Friday, June 3, 2011

Food Slurry, in my mouth...



At the airport...
    So I'm here at LAX with plenty of time to spare for my 1:30a flight. I am happy to have been able to select emergency exit row seats for both seats. I asked about the cost of first class from LAX to MEM and the airline saw fit to ask for $1100. I saw fit to decline. As per food at the airport at 12:31a I haven't decided if McDonalds being the only place open is added insult to the cost of first class, or if that it's open at all is a blessing in a day that has otherwise been extraordinarily long and perhaps even grueling. 
In an eleventh hour save, McDonalds is apparently now offering oatmeal. It looks like lumpy glue and tastes like water with wood pulp. Fortunately the overpowering mixed flavors of blandness and gluey water pulp are occasionally broken up across the slow slide along my taste buds with short bursts of fruity parts. Yay fruit. 
Were I to compare the flavor of said oatmeal to art, or an artistic attempt, I admit to being lost for an adequate comparison. It's not like the following things:
1. A child's drawing - this art has varied acceptance in the art world and even without it decades of pseudo acceptance this art form still possesses chaotic lines, drastic colors and sometimes a failure to define a central composition making it far more exciting than the taste I'm currently trying to forget. 
2. The Dada movement - eventhough a toilet, a shovel and graffiti are accepted objects of art in this movement, this art also represents a move toward celebrating counter-culture and general silliness. This would be as if someone created Jesus pancakes, gave him a curly mustache and topped him with M&Ms: clearly more exciting than mouth gruel. 
3. Impressionism - I weep to think it's possible to compare what I'm eating to such beautiful art. After checking the dipstick in my tear wells I find that I am not crying and find therefore that this comparison is not possible. 
4. Cubism - I am admittedly not a fan of cubism but still think there's more thought behind the execution of this art than the quantifiable amount of flavor failing to slake my tastes at this moment. To further prove this point, the Cubist movement did generate Picasso's "Guernica" and that's pretty damned great. For some reason, if Cubism were translated into food, I think it would feature grilled, flayed asparagus. It's textured, bold, continental and straddles that line between tasty and healthy very well. 
5. Russian Literature - This one is getting close. Russian literature is depressing and can leave the reader wondering aloud "Why God? Why?!" I wondered this same thing while spoon feeding myself what I continued to reassure myself was healthy and character building. However depressing Russian lit as an artform is, it's still intelligently crafted, moving and well respected for its artistry and passion. 
6. John Singer Sargent & The Muppets - any comparison of either of these to the ill-textured gloppy-gloop, now passing into the temporally abstract space of memories while causing little to no impact in the digestive processes, is just plain ridiculous. 
7. Self-indulgent art - this is worse than the oatmeal, but still more exciting because of the existential peril inherent in self-indulgent art. 

Wait!! I think I have a comparable visual media whose roots grow, however long ago, from an artistic source: paparazzi photography. It's bland, bleeds together and occasionally

1 comment:

  1. ... to finish the last sentence (because I'm writing on my iPhone on an airplane):
    "It is bland, bleeds together and occasionally contains nuts and a few fruity bits."

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