Dear friends,
In the not too-distant future…there was a guy named Joel, not too different from you or me…okay, enough of that, before someone gets wise and sues my plagiarizing tuchus. In the not-too-distant future, I will be headed out of town, powered by Amtrak, down to beautiful uptown Havre de Grace, Maryland, where my dad and stepmom will be throwing their housewarming party. Vittles will be consumed. Drinks will be drunk. Long walks along the Chesapeake will be taken. Yet another chocolate orgasm will be had by me. Contentment will reign supreme.
As I was looking for something to read on the train (I decided on Iris Murdoch, Kenneth Atchity, the Saveur 100 and yet another damn book about eggs), I came across my copy of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky. This was another train book for me, the book I read on my last trip home from Pittsburgh last August. I spent much of that trip flirting with the conductor, a game young man who gave me some gentle abuse for one of the cd’s I brought with me (“there is someone out there who actually owns the Len cd?”), then forgave me when he saw all the Teardrop Explodes cd’s I’d brought with me. He asked what I was reading. I proffered Cod, at which he heaped even more abuse on me (“Cod. A biography of the fish that changed the world. This is what you’re reading.”). I dared him to read to the entire car the poem on the page I’d been reading, thinking he could only take this shtick so far. He called my bluff, read the poem in a voice one part Dick Cavett and one part Brian Blessed, and was given a round of applause for his efforts.
I’m remembering this now because, in light of how I’ve been spending my time recently, it is an appropriate and prescient poem to share with you. Mark Kurlansky attributes it to an “anonymous American poet.” To Todd the conductor guy, wherever you are, I’m thinking of you very fondly indeed.
Without further ado…
The codfish lays a thousand eggs
The homely hen lays one.
The codfish never cackles
To tell you what she’s done.
And so we scorn the codfish
While the humble hen we prize
Which only goes to show you
That it pays to advertise.
Have a sublime weekend, dear ones.