My Octopus Teacher

In keeping with the fame of YouTube's adorable octopus video(s), Netflix has released My Octopus Teacher, a stunning documentary that follows an octopus, shifting from one aqueous locale to the next.

It's a nature documentary like no other, focused on one flexible beastie in particular, not a seal or a dolphin or a whale, but a camouflaged octopus, hiding away.

Undaunted by the challenge of locating the same octopus every day for months in chilly water, Craig Foster proceeds like a diligent inspector, and learns to find clues in the imposing seabed, until enough knowledge is acquired for routine confidence.

He's inspired by African tribespeople who can track wildlife in manifold forms, because they read their environment like a book that's as logical as it is multifaceted.

I encourage pursuing higher learning at length or at least for as long as it compels you, but that doesn't mean people who don't acquire a formal education simply sit back and shut off their brains.

They just apply their intelligence to alternative variables just as rich with imaginative wonder, never tiring of intellectual endeavour, as it relates to non-scholastic rhythms. 

Thus, you find ingenious indigenous peeps who can't read or write or use a computer, who still understand their natural landscapes like surgeons preparing for open-heart surgery.

Hence, Foster doesn't give up, as he slowly teaches himself to track octopi, his troubles compounded by a lack of oxygen, or having to constantly resurface.

Total respect for such aquatic ambition, tracking earthbound wildlife seems much lighter in comparison, tack on the cold and the fluctuating visibility, and you've got wondrous herculean composure.

Planet Earth 2 seems like the apotheosis of nature documentaries, with countless shots of remote terrains, terrains that are incredibly difficult to access, its material presented with vigorous narrative.

But nature documentaries are vast and consistently mutating, finding new ways to resiliently captivate, My Octopus Teacher a remarkable feat of filmmaking ingenuity.

Plus Foster is interviewed throughout and provides thoughtful commentaries about his labours, which capture the stages he patiently went through as he learned more and more about his shifty subject.

The octopus isn't exactly chillin', indeed things are rather intense when sharks come a' callin'.

But he eludes them as best he can.

A must see examination of a fascinating creature.    

Mei rén yú (The Mermaid)

A trillion dollar corporation has purchased land off China's coast and placed invasive devices within the surrounding oceanic depths to dissuade dolphins from congregating at play.

However, unbeknownst to them, mermaids and an octopus-person also called said shores home, and have somehow found a way to locate the offending plutocrat.

Having infiltrated one of his exclusive soirées, the unimaginable hybridly heartbeats, as the plutocrat in question is starstruckly enamoured with his would-be mermaid assassin.

Both octopus-person and a wealthy covetous bombshell are none too happy with the ensuing romance, and do everything they can, to hasten its bitter ruin.

Riddle me tryst.

If the mermaids are thought of as representing elephants or lions or the mighty panda, then proactive progressions can be initiated utilizing the mischievously ludicrous reels of Stephen Chow's bizarro Mei rén yú (The Mermaid).

For in its final moments, scientists rush in, armed to the teeth, to brutally force the ancient luminaries to heel (see Farley Mowat's Sea of Slaughter).

To, fluke.

Barraging them with machine gun fire, many of the endangered clan are lost, the others forced to flee to more hospitable domains.

From time to time, I read about the markets established within China for things like bear paw soup and tiger bone wine, and that China's bourgeoise, with their corresponding disposable incomes, is now roughly the size of the United States.

Europe and North America made significant efforts (while coming up short) to stop the rapacious killing of rhinos, lions, elephants, and endangered bears when scientific research demonstrated that their populations could not bounce back from continued sustained ravenous hunting.

Such populations remain low but could also remain stable if steps are taken to crush the markets facilitating their extinctions.

I plead with the people of China, stop the systematic slaughter of exotic animal populations. They deserve to live and thrive upon this planet just as much as we do, and if we can take steps to ensure their continuing survival we should take them immediately.

With a population as large as China's with vast economic resources at its disposal and cultural traditions that encourage the killing of elephants and rhinos etc., beings such as these don't stand a chance, unless powerful concerned movements are created or enhanced to save them.

I'm hoping these animals will always continue to exist, that the world will always be populated by these majestic incomparable crucial wild beasts.

As do millions of people in China I imagine.

Make it happen!

There are plenty of other ways to earn a living.