For the cephalophile looking to fill the gaping hole in their collection of extremely gaudy jewelry Chuck Clemency presents this octopodal ring, from his Gem Treasures collection, for your consideration. Crafted from 14K gold it is bristling with 67 precious stones, 62 of which are diamonds. A must have for grandmothers or aspiring hip-hop artists hoping to encase themselves in pimpin’ ice.
A melancholy melody for your Friday morning. Andrew Bird’s “Lull” is a beautiful piece of music although, not being familiar with his catalog, I can’t say if this is due to his songwriting ability or the exceptional work of Dianogah. In the end I suppose it matters not, as the final product is brilliant regardless and the video compliments it perfectly. Using cutout transparencies it tells the story of a staid, button-down gentleman who falls into a passionate affair with a squid. As we here at Ectomo can attest, these trysts never go to plan, however; the tempestuous nature of squids making them less than ideal for long-term relationships. It all leads to a sad — and some would say, inevitable — conclusion.
It comes as no surprise that the unifying force between the constantly warring Octopi and their Squid cousins comes in the form of Japanese schoolgirls.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason the Ectomo staff is no longer welcome at the Seattle Aquarium. In their defense, it was my birthday, the little critters stare up at you like puppies in a pet store window, waggling their tentacles as adorably as a tentacle can be waggled (and depending on your peccadilloes that can be fairly adorable to say nothing of enticing).
Brass Goggles is kind enough to remind us that that yesterday was Air Kraken Day, a day set aside to commemorate this historical document of an attack by an Air Kraken on an ocean-bound steamboat. The scene of carnage and destruction is serenely overlooked by a hot-air balloon floating on the horizon. Contemporary historians suggest that this balloon was commanded by none other than the insane abyssmonaut Muad-Dib Al Masoud, directing the ectoplasmic tentacles with a combination of mad chantings and incense of extraterrestrial origin.
Brass Goggles suggests that her readers should all go out and fly kites shaped like air krakens to commemorate the event, and while we’re a day late to the festivities, we’re going to suggest our readers do the same.
For cephalophiles — those of us for whom the stray flickering of a sinuous tentacle across the screen is mirrored by a ghostly tentacle tugging in our laps — this composite by Rachel Blaser, simply titled “Octopus” is enough to blow out our accumbens nucleus like an egg tossed into the microwave. And for the rest of you, it should still be breath-taking.
There’s some mysterious story being told here, though I’m not sure what. Octopuses do not usually lissomely recline on outcroppings of rock. Is it a photograph of an octopus scooped up by a deep-sea tornado and deposited on some Himalayan mountain-top? Or does it reveal a strange parallel in evolution on some harsh alien world, as a silicon-based royal octopus regally bathes in mists of sulfuric acid, dreaming of worlds and Asiatic vaginas to conquer.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
