I was riveted when I read the following this morning:
“From a fetid, foot-long rod of earwax, extracted from the skull of a dead blue whale, scientists have unspooled an in-depth life story of one member of the largest mammals on earth. These waxy diaries could give marine biologists a new way to study the lives of a free-swimming species, and a window into the health of the ocean at large.
"It might be the only life history of any free-ranging animal," Stephen Trumble, a marine biologist at Baylor University, told NBC News.”
You can read the full story here.
I must admit this isn’t news–I mean, leaving aside marine biology, I’ve always known ear wax is really a museum. I’m deaf from wax and devote gobs of time to private, archaeological explorations of wax, my cerumen, my greasy private journal.
Here’s a tipple from 1982 whispering of the Strindberg Cafe in Helsinki where I spent a wintry day reading Spinoza. Spinoza it turns out is a major cause of ear wax. Oh, and here’s wax from a brief visit to the Greek island of Santorini where I befriended a pelican. I can find everything I need to know about myself from knots of deafness. And I’m a free ranging animal. I’ve left my wax in the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Golden Temple of Kyoto. I once dropped some in Yankee Stadium–the old Yankee Stadium–the one Steinbrenner tore down so he could build the George Mahal. And ear wax in Venice; Tallinn; Berlin; Kingston, Jamaica; Osaka; Los Angeles. Place my orts under a miscrocope and you’ll find I wandered like a good whale, krill seeking, mis-hearing songs.
Oh my sisterly and brotherly whales! So wild a sea! And stretching over Sado Isle, the Galaxy! (Basho)
Planet of the Blind 