A Childish Crispness in Whales

[gurdonark]

"The talking whales have beautiful song, Icelandic-saga type songs, except that they seem to involve slaying fishermen more than one another. The talking whales build cities in hellish dark places of a beauty that Frank Lloyd Wright would appreciate, particularly if Mr. Wright had to use flippers rather than fingers to make his architectural sketches. The talking whales have the ability to talk with God, although God often tells the talking whales that, being meek,they will one day inherit the Earth, but that current plans permit other species to audition, too".--from gurdonark's novel, "Lonely Distance"

What do words mean? When are they words at all? Sometimes they are definitely words, but they escape meaning, rather than enhance it. Sometimes words are about anything but meaning.

Whales engage in "whale song", ambient music which can travel for tens or hundreds of miles. Scientists who study matters cetacean debate, to a greater or lesser extent, whether these songs are like "language" or instead like more instinctive animal activity, such as mating ritual noise. Do the whales use words? If so, what do they mean? I don't purport to resolve any puzzles on that score, although I must confess that my own personal desire for additional intelligent life in the universe makes me hope that species of intelligent whales cruise the deepest oceans. I am a bit flurried and hurried today, as I have to squeeze five or more days largely into three days in order to spend Thursday and Friday travelling in connection with a family matter. But it seems to me sometimes that I understand the didgeridoo of a whale song a good bit better than I understand some people who speak to me in my native language. So often I feel I am not speaking to a person reacting to a concern so much as to a chess formation, set up as a stonewall, requiring me to exploit its weaknesses positionally.

When I wrote my "ten day" novel last November, I found the pointless subplot of the talking whales, which I called "the Goodall whales", to be a great vaudeville distraction from the problems of a boring narrator much like me, only more colorless, telling his story of cyberobsession. But on days like today, when I find myself spending my day an attorney trapped in a hermetically sealed world of attorneys and those who would be attorneys, I long to meet a talking whale, and listen to his or her song.

Comments

Me Too

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

- except I am not an attorney, but yeah, on those days when one is simply making the moves required, rather than dancing to the music one aches to hear, a talking whale would be an incredible gift from the universe.

Re: Me Too

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure my day was very much about being an attorney :), but more about the sheer folderol of it all, what with people and communication and everything. But I'd hate to be at a cocktail party with a whale, and find that we had nothing to talk about.

Another Bermuda Triangle, thanks

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

Perhaps that's where we differ - apart from my not being an attorney or a man or living in Texas or being married, or any other of the few minor details one might like to point out if one was pedantic: unless I was in a particularly self-conscious and/or socially awkward frame of mind, if I were at a cocktail party with a whale and found we had nothing to talk about, I'd just have another drink or two, and watch, and listen. Caring about not having anything to talk about with the whale would be succumbing to the folderol, don't you think?

Re: Another Bermuda Triangle, thanks

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're a much better listener than I am :). I wish I were a better conversationalist, but I suspect it is a matter of not hearing what the whales are saying :)

Cheers

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

I don't want to put myself down - if I say it's a bad habit of mine, am I already doing it? - but I know my listening skills could do with some tweaking. Yours must be pretty good, your ears would be a tool of your trade? Not knowing what to say and not hearing are quite different problems, and perhaps a lot of the time I suffer both. But I do try to listen, and repeatedly fumble for words!

Re: Cheers

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think you're right--listening and finding words are different skills. I like to think if one can do the first, then the second comes naturally,but I probably must rethink that assumption.

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

Another box of Krisy Kremes and I think I'll qualify! ;-)