The dancing squid

[imomus]

In a late piece of banter added to yesterday's entry, Yasser Mohammed Apoplipo (nice name) asked whether Yoko Ono's Cut Piece was "where she would invite spectators to snip off pieces of her clothing as she sat and calmly smoked a cigarette?" and continued: "I had a professor who knew her and told me she based this on ikezukuri sashimi preparation." Sparkligbeatnic replied "I've had this once. The hardest part is the feeling of being watched by the fish while you are consuming its flesh."



Well, last night I went out with a big bunch of academics to an isakaya in Hakodate. In fact, it was the one whose window I photographed last month, fascinated by the phallic sake bottles on display there. The restaurant was called The Dancing Squid. I was sitting there discussing Gadamer's misinterpretation of Heidegger (as you do) with Hans Diebner, a media professor from Karlsruhe's ZKM Center for Art and Media, when the reason for the restaurant's name was brought to us on a plate. It was a living dead squid. It was both living and dead, and doing a grim twitchy totentanz, staring at us with a single terrifying, wretchedly stretched eye. Everybody else at the table seemed delighted, and started prodding the squid with chopsticks to make it dance. Hans and I, though, winced and recoiled in horror. Finally I decided that only mediation could save me from throwing up. I grabbed my camera and shot a little video of the creature's death spasms (as you do). I felt better watching it dying on TV than right in front of me in real life. Its reproachful dying eye seemed to fix millions of viewers all over the world rather than single me out. Its televised death became a moral exemplum, a lesson in something or other. Dying on TV, it did not die in vain. (It also helped a lot that I forgot to focus.)

A waiter soon came and asked us how the squid should be cooked. I opted for frying on humanitarian grounds; it seemed the best way to put the beast completely out of its misery. When it arrived back on the table, it was crispy and chopped into small foot-stalks. Hardly anyone paid it any attention this time. Now it was food. Delicious food, actually. I ate a few poddy tendrils and washed them down with beer. The Japanese professor to my right leaned over and said "Maybe you were revolted, but it's good to remember about death sometimes." Bearing his words in mind, and in order to make you share my guilt, and perhaps to elevate the animal's death to something meaningful, salutory, even salvational, I am linking here to my video piece The Death of the Squid (Quicktime movie, 5.9MB). I've slowed the film down to communicate better the horror. If you enjoy this as some kind of snuff pornography you are a sick squid-hating fuck and can never be my friend.



To cleanse your palate of the bitter taste of death, I'd like to leave you with some fresh Flash films and funny programming, courtesy of Otogai.

Comments

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Do most people in Japan accept such culinary practices as eating live fish, piece by piece, or is there a sense of disgust or discomfort with them?

I recently read Karl Taro Greenfeld's Speed Tribes (I know, only 10 or so years late), and recall that he commented tangentally that callousness towards animals common in Japanese society (i.e., discarding or destroying pets once they're bored with them) comes from the Shinto mindset in which animals one possesses are extensions of one's self, and that this is the same mindset which makes the Japanese adopt new technologies so enthusiastically. Would you agree?

only slighty off topic

[(Anonymous)]

I always love to hear snippets of dinner-conversation, especially when people are " leaning over". proust is genius in this.

it reminds of the story about the general de gaulle and his wife who vistited a dinner party hosted by an english lady.
the lady asked madam if there was anything more she wished for in life, now that her husband seems to have achieved already so much.
yes, madam replied, a penis.
at which moment the general "leaned over" and said: no my dear, the english pronounce it happiness.


erdh.j

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

The 踊り寿司　(odorizushi, or dancing sushi) I had, in Kagoshima, was あじ　(aji, horse mackerel). A Japanese woman who gave me a ride when I was hitchhiking invited me for dinner at her favourite restaurant.

It looked something like the above picture, but the living, moving body of the fish, carefully vivisected to leave the nervous system intact, was placed on a counter in front of me, closer to eye level. The flesh was on a separate dish, which made the scene all the more pathetic. I'm subject to moments of existential paranoia and I had an odd feeling of forming a karmic debt to the fish to be repaid sometime in the indefinite future. Perhaps it is such heightened feelings of life and death that attract the Japanese to this culinary practice. Or perhaps it's just a way of letting the customer know that the fish is extremely fresh.

You really know you're in the inaka when the greatest amusement is to see how the gaijin will react to controversial or strange foods. Prepare to eat whale.

[(Anonymous)]

Real horrorshow! I love how the music is slow and ominous...it's really like a scary movie, actually it's scarier than any movie i can think of (except maybe the Shining).

Were I in a feedback noise band this would be projected against the wall behind me in grainy black and white in an endless loop.

Truly hideous, cheers
Adam

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

How lovecraftian.

