Life, Aquatic: Or, 20,000 Leagues of Their Own
Posted: September 29th, 2005 | Author: themarkpike | Filed under: Stuff |José Arcadio Buendía, a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, swore that he would be able to prove the existence of God by capturing him on film. Buendía expressed a hope and a desire that technology could be used for divine documentation. This has been the hope since the discovery of a device that can record an image and a moment in time. But, perhaps the dream is not to capture an anthropomorphic portrait of God, but is rather a more liberal interpretation of divine documentation. The pursuit of capturing a moment of truth, a moment of reality.
They did it. They finally photographed a real, live, giant squid (Architeuthis).
Just before my Grandpa died, my Dad brought him an article from some science magazine about coelacanths, the fish that was supposed to be extinct. It wasn’t. People had reported seeing it, but nobody had caught one. My Dad used to joke with his father that he was going to catch one, someday. My Grandpa would roll his eyes.
One of my Grandpa’s favorite jokes was this:
Q: Do you know where I caught this fish?
me: No, Grandpa. Where? *pretending I haven’t heard the joke before*
A: In the mouth.
I once made a mixtape called 20,000 Leagues of Their Own. I called it that mostly because I love puns and word play (it must be genetic), but also because I was tickled by the mental imagery of a bunch of squids playing baseball during WWII, when the boys (like my Grandpa) were at war. Squids are one of the smartest animals on the planet, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch of the imagination that some top secret military experiment trained squid to play baseball (instead of Geena Davis) in order to free up more Americans to help the war effort.
I read a news” article recently that speculates the possibility that the military was training dolphins to protect ships in harbors from terrorists. The article proposed that these dolphins were rigged with deadly poison torpedos, and many of them were probably washed away into the wild during the Gulf Coast Hurricanes. What a conspiracy!
I won’t believe that until I see it. For now, I’ll stick with coelacanths playing baseball with giant squids…
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Squid vs. Whale
OR
Octopus vs. Shark
Hey dude,
Fantastic GGM reference. And I read about the giant squid earleri today. That shit is crazy. Awhile back I caught an article in the new yorker talking about that New Zealand scientist O’Shea something or other and how he was trying to catch baby giant squids and raise them in capitivity. interesting stuff. oh and next week i have an interview to be an intern at the Huffington Post. Just found out in the last hour. I’m super stoked. Anyways, I’m starting to ramble, but the posts are still dope my friend, still dope.
happiness and virtue
ck
I read that thing about the baby squids, too. I think he caught 15 of them, but they all died.
What’s the deal? I was super fascinated by the giant squid sighting, too, and immediately emailed the story to a friend (with the message being “It’s pretty good, isn’t it,” because I can’t resist any “Life Aquatic” reference). I think you’re right about it having to do with capturing the divine. That’s an excellent way to put it.
m- I use a visitor tracker called “stat counter,” at http://www.statcounter.com. One of the things it watches is what keywords people are using and through what search engines. Hence, someone got to my page b/c of their desire to learn more about “flat chested celebrities.” Hope that helps.
Hey Mark,
How are you feeling?
With your hands?
Aunt Marsha