101 Years Have Passed Since I Wrote My Note
April 9, 2014 6:31 AM Subscribe
101 year old message in a bottle found in the Baltic and that's all there is to it.
Obviously, the message was "Send more beer."
posted by Thorzdad at 6:41 AM on April 9, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 6:41 AM on April 9, 2014 [9 favorites]
Wow, right before WWI erupted.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:42 AM on April 9, 2014
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:42 AM on April 9, 2014
"He was a Social Democrat who liked to read."
Just going off MeFi posts, there's going to be a hell of a lot more to say about me in 101 years, but if I had to choose I think I would prefer the 10 word summing up based on sparse source material.
"He was tall and never really understood the double switch"
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:46 AM on April 9, 2014 [4 favorites]
Just going off MeFi posts, there's going to be a hell of a lot more to say about me in 101 years, but if I had to choose I think I would prefer the 10 word summing up based on sparse source material.
"He was tall and never really understood the double switch"
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:46 AM on April 9, 2014 [4 favorites]
What they're not reporting is that on the back, there's a faded message written in squid ink:
"Quit throwing your garbage into our dimension."
posted by griphus at 6:52 AM on April 9, 2014 [9 favorites]
"Quit throwing your garbage into our dimension."
posted by griphus at 6:52 AM on April 9, 2014 [9 favorites]
A few years ago our family was going to Crete about a week before our daughter's friend would be there. We naturally left a message in a bottle which did not get picked up so maybe in 101 years someone will find it...and struggle to make sense of what one 8 year old girl would scrawl to another in dull crayon.
posted by shothotbot at 6:56 AM on April 9, 2014
posted by shothotbot at 6:56 AM on April 9, 2014
I always thought it would be amusing to mail littering citations to folk who leave their contact info in bottles and balloons and such. I don't know, call it the romantic in me.
posted by Think_Long at 6:59 AM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Think_Long at 6:59 AM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
That's the worst upworthy headline bait and switch ever. The actual message in the bottle is illegible. So basically it's a very old beer bottle with some litter inside it. No advice from the past. No hopes for the future. No promises of eternal love and life from Platz to Platz' intended. Feh.
Shame on you NPR. I'll be more sparing with my clicks from on.
posted by notyou at 7:01 AM on April 9, 2014
Shame on you NPR. I'll be more sparing with my clicks from on.
posted by notyou at 7:01 AM on April 9, 2014
It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second, into two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this, which this [postcard] is too narrow to contain.
posted by chavenet at 7:08 AM on April 9, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 7:08 AM on April 9, 2014 [4 favorites]
"Run, Suzy! The message is coming from inside the bottle!"
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:10 AM on April 9, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:10 AM on April 9, 2014 [4 favorites]
If they can compare the handwriting then there is some legible content... but that's not shared...???
Yeah, there's a lot of 100 year old trash around, I don't see this as newsworthy really...
When I was about 10, my mother added a sun porch to our 50's era home. When the foundation was poured, the crew left.. I was home alone with wet cement.
I found a glass jar, filled it with "important stuff", wrote a note, screwed the lid on, and shoved it deep into the cement and smoothed the surface. That was about 55 years ago...
Point being, I bet in another 50 years my note is going to be in a hell of a lot better shape than that one is...
I wish I could remember what else I put in that jar...
posted by HuronBob at 7:10 AM on April 9, 2014 [10 favorites]
Yeah, there's a lot of 100 year old trash around, I don't see this as newsworthy really...
When I was about 10, my mother added a sun porch to our 50's era home. When the foundation was poured, the crew left.. I was home alone with wet cement.
I found a glass jar, filled it with "important stuff", wrote a note, screwed the lid on, and shoved it deep into the cement and smoothed the surface. That was about 55 years ago...
Point being, I bet in another 50 years my note is going to be in a hell of a lot better shape than that one is...
I wish I could remember what else I put in that jar...
posted by HuronBob at 7:10 AM on April 9, 2014 [10 favorites]
Metafilter: the world's largest message in a bottle.
posted by Naberius at 7:20 AM on April 9, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 7:20 AM on April 9, 2014 [6 favorites]
"He was a Social Democrat who liked to read."
Are you kidding? That's a fine little epitaph, right there. A reader, a Social Democrat, had children. Not a Nazi, or a fascist, not a murderer or a swindler; not famous or notorious... just a human being who loved books and who is remembered kindly by his family. What's there to find fault with?
posted by jokeefe at 7:29 AM on April 9, 2014 [17 favorites]
Are you kidding? That's a fine little epitaph, right there. A reader, a Social Democrat, had children. Not a Nazi, or a fascist, not a murderer or a swindler; not famous or notorious... just a human being who loved books and who is remembered kindly by his family. What's there to find fault with?
posted by jokeefe at 7:29 AM on April 9, 2014 [17 favorites]
His internet must have been out.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:31 AM on April 9, 2014
posted by blue_beetle at 7:31 AM on April 9, 2014
It actually would be kind of impressive if he had been a Nazi in 1913.
posted by the bricabrac man at 7:39 AM on April 9, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by the bricabrac man at 7:39 AM on April 9, 2014 [5 favorites]
Metafilter: the world's largest message in a bottle.
If this is going to be my legacy to humanity, I'd better start putting a lot more thought into my comments.
posted by arcticseal at 7:47 AM on April 9, 2014
If this is going to be my legacy to humanity, I'd better start putting a lot more thought into my comments.
posted by arcticseal at 7:47 AM on April 9, 2014
It actually would be kind of impressive if he had been a Nazi in 1913.
