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September 29, 2005
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea
Damn. There goes my whole "we have no dominion over this planet" sermon. Every time somebody suggests we know all there is to know about this planet, that we are greater than nature, or at least its keeper, my trump card response has always been two simple words -- "giant squid". For all the stories, for all the folklore, for the few occasional bodies washed up on shore or toothmarks found on the carcass of a whale, we've still never actually seen one of these monsters alive in anything other than anecdote. Deep in parts of the ocean we can't even begin to comprehend, they rule a dominion unknown to all but the hardiest of sea creatures.
But things change, don't they? A good millennium or so after the kraken scared the bejesus out of some mild-mannered Norwegian fisherfolk, and just 250 years since they were described in Pontopiddan's natural history of Norway as being roughly the size of a small island, we've finally gone and captured one on film.
I guess that's it guys, it's our planet now.
The poor thing lost a tentacle during filming, which initially stirred up some ethical ire in me. But then I thought "hey, giant squid". It's not like humankind has ever had a good relationship with them. I reckon they're pretty evil, and have generations of fisherfolk in my ancestry who would mutter agreement on that point. Certainly more evil than a cookie cutter shark (known for its "neat, cookie shaped wounds" that probably are not so good as cookies for the victim). There are so many many things deep under the ocean that can do nothing but cause you to question. Contemplating the cyberpunk glow of the strange beasts of the abyssopelagic (as I do often in my tiny submarine), it strikes me that our obsession with the extra-terrestrial might just be a case of getting ahead of ourselves. We've got enough freaky shit down there to be thinking about at length...
And still, while we uncover Tennyson's ancient evil and marvel at the ocean floor, the debate about intelligent design rages on...
I wonder what they baited the hook with. It could have been a salty sea dog with a pipe rested on his lip, or perhaps a confused sperm whale wondering if there were worse fates to be had off this wretched Japanese coast...
Technorati Tags: evolution, ocean, squid
Posted by patrick at September 29, 2005 9:41 PM
Comments
patrick,
if you ever get a chance to see 'aliens of the deep' in IMAX 3D, check it out. i got dragged along by a science-nerd friend and ended up being blown away. i know you, like me and anyone with half a brain sick to death of his posturing as a 'scientist' will automatically filter out all the James Cameron hyperbole, and the tragic, quasi hollywood 'what if?' at the end (The Abyss in speculative doco form, basically) - but it'll visually take you out of your freakin' skull; the sheer biomass living in super-heated hydrated material (that black smokey looking stuff they'd otherwise call 'water' which is created when super-heated gas seeping through volcanic vents on the ocean floor hits glacial, well-below zero 'water'). the shots of billions of prawn-like and shrimp like creatures - and other stuff beyond description, really - darting in and out of this 700 degree fluid *looking for something to eat* make the mind boggle; at one point the crew are worried about the superheated fluid affecting the hull of their submersible, or at least their instruments, while observing the diversity and breadth of organisms for whom it's just "home".
as a construct, i reckon the kraken's been great for mythology - it's good to know moby and his pals don't always have things their own way. we'll know they've really made it when colin meloy finally pens a 9-minute epic about them.
i know i'm a few days late, but: arr!
Posted by: ruby at September 30, 2005 5:21 AM
