Katty Black

good detective work, detective.
both explanations seem eminently plausible to this investigator and thus i can indiciate no preference for either theory. Members of fringe groups are generally outsiders who struggle in the early years to relate to their peers due to developing at a different rate to the average child [either faster or slower than]. This leads to them drifting away from the pack, often becoming 'outsiders' and developing obscure interests. This idea is reinforced by the fact Searly is obviously involved in some kind of fringe movement, so it seems likely he was either a precocious child or a late developer.

Late development would fit the first theory; a precocious child, the second. A selection of Beefheart's recordings include the sound of a child's voice, laughter or other noises. Could this be a yound Searly we are hearing? If so, the question remains; how did a two-year old fall into Beefheart's circle? How did they become aquainted? Perhaps the pulse/veg dietary regime was installed in the band to allow food to be easily pulped into babyfood as required. Perhaps the captain thought that a toddler held the answers he was searching for in his art and, at this time, was actually taking guidance and direction from the child?

This investigator has been rather distracted from the case recently but intends to shift focus back to it throughout the week.
One thing: I cannot remember if I informed all members of the team of a contact made by email a few weeks back. I received a message from a 'Katty Black' which simply said 'I like this blog'. The similarity to Black Cat is remarkable. Is this someone trying to contact us with useful information regarding to the fabled experiment, or is this someone from the Black Cat team just letting us know that they are aware of our investigation as some form of taunt?

Walt Whatman?

The Uncomformity

I have located an apparent anomaly in the geotemporal record. If Searly really had a close acquaintance with Captain Beefheart during the timeof pulse diet adherence, this could not be the same searly as the teenage poet who released Octopiithagoas in 82.
Or could it?
Two possibilities occur to me, which could maintain the supposition that both events occured and involved the same man, without upsetting the timeline with anachronicity.
The first is that a much older Searly entered the poem in thecompetition. If so, the psychological profile of Searly would change - a 25+ yr old writing such a poem, or just entering such a poem that hemay have written while teenage, would be a very different person fromthat envisaged before, perhaps a late developer, or an individual havingthe syndrome which results in childlike (or in this case teenage) tendencies and mentality into adult life.
(Or alternatively, the poem may have been written by a teenage Searly and entered by someone else who had acquired the poem. I personally dismiss this for now.)
The second possibility is that a teenage Searly did write the poem in 82, and an infant Searly spent time with Beefheart in say 69-72. I imagine a 2 year old Searly telling the captain 'no, captain, don't do it that way...'. The influence of a 2 year old Searly could explain much of Beefheart's output during that period.