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August 2024
My two writerly realms—Italy and the sea—usually don’t overlap. I never expected them to intersect at the Bodega Marine Laboratory and Reserve, where I volunteer as a docent—and certainly not via a legendary rock star and a teeny tiny jellyfish.
As I recount in a recent blog post, visitors to the Lab are usually surprised when I ask if they’ve heard of Frank Zappa (1940-1993). Baby-boomers recall the name of his band (Mothers of Invention) and his children (Moon Unit and Dweezel). For those too young to recognize the name, I describe Zappa as an acclaimed guitarist and composer who attracted millions of fans around the world.
One of the most ardent was an Italian marine biologist and jellyfish specialist named Fernando (Nando) Boero, who credits Zappa’s lyrics with boosting his mastery of English. In 1982, as a young researcher at the University of Genoa, he won a travel grant to study the local jellyfish at the Bodega Lab.
