In Which Major Potter Encounters A Swine Driver, And Trades With Him For An Intelligent Pig

Way back when, the Gid and I collaborated with two chums--Sven and Undule--on a Wiki called Plastic Tub, "a repository of lore and history regarding Accidental Associationalist movement."

As far as I know, it's the first and perhaps only Wiki of its kind. Among its 623 pages one can look up the secret meaning of the sausage or the mysterious Hand Pants--the Tub has an extensive glossary--or look into the life of such luminaries as AA editor and BBQ wizard Mazzistow Carrington. Interested in learning more about the story behind the ill-fated Wee-Wee? The Tub's got you covered.

Well, perhaps the Tub ain't dead, as someone once said about Surrealism, merely sleeping....but the grand collaboration of past years, at one point a true "flurry", has slackened into sporadic blips and beeps. An edit may be made here and there, but other projects loom. Gid and I are on LoS. I'm not sure what Sven is up to. But Undule, aka .sWineDriveR., is rockin' the house with his photographic experimentation.

.sWineDriveR. was actually the heart and soul of the Tub; the energy which made it all happen can be seen in his prolific output. Basically, all this Tub talk was a prelude to a plug. When a friend does something we like, we broadcast it. In this case it's not merely one hand washing the other; his stuff really is worth checking out.

The photo that illustrates this post was put up as a sort of vanity cuz I, Daurade, am pictured. (I'll let you guess which one of these two criminals on the run is me). But seriously, check out the photo at his photostream and go in the direction of "newer' or "older" and you'll find something which strikes you.

Or, take a gander at his flickr homepage and/or the collections. And, if you can, leave a comment or an encouraging word, damn it. A lot of work went into these photos. Let 'im know if you appreciate it!

Update 29/12
This massive page of photos "popular-interesting" is not to be missed.

Detachable Arms

I've been reading Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain". In the "Research" section (of Chapter V), the narrator describes a curious creature that I cannot identify:

In others [i.e., other animals] the male parent reached with his arm down the gullet of the female to deposit the semen within her; after which, bitten off and spat out, it ran away by itself upon its fingers, to the confusion of scientists, who for long had given it Greek and Latin names as an independent form of life.

Now, it's possible that this is just a flight of Mann's fancy, but I'm inclined to think that Mann was describing something that was actually being reported by scientists of the day; of course it also possible that the science of the time was wrong.

Nonetheless, I am curious and would like to learn what animal this is.

Googling for it, I came across an interesting article on BBC entitled Animal Sex that covers some of the same ground as "Research"; both writings, for example, describe the anglerfish's strange mating practices.

The BBC piece also describes some strange cephalopod practices that sound remarkably like the animal that Mann described. Some octopus species have an arm (3rd on the right) that doubles as a penis; they only mate once, and lose that arm in the process--it often remains stuffed inside the female. Some cuttlefish actually have a penis-arm that detaches itself and swims off on its own to empregnate a mate.

Now this all sounds remarkably like what Mann describes except for one key detail: cephalops do not have fingers!

So I ask you: What animal is Mann describing?