Yet for all his agonizing all Pointsman will score, presently, is an octopus – yes a gigantic, horror-movie devilfish name of Grigori: gray, slimy, never still, shivering slow-motion in his makeshift pen down by the Ick Regis jetty … a terrible wind that day off the Channel, Pointsman in his Balaclava helmet, eyes freezing, Dr. Porkyevitch with greatcoat collar up and fur hat down around his ears, their breaths foul with hours-old fish, and what the hell can Pointsman do with this animal?

Already, by itself, the answer is growing, one moment a featureless blastulablob, the next folding, beginning to differentiate….

—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas