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Squid #135
(published May 22, 2003)
Notes From The Giant Squid: Pining for the "Old-School Atari Shit"

Who is Poor Mojo's Giant Squid?
Dear Giant Squid,

What are the predators of the Giant Squid?

from the web,
Sunni


My dearest Sunni,

You ask of me an excellent question, and I will endeavor to answer it forth and rightly.

The Chief predator of one such as I—immense in his glory, beheld of faculties so much like a God, confined to a narrow glass and concrete demesne, and beset on all sides by the chatterings of ambulate monkey-interns—is boredom and a general lack of intellectual stimulation.

Something, I might to the addition make, you have done little to appease my Hindu Friend, with your rude and abrupt questioning. Where are the prefaces of yesteryear? The sumptuous bellicosity of social niceties and forums. What I am attempting to convey is such: once upon a time, I the Great and Terrible Architeuthis of Detroit nee' Cin-cin-atti did receive many hundreds of messages every week, begging for help and advice and rare, sweet mercy. The letters were voluminous, some were in verity novels, others more like the eddas of old. Can you imagine the glory of a song cycle or an epic poem begging for the oft-withheld mercy of the Truly Yours? It is as rare and precious and salty as the Alligator's Tears.

Again, Rob tells me with his crayons and pantomime that I am rambling and eluding the point. But, my simian sycophants, this is the point: when I was a whelp upon the sea, I came upon a submersible piloted by Nicola Tesla, Ambrose Bierce and Samuel Clemens. Attracted by the crackle of electricity and the blinding whiteness of the Clemens-suit, your narrator achieved contact with said submarine. My grand and groping tentacles and terrible rending beak frightened poor Tesla into docility, and Bierce only sat and muttered into his pipe, but the proud and magnificent Twain remained calm—perhaps the grandest human-ape I have ever met, and one of the only Hu-Mans to achieve the rank of 33rd degree Architeuthic Ambassador, in large part to my patronage; have you not wondered why so much of his wit and wisdoms is published in these pages, dear readers?

Samuel Clemens Twain began to inquire of me as to my nature and purpose, but his speech was so full of clauses and redoubts, and double-backs, and narrow narrow arroyos in which my limited knowledge of english became trapped like so many runaway horses. I was, to say, smitten. His conversational skills were like that of the himmelman, the Bobby Fischer, the James-Joyce. We parried many nights together, sharpening our wit-swords on the egos of the other.

A question posed by my beloved Clemens-ape could take hours to get 'round to its point and meat. His opinion, when proffered, would take weeks and weeks of pre-claims, post-claims and jibing and apologizing before he could begin to utter the prelude to his thoughts.

In short, dear Sunni, questions like yours—so short, abrupt, devoid of trickery or even kindness—make me long for the spiralling takes of Herr Twain.

But, if as I guess it is true, and this question relates to a Manuscript you compose for a class of sorts I will answer you thusly: the predators of the "Giant Squid" are boredom, fatty foods, too much sodium, the idiocy of interns and the failure of network television.

As a post-scriptum, I give you this: Rob informed me that when he is feeling the coldness of boredom he plays the "PS2" or the "old-school Atari shit." When this data was foisted upon me I demanded Rob show me all he knows of these anti-boredom techniques.

Devo, our surprisingly clever technician was contacted and ordered to build Controllers, Joysticks, and a PowerGlove that one such as I could wear.

Rob instructed me in the ways of the Karate Master, the Atari Boxing, the SoulCaliber, the Mortal Kombat (as if I needed instruction in Mortal Kombat, Rob! Who here has killed more infidels and loathsome Sperm Whales, I ask you dear reader? I have killed hundreds upon hundreds, whereas I have only seen Rob kill the once!) and the Street Fighter.

I have been trained in the Etiquette of the Game of Video. I know how not to fight "cheap," how not to be a "suck-Ninja" and now I know of the shouting of "Boo-Yah!" that accompanies a particularly rigorous and impressive victory.

And today do I shout the Boo-Yah loudly, while I pound on the walls of my glass and concrete cage high above Detroit proper, and stave off the nihil of boredom for another day.

Yours in Victory,
Architeuthis Rex Mundi

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see other pieces by this author | Who is Poor Mojo's Giant Squid? Read his blog posts and enjoy his anthem (and the post-ironic mid-1990s Japanese cover of same)

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