10:21 a.m. - 2010-02-09
So it's Come to This
It’s been nearly a month since the cable went away. The mid-winter nights are long and bitterly cold. Malaise and Despair walk hand-in-hand like George W Bush and that Saudi prince guy. As the cold season lumbers slowly onward, we try to adjust and seek out new, non-screen-oriented pursuits. As it turns out, we have a lot of these cumbersome and archaic “books” lying around our house. These paper information bundles have some of the characteristics of television in that they often endeavor to tell a story of some sort or impart facts and ideas. However, the books don’t have the same brain-killing tendencies as the television. Unless you turn the volume way up while enjoying your favorite television programs, you can hear a sound like when the milk hits the rice crispies. That’s the TV slowly destroying your brain! Sometimes I wonder if every human invention eventually develops a low-functioning sentience that causes it to turn on its Master in a specialized way so that, ie, television sets out to destroy our brains, bacon targets the heart, alcohol the liver, and cell phones just wreak all the havoc they can think of on our highways and public areas.
But anyway: books. So far they seem pretty harmless. I’ve heard that reading without adequate light weakens the eyes, but long personal experience doesn’t bear out this theory. It’s possible to contract minor fatigue from holding up a heavy book with your hands or hunching over one for extended periods. But it seems to me that the only real, lasting damage that books can cause is potentially isolating the heavy reader from society and the company of others, potentially creating a Raskolnikov or a Unibomber. But such cases are rare. In any case, I have no intention of reading that much.
“The Custom of the Country” is a book that’s been lying around our house for a few years that I’ve just gotten around to. I like Wharton because she’s really good at describing the interior states of her characters. Also, her language tends toward the archaic, making her books a good source for crazy-ass old words I’ve never heard before, words like “suzerainty”. Also, you get a sense of how rich people used to talk, which will come in handy if you ever find yourself a socialite living in McKinley-era New York.
Upon completing “Custom of the Country”, which Stevergo enthusiastically recommends, I started in on Melville’s “Moby Dick”, which I think is a very very long book about a very very long drum solo. So far I have the first sentence (“Call me Ishmael.”) memorized, so I assume I’ll easily memorize the whole rest of the book in short order. I’ll probably go from town to town reciting the whole book, like Homer in olden times. Eventually I might get bored of the characters and add some of my own, like Defbot the break-dancing robot and a talking, lactose-intolerant cat. And I’ll finally have a successful career. Once I finish reading…”Moby Dick”. Which I will, because when has anyone ever started “Moby Dick” and not finished it? Right?
But that’s enough about books. Now, Gentle Reader, let us turn to a topic close to my heart and no doubt yours: sandwiches. What’s happening to the sandwiches? In days of yore, the sandwich-smiths understood that the chief attribute of any sandwich must be ease of handling. Quality of bread, fillings, condiments and the occasional garnish are all important, but the TRUE ESSENCE of the sandwich, the defining characteristic, is that it can easily be consumed by hand, ideally with one hand, but in any case with the aid of no utensils. I fear that, in these times of excess, this simple, important fact has been forgotten by the new breeds of sandwich-maker. The sandwich-makers of today appear to have no sense of proportion vis a vis bread versus fillings and often cram everything they can think of, plus a pint or two of mayonnaise into the bread vortex, such that not even the sturdiest Kaiser roll or stiffest of baguette can support all the weight. Condiments and tomato run-off ooze out the sides as though the sandwich has been mortally wounded; the bottom bread slice or bun half, always the most vulnerable to the effects of such rampant excess, drowns in mayonnaise and oil and often deteriorates or is split asunder, making the entire sandwich a moot proposition. When you have to resort to a fork, you’re no longer eating a sandwich. Instead, you’re eating some sort of grotesque, misbegotten casserole, truly a meal of the damned!
What’s to be done? I believe the sandwich-makers need to learn what their fore-bearers took for granted: restraint. Every sandwich needn’t be a daunting Colossus of food. Start with the bread at hand. Look at the bread: What will go well with it? Are more than three additional ingredients necessary? And what QUANTITY of ingredients will begin to overwhelm the bread? Ask yourself these questions, Good Sandwichman, and let us return to the days when the sandwich and the hand were not opponents in some terrible blood-sport of consumption, but were instead staunch allies, together working toward the common goal of nutrition and satiety.
Sick of reading about sandwiches yet? Good! Then why not try a different blog! For instance, there’s a new Yid Vicious blog that’s chock full of information about Yid Vicious. It’s called yidvicious.com and it has lots of different features and no rambling talk of TV or food! Yet!
