NOTE: today Walter Kirn shared a text called "July, 1974", and I liked it so much that I decided to try writing my own version of the same type of piece:
16 January, 2022
I wake up every morning terrified because our world is funneling towards doom, so I go fishing as a way to abate my fear. Hours before sunrise, I push my canoe out into the lake and paddle until I reach the spot where all the fish are. I cast my net into the water; then I sip my beer and wait, thinking simple thoughts about how all those underwater dwellers must feel when they see the webs of my net descending around them. Once I finish my beer, I pull the net back into the vessel, and there are heaps of sea-creatures wriggling within it.
Aquatic life is colorful & fantastic: it's hard to believe all the varieties of forms that these beings exhibit. I'm always happiest when my day's catch consists of regular fish, like herring, pike, sunfish, trout, or walleye — for those are what I'm accustomed to cooking & eating — but it's also interesting (and it can be very tasty) to catch other styles of sea-beast, such as jellyfish, lobsters, crabs, turtles, and oysters. Once I even caught a whale named Moby-Dick. (No: I'm kidding — that last statement was a joke.)
When I arrive home with my score, I immediately start to clean and prepare whatever I netted; for everything gets eaten: I never fish merely for sport. All my neighbors gather round the open vat fryer of the outdoor kitchen that's landscaped into my front yard. Also sometimes I use a cauldron over a bonfire. I cook each creature and hand out meat to everyone present.
However, since I'm usually the first one awake in my neighborhood, I often finish my fishing trip so early that nobody has gathered yet. In this case, I just set out rows of clean plates on the lengthy marble table, & set each serving upon these as the meat finishes cooking. That way, folks can grab a dish & begin to eat whenever they arrive. To keep the plates warm, I cover each one with an ornate cloche.
The reason I choose to share my catch with the whole neighborhood daily and then go out on a fresh expedition every morning, instead of freezing whatever extra food that I netted so as to eat it all myself, is that I love being useful & pleasing others. It's just as rewarding to give as it is to receive. Plus, my neighbors are all writers, and that's a vocation that I believe in, so I enjoy supporting them. My neighbor Joe writes about architecture; Bruce writes about trains & seafaring; Anthony writes about homebuilding, hunting, and horse-wrangling; Xi writes about family counseling and psychology; and Mack writes about sustainable agriculture (he actually taught me everything I know about fishing & farming; so I'm forever in his debt). I myself only write romantic poetry. — It's unusual to have a neighborhood populated entirely by writers, but that's my good luck.
Soon it came to pass that nearby cities heard rumors about what I was doing with my seafood routine, so they sent spies in to try to learn my secrets. I welcomed them: I offered them portions equal to what I was giving the locals. We all enjoyed a feast, while I gladly explained my techniques in fishing and food preparation to these curious foreigners. Being shocked at the abundance & quality of my cuisine, they took notes and eventually employed my tricks in their own towns and thus grew useful & well-loved in turn.
4 comments:
This is in fact exactly why I'd personally have to make an almost übermenschlich effort to come up with any real "new" inventions (and not just the same old items spraypainted glossy black and installed with flashing lights on their casing); I'd be 99% happy and content in a small neighborhood community populated by writers and fishermen supporting each other!
We’re all glad that you have joined our small neighborhood community! You can be known for writing books about any subjects you like. When you sit down at your writing desk each morning before the next day’s sea-feast starts, our community’s collective spirit shall take the form of a quill pen and dance along with your hand that holds it. Whatever you naturally enjoy thinking about will be transformed into the volumes that shall constitute your personal bibliography.
Having joyfully joined this small neighborhood community, I must start by contradicting my last statement, as of in here, all sorts of newness seem to thrieve naturally and flow freely, the collective community spirit igniting all the flashing lights anyone could possibly need, and even setting free glossy spraypaint to be used, from now on, only in original art work. I believe I will have to start off by letting a few semi-self-imposed doctrines guide my way though, just to establish some sort of basic grounding when not out at sea, gathering marine supplies for today's feast.
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