Dog Food

Still getting used to some of the technical features of publishing a blog. So I'm not surprised that I managed to delete today's previous post. Nice job, Shelly. Real professional.

Oh well.

What I'd posted earlier was a clip from L'Avventura sort of as a momento mori for Antonioni. The clip has to do with swimming and sharks and cognac. After I realized I'd deleted it, I started thinking about sharks and then I started thinking about my high school Spanish teacher.

I'm not going off on a tangent. This all fits together.

You see, because he used to tell this story about when he was living in Costa Rica. It just so turns out that he had a place on a substantially sized inlet from the bay, so every morning he and his dog would go swimming.

If I remember correctly his dog was a lab or some other big dog like that. Playful. Liked to swim.

Anyhow, on this one particular morning he's swimming across the inlet and he's maybe some seventy-five yards off the shore. The dog is following him.

There's a small fishing boat up ahead. And the three men on board are waving their arms and shouting in his direction.

He can't make out what they are saying, but he decides to swim over to their boat.

As he gets closer, he hears them shouting and screaming uncontrollably. There's so much commotion he can't make heads nor tails of what's being said.

And as he reaches the boat, they hurriedly pull him aboard.

Once aboard, he looks out over the inlet. There is no trace of his dog.

And then he realizes what the men had been shouting: "Tiburón! Tiburón!"

Which is Spanish for 'shark'. Which is what had been following him and the lab across the inlet. And which is what rose up from the water and ate his dog.