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 It may look like pasta, but... |
The strange case of
the floating lasagna
By MICHAEL JOHNSON
of TheColumnists.com
It was the placenta story that finally got to me. I had been visiting Boston for a week, looking for a condo and enjoying the lobster and the New England clam chowder when the morning news gave me a jolt. A police report said a human placenta had been found floating in a local pond. It looked a little like a large portion of lasagna.
Four bright-eyed Fox TV personalities went a little crazy. Maybe I dreamed this. Retelling it seems unreal, not to mention uncouth, but, no, I do believe I witnessed this new low point in the use of the public airwaves.
Amid much hilarity, banter and badinage, the human placenta, Boston was to learn …
… when boiled, makes a nutritious
broth. The Chinese swear by it as a stimulant for lactation.
… when squeezed and drained, produces a “cocktail that’s
a tasty thirst-quencher.”
… when pan-friend with shallots and green peppers, feeds
four.
… when baked, makes a delicious spread on foccatia bread.
One happy father is on record as having downed 17 portions.
The police eventually found the mother who grew the placenta. She said she had intended to donate it for stem cell research but never got around to finding anyone interested, so she tossed it in the pond to feed the fish. They weren’t interested either.
It was one of those weeks when strangeness--usually involving bodily functions--dominated the news. The following day in a Boston high school a fetus was found in the girls’ loo. No one claimed it but the entire school was reported to be scandalized. Except, that is, one graffiti artist with a wry slant on life. Overnight there appeared on the school wall in very large letters: “IT’S A BOY!”
Hardly a day goes by in Boston without a story on a Kennedy, there are so many of them and they are such funsters. This week it was Congressman Patrick, son of Teddy, fresh out of Mayo Clinic rehab after crashing his car into a security barrier at the Capitol Building. He wisely declined to be breathalyzed at the scene, blaming his poor aim on sleeping pills and prescription drugs. (I must remember that one.)
Patrick, known in Boston as “Blotches Junior” after the gin blossoms that light up his father’s face, was let off by a D.C. judge with some community service and a driving ban. He announced in careful language that he “accepted responsibility” for his bad driving. And in a bid for the sympathy vote, he added: “I didn’t know how miserable I was till I started feeling better.
Poor old Mike Dukakis is so boring by comparison. He can be sighted around Boston riding the T to work at Northeastern or indulging his one-man mission--picking up roadside trash and putting it in a little tote bag he carries with him at all times. All of Boston whispers that he might have problems.
But it seems from here that more Dukaki and fewer Kennedys are just what the country needs. Alas, trends are in the other direction. Every time I visit the U.S. I suffer a new bout of culture shock and find myself asking where my country went.
CNN used to be the dependable if dull place to find real information but now the boys and girls in Atlanta have become as cynical as everyone else when it comes to grabbing viewers by the throat. There seems to have been a coup d’etat down here by a group of big-hair, blue-eyed dimwit harridans. I stared in disbelief as one of these honey-blonde anchorettes said that roughly half the U.S. population is possessed by demons, which explains why so many of the remaining priests in the Catholic Church are being trained in exorcism. “No one should be more than a day’s drive from an exorcist,” CNN allowed one professional exorcist to warn.
The slicker networks have sunk just as low. NBC’s Today Show, once the industry standard, gave us 10 minutes on the latest anti-bounce sports bras, demonstrated by five sinewy beauties in yoga positions or bopping along on a treadmill. The report was designed to pull in viewers hoping for a glimpse, but I was there out of morbid curiosity. The NBC news-hen liked the long shirt with the built-in chest armor. “It doesn’t ride up," she said. “You know, it doesn’t do that thing where your belly’s hanging out.” Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, we really miss you.
Even the New York Times can set me off now. One midweek Style Section led with a half page spread on women who are turning to liposuction to remove back fat, knee fat and arm fat. One ex-model said she was getting “a little flappy” in the upper arm and was beginning to wiggle there when shaking hands. Liposuction and a few thousand dollars later and she was smiling again. The story lacked any numbers but today’s editors don’t seem to care.
When wrought up by life in America today I am tempted to take a cue from a prime-time commercial I kept seeing for something called KY Touch massage oil. It comes in five irresistible flavors with names like Bali Moonlight and Secret Grove.
Its great to be back in Bordeaux where even the children speak good French, the girls in the newsroom are all above average and the wine is incredibly cheap.
©2006 by Michael Johnson. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted June 19, 2006.
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