Beauty of the Sea Beast

On the left, a copy of Orca: The Whale Called Killer by Eric Hoyt. On the right, a look from the Jason Wu Fall 2009 RTW collection.

For a moment, imagine that somewhere in the mini-labyrinths stitched onto her skirt there is not a Minotaur, but a Marine Minotaur, i.e. a Whale Called Killer.

As my friend and colleague Jonathan V. Last points out in a great, brief article in the present issue of The Weekly Standard, "orca" is related to the Latin word orcinus, meaning, "belonging to the realm of the dead." Remember this the next time you look at blubberlicious Shamu—or even this sky-high Shamu—and are tricked into thinking he's just a cute and friendly cross between a panda and a porpoise.