Dear diary,
If an elephant were to communicate to you in imperfect English, would you correct her grammar? I hope not; I hope you’d just be happy that her mind is able to convey its message to you. The successful transference of a thot from being to being, especially between individuals of different species, should take precedence over all niceties and shibboleths.
Imagine a beach scene with two good scientists, both wearing white smocks with gray slacks (not bathing suits), and before them lies the ocean. They are trying to train a dolphin to write messages in the sand, like Jesus did. (I mean that Jesus wrote erasable messages, not that he was a dolphin trainer: see the Gospel of John, 8:8 “And he stooped down, and wrote upon the ground.”) These scientists have a large bucket filled with treats. Five loaves and two fishes. Plus there’s a couple hundred pennyworth of boiled potatoes. And these scientists keep reaching into this bucket & pulling out goodies & dangling them near the shoreline and saying “Come here, pretty dolphin; write down a confession to us in the beach sand, using your snout! If you do well, shall you not be accepted?” Then the scientists take a bite of whatever foodstuffs they happen to be holding and say “Yum-yum!” to show that it is palatable and not poisoned: there are no tricks involved here, beyond the smooth-talk and bribery. And the dolphin swims back & forth near the shoreline, and goes up & down in the water; and whenever one of the scientists addresses the dolphin, she stops in her tracks and lifts her head in concentration — she apparently has a strong desire to understand these non-ocean-dwellers. She even cautiously nibbles at one of the potatoes, when they hold it towards her face, as if to say: “Even tho I’m not hungry right now, I’m really trying to meet you guys halfway.” ...Yet, sadly, after much time passes without any results, the scientists decide to call it quits; they start to pack up their supplies...
At last they rose, and twitch’d their Mantles white:
To seek newfangled Forests of the night.[—paraphrase of the end of Milton’s “Lycidas”]
However, just as they turn their backs to take leave of the scene, behold: The dolphin makes a lunge toward the shore! There is a lengthy, suspenseful pause... & then, another hard lunge! The front half of the dolphin’s body is now fully on land. And now, thru the clear shallow water, the scientists distinctly can see two growths begin to appear from either side of the dolphin’s submerged half. These protrusions become more and more defined, until their shape proves unmistakable — the scientists marvel, wholly stupefied: The dolphin has developed a pair of legs! With these, the bulk hefts itself fully out of the ocean; then it labors over to the sand in front of the scientists. With its beak, hesitantly, it now traces upon the beach a number of figures, which turn out to be characters of the alphabet. It is a plodding and awkward process, throughout which there are periodic coughing sounds emitting from its blowhole, as if from stress; but the creature at last manages to inscribe a few sentences. When finished, the dolphin steps back, swaying slightly with unbalance; it turns and faces its fellow-sufferers. The scientists now move to where the creature had been bowing, to view the tracings straightforwardly; they attempt to read over what the beast has written. As their eyes scan along, at first it is with difficulty that they decipher the broken, stilted phrases. Then, as the meaning of the scrawl grows clearer to the scientists, their respective expressions begin to cloud over. Soon they are both undeniably enraged. “This fiend has divulged our most private sins!” whispers one to the other. “How could such an unintelligent monster successfully hack into the human heart and assume it has the right to publish our deepest shames to the public!” whispers the other to the one. Now both scientists pace menacingly slowly to their freshly evolved accuser. The dolphin tries to back away, but it is still too inexperienced in the ways of land-travel, so it loses stability and falls on its side. The scientists approach and tower over their wriggling victim. “Hold em down, Tee,” says the shorter scientist. “You got it, Ceecee.” (For the scientists’ names are Ceecee and Tee.) And with Tee holding down the femme-legged dolphin, Ceecee pummels the poor creature six or seven times. Then the scientists borrow Lord Yahweh’s snake-saw and — tho this scene was removed from the theatrical presentation, as it was too disturbing for modern audiences — they remove the legs from the dolphin; then toss it back into the polluted ocean. (That’s called “catch & release”.) The thing’ll probably die out there, now. “Good riddance,” say the scientists. Then they place both legs that they severed into Ceecee’s backpack, which is basically a fishnet bindle; and, when they get back to the lab, they dip the legs in amber to preserve them. And they affix lampshades atop each leg, and add a socket and bulb underneath; so you can use these Leg-lamps at night, to highlight your textbooks and study your figures and all your graphs and charts. For true science is a serious pursuit that requires adequate funding.
Acknowledgements
For further reading, see The Saddest Music in the World (2003), a film directed by Guy Maddin, as it has scenes about legs (tho no dolphins, at least none that I can recall); also I think the idea of the lamp is something I stole from A Christmas Story (1983), which is a comedy film that I watched when I was young — but I wanna stress that the first-mentioned movie, by Maddin, is the one that I wish you would seek out; I only mention the 2nd one here (the Xmas one) to give credit where it’s due: for true art is a serious pursuit that requires FULL PAYMENT OF ALL DEBTS otherwise the Poet Mafia will break your legs. But I should watch that latter film again myself, cuz maybe it’s good; who knows.
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