Dear Giant Squid:

What up squid?

Ted

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Ah, Theodore. Indeed you pose an interesting question.

"What up squid."

I have known many squid in my ancient and long life, and to each of them I have posed this question of what is up them.

You see, as we (the world's squidkind) hang in the water column, tendrilled limbs lithe and open, beaks quickly a-click, drawing prey up into the alimentary canal, the sustenance and soul of the various victims is pulled up into the Internal Being of the squid, and the ascent of that gross matter causes a specific and peculiar change in the mollusk as he or she digests. To each meal, there is a different result, such and like to each season there is a thing under Heaven. And so, it is a question which can give much insight into the squid's individual mental orientation. If one might begin a catalogue of the many ups of the squid, and the effect of those ups, one might better anticipate when, for example, it would be fortuitous to ask a squid for a raise in salaried payment, or when one might best avoid a squid who is up with something quite nasty.

Thus, let us now track the many states of the squid, and what is up him. Let this serve as the beginning of a guide to all who would dare engage the attention of Architeuthis Dux in business, diplomacy or affairs of the hearts.

The Ups Organic (non-sentient):

• The Sea Polyp The foul polyp, the cucumber of the sea, is the many watered world's most despicable vagrant. The surest sign of a squid in the midst of upping a polyp is a blackening of the skin about the eyes, and a general surliness to the writhing of the arms. Avoid the squid at this moment, for he is sure to assume that you, like the polyp, wish only to leach away his happy energy and leave nothing but foulness in your wake.

• The Bacterial Plume Ah, the dispersing bacterial plume, much like undefined grey water and the delectable chemical spill, provides a squid with his happiest of incidental meals. When the sea is scarlet, or otherwise discolored by one of these vague clouds of death, you are sure to find many gleeful squid consuming the whining, tortured flesh of the creatures left in the cloud's poisonous wake. Nothing is more enticing to a squid then the raw fear engendered in a dying creature who has encountered so inscrutable a death. Tokyo subway travellers were so swept up into this awful and wonder death that six different squid were found beached the next day, having dared the horrible boiling pain of the Upspace in an attempt to feast upon the fear soaked skin of the dead. But be to take care: the frenzy of this pleasure does not lend to idle consultation. The squid will resent any distraction from his goal. However, if you can speed the squid on his way to the feast, he is sure to grant you some boon.

• The Eel, electric If you see a squid upon the sea floor, its monstrous disk-like eyes half closed in spasms of dissociative pleasure, you can be most assured that the eel electric is revealing the secrets of up. I shudder with purple shame at the thought of this mid-ocean treat. But do not engage the squid immediately if found in this state. Return some half hour to one hour hence when the tentacled one has shuddered his last. He will be drowsy and approachable by this point, almost pliable in his happy pre-sleep manner.

The Ups Inorganic:

• The Ocean Floor Rock Sustaining? No. Fulfilling? Not in the least. Nutritious? Not a bit. Good for the gullet? Yes, but beside the point. The truth of the Floor Rock is that he is one of life's guilt-filled pleasures, like an unto the Hostess' Twink-E or mid-day bathroom stall onanistic flight: unproductive, ephemeral, a waste of energy, but a pleasure to be had, nonetheless, savored for its instant, and then discarded. Is there much use, for the conniver, in the squid who has consumed much Rocks? No; but perhaps one could catch him in that moment, that sliver of time that is but barely post-Rock consumption, catch him upon that brief quivering crest of the afternoons lone breaking wave, and at that moment quickly ask "SquidsirmayIhaveapiddlingincreaseinmywagesearned?" And, perchance, he might, with a fillip of the tentacle, reply "Most assured, buddy. Now be off, scamp, and bring my back a virgin's kidneys."

• The Discarded Boot Ah, the discarded boot. Is there no wonder in the Great Deep like the sheer variety of boots, their textures and flavors, weights and measures. The boot, each is a delight unique, a singular joy not to be tasted again in this earth's travel. Further, does not the boot lend us repose and gentle meditation? Would we have even the tenth-part of the wisdom we possess now, were it not for the bounty of boots, floating ever anti-skyward to fill our ornamental boot bowls? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, bringer of boots! Blessed be we, who receive the boots dropped from Heavens above, now and forever!

