Tag: Black Sea

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I Dream of Trigla

I am using a two-pronged depression fighting approach : drinking coffee and thinking about fishing.

I thought about fishing in the Black Sea. I remembered how I really wanted to catch three rare fish about which I’ve read in books: a fluke (Paralichthys dentatus), a sargan(Belone belone euxini) and a trigla (aka sea rooster) (Trigla lucerna).

I caught my first big fluke in the US, I think. I never caught a sargan, but this eel more than makes up for it. The trigla is a special story. I’ve only read about it in books. I’ve never even heard about somebody catching one. The books described it as an ultra rare, very tasty and beautiful fish. The pictures that I’ve seen in the books portrayed a brightly colored fish with huge iridescent fins. Trigla has an almost mythical status in the Black Sea area. It’s said that it brings bad luck if a fisherman doesn’t release it. Stuff of legends, really.

In the books I’ve read it was described as a fish that makes loud sounds under water. And I know one fish like that. Yes, the favorite prey of underwater hunting of , the sea robin. But the pictures from those books did not look anything like any sea robin that I know. Well, I did a bit of research today, and it turns out that the mythical trigla is in fact a specie of sea robins. The Black Sea trigla has slightly more colorful fins, but looks and behaves almost the same as the kind that I catch here. The dumbass book illustrator did not have a photograph of a trigla and worked from the description.

I find it kind of unsettling that the mythical fish I wanted to catch all of my life in Odessa turned out to be a lowly throwback fish here in the US. This must be symbolic of something or other, but I don’t know what.

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Meanwhile, in the Butter Dimention 3

I truly believe in parallel dimensions. Come on, how else can we explain the great missing sock mystery? Subjected to about 100 G in your washing machine, socks, being one of the smallest articles of clothing, simply disappear from our dimension and drift into another.

Jerry Seinfeld has an alternative theory involving a dryer: “The dryer is their only chance to escape and they all know it. They plan it in the hamper the night before. “Tomorrow, the dryer. I’m going”” I don’t buy that , because it implies that socks are sentient.

Socks may be the most common interdimentional travelers, but other objects can disappear and reappear under normal conditions.

Interdimentional police is looking for the following items on my request.
* A book “Barbarians Led By Gates”. I’ve read half of it, and then it disappeared into the Ether. Damn, it’s a good book. I’ll have to order another one.

* My titanium wedding band. I am not sure about interdimentional travel here because a) I’ve lost a lot of weight and it could have slipped of my now thinner finger on a fishing trip or b) the cat could have eaten it.

* A book of Russian translations of Japanese science fiction writers. Disappeared years ago. I was in the middle of an interesting story.

* A book about fishing in the Black Sea (also in Russian)

* “Harvey Wang’s New York”. Black and white photo book purchased in Strand bookstore.

I think that books and rings possess a special shape, which encounters the least resistance slipping into interdimentional space. Donuts probably too. I’ve seen three dozen Krispy Kremes disappear in under a minute.