Tentacles! Ia!

Our Crack Team are still recovering from Worldcon -- we picked up some useful contacts, some fun acquaintances, and at least one virus. All of which are taking up valuable blogging time. Until we get back up to speed, have a look at some freaky octopus pictures from Japan, courtesy of the Nipponomaniacal Pink Tentacle blog. Evidently H.P. Lovecraft could have made a good living as a toy designer in Japan.

Indeed, just to get all thoughtful and ponderous, it's remarkable how accepting we've become of inhuman-looking creatures just in the past couple of decades. Once Rondo Hatton was cast as a monster simply because he was kind of funny-looking. Even as recently as 1966 NBC worried that the pointed ears and funny eyebrows on Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy were too bizarre for the audience to accept him. By the 1980s we had the vaguely froggish E.T. as a lovable protagonist instead of a monster from space. Humans have gradually become aware that something can look inhuman without being dangerous or evil. In fact, one thing which nowadays makes UFO contactees sound so silly is how plonkingly un-alien their aliens look.