• The Home Stereo I, my own self, have naught to been a fan devoted of the Home Stereo, but so many others have raved so long and vociferously that I feel it bears mention. With frequency, I find in myself the thought "So many think so highly of the home stereo; perchance I am in error." And so then find myself again sending Rob or Sang to the Beast Buy mercantile, and back they return with an Oinkyo or Sanyo or Aiwa-o or Sony-o, and this I consume, and once again find myself non-plussed. Yes, the stereo is certainly acceptable fair, but where is the up? I devour home stereo upon home stereo, and full but little bit bloated and no more— so strange, as though the very device is lacking in any sort of sustaining power to the mind and soul, despite how filling it is to the stomach and beak. Please, Reader, doubt not that I have tried: I have eaten domestically produced stereos and imported stereos, cheap and expansive stereos, State-of-the-Art miniature pocket stereos for hanging upon the cochlea and vast, monstrous, vacuum-tube crammed antique stereos. I have eaten car stereos and movie stereos and the entire sound system, including Mackie 1202 VLZ-Pro mixer and Numark turntables, sold as surplus upon the occasion of the demise of the Motored Lounge discotek of Detroit, Michigan. I have eaten two stereos once owned by Sir Thomas Alva Edison, one short wave set owned by Adolph Hitler, seven of Marconi's prototypes and the set properties radio manned by the actor portraying Radar O'Reilley on the telenovel M*A*S*H, and each stereo has been as boring and devoid as the last.

• The Novelty Vomit The novelty vomit gives us strength in adversity, bravery under duress, stillness in times of agitation, libido in the presence of the homely, fluency when under rested, and presence of the mind when insufficiently prepared. It places teh vip within your vinegar, the zip alongside your zap, and the tiger in your tank. Novelty vomit is all things to all men, yet slave to none and acquaintance of few. I count him who has Novelty vomit as his allay to be far better indeed than he who is simply inordinately talented, and would gladly place within the Whitened House any man who has supped his fill of the novelty vomit, for there are ups and there are ups, and novelty vomit is the upmost of ups. There are no doubts.

The Ups Organic (sentient):

• The Domestic Dog, Welsh Corgie Picante. The welsh corgie is picante, and not just picante among canines, but empirically, objectively, picante. There is a savor and spice to the corgie, be it based in his saucy attitude or his diet rich in spicy sauces— I am no gastrologist; ask me not the whys and where-fors of the eating and the ups, and that they are and what that being is. But all this is along the side, for now I speak on corgies. The corgie imbues us with fire, a violent joie de vivre which, trust me friends, is downright dangerous. Imagine those Riots of LA of years passed— and now imagine them again, but loosed upon the world entire, and featuring raging Architeuthes rather than socio-economically disadvantaged ethnic sorts. That, my dear ones, is a world of wilding, corgie-fed squid. Fear it.

• The Pizza Delivery Boy If there is a single confirmed aphrodisiac in my diet, it is no doubt the pizza delivering boy. Even if I only am to smell the savor of his cooking corpus, I am overtaken by a great and powerful ardor that drives me humpingly to the side of my tank, where-on I rub my inflamed passions up until the moment of liberating emission. (But, like and unto you, do I not start to wonder "How is it, in a glassed, watered tank, I can smell anything at all? Is it not a world of wonders, oh my wonderfilling Readers?)

• The Aging Industrialist What is to be said? I like the aging industrialist. I shall not wax poetic on the topic: he is a good meal, simple, yet filling, and fortifying to body and soul. The aging industrialist is, no doubt, the staff of life.

A Brief Concluding Note: I stop myself now, consciously, although I have many more ups I might wish to detail and describe. It seems that the ups-meme is, in my mind, ever-hydral, for I snicker-snick off one ups, pining it 'neath the glass of description, and two more rear up in my mind, veritably begging to be explicated for your continuing erudition. And then, even beyond that writhing forest of the ups-which-might-be-named, there are still evermore: the rage of coral and confusion of tires, the ebullience of marlin and maudlin of lions, the sheer winnowing fugue of deer as they twist-at-spine and stampede their dancerlegs, inexorably sinking ever deeper into the Glassy Blue— these are the ups which cannot yet be described by oh-so-humble I in your simple, charming grunt-lingus. This is the love that one dare not speak.

Ever More Ups,
The Giant Squid