CLOSE TO SHORE

Or: OH, BULLSHARKS! PART II!

NOW THIS IS A REALLY FINE READ.

This was written by Michael Capuzzo and published by Broadway Books in 2001. It tells the human-perspective story of the Matawan Creek, New Jersey Shark "attacks" in 1916, an age before the Monkey People had so many things they now take for granted, like television, radio, and swimsuits that weighed less than 50 lbs when wet.

THERE'S NOTHING NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THIS STORY. The author paints a fanciful portrait of an era when the featherless bipeds were just starting to rediscover the recreational delights of swimming in the ocean. Capuzzo appears to REALLY BELIEVE -- as perhaps they did at the time -- that this had NEVER BEEN TRIED BEFORE. He also appears to believe that Sharks were completely off the radar of the average American vacationer in those days.

FOOLS. YOU CAME TO US BECAUSE WE CALLED YOU! YOU CAME YO US BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO COME!

Capuzzo gets so many things wrong that the story, as read by a fish, is deliciously funny. He thinks the Matawan Creek operative was a juvenile, for one thing; he thinks she was a GREAT WHITE, for crying out loud; he thinks she was injured or sick in some way. He turns himself inside out trying to prove that all of this is scientifically provable, indeed scientifically proven. He thinks all kinds of funny stuff that only a completely monkeycentric writer could think.

READ IT AND LAUGH.

I have to say here that you will also read it and sigh longingly for the days before anyone ever heard of Peter Benchley, Stephen Spielberg or Jaws. It truly was a simpler, more innocent time to be a Shark. But it demonstrates the recruiting principle that ALWAYS WORKS for this family of operatives: THE MORE HUMANS YOU EAT, AND THE MORE SCARED THEY ARE OF YOU, THE MORE OF THEM WLL COME TO BE RECRUITED.

I don't get it either. But it never fails!