You might be interested in New York Times Sunday A-section (Apr. 14), page 10. Long story about how Detroit Red Wings hockey fans throw octopuses on the ice during the playoffs. I'm a sportwriter here in Detroit, and this tradition goes back 50 years. Fans boil dead octopods (makes for better bounce) and throw them during games. Last year, there were 56 octopuses thrown during a SINGLE GAME!!

The fish markets in town go nuts selling them during the playoffs -- which begin today.

All the team souvenirs have octopuses on them. Check it out.

Michelle Kaufman
Detroit Free Press

You have my permission to include Detroit's octo-mania on your page. One fish market is selling Octo-puppets, Octo-foam hats, and Octo-Kits (which include one boiled octopus, two latex gloves, and two wet-naps). Fans smuggle them into the arena under their hats, coats, in their purses, etc...It's quite a sight to behold. Stay tuned.

I would just like to inform you that the Norwegian word for "octopus" is "blekksprut". This is a combination of two words: "blekk" Which means "ink" and "sprute" which means "squirt". ): Octopus=Blekksprut=Inksquirt.

Kong Nudo

By the way, Octopus in modern Greek is "Ochtapothi"... Just thought you'd like to know.

Me

>As a member of the scientific communitee, I feel it important to point out that, while "cute", the correct plural of octopus is octopuses

Yes, dear "member of the scientific communitee." ("Communitee"? Is that like a manatee?) If you look at my links, you will notice that several of them deal with this very issue. The widespread use of the word "octopi" and the awkwardness of "octopusses" justifies inclusion in Webster to me. I'm fighting for that official recognition, but until it is received, I don't care what's in the dictionary. Never have, or not to the exclusion of using words I love.

-OCTOPIA

Thanks for the home page and the research, my son is doing a report on octopi and you've helped out a lot. One comment, about 90% of photo's were close ups, only one or two showed the entire subject.

Thanks again,

Bill Williams

FM: If anyone knows of more complete octopus photos on the net, please point me towards them.

Ms. Olivia Piedmont:

I found this on the Web, and it doesn't exactly have to do with octopi, but I figured this is such an unusual contest it deserved your attention. You may want to check out this URL; it's a dress-up-your-squid-for-money contest.

http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~sooy/squid.html

I was searching for octopus and your thing came up; does it have anything to do with octopuses??

FM: Hmmmm.

I went scuba diving this last summer in Cozumel, Mexico and the first creature I came across was an octopus. I have always been a fan of the creature so I figured I would look on the net to figure out which kind it was and "lo and behold" here was your sight. I have gotten a kick out of it. Thanks for putting it on the net.

mrhappy25@yahoo.com

p.s. Are you still using Wilberforce Percival Mummy the Third or have you graduated to the Fourth yet?

FM: Thank you, Jerry.:-) No, I would NEVER betray my Wilberforce, even if he is sick. He's missing a voicebox right now, it's very tragic -- extremely painful to me to have his Squeak-Orchestras stilled, no matter how briefly. I'm looking for a worthy transplant, and in the meantime things just aren't quite the same. I also left him at a friend's house for a whole day and he was very disturbed. But he forgave me, since he knew I've been stressed out recently. He doesn't take it personally, though I did. I'll never forgive myself for causing him such pain.

i visited your website and i love it! i especially like the octopi border thing-a-ma-jig. i think that your site would be a perfect addition to the Rabid Squirrel WebRing, if you're so inclined.

joining will take some work on your part, but will probably increase traffic to your site, if that matters to you. what matters to me is that it's kinda fun in a weird, geeky kind of way. if you think you might like to add your website to our ring, you can look at the ring's homepage at:

http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/towers/1380/webring.html

i hope this invitation is not unwelcome!

keep up the great work!

jessi "jet-jive" miller

FM: Not in the least unwelcome . . . thank ye kindly, Jessi.:-) But I'm concerned -- don't rabid squirrels eat recalcitrant octopods?? I mean, octopi are probably like a gourmet treat to your average rabid squirrel. (Actually, I suppose squirrels are herbivores. But I dunno about these RABID squirrels.)

P.S. Is a web-ring anything like a blue-ring-octopus ring? A bio-luminescent marking encircling the tentacles of a wriggling fleshly animal. . . could be fun. . . Web as octopus, what a metaphor. I need some sleep. Badly.

Where have you found this wonderful rubber-animal? Can you buy it somewhere? I'd like to have one, too.

love

Michael

FM: He says he's not for sale, and he's not into selling out his rubber brothers and sisters. He believes the capitalist economy in which you can sell and trade rubber octopi is a fiasco, and suggests you read his phamplet on slave trade. (He has eight of them, and he's handing them all out to you and your disturbed comrades.) He also heard there was something rotten in the state of Denmark, and he's wondering if you have any old fish he can eat.

We enjoyed your web site and your section about collected tidbits. I was wondering if you had or knew of any poems about the Octopus.

Thank you

Terry

Terry, there are very few. You may have to write one yourself. If you do, I'll post it. Actually, there was a splendid spooky poem about an undersea house that I'm looking for, if anyone knows anything. Something about an "octopus house," a "pale octopus." I'm desperate to find this poem, it really "got me" right there and I could never find it again. It was by a woman author. Not that that helps much.

Hi, don't mean to be disrespectful but I was kind of looking for octopus recipes. I'm not usually like this but someone just gave me a frozen octupus for eating and I'm suppoised to figure out how to cook it. Any thoughts on the matter?

DG

FM: Ever heard of cryogenics? When you heat it up, it sucks your brains out. Yum Yum. Not too many of them left though, one of those rare delicacies.

hi.
nice to meet you.
i saw your home page, that i think so cool page.
then, may i request you one?
i need that a picture(or illustrations), which giant octopus or just octopus attack men(or women) or fighting scene.
i do the work the novel that about this.
i need insert art.
please mail or picture me.
thankyou.

by..

