Things are moving just under the surface

A couple days of glorious spring and out brains turn toward the water - the Peconic Bay coming to life - folks embracing the sun like a favorite relative.  The surface of the water might as well be a blanket under which we can't see.  It is our mind's eye that takes over and we think about things swimming under the water's surface - when we think about them at all - as mostly a jellyfish or a crab or now a fish utterly lost in his navigation and since we in the north don't have the crystal clear water of the southern seas, we just have to imagine what really goes on down there. Happily there are cameras that make exquisite pictures of these things we never see in person.

We are particularly fond of the work "Carnival of the Animals" by the French composer Saint Saens who wrote this piece amid his captivation with the aquarium - all the rage in France in the late 19th century (1886 actually).  Ogden Nash supplied the sublime narrative.

(and you thought this was going to be about wine and our Saturday tasting - see! you can't see under the surface)

THE AQUARIUM
Some fish are minnows,
Some are whales,
People like dimples,
Fish like scales,
Some fish are slim,
And some are round,
They don’t get cold,
They don’t get drowned,
But every fishwife

Fears for her fish,
What we call mermaids
They call merfish.