The 'Bloop'

OK, this raised the hairs on the back of my neck when I first read it.

It seems that during the summer of 1997, an eerie, ultra-low frequency sound was detected by SOSUS, the array of underwater microphones constructed by the US Navy in the '60s to monitor Soviet submarine activity. Not once, but several times. By sensors over 3,000 miles apart. It was recorded, and given the name "The Bloop." There's a wave file of the sound on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's web page, and you do hear a "bloop" noise. The creepy thing about it is that this file is sped up 16 times; listening to it at its naturally frequency is otherworldly.

These undersea sounds have been well studied. Scientists and naval technicians can even identify the species of whale based solely upon the sound print it leaves. Fairly quickly non-organic sources - such as machinery, ocean currents, or earthquakes - have been ruled out as the cause of the Bloop. So, what is it?

A couple of theories have been put forth. But consider this: if it is the sound print of a living creature, it would have to be larger than a blue whale. Some scientists speculate of a new species of giant squid or octopus. However, such creatures lack the gas-filled sac needed to create such sounds. They would need to periodically surface for oxygen, and thus would increase the probability of a sighting. What if such a monster had tubes like an elephant's trunk to replenish its air supply? How about an entirely new species of animal that need not surface at all? Perhaps its a school of smaller creatures that rarely encounter man?

Where do you think the sound originated? The Bermuda Triangle? Any of the pattern of "devil's triangles" of lost shipping that grid the planet's surface? No. It's been pinpointed to a location approximately 1,000 miles due west of the southern tip of Chile, in the southern Pacific Ocean. Is there anything remarkable about this? Sure is. If you're familiar with H.P. Lovecraft's most famous short story, "The Call of Cthulhu," this is extremely close to the coordinates where the undersea god-monster lies sleeping ...

Lovecraft is the undisputed master of moody atmospheric horror, and many others have made the observation of the Bloop phenomenon seems tailor-made for his pen. I went through a phase where I read most of his short stories, and his strengths compensate his weaknesses (he doesn't know how to write how people really talk). I have a horror anthology that I may pick through during my down time this week and read one or two of his more obscure stuff. Oh, and since I first read of the Bloop on wikipedia last summer, an idea for a short fiction piece has been gestating in my mind. Once my original idea raises the hairs on the back of my neck, I'll start writing it.

Post-Surgery Update

My second go-around with ablation therapy, to cure my atrial fibrillation, so far is a (guardedly optimistic) success. I won’t know for certain that I’m fully cured until 90 days out from the procedure. But compared to how I felt back in November when I first had the ablation done, this is a massively major improvement. Mental attitude plays a huge chunk of success in these things, and mine is excellent!

I’m taking the week off from work, taking it easy. I still get out of breath going up a flight of stairs, and it still hurts to take a deep breath. I slept on the couch last night to allow my long-suffering wife the night in bed, and kept waking up every two hours feeling like I was drowning, feeling like I had a load of bricks on my chest. I’d get up, walk around for a few minutes, feel fine, and go back to sleep. It’s all the tissue inside my heart healing.

I can eat and drink whatever I want, but obviously I’m going to avoid alcohol, and caffeine as much as possible. I was at the hospital on Monday for bloodwork, and my INR level (the amount of thinness of my blood) was 1.4, too low. So, I have to continue my lovenox injections (twice daily, still) and increase my coumadin intake. Once it gets to the safe zone between 2.0 and 2.5 I can stop giving myself injections. One thing they recommend is to keep your diet fairly consistent so as not to skew the INR level, so I’m not going vegan just yet.

As far as complications go, the first time around I had terrible complications with one of my incisions. When I tried to stand a few hours after coming out of surgery with a nurse’s assistance, I coughed, the wound opened, and blood splattered on the floor. She threw me down, called for assistance, patched me up and cleaned me up. The problem is with the amount of thinners in my bloodstream its difficult for the incision to scab up. It took two or three days for it to stop bleeding. It was not pretty.

This second time I was so surprised when I was up and walking at 10:30 pm on Friday night (I was under general aenesthesia from somewhere around 9 am to 5 pm). The next morning when my surgeon visited me and checked the incisions, he removed the bandages, saying they were closed up. Wow! I was walking around, sitting up, moving unrestricted. How we take for granted something simple as free movement! Back in November my legs were in immobilizers for a little over twelve hours and it was utter misery.

