from a few weeks ago, where i made reference to the giant squid? [to great rhetorical effect, i might add] Turns out that about a year ago some Japanese scientists obtained film of a live giant squid ―
It's listed among the most popular links at Yahoo news.
Maybe it's the fact that those things can grow to the length of a football field. Or those ten snakelike tentacles, all studded with suckers the size of pie plates. Or the fact that it spews forth black ink when it gets excited. Or that vicious parrot beak that can bite off the head of a pig.
As for me, i like 'em sliced up and fried in beer batter with tangy cocktail sauce on a Sunday afternoon and a football game on the big screen. An effective seafood cocktail sauce should always contain a generous amount of horseradish, tabasco and lemon in it. But i digress.
Here's an fascinating passage about the mysterious deep sea monster from an otherwise boring book called Moby Dick:
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1
Please, please let this be the last reference to Moby Dick here. A truly awful, excruciatingly boring book, not to mention down right weird I forced myself to read every word. I hope to expunge the whole sorry incident from my memory one day.
Posted by: Pursuit at September 28, 2005 07:22 PM (n/TNS)
2
I'm partial to rather small slimy things that taste like seafood.
Posted by: Casca at September 28, 2005 07:40 PM (qBTBH)
3
I loved Moby Dick. We knew these Kraken existed for years because of the gaint sucker marks found on sperm whales, living and dead. It seems that they eat the squids, but they don't always win the fight.
Posted by: Kyle N at September 29, 2005 03:34 AM (3g8jc)
4
I'm a little confused why we're only just hearing about it now when it happened so long ago. Still, better late than never, I guess.
Posted by: Christiana Ellis at September 29, 2005 03:45 AM (msLwL)
5
You think Moby Dick was boring? Try reading another Melville classic, "White Jacket." No need for Sominex if you start reading this book.
Posted by: Tim at September 29, 2005 06:44 AM (PJ4Iq)
6
This incident in Moby Dick was based upon a real life incident.The ship Essex, out of Nantucke,t was destroyed by a whale in 1819.
If you go to Nantucket, you will learn all about the whaling industry and this incident. I love to go to Nantucket because of the history and because everyone wears preppy clothes like I do.
Posted by: Jake at September 29, 2005 08:11 AM (r/5D/)
7
"God bless Captain Vere!"
oops...wrong book. but, hey, at least it's a Melville novel that definitely does not suck.
Posted by: Blu at September 29, 2005 08:42 AM (j8oa6)
8
Oh, Anni, you're breaking my heart! I
loved Moby Dick in school; I was the only one in my class who read the whole book, including the chapters our teacher said we could skip.
The book I really hated in high school was Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". Although I wonder now that I'm older how I would take it if I ever reread it. Maybe I'd be more forgiving. And (heh!), maybe I wouldn't handle Moby Dick the same way; who knows?. Even back then, I noticed that Melville tended to go on and on with his descriptions; he gave verbosity a whole new meaning to me.
Posted by: E.M.H. at September 29, 2005 10:36 AM (xHyDY)
9
No doubt you also received a few ass beatings on the playground too.
Posted by: Casca at September 29, 2005 11:11 AM (qBTBH)
10
Nooo, no. "Boring" is not the proper adjective. I graduated with an English BA. I LOVED reading novels and writing essays, for which the alma mater gave me a degree. I could read even boring novels and give them the benefit of the doubt, but not Moby Dick. The book started pretty strong, but the middle/bulk was damn near coma-inducing. To read chapter after chapter about whale's skulls, and whale sperm, and whale blubber, and blah, blah, zzz....
Posted by: Mark Moby at September 29, 2005 11:20 AM (Vg0tt)
11
i wouldn't say the Scarlet Letter is as overrated or undeserving of its hype as as Moby Dick is. But it was not an enjoyable read, and i have no desire to.
Posted by: annika at September 29, 2005 11:31 AM (zAOEU)
12
I'm loving these monster posts too.
Posted by: Amy Bo Bamy at September 29, 2005 12:25 PM (kxatG)
13
"no doubt you also received a few ass beatings on the playground too."
that's some pretty funny shit, casca. bit edgy, but,hey, if the nancy boys can't handle it, screw 'em.
what ever happened to the huge comment of the week, anyway?
Posted by: Blu at September 29, 2005 01:20 PM (j8oa6)
14
The Scarlet letter blew chuncks. Most early american novels were not that good but the art form was only just being created. From the same period, but much better written was anything by Alexander Dumas.
Posted by: Kyle N at September 29, 2005 03:26 PM (CkwDS)
15
I can remember reading The Count of Monte Cristo in about a week over summer break when I was 13. I could never make it through The Scarlet Letter although it was one tenth the volume. Hawthorne turned illict sex into a snore.
Posted by: Casca at September 29, 2005 04:21 PM (qBTBH)
16
Well, the Leatherstocking Tales can be difficult reading, but they are way more enjoyable than Scarlet Letter was. And i think Cooper predated Hawthorne, if i'm not mistaken.
Posted by: annika at September 29, 2005 07:06 PM (llWIi)
17
Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables was very good, and it's not overhyped like The Scarlet Letter is.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553212702/qid=1128096921/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/102-6229300-0112159?v=glance&s=books
Also The Blithedale Romance was great. It's about communal living. Although Hawthorne is critical of it all, it's amazing how he almost foresaw some of modern liberalism's talking points.
Posted by: Mark at September 30, 2005 09:18 AM (Vg0tt)
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People are fascinated by giant slimy things i guess. The giant squid has always held a particular mythological importance. Mainly, i think, because so little is known about it. As a monster it was known as the Kraken, and you can see it in the corners of those old time maps, usually clutching a square rigger within its tentacled death grip.
