Interview With a Cuttlefish

Oliver Shiny recently mentioned cuttlefish in a post. Obviously, he’s an intellectual. Like cats, cuttlefish sell. People love cuttlefish, and they love to read about cuttlefish. You’re here, aren’t you? See, Oliver and Me, we are on to something.

I once interviewed a cuttlefish for LiveJournal. I had to go to the morgue and get this clip to reprint. We run the Mill like a lumberjack camp or fishing trawler. The meanest people do the least amount of work. There is no easier job than working in the morgue. Once upon a time you had to cut up newspapers and file the clippings and photos. No more. It’s all digitized, so the people in the morgue just sit around playing cribbage until someone like me shows up and asks for a clip. They are not nice about it when you ask them for something. If they were nicer, more people would ask for things and upset the cribbage game. It took a lot of effort to access my own post. I would say you should thank me for the effort, but after you read this you may not want to.

Obtaining the Cuttlefish

I can talk to animals. You could call it “Dr. Doolittleism”, but that is really a pejorative term for what we call, in English, “animaltalky-talk.” I took a class at the Metafictional University when I was working towards ordination as a Suburban Shaman. I have used my skills here on Medium before. I interviewed a pig last summer.

Finding a pig is easy. Getting your hands on a cuttlefish? Not so much. I had a tip that there was a big tank full of live cuttlefish in the back of Yum, a Thai restaurant in downtown Mushamaguntic. Mr. Meuk, the proprietor, let me buy one live and put it in an igloo cooler. I took it home and put it in my tank of gefilte fish.

Now the religiously astute among you are going to ask how this could be, since gefilte fish are freshwater fish. Rest assured that I have carp in the bathtub for freshwater gefilte fish, but I also keep salt-water gefilte fish in a big tank with the electric eels, so the cuttlefish was fine. Once he got settled I began asking him questions.

The Interview

Cuttlefish: What do you want with me?

Gutbloom: Naay Seppia, allow me to introduce myself. I am Gutbloom, editorial director of Mr. Mildew Enterprises and staff writer for “Absurdity Today,” (now defunct) an ad-driven special interest magazine that, we like to think, transcends the “women’s”, “computer” and “home bomb making” categories to which we claim membership. Our readers have requested an interview with a cuttlefish on the subject of Art. Would you be so kind as to answer a few questions?

Cuttlefish: Since you saved me from the peanut sauce I guess I should oblige you. I hope when you say “art” you mean that to include photography and cinema.

Gutbloom: I’m afraid not. Maybe we can get the art discussion out of the way quickly so we can talk about movies and pictures if you like. I’ll give you two artists’ names. You then name the one that you think is the better artist.

Cuttlefish: Let’s do it.

Gutbloom: Jackson Pollack or Willem de Kooning?

Cuttlefish: de Kooning

Gutbloom: Matthew Barney or Jason Rhoades?

Cuttlefish: Jason Rhoades

Gutbloom: Paul McCarthy or Mika Rottenberg?

Cuttlefish: Paul McCarthy

Gutbloom: Rembrandt van Rijn or Jan VerMeer?

Cuttlefish: VerMeer

Gutbloom: You’re out of your fucking mind.

Cuttlefish: Die in a fire.

Gutbloom: That was easy, wasn’t it?

Cuttlefish: Yes, it was.

Gutbloom: You were quite quick with your answers, and definite too. That takes a lot of spine…. ew, I mean…

Cuttlefish: Don’t worry… It takes cuttlebone. I have a strong cuttlebone.

Gutbloom: I guess the Wikipedia entry about cuttlefish was right. It says you are the smartest of the mollusks.

Cuttlefish: That’s not saying much.

Gutbloom: Oh, we had an octopus here once. She wasn’t so bad, and she did this parlor trick where she went through a hole the size of a bottlecap and opened a jar in four seconds.

Cuttlefish: Feh. Anyone can do that.

Gutbloom: You could do that?

Cuttlefish: I could do that with my tentacles.

Gutbloom: Tentacles? I thought the proper term was “arms”.

Cuttlefish: Cuttlefish have both arms and tentacles, both are muscular hydrostats. Octopuses only have arms.

Gutbloom: I thought the plural of octopus was “octopi”.

Cuttlefish: No, the plural of octopus is “octopuses”, as in “there were ten octopuses hiding in the rocks because they saw the shadow of a nurse shark.” You can always remember the plural by thinking “one octopus, two octopussies.”

Gutbloom: I have a muscular hydrostat, but it’s not an “arm”, it’s my third…

Cuttlefish: No you don’t. That thing takes blood to move.

Gutbloom: Let me ask you, your reproductive organ, “ligula” I think it’s called, is at the end of an arm, right?

Cuttlefish: Well, it would be if I were male.

Gutbloom: You’re a female? But I addressed you as “Mr. Seppia” didn’t I?

Cuttlefish: It’s not the only mistake you’ve made. Your cuttlefish is atrocious.

Gutbloom: As a female, do you still get to ejaculate sepia when you’re excited?

Cuttlefish: I blow ink when I’m attacked, not when I’m excited.

Gutbloom: So, the female ejaculation I’ve seen in the cuttlefish stag films is…

Cuttlefish: …just for the movies. “Art” if you like.

Gutbloom: That’s depressing. It looked so real. Anyway, thank you. This has been a wonderful talk.

Cuttlefish: My pleasure. Any chance you could get me to the ocean? I don’t mind the gefilte fish but I don’t think I’ll last long in this jelly.

Gutbloom: Of course, I’d take you to a bar for a drink before taking you home but…

Cuttlefish: The bar downtown doesn’t serve seafood.

Gutbloom: Wow, you are smart.

Cuttlefish: Can we go now?