One of the most compelling images in Live Company is the description of a segment from a Jacques Cousteau film

of

a giant squid boxed in a huge crate on the deck of the yacht. The lid of the crate has been left off and slowly and horribly the creature slithers first its tentacles and then its slimy bulk up and over the edge of the crate and down the side, across the deck, and then over the side of the yacht … what one then witnesses is a miracle. The hideous, awkward, obscene slitherer is transformed into a ballerina of the deep … All is flow and grace as the creature rediscovers its element. Many psychotic