radiolaria is a sound salvation.

take a look at this, would you? now, i know that my idea of art is an old french stamp affixed to a colored piece of paper with gluestick, framed without a matte, but i know art when i see it. and what's even more incredible is that nobody designed these things here. no guy in buddy holly glasses and clarks at a gallery, no famous architect. they're just the neatest things. all on their own. these remind me a little of another thing i saw once. have you ever been to the monterey aquarium? they have these little tiny filament-y things floating in tanks. they are jellyfish, actually, but they look like part of a fantastic back-lit hollywood special effect. i've got to get a picture of those to show you, although, it just won't look the same in a photo. but back to my radiolaria. these are about the greatest things i've ever seen. and you know this thing that looks like a rabbit or a circus clown? it's just a chert sample. that's all. it's just your garden variety pseudoalbaillella. it reminds me of a story i read recently about the rabbit in the hat trick. you know, the reason it works, and the reason a magician can have that rabbit in the hat, or in a sack (or in a sack in a hat) is that with no visible way out, a rabbit will sit quietly in the dark, and will not struggle. just don't let any light in there, because probably then, he would struggle, but just stick him in a little sack and let him sit there through your magic show, and he's happy as a clam, just waiting, or really, not waiting, because he is perfectly content, in the now. in that sack. although, you should know that it is frowned upon to pull a rabbit by the ears, when you produce him from the hat. even hardcore old-school magicians aren't into that anymore. i think you have to sort of gently clutch the rabbit, the way you would a water balloon, or a cruller or something. then you bring him out and everybody goes wild. i was thinking if you were to produce one of these little rabbit-shaped radiolaria out of a hat, you might get some gasps of awe too, and you wouldn't have the people for the ethical treatment of animals on your back. that would be pretty good: nothing up my sleeve! and then you produce a siliceous rock of chalcedonic silica out of your hat. boy, that's a good trick.