Thank you. That was the best oct-email I've ever received. Here you go. Fight that big slippery beast! Courtesy of http://www.arttoday.com, the best clip-art source I know of.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I'M LOOKING FOR SOME PICTURES OF OCTY'S. I PLAN ON GET A PRETTY BIG TATTOO OF ONE AND I NEED IDEA'S. REALLY LIKE YOUR WEB SITE PLUS BEING A RED WINGS FAN THATS EVEN MORE OF THE REASON FOR A OCTO TAT.

SO IF YOU CAN LETS ME KNOW WHERE TO LOOK OR IF HAVE ANY YOU CAN SEND ME ANY IT WOULD BE A LOT OF HELP.

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK

MAICO SMITH

MAICO001@AOL.COM

FM: Great idea. Good luck on finding the perfect body-art design. (Try wrapping a few tentacles 'round one arm.) Or you could wrap them around something else if you like, but I wouldn't advise it.

Greetings o mistress of the tentacled oblivion:

I spend my summers in Wilberforce Ontario Canada...ever been...?

Anyhow, I stumbled across your excellent page as I was collecting images of cephalopods for a 3 dimension graphic illustration being done as an electronic cover for my first Science Fiction Epic "The Divine Suicide" Within, the main navigational "computer" is actually a gigantic cephalopodica melange of honed instinct which resides in an Olympian kool aid type basin of gyrating flesh and interwoven biocircuitry. "Pollis" the mind bending, space warping philosopher poet plays a vital role in this surreal adventure of one mans journey through space and time and his own melon as he fights against gods evil plan of evolutionary stasis in the macro verse....man can I babble or what...I would be most honored if
1) You would read this freakish masterpiece (www.awe-struck.net) and 2) if you would put up a crazy link to same. Next month I hope to have the cephalopod pool/crucifixion animation up and running on the page. I have seen the preliminary sketched from the artist and it should be a really bizarre octopine masterpiece.

Looking forward to hearing form you in regard to these tentacled matters

Watch the skies

John Tannock

I've never journeyed through my own melon - wait - should I be confessing this in a public forum???!!! It sounds obscene. . .;-> ~~ Mistress of the Tentacled Oblivion

Maga:

Nice web site. I am a peruvian living in Chile trying to find some pictures in the net about a fascinating and weird octopus that lives in the seas of australia. It's a very colored one with amazing blue dots; it's also poisonus. If you have any idea where I can find that, please let me know.

ahi nos vidrios

R.N.

FM: Raptori, there are many pictures of blue-ringed octopi on the net. Your best bet is a google search.

Hi,

You don't know me but i happened upon your octopus page and thought it was pretty cool. I especially liked your list of the foreign words for octopus. In hawaiian the word for octopus is "He'e". Just thought you might want to know. The octopus is a very important animal in Hawaii, where i am from by the way. It is called tako by most people here but that's probably because of the large amount of people of asian ancestry living here. It is eaten by many people, including myself. It is a delicacy here and probably in many places as well, including Japan. Anyway, i just wanted to say nice page and to let you know the hawaiian word for octopus. Take care and good luck with your homework.

FM: Fascinating. He'e hehe hehe! Sounds like a maniacal cackle to me -- or perhaps it was the sound the first Hawaiian fisherman made as he was pulled screaming and struggling into the whirlpool. "Famous last gurgles" preserved as a linguistic gravestone? We may never know.

Sounds like you have a nice "Tako Bell" going on there ;->. I would say "to each their own" but Wilberforce would be offended. He is a bit delicate on this subject, but he doesn't consider himself a delicacy, if you know what I mean. . .

So, I went to my first class in Esperanto on Thursday, and for some reason, embarked on a discussion about plurals ending in us. Octopus can become octopusses, octopi, or octopodes (the end rhymes with lotus, not roads). Pretty cool, eh?

-ben

FM: Hi Ben! Fancy meeting you here! You've saved me from a social octi pas. Imagine saying "octopodes" (rhymes with "nodes) in a polite social circle! Ah, the humiliation! The censure! The repudiation! The end of my debutante career! (Just be careful, you don't pronounce "octi pas" like it looks either.)

Thought you may like to add "cumi-cumi" to the list. Pronounced "choomi-choomi," it also works for squid and other assorted (barbequed) cephelopods!

Karen

Eek! I don't suppose it works for non-barbequed cephelopods? ~~ Mistress of the Tentacled Oblivion

You wrote:

>As a member of the scientific communitee, I feel it important to point out that, while "cute", the correct plural of octopus is octopuses

As a member of SETCRAS (Scientist and Engineers That Can Read and Spell) I am obligated to redress your statement. Octopi is entirely acceptable nomenclature for multiple mollusks. May I suggest consulting an appropriate reference (and for that matter, utilizing a spelling checker) before speaking erroneously on behalf of the entire scientific "communitee".

Regards,

Jude DeMeis
Environmental Scientist and Software Engineer
Content Editor, SDHB http://www.foliage.com/~jdemeis

Attachment:

American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition (c) 1998

oc-to-pus (ok'to-pus) n., pl. octopuses or octopi (-pi). 1. Any of numerous carnivorous marine mollusks of the genus Octopus or related genera, found worldwide. The octopus has a rounded soft body, eight tentacles with each bearing two rows of suckers, a large distinct head, and a strong beaklike mouth. Also called devilfish. 2. Something, such as a multinational corporation, that has many powerful, centrally controlled branches. [New Latin Octopus, genus name, from Greek oktopous, eight-footed : okto, eight; see okto(u) below + pous, foot;]

Yeah! Tell it like it is! ~~Mistress of Multiple Mollusks