[yanatonage.livejournal.com]

this squid now shares the intended fate of timothy leery.

[langerdan.livejournal.com]

The insult od the week will be:

you are a sick squid-hating fuck

Pure class

[(Anonymous)]

The Error of Heidegger being supporting a vegetarian?

[(Anonymous)]

very david lynch, very creepy.
it gets worst when you think that (according to some scientist I´ve read) squids are very inteligent animals and wouldbe amazing pets if you were so inclined. or perhaps if you lived underwater. but the point remains.
odyr

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is TERRIBLY nasty, and I can't watch the video... but I wonder, is this vengeance for all the tentacle rape in hentai?

[(Anonymous)]

Eww.

And thanks for the link to Otogai.

On death, on sea, on land

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Both my wife and myself are divers; human mistreatment of the oceans and the creatures that reside in them is a tender subject in this house. We cannot bring ourselves to buy sushi because certain species are being fished to near-extincton thanks to crude, catch-all netting practices by countries like Japan (and their treatment of sharks is horrific--cutiing off their fins and dumping them back into the sea alive).

Although some are smarter than others, Cephalopods are amongst the most intelligent creatures in the seas, and I can no longer imagine treating them in such a manner (I used frozen squid as bait when fishing as a boy, so my hands are not clean, either). I recall one time when a small school of hand-sized, irridescent cuttlefish surrounded us in the Barrier Reef; they appeared to attempt to 'make sense' of us, flashing their skins, positioning their tentacles in a series of arrangements as if trying to communicate. It was clear that these creatures were displaying that hallmark of intelligence, curiosity. To this day, eating one would be like eating a friend, to my salt-addled mind. That said, we would quickly exit the water if we encountered a 30-ft. archeteuthis or a school of hungry man-sized Humboldt Squid (my wife and I have shared water with Great Whites, so that's saying something).

Regarding death:

As someone who lives in a rural area, death is an ever-present thing. I've seen many, many animals struck down in front of me by callous, cowardly motorists who refuse to take responsibility for subtracting a life from the world. I often keep them company as they go through their death throes--deer, rabbits, racoons, foxes, squirrels, woodchucks, starlings, etc. One never gets accustomed to it, really; it stays with you for days afterwards. One can only alleviate the sense of collective shame by finding a suitable resting spot by the road for them, preferably beneath a tree. I simply cannot bear to let them rot on oily asphalt.

One night on a local road, I encountered a large (14 inch shell) Red Bellied Turtle split in two by a car minutes before I'd arrived. It was a female, so I had to manually extract the eggs from inside her, and bring them home to attempt to incubate them. Despite my efforts, none survived.

Whether we eat meat or not, we all should be able to agree that animals should be afforded the dignity of being humanely dispatched.

W

Off-topic: 秘密及び恥のスコットBateman のSketchbook Off-topic

[scottbateman.livejournal.com]

こんにちは--

許しこの侵入、 しかし私は実際に秘密及び恥のスコットBateman
のSketchbook を楽しむことを考える、 今漫画のページがすべてあるかどれが日本語で!
http://www.batemania.com/sketchbook/japan.html

ありがとう。 私はそれらを好むことを望む!

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

I've been teaching my students about the epic war between Penguins & Squids. Would the Japanese have dancing Penguin sushi? I do not think so. That said, the video was not as tittilating as i might have liked. It was more just plain "gross". But, thanks for sharing.

[qadriya.livejournal.com]

I have an old friend in Boston who makes both this own Mead and the phallic flask to decant it into. I always found it strange to rip the head off of a ceramic cock and imbibe the sweet golden liquid from within, but it sounds like you are facing your own epicurean challenges.

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

Momus, what a pussy you are! In the many years you've been visiting Japan has no one ever taken you out for a decent meal? Or is it just tonkotsu ramen (yawn!)? When I was a lad, or least when I was in Japan, I was taken at dawn by gangsters to an obscure restaurant outside Tokyo and made to eat raw horse penis. Don't come here with you pathetic squid tales! Frankly, it's unseemly to see that squid suffering without:

a. You interceding on its behalf and rescuing it.
b. Ripping its head off with your teeth à la Oh Dae-Su in Oldboy.

There is no third way.

Those are both movies I would pay to see....

(Normal service restored)

It's the squid that separates the men from the girly boys...

I'm probably in the second group myself. As well.

[bluekaeri.livejournal.com]

Poor thing. If it helps to soothe your conscience, though, squid (and indeed most cephalopods) live very short lives. Many ceph species live less than a year, even under the best circumstances. If they're not eaten while eggbound, they'll be eaten very young. By example, an octopus can lay upwards of 50K eggs, yet only a handful of individuals will make it to adulthood. It's just a thing that cephs do - live fast, die young, leave lots of babies and a rapidly decaying corpse.