A Defense of Gluttony
Colman Andrews writing in The New Republic: “It is my opinion that whoever said “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels” has probably never sat down with three ounces of Iranian osetra, a stack of freshly made blinis (the kind that aren’t made with pancake mix), a small bone spoon, and nobody else in the room; or attacked a steaming plateful of fettuccine alfredo made the right way (with only very rich butter and the best parmigiano-reggiano, no cream); or addressed a big, juicy bacon-cheeseburger with homemade fried onion rings and a bottle of Cornas on the side. Or maybe that person has done all or some of the above and just didn’t like the experience. It’s possible, I guess. We all have blind spots in our appreciative abilities. Vladimir Nabokov apparently didn’t see the point of music. François Truffaut, in so many ways the quintessential Frenchman, considered food a necessary annoyance, and probably would have preferred watching an Ozu movie for the fourteenth time to eating lunch. Me, I wouldn’t care if I never saw Cirque du Soleil again in my life.”
Hmm, makes me love Truffaut a little less. One reason I love The Sopranos: everyone constantly stuffing their faces. They eat, they whack each other, they eat, they whack each other. (Reminds me of a conversation I once had. “What’s the plot of Less Than Zero?” my flatmate asked. “They do coke, they do each other, they do coke, they do each other,” I said. My flatmate was floored. “They do the polka, they do each other?!” That might’ve helped the movie.)
August 29th, 2007 at 14:33
Those are exactly the defense when I take E (yikes!)