I am happy to announce some progress in the case of the Loch Ness Monster. This journal has dealt with many mysteries. We are no strangers to enigma. It is often stubborn and will not permit examination. Like love, it proves too intense for analysis, or like the DMV, resists rational penetration to any useful depth. But there are some few puzzles that respond well to doodling. Over a recent poem posting, I doodled this:
One does not stop there. For good or ill, the inquiry must be pursued at least to "figure B":
Consider, the average number of children per family today is two. One needs a small tea kettle. Fifty years ago, couples had four children and needed something larger. One hundred years ago, families of eight children were not unusual --and one needed to heat bathwater in the kettle too. So we have household offspring backwardly quadrupling in numbers every hundred years, with each generation requiring a larger kettle than the ones that followed it.
The first written mention of the Loch Ness Monster is in The Life Of Saint Columbia, in the year 565. By the aforementioned calculus, 100^8 (100 years to the eighth power) the average family of 1500 years ago included a nearly infinite number of children and needed a kettle somewhat larger than the universe.
Little wonder that some more enlightened backyard mechanics --who often choose to live near ravines, lakes and other discreet geological receptacles-- departed tradition and, as they inherited huge family kettles from their exhausted parents, promptly launched and scuttled them. Sometimes, however, as can be seen in Dr. Kenneth Wilson's 1934 photograph, they resurface.
Loch Ness will someday acquit her/himself, and actually hold still enough for a photo. But, I'd like to have that copper pot, personally.
ReplyDeleteIt occurred to me that mainly I wanted Nessie to have neatly trimmed fingernails, so I drew that --even a good photo might miss it. I too like copper things!
DeleteWhich makes perfect sense to me. Which worries me a little.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your take on Big Foot?
Big Foot is actually a relative --a wooly northern one. I have other kin who are undifferentiated protoplasm. We're all trying to fit in.
DeleteHa - now I know!
ReplyDeleteYour 'doodle' is very fine - I like the kettle, which, for sheer thirst of knowledge, had to be filled to the brim to sink in that Loch. I'll go and tell my twelve children to bring the kettle - we might drop it into the Wannsee, and Berlin has one (little) attraction more.
I recommend we put Nessie in Großer Wannsee instead of the Kleiner Wannsee --the larger lake will make her feel more petite.
DeleteYou make your point as delicately as ever - under the enormous pressure of the beauty-mania-slimness-pressure Nessie will appreciate this very much!
DeleteI'm completely convinced. You've solved the mystery. It was the calculus that cinched it.
ReplyDeleteIf an average family with two kids gets a small tea kettle, what does a single person living alone get?
To solve for a single person, we must divide infinity by 2.
DeleteSo Nessie is just ancestral garbage....a reminder that no matter how hard you try to get rid of stuff, eventually it will resurface somewhere.
ReplyDeleteps...I think perhaps 'one' IS an artist.
Most generous, Delores. You are right: there is a ripple-effect to all our actions --and discards-- that cannot be be calculated exactly, even in a lake!
DeleteYou are an artist and I freaking love you. I thought Big Foot, following your tea kettle formula, could possibly be traced back to ancient dryer lint. That can't be true, though. You are much too evolved to have sprung from dryer lint.
ReplyDeleteMost kind. But have you allowed for lint-filter improvements made over the centuries to prehistoric automatic dryers? Lint can take many forms ahead of such advancements.
DeleteWell, see, this is where your mechanic physics time warp overwhelms my puny brain
DeleteMystery solved!! Seriously though I do want to believe in the Loch Ness Monster. I remember when they used sonar on the lake about 15 years ago and found nothing. I was disappointed .
ReplyDeleteI too was initially dismayed by that scan, but plesiosaurus is an aquadynamic shape easily missed if it stays still on the lakebed. Sonar scan was simply not conclusive.
DeleteThe world is full of magical things ......
ReplyDeleteIt sure is, especially when marvels like you show up.
DeleteI like the fingers on Nessie.
ReplyDeleteFamily with infinite number of children - genuinely terrifying!
Groups of kids always sound infinite if you go by noise-level. I was surprised when I did a head count and found only four.
DeleteAnother wondrous visit to the magical notebooks of Geo.! Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteI love you too, Willie.
DeleteOh, but dude, there's no supposition about it... you ARE an artist. Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteSince my sons and their wives are bucking statistics by spawning offspring like a kid spitting watermelon seeds machine gun fashion, they may have to go to Loch Ness and fetch a couple of those tea kettles.
Good idea, Susan! I hear Brigitta's going to throw one in the Wannsee --might check there too! Also, thanks for the compliment and calling me dude.
DeleteYou're very talented and creative both with words and with art. I admire that quality in people!
ReplyDeleteMost kind. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. Everything makes sense now. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kerry. My logic is flawed but sometimes looks better with a coat of paint on it.
DeleteThere must be something added to the tea to obtain such brilliance... Good post. This weekend I was in the Finger Lakes of NY and learned there are stories of such a monster on Seneca Lake.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sage! A serpent on the Finger Lakes would also need neatly trimmed nails. My doodle is making more sense all the time.
DeleteThis is my favorite bit of cryptozoology ever. The HANDS on that thing are way disturbing, though!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, they are disturbing but, as established in a prior essay on Nessie, clickable from the 1st sentence of this one, she needs hands to tend bar on the southwest shore.
DeleteVery cool idea Geo. You're a very talented drawer too!
ReplyDeleteThank you Lizzy. I try. I am going to put your new site on my blogroll, soon as I remember how to do it. So glad you're back!
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