2014-05-17 - 10:17 a.m.
I was sitting on an old wooden bench with my back against another old wooden bench. I was reveling goatlike in Henry Fielding and I had my headphones on when these two 60's something gentlemen of hardened countenence yet jouncy disposition sat down and started talking afresh in rapid fashion. I did what I always do when found suddenly prone to ripest eavesdropping, I turned my headphones down and made pretensive motions to be joyfully reading my Fielding. My entire habitus was oriented in such a direction that if it could be reduced ton one pithy bumpersticker message it would be to exhort a fellow travellor to "send out search party, lost in thought." And the conversation proceeded with many starts and stops that took the linguistic form of "uhms" and "ahhs". But the author knows the reader has a schedule to keep. Rest assured, the inefficiencies of the actual have not been let at the altar of reality. The conversation went something like what has been dutifully recaptured herein.
I remain your most humble subject,
Sir Drawing Blanks,
"And has not the entire thurst of this precis so far been "the dough takes on the flavor of whatever else is in the bowl with it?"
"And the dough made from what type of flour again?"
"Precisely, their are so many choices: wheat, white, bread flours, gluten-free, etc, etc."
"By the way, the bread you brought last week was sui generis, I mean I can't say it was good...actually I didn't eat much, but it was sui generis"
"Thank-you, actually, that was my goal, to make it perfect like an orange, to not be able to imagine it any other way, or like the feminine form."
"So how is your f.o.d. doing lately?"
"Sorry, f.o.d.?"
"Fear of death."
"Oh, pretty good I guess. I have dreams of different women every night, usually wearing masks of some sort and their bodies feel sui generis and I'm back on the kale chips."
"I thought we talked about that, you must relinquish the kale chips, renounce them, it's a slippery slope. Because the next thing you'll be asking for again is 'are those strawberries organic'"
"Myth of religion replaced by myth of food? But I have read that organic food has better nutrition?"
"And how have you come to believe this?"
"Extensive reading. The soil they are grown in has more nutrients because of lack of leeching. There is minimal nutrient and mineral depletion."
"Sounds aweful fishy to me. Ok then, so what is better, produce from an inorganic field in Illinois where the top soil is richest black and has a maximal depth of 36 inches or produce from an organic field in California."
"I'd take the organic from California any day of the week."
"I'm telling you, it makes not a lick of sense."
"There is data"
"Data charts on fields?"
"Extensive data charts on fields. I'd just assume pay extra, get that extra nutrition."
"Has it dawned upon you yet that first class food is little more than ruse to syphon off extra money from the already cash-strapped. Perhaps it makes sense if you really are a first class person, but if you are at all coachy, the price of first class food can be a real pain in the pocketbook."
"No, I stand by my nutrient theory. Organic broccoli florets simply have more calming magnesium and other essentials than, as you say "coach class" broccoli."
"I find it dubious supposition at best.
