Dear Lynn, Dear Conch-l, and - lers,
 
First I want to wish from all my heart Happy Birthday to Conch-L.
I find it's very interesting and good to have found a way to get
in contact with other persons who are interested in mollucs, shells,
fossils or whatever, to have found new friends. We Tirolean are
very open, sometimes maybe to open, we have a lot of humour
and so I think there sometimes is missing humour on our line,
except the flying pigs. Another question. Why can't we speak
not about other things too, I think we have other common hobbies
too, as music or  sports and many other topics. I think we can learn
from each other, not only from shells, but also from private life, which
seems to be very nice and interesting too.
Dear Lynn, thank you best for the great informations of the flying pigs.
I hope that nobody has understood the joke and the comparison with
me and the flying pigs. Indeed I am y client f of netWING and a little
corpulent as a pig, so I made myself to a pig. And what should be
then my mother. It was only my humour and nothing else.
I am a very open person with a lot of humour, but beside I am a serious
collector and scientist. Maybe that in the past I've been annoying
to some members of our group, but I hope it's better now. So there
shouldn't be in the future any attacks of conchlers to other, sometimes
boring questions, as to some of our young James. I like his questions
and I think it's very fine to have young people who are interested in
our common hobby, science or whatever.
So I wish us for the future the same collaboration, maybe with some
more humour, and the same agilities as in the past.
with best shelling greetings
Helmut from Innsbruck, the Austrian red white red flying pig.
 
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> Dear Helmut, and others,
>
> Let's all wish a happy birthday to Conch-L. It is three years old this
> month. In celebration, I'd like to do a little retrospective of this list
> of ours. (I assume Conch-L is an acceptable topic of discussion on Conch-L,
> since some of us spend so much time discussing what they believe to be
> appropriate and acceptable on the list and what they believe to be
> unacceptable.)
>
> Welcome, Helmut, to those of us who are mystified about the Flying Pigs.
> You are not alone and you are right to ask. No one but Art Weil, their
> spokesman, is quite sure about those pigs, and I suspect they hold some
> mystery even for Art.  Back when the list was very new, three years ago,
> our good friend and list member Art Weil started sending silly  (though
> sometimes pointed) messages to the list when things got tense or too
> serious.  We were much smaller then and we were getting to know each other
> better and the joking was already needed to lighten dull days or an
> occasional heavy or unfriendly atmostphere.  They were always widely,
> though not universally, welcome comic relief.
>
> Soon Art introduced Flying Pigs.  He lives in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio,
> which has been a market for pork from early in its history, so much so that
> it has also been called "Porcopolis."  Some students of list history might
> be interested to know that Art also had a really interesting pet octopus
> who lived in his (flooded?) basement and played chess. It too was a joke
> (and a mollusk-related one, I might add) which beguiled us for a while. But
> the pigs really stuck. They were either much beloved or the porkers people
> loved to hate. But they were part of this list.
>
> Many people have attempted to explain this piggy phenomenon, including its
> appropriateness. One explanation has been that they are little cowries with
> wings...since cowries are also known as "little pigs."   I like this one.
> Here is a digressive but interesting, informative, and decidedly on-topic
> quote from Dr. E. Alison Kay's introductory essay "About the Cowries" in
> C.M. Burgess's book, Cowries of the World (1985) p. 4:
>
> [Dr Kay is discussing the early names the cowries answered to]
> 'In some of these early iconographies cowrie shells were called "Venerae"
> and "Conchae Venerae", "shells of Venus", for example by Philippo Buonanni,
> 1681 and Martin Lister, 1685-1692. In others (for example, Rumphius, 1705,
> and Niccolo Gualtieri, 1742) the same shells were called "Porcellana", the
> word being the Italian diminutive for "little pig", perhaps because of the
> rotund shape of the shells. "Porcellana" has been retained as the French
> and German term for cowries, and became the familiar word "porcelain" as
> applied to fine chinaware because of its resemblance to the polished shells
> of cowries...'
>
>  I forget just why these joke pigs are pigs that can fly, but they do fly.
> The joke is also that they fly south for the winter, and back to Cincinnati
> for the warmer months. Some list member who shall remain nameless here once
> verbally pictured them with little wing-like mantles, soaring in flocks
> through the air. A delightful picture to cypraeophiles! Perhaps the flying
> aspect enters via the expression, "When pigs fly!"  which means something
> that is not likely ever to come true. For instance,
>
> Question:  "When is Marlo going to lighten up?"
> Answer:  "When pigs fly."
>
> Is "When pigs fly!" only an American expression?  I don't know.  Anyway,
> these never-again-to-be-mentioned pigs have a whole mythology built up
> around them, and they have been our list mascot from early days. As such,
> they are objects of affection for many of us.  There has never been any ill
> will or judgmental intent from them or from their proponent, Art. Nothing
> has ever come from them that was rude or repressive, or would call anyone
> on the list, or anywhere, a pig, or a sow or any other term that some might
> find offensive. They feel kindness toward your mother, Helmut, just as they
> do to you. Nor would they ever drive Travis Payne to sign of the list. The
> Flying Pigs are entirely benevolent in intent. Or so they have always
> appeared to be on this list. They are universally accepting of our
> differences, and our pecadilloes, even of those members who would cast them
> out of their native land of Conch-L. Just as Conch-L accepts everyone, so
> do the Flying Pigs.
>
> It would be far more appropriate to the focus and purpose and original
> intent of this list if each one of us followed the example of the pigs and
> was tolerant of all others, including the little pigs, than for us to
> quarrel about what is appropriate subject matter for this list. I'd bet a
> shell or two that far fewer messages on pigs have been posted to Conch-L
> than messages against the topic of someone else's post. And, unlike pig
> messages, those other sorts are both repressive and intolerant, as well as
> being wholly off topic. They lead to ill-will and subversion
>
> Happy birthday, Conch-L!
>
> Lynn Scheu
> Louisville, KY
> Home of the 1999 COA Convention, where all are welcome, members,
> non-members, prospective members, those who don't wish to become members,
> and  of course the Flying Pigs!
>
>
>
> Since I am on internet I always heard from flying pigs and have seen
> >a few photos of flying pigs, but I don't know what it means. Sorry.
> >Can anybody explain what it means. My mother and I have as pet
> >a gray New Guinea Pig, called "Putzele". Would this be with wings
> >a flying pig. Or as I am client of netwing and wings are used to flying,
> >am I now a flying pig. Please tell me, what flying pigs really are.
> >Until now I don't understand the discussion. When I am a slowly flying
> pig, my mother will be a flying sow, but this is not very nice. Maybe.
> >Helmut from Innsbruck.
> >
> >
>