Friendship Furciferous 21/26

friendship furciferous. 21 / 26, open culture bottle project

About This Project

Friendship Furciferous Images

Bottle Launch "On March 5, 2017 we boarded a shark-cage diving vessel at Simon's Town and motored into False Bay towards Seal Island. The natural beauty of the area was stunning. Seal Island [34°08'25.4"S 18°35'06.9"E] proved to be aptly named. Their continuous barks filled the air as they splashed in the choppy current. We watched closely as a lone elephant seal adjusted his position, which sent the much smaller natives scrambling to give him a wide berth. We circled the colony and dropped anchor just south of the island... down wind. We then remembered why we were there. As we tossed fish heads and a neoprene seal shape into the water, we realized that this island was essentially a grocery store for the local shark population. For hours we waited for our chum and the powerful natural scent of their prey to attract a shark to our area. We saw interesting birds, admired the surrounding bluffs, and ate biltong. Someone saw a seal eat a smaller shark without a trace of irony. When we agreed that no sharks would be posing for us, I decided to throw the bottle. False Bay exits at the Cape of Good Hope, the historic gateway between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. For me Cape Town represents the end of the world, but for those ancient sailors, it was only the middle. Surrounded by noble promontories, amidst the frenetic seals, I knew the whipping winds would help the bottle along the classic exploration routes to a destination in the East or the West. I found this to be a fitting place for the bottle to begin its journey." — Adam Ady

Found? If you found this bottle, please use the form below to contact me with photographic proof, date, time, and place. Then I'll be able to update this section with your FOUND information, including photos. Thank you!

NYPL

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BRITISH

LIBRARY

Image Key UNDER CONTSTRUCTION for component parts of the collage. Click the shapes to see and learn more about the images used.

NYPL

THE

BRITISH

PUBLIC

LIBRARY

THE

WELLCOME COLLECTION

ref. L0035474

RIJKSMUSEUM

Wiki-

pedia

Vision

Friendship Furciferous was created before I knew who would throw it or where it would be thrown from. So when my friend Adam emailed me and told me he was traveling to South Africa, to experience the terror of being lunged at by great whites from within a shark cage in False Bay—and did I have a bottle for him to throw—of course I was delighted. Not only because this would the first bottle thrown between the Atlantic and Indian Seas, but also because the title of this collage fits our friendship. "Furciferous" is an obscure word meaning “rascally”. Adam has gotten me to smoke cigars, play laser tag, and there has been talk of going to a monster truck rally some day. Since I am a non-smoking artsy fartsy bookworm who publishes poetry books, these kinds of activities are not insignificantly out of my usual comfort zone, which I really appreciate.

Other curious coincidences in the collage that serendipitously seem to connect Adam to it are the crabs, and the surface of the moon backdrop in the top portion of the artwork—symbolic of the Zodiac Cancer sign: Adam and his wife Kristine are both Cancers; there is a shark lurking in the bottom right hand corner, as well as this idea of being submerged in a shark cage which corresponds with the image of the submarine; and the pearly bubbles, which are reminiscent of a beautiful story behind a pearl necklace that Adam gave Kristine.

I am so glad that he took the bottle to South Africa and threw it off of Seal Island; hopefully another rascal will find and enjoy it.