Happy July 4th. Need a quick house gift? Bring kraken

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Looking for that perfect house gift for your weekend stay at friends this summer?  If they live near water, may I suggest something I’ve learned about now that I know Dr. Oliver Sacks and T/S’s own cold Kash Hill are fans of the squid?

A collectible set of squid stamps for those special snail mail missives nobody writes anymore.  Put them in a drawer with your pens, your typewriter ribbons, and your carbon paper.   One day, when your children want to buy a condo, you can sell them on whatever the next incarnation of e-Bay may be:

The Kraken is a legendary sea creature which would attach a ship by grabbing it with its many arms and capsizing it. The crew would drown or be devoured by the monster. The arms of the Kraken were said to be to reach as high as the top of a sailing ship’s mast.

Tales of the Kraken may have been inspired by a real animal, the giant squid Architeuthis dux. This animal remains elusive because it usually lives in depths of the sea and it rarely seen alive near the surface. The largest giant squid ever measured possessed a body a little under 7 meters in length and arms almost 11 meters in length, with suckers 10 cm in diameter. Giant squid are estimated to grow even larger than this, perhaps as much as 30 meters in overall length.

Just think of the dinner conversation, particularly if someone orders scungilli:

In October 1966 two lighthouse keepers at Danger Point, South Africa watched a giant squid drown a baby southern right whale. In 1965 a Soviet whaler witnessed a fight between a 40 ton sperm whale and a giant squid. Neither animal survived this encounter.

Attacks by giant squid on ocean going sea vessels have been documented. In the 1930s the Norwegian tanker Brunswick was attacked several times by a giant squid. The squid was unable to get a good grip on the steel surface of the hull. It slipped and was torn to pieces by the ship’s propellors. Probably the ship looked like a whale to the squid.

Have I mentioned the squid cake link at the bottom of the post yet?

On January 11, 2003 the trimaran Geronimo captained by Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson, carrying a crew of twelve, encountered a giant squid about 30 feet long some 400 miles off the coast of Gilbraltar. The sailors believe the squid was still alive when they encountered it, but it slid off the hull and disappeared after its encounter with the ship. It is possible the squid was already dead when the ship ran into it.

In September 2005 a pair of Japanese scientists released the first photos ever of a live giant squid in its native deep water habitat. Zoologist Tsunemi Kubodera of the National Science Museum and Kyoichi Mori of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association snapped the photos in September 2004 in the deep waters off the coast of the Ogasawara Islands. These scientists used a bait line sporting a digital camera, timer, strobe light, depth sensor, data logger, and digital switch. Small squid and shrimp provided the bait. During a four hour bout the giant squid lost one tentacle after it became entangled in the bait line. The scientists recovered the tentacle. DNA analysis verified the squid was indeed Architeuthis. The photos demonstrate that Architeuthis is an agressive hunter, using its tentacles to capture and strangle its prey.

This July is squid month at “Some Backstory.”  Look for the latest news on squids in poetry, squids in sculpture, squids in architecture and landscape design, and how to say squid in French, Latin, and Basque.  But first, get to that sackful of summer house gifts, and don’t settle for seashell soaps in a basket.  Get kraken.

via Kraken Stamps.

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