Little Commies and Oaxaca Tamales

Little Commies and Oaxaca Tamales


I don't think anyone who knows me would accuse me of unseemly pride, but I did feel a tinge of that Deadly Sin when I learned that the extended-play disco version of my previous LTH post on Khyber Pass is now appearing in Little Commie's Pipe Up! magazine (http://www.littlecommie.com/pipeup/number6/hammond.html), and that a Dr. Bodden, English prof at Marquette University, is now using my Wallace Stevens' parody poem (below) as required reading in one of her courses (it was previously posted on Chowhound -- and it celebrates one of my favorite Chicago chowzones).


THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING A OAXACA TAMALE
Maxwell Street Market, November 24, 2002

I
Among a hundred stalls,
The only one that sang to me,
Was Oaxaca Tamal.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a plate,
On which there are three tamales.

III
The tamale was the still point
Amidst the swirling Sunday market.

IV
A man and a tamale
Are one.
A man and a tamale and a beer
Are one.

V
I do no know which I prefer,
The beauty of the taste,
Or the beauty of satiety;
The tamale being eaten,
Or just after.

VI
Tamales fill the silver chest.
Green bricks of goodness;
My own was withdrawn,
And, lifted to me on a plate,
Its unfolding aroma
Raised in me
An unquenchable hunger.

VII
O thin tamales of Tom Tom,
How dare you present yourselves to me!
Do you not know that the Oaxaca tamale
Is the bright sun under which you
Slither, pale yellow shadows?

VIII
I know fine words
And laughing lines
But I know too
That the Oaxaca tamale is involved
In what I do.

IX
When the tamale disappeared from my plate,
It marked the first
Of many more.

X
With the scent of Oaxaca tamales
Drifting on the wind
Even the bland children of Banquet
Stand up and drool for their deliciousness.

XI
He rode through the Oak Park night
In a silver car.
Once, a fierce hunger pierced him
In that he mistook
The blurred green moon
For a Oaxaca tamale.

XII
The stomach is growling.
The tamale is steaming.

XIII
It was dinnertime all afternoon.
I was hungry,
And I was going to be hungry.
The Oaxaca tamale unwrapped
Across my plate, waiting.

Bravo, Maestro!

A

But the question is, does the good doctor still require Stevens?

Well, I do have her phone number, and I'm hoping to catch her in the office and find out how she's using the poem (like most parodies, I think its "effectiveness" requires some sense of the parodic target, so I believe Wallace's "version" is probably advisable preliminary reading, kind of like how you should probably read Virgil before Dante and Dante before Milton ).

Hammond

Last week, my Spanish teacher, Juan Cabrales (who sometimes plays music with Alan "jazzfood" Lake) went to the Maxwell Street Market. Juan is a committed vegetarian, and he usually makes a distasteful face when anyone mentions meat.

At the market, Juan saw the Oaxacan tamales -- and he had to order one. He said he ate it very quickly.

"Sin carne," I asked. "

"No, con carne," he smiled with an expression that was both bashful and devilish.

He could not help himself.

Thus is the power of the Oaxacan tamale!

David Hammond wrote:Well, I do have her phone number, and I'm hoping to catch her in the office and find out how she's using the poem (like most parodies, I think its "effectiveness" requires some sense of the parodic target, so I believe Wallace's "version" is probably advisable preliminary reading, kind of like how you should probably read Virgil before Dante and Dante before Milton ).

Hammond

Wait, wait! I'm still digesting (sorry ) the fact that Dante Jones and Milton Bradley are writers! Not to mention Virgil Carter (I presume...) Who'd have guessed!

Gypsy Boy wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Well, I do have her phone number, and I'm hoping to catch her in the office and find out how she's using the poem (like most parodies, I think its "effectiveness" requires some sense of the parodic target, so I believe Wallace's "version" is probably advisable preliminary reading, kind of like how you should probably read Virgil before Dante and Dante before Milton ).

Hammond

Wait, wait! I'm still digesting (sorry ) the fact that Dante Jones and Milton Bradley are writers! Not to mention Virgil Carter (I presume...) Who'd have guessed!

Right, and Homer Simpson, as well. You, too, can write an epic poem!