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Dear friends,
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.
Nando had an ulterior motive: to find a new species, name it after his musical idol and win an introduction. When he wrote to Zappa to describe his mission, the rock star responded, “There is nothing I'd like better than having a jellyfish named after me."
In the waters of Bodega Harbor, Nando discovered a jelly just .12 inches long, with a parachute-shaped body and swaying tentacles. Through meticulous research, he proved that it was “very different from all the other known species” and named it Phialella zappai in honor of the man he considers the most important composer of his time.
The marine scientist’s dream came true. Zappa invited him to his home in Laurel Canyon. A two-day visit blossomed into a lifelong friendship. For his band’s final performance in Genoa in 1988, Zappa dedicated the “jellyfish concert” to Nando, even changing lyrics to include his name.
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