ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Inflatable sea monster takes over a rusting warehouse in Philly

PHILADELPHIA

A giant sea monster has taken over a building at Philadelphia’s Navy Yard, but only temporarily.

The inflatable sculpture titled “Sea Monsters HERE” is at a rusting warehouse called Building 611. It features huge purple tentacles bursting out of windows and reaching from the rooftop. The 40-foot-long creations sway in the breeze, creating the sense of a huge living creature.

It was created by U.K.-based artists Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas. They were invited to install the work as part of a collaborative project between Group X, a collection of local artists and organizers, and the Navy Yard.

It’s on view until Nov. 16.

Once the nation’s first shipyard, the Navy Yard is now a waterfront business campus home to 165 companies.

Gecko butt-dials ‘bazillion’ times from Hawaii seal hospital

HONOLULU

If you got incessant phone calls recently from a hospital that cares for Hawaiian monk seals, you were butt-dialed.

Or, more specifically, foot-dialed.

By a gecko.

Marine mammal veterinarian Claire Simeone was at lunch when she got a call from Ke Kai Ola, the Big Island hospital where she’s director.

There was silence on the other end. Nine more silent calls followed. Fearing a seal emergency, she rushed back.

She wasn’t the only one getting calls, and people started asking why the hospital was calling nonstop.

Trying figure out why a “bazillion” calls were made from one line, she called the phone company and a rep tried to talk her through finding a possible line on the fritz.

She walked into a lab and found the culprit. The gecko was perched on a phone, making calls to everyone in the recent call history with “HIS TINY GECKO FEET,” she wrote in a Twitter thread the next day, detailing the saga.

Social media delighted in the tale and some people offered jokes about a certain company’s gecko calling to save you money on your car insurance.

After discovering the mystery caller, Simeone caught the gecko and put it outside on a plant, she said.

“If there’s a little gecko that helps us share the story of conservation, then that’s a win,” she said of the work she does caring for the endangered seals. “I think people needed a little pick me up with the news cycle.”

Associated Press