[As August 2010 marks the close of our tenth year of weekly publication, we shall spend this month enjoying "the blast from the past" with selections from Poor Mojo's Almanac(k): Year Three (issues 101-150).Ê Please, enjoy!—Your Giant Squid, Editor-in-Chief, PMjA]

[originally published in issue #125]

What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

Love,
Raoul Escocito, age 6

Raulito,

(For those infamiliar with number systems common to the architeuthis, I direct you to this previous column addressing the matter in full.)

Ah! This is indeed a humor extraordinairre!

A Mauling (6) brought to bear a Supercilious (9) number of times does indeed yield the "Fiercesome Affection" (54)— an expression, roughly hewn to word, referring to the persuasive upward pull to which a squid no longer controlling his buoyance must succumb. Raulito has presented here what is much akin to many of the numeropoetic jokes common and much enjoyed by squidlettes of all sizes— something of the nature of being equivalent to that "Name Game" so favored by youths humana.

Out of the mouths of babes!

But there is a further to this. Like and unto most games of children-sorts, there is the subtle, yet palpable, shade of Death wending its way through the jovialities, much as is the case in the games of "Ring Around Your Rosie" and the predation of Hiding and Seeking— and do not even dwell upon the Candied Land and Chutes-Upon-Ladders; they are matters to starkly savage to be a moment's tolerated by the rational mind of completed growth.

First, it is an angry joking, none can doubt. Just glimpse upon the preponderance of 3s! 3, that is Fury, is twice seen in 6 (for what is Mauling without Fury? Nought but Duplicity) thrice seen in 9 (a Three of Threes) and visits in 54 an 18 of times, and 18 is a Duplicitous Fury of Furies, a superlative betrayal in rage! These numbers, they seethe with anger, and that is but the surface.

Look deeper, summing the digits involved, we find a 24 (6 more 9 more 5 more 4), and 24, she is the product of 8s (Serenity, our only female-gendered numeral.) And of what sum of 8s? Why, a Furious 3! The tale, old as benthic colloid, deep as the trenches, broad as the solitude atop a North American skyscrapping, is one of three females thwarted in their desires, angered in their homes, betrayed in their hearts, and the rending vengeance they bore down upon male who hubristically them had wronged.

See you not the 1s which fill this tale? Never to forget, in all numbers is the summation and product of Makers upon Makers— does not the sexual to-make urge drive everforeward the iron wheels of Rage and Recrimination? Is there not a lesson here, coy and persuasive and dwelling beyond simple matters of being confirmed or denied?

As an afterthought (and attempt to return to some semblance of the joviality which Raulito intended to bring unto us, ) note that represented in the binary language of your computational doorstops, this serialized summation would appear as follows:

110 * 1001 = 110110

— a tale of the Maker and Nonesuch that is quite ribald— almost limeriacal— and, to be french, not entirely appropriate to an adolescent male of your chronologocial length (although I nonetheless understand its sinister attraction, the dark water which draws deep and devours.)

Of course, upon reflection, all binary mathematical operations read as risque jokings-to-make, which gives great insight into the social popularity of your computational devices, at least among squid and other superdecatentacled cephalopods. If only the nautili were here to enjoy the jokings of the computers!

Ah, mi, regrets— are they never less than regrettable?

With a Fondness,
The Giant Squid