Thank you, Jack, for your kind inquiries about my reading. In my inevitable postperformance descent into feeling alone and palely loit’ring, I admit to getting a little mopey, as no detailed responses or reviews had appeared in the cyber-register– I’d compare my feeling to those I imagine of the cliopsidae or sea angel, unmoored but still stubbornly bioluminescent, lacking a shell, my small lateral winglike flaps used in a slow swimming mode, my body somewhat flabby and gelatinous, with a bluish aspect, off adrift and alone in a cold sea. . .

Like me, sea angels are small pteropod mollusks of the suborder Gymnosomata. Our feet have developed into wing-like appendages (parapodia) and our shells have been lost, both adaptations made to suit our free-swimming(if vulnerable) oceanic lives. These adaptations also explain the common name sea angel and the New Latin name of the order; from gymnos meaning “naked” and soma meaning “body.”

Also known as gymnosomes, sea angels (and their jewess cousins) belong to the Orthogastropoda a subclass of Gastropoda (snails and slugs) which includes nudibranchs.They are mostly transparent and very small. Some species of sea angel feed exclusively on sea butterflies

The angels have terminal mouths – rather like mine — with the radula common to mollusks, and tentacles to grasp their prey, sometimes with suckers similar to cephalopods.

Slowly beating our parapodia, the sea angels and I gracefully fly through the upper 20 metres of the water column. Although usually slow-moving, we are capable of surprising bursts of speed. We are simultaneous hermaphrodites, fertilization occurring internally. A gelatinous egg mass is released during spawning, the eggs floating freely until hatching. Our embryonic shells are lost within the first few days after hatching.

p.s.
Nick! Thank you for your kind observations! You are a mensch! A couple of minor corrections, for the record; It was a salwar kameez (but I substituted a skirt for the salwar, so I guess it was just the kameez – c.f. chemise), not a sari; it was an oud, not a balalaika (played masterfully by Dick Barsamian); Bagelman, I think, is the correct spelling. Here are the opening lyrics to their tune A Vaybele a Tsnie

(as sung by the Bagelman Sisters)

Lomdom, birim bay, lomdom birim bay,
Laybl-udl-idl-aydl – vyokh, tshyokh, tshyokh
Lomdom, birim bay, lomdom birim bay,
Laybl-uldl-idl-aydl-lom.

I think you can listen to at least a clip from the song here!