News You Can Bruise: Hello.
Coffinfish: Hello.
NYCB: Is it true that you can walk on the ocean floor using your fins?
CF: You'd better believe it.
NYCB: Where do you usually walk?
CF: Just around.
NYCB: But like where? Like to the store?
CF: There are no stores in the depths of the ocean!
NYCB: Well, have you ever thought about opening a store?
CF: Why?
NYCB: Because it's never been done before. The market is completely open. I think it would be a good business for you if you opened up a convenience store off the coast of Australia. You could sell to the other deep sea fish and to the squids and crabs and whatnot.
CF: Look, do you know what fish use for money?
NYCB: No, what?
CF: Nothing! 'Cause we're fish! We have no economy! Our relationships with other fish are predator/prey relationships or mating relationships or rival relationships! So stop with the store idea!
NYCB: Do you think that the ocean as a whole would be more productive if you had an economy?
CF: No.
NYCB: Why not? Humans have an economy.
CF: Yeah, and what do you get out of it? You have to work all day to get your "money"!
NYCB: But you have to work all day as well. All day you lure smaller fish to their doom with the glowing bait atop your head.
CF: That's not work! I just sit back and the fish fall into my gaping maw! It's fun!
NYCB: And then you have to evade predators.
CF: To evade predators, I simply swallow an enormous amount of water! I bet that doesn't work for you!
NYCB: No, but if a predator did get you, how would your family survive without you to provide for them?
CF: That is a moot point because I don't provide for them now.
NYCB: I'm saying that maybe it would be a good idea if you took out an insurance policy or something.
CF: I have an insurance policy!
NYCB: Really?
CF: I am insured against theft, and damage from earthquake!
NYCB: That's pretty useless.
CF: We fish trade only in things that have no value! If we have something valuable, we keep it for ourselves.
NYCB: But what about symbiosis?
CF: Symbiosis is for sea anenomes!
NYCB: You're a very unpredictable interview.
CF: You are a very unpredictable interviewer. Why do you ask me about economic activity all the time? Why don't you ask me some more stupid human questions about how I walk, just like you do? Huh? How about anthropomorphizing me some more? Blaaah! I'm a coffinfish! Blaaah!
NYCB: So, uh, when you walk, are you all walkin' down the street like this, or are you all walkin' down the street like this?
CF: The first one.
NYCB: 'Cause that one's cooler?
CF: Yeah, whatever.
NYCB: Look, you wanted more questions about the walking thing.
CF: Why don't you ask me about my new book?
NYCB: You have a book?
CF: Yes, it's called "Passion and Power: The Political Houses of the Great Barrier Reef 1951-1956".
NYCB: What's it about?
CF: It's got it all: politics, food, sex, budding, intrigue, all set against the stunning backdrop of the postwar Great Barrier Reef.
NYCB: So is it a history?
CF: It's more of a fictionalized memoir. It takes place from the perspective of a young polyp who grows unobserved in the chambers of the ruling class of corals.
NYCB: I'm intrigued.
CF: It also has my favorite recipe for fish. I call it "Fish a la Fish".
NYCB: Would you like to share the recipe?
CF: Yes. First, you stay very still with your mouth open. Then, you eat the fish.
NYCB: So, it's more a means of acquiring fish than a recipe.
CF: It's both. The second part is the recipe.
NYCB: Your book sounds very interesting. Do you have a publisher?
CF: I was planning on disseminating it through oral tradition.
NYCB: You should get a publisher.
CF: Is that another economy thing?
NYCB: Sort of. I think a lot of humans would pay good money for a book written by a coffinfish.
CF: And what would I do with this "money"?
NYCB: You could buy a bunch of really tacky knicknacks and scatter them over the ocean floor, and then show them to other fish.
CF: Your human ways have corrupted me! Now I too must have these tacky knick-knacks!
NYCB: Sorry.
CF: Tell me where are the knick-knacks!
NYCB: Like what do you want?
CF: A little castle! I must have a little castle that gets algae in it! And a treasure chest that opens to reveal fake treasure!
NYCB: That sounds like classic aquarium store material.
CF: All right, I will try your aquarium "store".
NYCB: Thanks for inaugurating this series, coffinfish.
CF: Blaaah! [swims off]
Wed Jul 09 2003 20:23 Deep Sea Interviews:
Inspired by these cool pictures.
Today: the coffinfish.
Given that you've written about the pronuciation and
spelling of "dot com" a number of times, I'd keen to
read your thoughts on builder dot com dot com.
I have no particular beef with "com.com", but I think that once you control the com.com domain there's no reason to
stop at com.com. Since you can create subdomains, why not com.com.com,
com.com.com.com, or even com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com? Import some
singing Vikings, make good. A family-friendly website. Community!
Why not make it interactive? Flash introduction! Viral marketing! Socially conscious!
First to market advantage: leverage, disintermediate, revolutionize! Supply chain, old economy, new economy,
innovation business model open source change! It's peer-to-peer! Sand Hill Road! Close to the Spiritual Machine: One Hacker's Travels with the Selfish
MAME. The Coming Crisis In Design: Giving Thanks For Virtual Sexbots.
Identity Over IP. Queueing Theory. The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.
This is a Muppet News Flash! Scientists at Muppet Labs
have created a conceptual singularity! In one test, incredibly high concentrations of the '.com' meme somehow fragmented the structure of meaning itself, causing seemingly thoughtful discussion to degenerate into buzzword-laced Joycean rambling. More research on this topic will have to wait until construction of the Semiotic Supercollider is completed in 2004, but the future of high-energy textual analysis is bright. We anticipate eventually being able to reduce all attempts at communication to meaningless sounds and nonsensical scribbles.
Sun May 05 2002 18:05:
Joe writes (or wrote, a long time ago):
Leonard, are you aware that the website known as
Builder.com has been revamped and moved to a new
url? It is now at builder.com.com
