glæd bewitian hwælas!

*I can't remember if the genitive actually does the same things as the genitive in the genitive-possessing language I'm accustomed to speaking. I also can't remember whether prepositions are necessary in a phrase like this. It looks slightly off to me, but then again the lack of prepositions in the Modern English equivalent often feels slightly wrong to me if I'm caught unaware by it.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Which I do know is more like "Happy Whale Watching," but I really was and am having trouble remembering how to use the proper mood for wishing people things in Anglo-Saxon, assuming I ever really had it to begin with.

Which is one of the problems for me with a language one doesn't learn by speaking. I learnt An Modh Foshuiteach (which gets Englished as "the subjunctive," although I'm given to understand there are linguists who think it shouldn't be) in Irish almost immediately, simply by virtue of learning how to thank people, even though, like M. Jourdain and prose, it was years before I knew that was what I was using.

Then it occurs to me that I'm not sure any flavour of English uses the subjunctive for that task. Oh well.