Knots Meandering

I love the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. I loved the book by Arthur Clark even more because the book doesn't leave much in the way of ambiguity as Kubrick did in the film.

How many for instance, know that the eery Black Monoliths were left on Earth and all over our universe as touchstones from an ancient, exponentially-more-advanced civilization that had mastered the time space continuum? This would account for the mysterious nonlinear leaps in time that occur frequently in the film. 

Of particular note is the scene depicted above. It happens at the beginning of the movie with soaring majestic music to denote the monumental rise of human evolution -- namely the turning of a sturdy thighbone of a carcass into a useful hunting tool.

The transition from this scene to the spaceship floating a million miles and a million years away is an image I will never forget. 

Bad segue here, but earlier this week, and for algorithms unknown, I had a video pop up in my Facebook Feed. It was similar to the top down POV videos of someone making Chicken Cordon Bleu or Bacon Wrapped Shrimp. It demonstrated the proper way to make a Sheepshead Knot. And now that I am writing about knots I am guaranteed to see more and more of these knot making vids.

Which is fine with me, because there's certain elegance and aesthetic to knots that I find fascinating. For instance, I submit the unarguable beauty of the Figure 8 Loop...

Knots tickle my brain in the same way the clever primate, Neandarthal, Cro-Magnon, Homo Erectus, I'm sure my learned friend George Tannenbaum could tell you, happened upon the ideal way to smash a wild boar to the ground with one swift blow to the head. 

Mmmmm, feral bacon!!!

I find myself imagining the first time one of our ancestors not only fashioned a rope from the threads of a Bamboo plant, you know before the Chinese made fake Biden Ballots out of it, and clumsily twisted the ends together to form an early fastening device. I'm guessing there was quite a bit of trial and error involved as well as many collapsed lean two's or huts or whatever Early Man lived in. Again, George would know.

This mysterious synapse chain is not only confined to rope knots. 

What trigger went off and informed the earliest of carnivores to take the flesh he, or she, had harvested and put it on an open flame? Prior to that, no animal on Earth had ever eaten cooked food. 

Similarly, what concoctive and swarthy primate decided to scramble the first egg on a hot stone? And then eons later, flip it over to make a rudimentary omelette. And then eons after that, stuff it with peppers, mushrooms, feral ham, to make a special omelette that would give rise to the city of Denver?

I scratch my chin and wonder about the origins of soap, clothing, and the Bundt Cake.

Maybe I need a new hobby, but even as just a casual writer and self-confessed word slut, I am intrigued and can't help but to be enamored by variations and names of knots:

* The Square Knot

* The Half Hitch

* The Sheepshead

* The Kleimheist

* The Rapala

* The Carrick Bend (who could forget that one?)

* The Rat Tail Stopper 

* The Soft Shackle Edwards

* The Man-O-War Sheepshank (maybe it's me, but I love a knot name that requires hyphens and trips off the tongue with a pleasing rhythm)

That's all for today, I want to spend some quality time thinking about how the anti-perspirant came about.