Died 1946.
posted by Dreadnought at 7:53 AM on April 9, 2014
Died 1946.
posted by Dreadnought at 7:53 AM on April 9, 2014
the bricabrac man: It actually would be kind of impressive if he had been a Nazi in 1913.
Dreadnought: Died 1946.
Or maybe not!!!
From the linked BBC news item:
Erdmann says she never knew her mother's father, who reportedly died in 1946 when he was 54 years old. But she says the discovery of his message has inspired her to find out more about him.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 8:03 AM on April 9, 2014
Dreadnought: Died 1946.
Or maybe not!!!
From the linked BBC news item:
Erdmann says she never knew her mother's father, who reportedly died in 1946 when he was 54 years old. But she says the discovery of his message has inspired her to find out more about him.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 8:03 AM on April 9, 2014
Some forms of sea pollution are glorified; some not so much.
posted by Renoroc at 8:03 AM on April 9, 2014
posted by Renoroc at 8:03 AM on April 9, 2014
just a human being who loved books and who is remembered kindly by his family. What's there to find fault with?
It's an okay hook, and his apparent normalcy cements his place in the narrative as someone who had something to hide, but really this entire genre has suffered badly with the Lost debacle. If they had presented the mysteries and then actually resolved a question in the premiere (why had the bottle traveled so little in 100+ years, for example) I'd be more willing to embrace the question of the message and the dark family history. As it was: lots of mysteries, no answers.
Still, a good first outing. I was genuinely touched by the museum scene where she gets to handle the bottle. I'm glad they went with an unknown for that role -- I don't know where they found that woman but she was born for the part.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:06 AM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's an okay hook, and his apparent normalcy cements his place in the narrative as someone who had something to hide, but really this entire genre has suffered badly with the Lost debacle. If they had presented the mysteries and then actually resolved a question in the premiere (why had the bottle traveled so little in 100+ years, for example) I'd be more willing to embrace the question of the message and the dark family history. As it was: lots of mysteries, no answers.
Still, a good first outing. I was genuinely touched by the museum scene where she gets to handle the bottle. I'm glad they went with an unknown for that role -- I don't know where they found that woman but she was born for the part.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:06 AM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
If it is like the old postcards I have from relatives at that time it probably says "Having a fine time. We are well. Hope you are well. These people sure eat a lot of fish."
posted by interplanetjanet at 8:09 AM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by interplanetjanet at 8:09 AM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't buy it. Why the stamps?
Is there anything to suggest that the "finder" didn't just buy an antique postcard and an antique bottle and call up the newspaper?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:31 AM on April 9, 2014
Is there anything to suggest that the "finder" didn't just buy an antique postcard and an antique bottle and call up the newspaper?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:31 AM on April 9, 2014
"Run, Suzy! The message is coming from inside the bottle!"
Suzy? Shouldn't it be Jeannie?
posted by TedW at 9:04 AM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Suzy? Shouldn't it be Jeannie?
posted by TedW at 9:04 AM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Where it traveled, no one knows for sure, but it was pulled out of the Baltic Sea by a fisherman last month not far from where Platz first pitched it.
Heh. NO ONE KNOWS that it travelled not far from where Platz first pitched it, and was stuck there for 101 years.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:50 AM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
Heh. NO ONE KNOWS that it travelled not far from where Platz first pitched it, and was stuck there for 101 years.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:50 AM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't buy it. Why the stamps?
So that the person who found it would be able to write back and say where they found it? Sending a self-addressed stamped envelope seems pretty reasonable to me.
posted by gemmy at 10:19 AM on April 9, 2014
So that the person who found it would be able to write back and say where they found it? Sending a self-addressed stamped envelope seems pretty reasonable to me.
posted by gemmy at 10:19 AM on April 9, 2014
Something something ovaltine.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:59 PM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:59 PM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm 13 or 14. My friend down the road has a 15-year-old sister, a lovely red-headed girl who I got along with, but, yeah, never going to happen, not with the age difference and her brothers, let alone my shyness. We all live on an isolated road facing Puget Sound--every house was waterfront, but not in the hoity-toity way it probably is today. "Sparsely populated" about sums it up.
I walked on the beach a lot, just for something to do. One day I found a bottle in the tidal detritus from the latest high tide--a bottle with a message in it! It was written on a small piece of shoebox cardboard, in a looping cursive:
posted by maxwelton at 7:20 PM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
I walked on the beach a lot, just for something to do. One day I found a bottle in the tidal detritus from the latest high tide--a bottle with a message in it! It was written on a small piece of shoebox cardboard, in a looping cursive:
I had an insane number of erotic adventures based on that note, but, alas, I was the only person involved in them. I would like to think there is an alternate universe where a version of me decided to see if the horny girl who wrote that would be interested in fooling around with the horny boy I certainly was. Two roads diverged...To whoever finds this, I am hot and 18
and would like to have a good time
if you are a single man.
xxoo
[my friend's sister]
[their phone number]
"Hot lips"
posted by maxwelton at 7:20 PM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
Sounds like the stuff kids would write on a bathroom stall or in the rafters of a park picnic shelter to "get back" at their current hatecrush when I was that age.
not that I participated in any such tomfoolery...
posted by ArgentCorvid at 9:29 PM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
not that I participated in any such tomfoolery...
posted by ArgentCorvid at 9:29 PM on April 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
the horny girl pimply, snickering boy who wrote that
posted by yoink at 8:57 AM on April 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by yoink at 8:57 AM on April 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
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posted by GenjiandProust at 6:38 AM on April 9, 2014 [2 favorites]