The Octopus and Lovecraft

Surprisingly, there is little comment by Lovecraft on cephalopods. They obviously fascinated him, or at least he fixated on them. The classic artwork of a squid in battle with the whale influenced a portion of Dagon and Call of Cthulhu. HPL hated sea food, the odor made him nauseated.

In an article by Jaron Lanier, we read, "This video is so shocking ... shot in 1997 by my friend Roger Hanion ... off Grand Cayman Island {a researcher at Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole} he swims up to examine an unremarkable rock covered in swaying algae. Suddenly, astonishingly, one-third of the rock and a tangled masss of algae morphs and reveals itself ... the waving arms of a bright white octopus. Its cover blown, the creature squirts ink at Roger and shoots off into the distance - leaving Roger, and the viewer slack-jawed."

April 2006, "Why Not Morph", Discover, p. 26.