But I didn’t get off completely free this time. A minor complication, but an annoying one. I was discharged at 10 am on Saturday, and got home by 11. By 12, I was coughing persistently, coughing up mucus. Yellowish, brownish, and reddish – uh oh, blood. And I was coughing so hard I was fearful of rupturing an incision. And I couldn’t get any sleep, which by this point I was craving. My wife called my cardiologist, who called in a prescription for cough syrup with codeine, but it didn’t work and it was a wretched sleepless Saturday night. My surgeon called on Sunday morning, my wife explained my symptoms, and he called in a prescription for antibiotics. By Sunday afternoon my cough had stopped. It seems that, most likely, I caught an infection from the tube they place down my esophagus during the procedure.

My heart appears to be beating fine; I’ve had no explicit instances of erratic heartbeat, just heavy pounding when I exert myself. But I’m guardedly optimistic; I want an EKG to say that my heart is as good as new. Then I’ll know that all this was not in vain.

Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

(Caution: Minor Spoilers)

A very good triumph-of-the-spirit story, told in excerpts from a rather unlikable person's journal. Contains some moderately interesting science fiction ideas, a great boatload of esoterica, hippies and Viet Nam era paranoia, and one great lesson for writers.

The story takes place in a vague alternate reality in the early 70s. Robert McNamara is president, and the United States is invovled in some vague global conflict, and is probably not behaving too admirably. There's a hint of Uncle Sam using germ warfare, and the protagonist, one Sacchetti, has been imprisoned for being a conscientious objector.

He writes a diary to keep from going mad behind bars. For no reason, however, he is transferred to one of those secret underground government prisons, and finds himself housed with geniuses and polymaths. Only, they weren't always that brilliant. Turns out they've been injected with a drug that increases their thinking ability off the scale. One problem, though, and it's a big one: the drug kills its user within nine months.

The inmates are allowed anything and everything except their freedom. So, they occupy their time by producing plays (Faust), studying medieval mysteries (alchemy), analysing the drug responsible for their death sentences (mutated syphilis), and putting Sacchetti through all sorts of linguistic hoops. The prison is run by a hapless but ruthless general, and all the inmates, including Sacchetti, are forced to speak regularly with a brusque psychiatrist, a woman named Brusk, and our protagonist is encouraged to continue his journal. Except that it will be regularly read, by just about everyone in the prison, it seems.

Oh, and halfway through the book, it's revealed to lesser imaginative readers that Sacchetti himself has been infected.

Sacchetti goes temporarily mad, but pulls it back together.

His friend, Mordecai Washington, dies during a "seance" held with prison officials and prisoners.

The psychiatrist disappears.

An insane physicist and his group of grad students join the prison, with the sole intent of developing more powerful weapons of mass destruction, with the help of the drug. He and Sacchetti spar and verbally torture one another for a good chunk of the book.

And as Sacchetti's illness progresses, his genius seems to be seeing patterns in the outside world, "the Museum of the Weird," as he calls it, collecting clippings of odd happenings out on the surface. Then, his realization: Brusk escaped, infected with the specially modified syphilis, and has been quite focused on spreading it over the last couple of months.

Disch builds up the sequence of events so that the reader knows a shock is coming. And Sacchetti's uncovering of Brusk's activities clearly amounts to one. But, the novel's not over.
The physicist has the evil warden's ear, and as the pages of the novel dwindle, the two plus an antogonistic guard drag our writer to the surface, to feel one last time the breeze against his face.
But since this is written as a journal, you know our writer won't be executed.

What happens?

A really neat twist is revealed up on the surface. A nice revenge story, with all the bad guys getting their comeuppances. Sacchetti is able to overcome his illness, but not in any way you can think of. Truly original, and the last two or three pages really redeem a generally pessimistic and sanctimonious novel. In conscience I won't reveal it. You'll just have to check it out for yourself.

The inherent advice for writers? What did I take away from Camp Concentration? Easy. Build up and keep building up to something big. Then, throw a few decoys, especially a large one, at the reader. Finally, on your very last page, sock them over their heads with the really neatest twist you ever thought of.

It'll make your book worthwhile. And it might keep it in print after thirty-five years.