Seidel says, “I once wrote a poem about a girl I was in love with. I compared her to a seal. . . . It was a poetic problem,” he explains, “to connect the two—the girl and the seal—because it’s really almost preposterous.”

Interesting. Just this morning, I was reading a book about monsters with my son. Apparently some people think the mermaid legend arose from sailors (drunken, no doubt!) seeing seals stretched out on rocks. Anyway, fwiw.