Boing Boing ("A Directory of Wonderful Things"), being one of my favorite blogs and especially those by David Pescovitz, was the first on the block, to understand the mixture in modern technoculture and cryptozoology. Now over at PopPolitics ("Where Politics and Popular Cultures Meet"), they are talking about cryptozoology too. Blogger Bernie in his "One Culture’s Myth …" is carrying on a good exchange, as he comes closer to understanding what we are all about.

Here’s part of what I wrote today in PopPolitics comments section about the current cryptozoology converstation there:

Hi, Bernie. You ask if it isn’t "true that much of what you base you initial interest on is the role these creatures have played in cultural and spiritual systems?"

Actually, I have a wide-ranging approach. Cryptids are apparent and important because they are ethnoknown – whether in native traditions, artifacts, sightings, smells, footprint finds, photographs, and then through extension into our modern society, in art, movies, and other cultural/religious outlets. But the essence of cryptozoology and hominology is the forensic quests for the real animals; it is the tangible evidence collection to discover the mountain gorilla, the okapi, the giant squid, the giant panda, the coelacanth, the megamouth shark, the saola, the new monkey over that ridge, the new bird in that rainforest (based on local legends and encounters) is an actual zoological specimen. I accept or deny the evidence based on these investigations, and that is what cryptozoology means to me, purely the study of hidden or as yet undiscovered animals.

The art and the cultural spillover from all of these cryptids is merely the icing that is more attractive for some to examine and eat. But I enjoy the whole cake.

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