There’s No Such Thing as a Giant Squid

A few months ago I went to the Natural History Museum in New York where I saw a giant squid wrestle a sperm whale. Well, I actually saw a diorama of a giant squid and a sperm whale made of plaster. It was incredible to me to think of so large an animal with such creepy tentacles. I lingered at the model longer than at any other diorama, imagining how easily this animal would take down a fishing vessel, just like in storybooks. And because I sometimes lean towards the morbid, I soaked in the idea of how terrifying it would be to face such a formidable foe in the wild.

As I stared in awe, I began to wonder why this wasn’t the giant model hanging from the ceiling at the center of the room instead of a big blue whale. I also thought about how annoying the presentation was, since it was in the darkest possible corner of a giant rotunda containing numerous other better-lit displays of ocean life.

Now I wonder if perhaps this poor lighting was designed to prevent me from reading the little plaque by the display where the museum admits that no one has ever actually captured one of these creatures. Parts have washed up on shores or been dragged up on fisherman hooks, but so have mermaid tails. It was like reading the small print under an ad for acne medicine that quietly describes the risk of death associated with the product.

I’m pretty quick to believe scientific things when told them; I believe that we landed on the moon, I believe that man came from monkeys and that the earth goes around the sun, but for some reason I have a hard time with the concept of a giant squid, big enough to wrestle a whale but impossible to catch. By complete accident we catch Prehistoric fish thought to have been extinct for thousands of years and yet no one seems to get ahold of a whole giant squid. And I know what you’re thinking, they’re giant and hard to catch, but so are whales and we eat them. Imagine the calamari possibilities that lie in those gigantic tentacles.

And as if the 8 python sized tentacles aren’t impressive enough assets, according to Wikipedia, giant squids also might have the largest eyes of any animal at around 12 inches in diameter, which is good since they live in almost complete darkness deep down in the ocean. Earthworms don’t see a lot of sun either, which is why they don’t have eyes. Aren’t eyes just points of weakness in an animal that doesn’t really need them? I suppose this isn’t evidence of their lack of existence, but it seems like a design flaw.

There are literally thousands of pictures of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, and I’m not saying that either of these animals exists, but why did it take until 2004 to get a snapshot of a giant squid? It’s right there in the name, they’re huge. And in the pictures of these squids you never see them next to a boat or a diver or even another fish. I want a little perspective. You hear about them trying to take down boats but do none of these boaters think to snap a picture? Come to think of it, maybe the museum display was so dark because the curators didn’t have a clue what the squid actually looks like.

I’m not saying that giant squids don’t exist (unless you look at the title of this entry, in which case, that is exactly what I’m saying), but I suppose what I’m really wondering is when we will get to put one in a tank and study it? I know, a very un-PETA-Manifest Destiny-Ugly American way of putting it, but come on, I want to look one in the eye and feel good about it being trapped behind Plexiglas, unable to sink me.

Crack Addiction

For as long as I can remember I’ve had an obsession with cracking joints. Primarily the knuckles in my fingers and toes though when I reached my early teens I was pretty pleased to discover a number of other parts of my body that were crackable. At around 10, I discovered purely by chance that I could crack my sternum (a friend stepping on me during a sleepover opened that door for me) and thanks to the wonders of TV I discovered that necks and backs were meant to crack too.

When I was 11 years old and away at summer school I went through a month’s worth of spending money in the first week, so I, along with some industrious roommates, opened a massage parlor/amateur chiropractor’s office in our dormitory to supplement our incomes. Meredith was the pimp in this arrangement, booking appointments and counting the money. For $5, one of our classmates could either have a 10 minute massage form the lovely Keelia or they could have me crush their back until it popped and twist their head until their neck snapped. For the bargain rate of $8 they could enjoy both our services. It never occurred to any of us that I could seriously hurt someone, and to be fair to my young self, I never did. But I never the less shudder at the image of preteens experimenting on each other thus.

When I returned home from that lucrative summer (and lucrative it was!), I no longer had business partners sleeping in the twin beds next to mine, ready and willing to walk on my back or twist my neck, and so I had to get inventive. I dreamed of one day building a machine that would come down from the ceiling and do compressions on my back to crack it. The time I put into mentally constructing this contraption could probably have been better spent on things like completing my math homework or learning a second language, but instead I considered the safety of my machine (because for my back, safety was a concern, however, for my neck…). It seemed unwise to leave everything up to motors, wheels, and buttons. And to make the machine useful to more than just me, it would have to be adjustable for varying shapes and sizes, controlled with a series of pulleys that I imagined I could fashion out of jump ropes. In the end, I imagined it being a completely manually operated contraption, controlled by the user. I imagined a 1 to 20 pressure ratio, with the user laying on his or her stomach on a massage table, arms laid either down to one’s side or in the “put your hands up and freeze” position and small Steven Hawking-style controllers just in reach that would control two huge wheels to come down, one on either side of the spine, and in a bottom-up motion, crack my back. There would also, of course, be a dead man’s switch in case of mechanical error, though the only error I could imagine was gear rust. The machine was perfect. However the cost for construction and upkeep, not to mention the space required for installation, was prohibitive and so the dream died without a single model built.

