In My Watery Self: An Aquatic Memoir, author/scientist Stephen Spotte traces a fascinating trail through a life that began in West Virgina coal camps, drifted through reckless bohemian times of countercultural indulgence in Beach Haven, New Jersey, and led to a career as a highly-respected marine biologist. Together, these stories form a view not just of one man's life, but that of a generation that often refused to take a direct path to the workplace, insisting instead on a winding unveiling of true self-realization, to achieve previously-unimagined outcomes. For Spotte, the key was water: His years of beach living led to a self-initiated study of literature and the sea. He eventually returned to college and received his training as a marine biologist, and discovered, through his singular voice, a wet and occasionally very weird perspective on the world. His writing is engrossing throughout, the stories he shares--such as his stint as curator of the New York Aquarium at Coney Island at the tail end of the hippie era--are compelling and thoroughly enjoyable as he elevates the people and situations he encounters to mythical levels, blending empirical observation with literary prose.
With an ear for life’s fractured melodies, marine biologist Stephen Spotte recounts his lifelong study of literature and the sea and his search for the mythical place where reason and revelation intersect.
The science and common sense behind creating an inexpensive,flourishing marine aquarium Marine Aquarium Keeping is the firstcomplete, step-by-step handbook to bring scientific perspective andinsight to the practical basics of assembling and successfullymaintaining a conventional marine aquarium. While minimizinggadgetry and underscoring a simple, commonsense regimen of looking,seeing, and understanding, author and marine biologist StephenSpotte offers logical, chapter-by-chapter guidance to every facetof the hobby--from choosing equipment and setting up an aquarium,to selecting healthy animals and maintaining a flourishingunderwater environment. Inside, readers will discover: * How to make a new aquarium suitable for sustaining life * How to select healthy animals from species demonstrating goodcaptive survival * The step-by-step basics of routine maintenance * How to easily meet the nutritional requirements of marineanimals * The key to disease prevention * The use of seawater and artificial seawaters * The living subgravel filter * Aquarium decorations as shelter spaces and as aestheticfeatures * The marine aquarium as a living community An extensive health and disease section offers detailed,easy-to-follow treatment regimens, several unique to this volume,for a variety of common diseases. Current controversies and popularmyths surrounding aquarium keeping, such as the benefits ofsupplemental light and the superiority of plastic filtrants, arealso examined. A wealth of black-and-white and color photographsthat strikingly depict marine animals in their natural habitatbring key facets of the text to life. Indispensable to the amateuraquarist who appreciates both the beauty and science of thisfascinating pastime, this newest edition of the popular classic isthe complete guide to successful, inexpensive marine aquariumkeeping.
When the young narrator of Brother’s Ghost happens upon a warehouse filled with corpses of the “disappeared ones,” victims of his country’s brutal military regime, he is forced to flee his home and family and strike out for the interior. There he reunites with his long-estranged mother, a member of an indigenous tribe of Indians living deep in the tropical rainforest. Mistaken for the ghost of his deceased twin brother, the narrator takes his brother’s place in tribal society, learning to hunt and fight but never escaping the memory of his former life in the city. Scientist and author Stephen Spotte’s compact tale captures the tensions of this unnamed South American country, of its cities and interior, and the confusion of straddling two cultures while belonging to neither.
The putative mission of zoos - education and conservation - yield doubtful results, education because its information relies on description and exposition instead of narrative, conservation because only a few large, showy vertebrates receive the most effort. By controlling reproduction and restricting evolution, zoos reduce animals to artifacts - unattached ecological fragments - and ultimately revoke their ontological status as part of the natural world." "Spotte's argument assumes manifestations that impinge on contemporary theories of art, film, literature, photography, and science, the whole anchored securely by the twin poles of semiotics and simulation. This willingness to grapple with high-level theory - and to take intellectual risks - sets Zoos in Postmodernism apart from other treatments of zoos in contemporary western literature."--BOOK JACKET.
Describes water chemistry, technology and the biological and physical processes of the aquarium ecosystem. Additionally, it presents fish physiology, nutrition, diseases and health maintenance. Provides usable methods and specific protocols for keeping marine fish with the emphasis on professional approaches for public aquariums.
The Singing Bones recounts the life and times of eighteenth century polymath and explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller, the first European naturalist to visit Alaska. The first to propose that America was originally peopled by migrants from Siberia, Steller was aboard the packet boat St. Peter commanded by Vitus Bering on the Second Great Northern Expedition sponsored by the Russian Admiralty to determine if Asia and North America were connected by land or separated by a sea. When the St. Peter was wrecked on Bering Island in what was later named the Bering Sea, Steller cured the survivors, who were marooned and dying of scurvy, while making remarkable discoveries in natural history. He was first to describe the behavior and biology of the northern fur seal and Steller's sea lion, and his descriptions of the whale-sized Steller's sea cow and spectacled cormorant (both now extinct) are all we know about these exquisite creatures as living beings. The castaways eventually built a small vessel from the St. Peter's wreckage and sailed back to Kamchatka in autumn 1742, where Steller continued his explorations, in part while living with the indigenous Itelmen people. A blend of narrative adventure and biography, this historical first-person novel chronicles the professional visions and conflicted life of a deeply fascinating, flawed, and courageous man who devoted everything to advancing the frontiers of science and improving the lives of the native Siberians.
Stephen Spotte, Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida, USA Tarpons arose from an ancient lineage, and just two species exist today, confined to the tropics and subtropics: Megalops atlanticus in the western and eastern Atlantic and Megalops cyprinoides distributed widely across the Indo-West Pacific. The Atlantic tarpon is considered king of the saltwater sport fishes and supports a multi-billion dollar recreational fishery in the U.S. alone. The Pacific tarpon, which is much smaller, is less valued by anglers. Both have limited commercial value but offer considerable potential for future aquaculture because of their hardiness, rapid growth, and ease of adaptation to captivity. This book is the latest and most thorough text on the biology, ecology, and fisheries (sport and commercial) of tarpons. The chapters comprise clear, intricate discourses on such subjects as early development and metamorphosis, population genetics, anatomical and physiological features and adaptations, migrations, reproductive biology, and culminate with a concise overview of the world's tarpon fisheries. A comprehensive appendix includes Spotte's original translations of important papers published previously by others in Spanish and Portuguese and unavailable until now to English readers. Tarpons: Biology, Ecology, Fisheries will be of considerable interest and use to fishery and research biologists, marine conservationists, aquaculturists, and informed anglers
Describes water chemistry, technology and the biological and physical processes of the aquarium ecosystem. Additionally, it presents fish physiology, nutrition, diseases and health maintenance. Provides usable methods and specific protocols for keeping marine fish with the emphasis on professional approaches for public aquariums.
With an ear for life’s fractured melodies, marine biologist Stephen Spotte recounts his lifelong study of literature and the sea and his search for the mythical place where reason and revelation intersect.
The putative mission of zoos - education and conservation - yield doubtful results, education because its information relies on description and exposition instead of narrative, conservation because only a few large, showy vertebrates receive the most effort. By controlling reproduction and restricting evolution, zoos reduce animals to artifacts - unattached ecological fragments - and ultimately revoke their ontological status as part of the natural world." "Spotte's argument assumes manifestations that impinge on contemporary theories of art, film, literature, photography, and science, the whole anchored securely by the twin poles of semiotics and simulation. This willingness to grapple with high-level theory - and to take intellectual risks - sets Zoos in Postmodernism apart from other treatments of zoos in contemporary western literature."--BOOK JACKET.
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