After I stopped fantasizing about an elaborate way to crack my back, I moved on to elaborate ways to crack my neck. Actually, not so elaborate; pretty obvious really. When I was around 14, my parents bought me a bed frame with a head and baseboard that had a series of metal bars arranged vertically, like a baby’s crib. Fortunately, unlike a baby’s crib, these bars were far enough apart to get your head through, though not quite wide enough to get the rest of yourself through. Perfect.

I spent countless evenings, mornings, afternoons with my head wedged safely between the bars of my bed, pulling with my arms until my neck snapped. It was a sensation like no other, and an obsession that lasted years after I was forced to stop, having been caught in the act by my mother who shrieked, “What the hell!?” and then spent 10 minutes telling me about how the lead singer of INXS had recently died from asphyxiation mid-sexual gratification. I was too uncomfortable and astounded by her assumption that I was partaking in such an act to explain myself and so I sat there silently until she finally left the room. On one hand, I wish I could explain to my mother what I was doing (but then we would have to admit to this little episode rather than continue to pretend that it never happened) but on the other hand, the shame of this talk prevented me from ever putting my head between those bars again, which may have prevented me from becoming a paraplegic.

After 14, I got obsessed with other things. Namely, boys. And my social life picked up enough that I no longer spent Friday nights devising ways to slip a disc. Though to this day, I occasionally drift away at work and dream of a man who can give me everything I really want, who is tall, and kind, and funny, and can pick me up by my head, if my neck is feeling especially tight.

One Angry Elephant

An explanation... I have little to no musical talent, so when I come up with an amazing band name, which happens quite often, I have no use for it. And yet, I am too selfish to share the ideas with my many musical friends. Sure, I imagine myself suddenly discovering a talent, like Phoebe in Friends who develops sexy phlegm, but I have spent years singing through colds and in the shower and in my car, and the record contracts have not been forthcoming. So today I stake my claim on one such band name, Topsy's Revenge, and make it my blog.

The story of Topsy and her revenge from beyond the grave begins in 1901, when Topsy the elephant, resident of Coney Island, trampled her first trainer... and the story continues in 1902, when she trampled her second trainer... and continues still in 1903 when she trampled her third and final trainer and the fair that employed her decided to let her go. As a tee-shirt slogan wearing team Topsy member, I will point out that very shortly before stomping his third trainer to death, Topsy was fed a lit cigarette.

I also imagine that the trampling of this third douchey trainer was either: A) an accident, akin to being stung by an bee and freaking out and accidentally stomping on a tiny dog, or B) revenge for the third in a long line of personal trainers who pushed him too far. Either way, I shed no tears for this trainer (who history has forgotten the name of while remembering his animal companion) and I have developed an odd affection and sympathy for circus elephants.

So after trainer #3 bites the bullet, Topsy gets a death sentence. But just like the geniuses in Florence, Oregon in 1970 who didn't know how to dispose of a dead whale, the geniuses at Coney Island couldn't decide how to dispose of Topsy. Hanging was considered, but the scaffolding proved too confounding to construct, so other means had to be devised. Oddly enough, nowhere in the numerous articles I've read on the subject of Topsy has there been any mention of Topsy perhaps meeting his end in front of a firing squad, an idea that has occurred to almost every ivory hunter in the history of history, but not to any employees of the fair.

The plot thickens, however, when my favorite inventor/villain enters the picture. Thomas Edison, on the two-birds-one-stone mission of pedaling his new fandangled direct current electricity and defaming his rival Nikola Tesla's alternating current (TEAM NIKOLA!!!!), suggests electrocution.

Of an elephant.

In front of an audience.

Duh.

But what better way to spread fear of a superior product (AC vs. DC) than to film the execution of a 4.6 ton animal via your competitor's product? So Topsy was electrocuted on January 4, 1903 and the whole event was captured by Edison Manufacturing Company and distributed in a theatre near you.

But Topsy, though dead, did not lose her strength. In fact, a year later she flexed her muscle one last time when she burnt Coney Island down, an event that has been referred to ever since as Topsy's Revenge.

So while naming a blog after such an event may have somewhat grim connotations, there's a The Burning Bed/Carrie aspect to this story that I love.