Thursday, April 14, 2016

Category H: bird parts.

This group is small.


H1 head of duck  wšn  that's w-sh-n, could be useful triliteral. Abbreviation for "birds" 3pdw that's ah-p-e-w. 

H2 head of crested bird mac  that's ma-eh 

H3 spoonbill's head p3q that's p-ah-q

H4 vulture's head determinative mrw, I'm thinking merow for "dread"  

H5 wing dnḥ, that's d-n-ech sound

H6 feather, š w,  schwe
H6a same

H7 bird's leg Š3t, sh-ah-t

H8 egg swḥṯ, that's sw-heh-th


This is my least favorite group hardly worth talking about. I'll regale you with two incredibly stupid bird part related stories instead. Both are true. Both are embarrassing. Both make me dislike bird parts. 

I am brought to room with other children and placed at a school desk. A woman is teaching the whole class a song. But it is not school, it is not church, it is nothing I know. It is some transitional thing. Whatever it is, this is the only such class. A few women are managing the class only one, a guest it seems is teaching us a song. 

I ask, "What does Alouette mean?" 

"It means "lark" 

"What's a lark?" 

"A bird." 

You see where this is going. I don't care for the explanation. You don't taunt your food as you prepare it. It's equivalent is using a frying chicken as hand puppet, or the goldfish in a blender gag. And it isn't just me thinking it either, none of us could understand this. For some reason adults want this song to be sung in innocent children's voices to add to the contrast, I suppose.

So there's that. 

Then some fifteen years later there is the chicken fryer vs chicken roaster experiment. 

I didn't know what I was doing. I saw Julia Child butcher a chicken and recommend it. I was trying to learn, trying to understand the difference between things. I didn't have the right tools. My knife was wrong, my cutting surface was wrong, my technique was wrong, my understanding to that point was wrong. 

And crucially, Jeffrey Dahmer was in the news at the time.

I thought butchers chopped through the bone, not between the bones, and I didn't know how to find the in-between spot anyway (by bending it).  I made a hack job of the tougher roaster bird after having no trouble with the fryer. All my chopping was making a splattering mess of things and I knew that wasn't right, something wet hit my face and my interest in finishing waned but I pushed through chopping and hacking at bone with the wrong knife, hardly getting anywhere with it, making a huge slippery mess all the while thinking "c'mon, dismember this thing."  The word "dismember" kept rolling though mind as I chopped futilely, dismember, chop, dismember, chop, dismember, chop, dismember, chop, I felt the blood drain from my head and my gyroscope going, I had to sit down right now. 

But my hands have chicken slime smeared all over them. My head is on the dining room table now rolling back to its senses, and my hands are held in the air, and I'm thinking, "You crazy bitch, you said this is fun!" 

Then get back to the business of bird parts. 

2 comments:

MamaM said...

Prince Wen Hui’s cook was cutting up an ox.
Out went a hand,
Down went a shoulder,
He planted a foot,
He pressed with a knee
The ox fell apart
With a whisper,
The bright cleaver murmured
Like a gentle wind.
Rhythm! Timing!
Like a sacred dance,
Like “The Mulberry Grove”
Like ancient harmonies!
“Good work!” the Prince exclaimed,
“Your method is faultless!”
“Method?” said the cook
Laying aside his cleaver,
“What I follow is Tao
Beyond all methods!
“When I first began
To cut up oxen
I would see before me
The whole ox
All in one mass.
“After three years
I no longer saw this mass.
I saw the distinctions.
“But now, I see nothing
With the eye. My whole being
Apprehends.
My senses are idle. The spirit
Free to work without plan
Follows its own instinct
Guided by natural line,
By the secret opening,
The hidden space,
My cleaver finds its own way.
I cut through no joint, chop no bone.
“A great cook needs a new chopper
Once a year – he cuts.
A poor cook needs a new one
Every month – he hacks!
“I have used this same cleaver
Nineteen years.
It has cut up
A thousand oxen.
Its edge is as keen
As if newly sharpened.
“There are spaces in the joints;
The blade is thin and keen:
When this thinness
Finds that space
There is all the room you need!
It goes like a breeze!
Hence I have this cleaver
Nineteen years
As if newly sharpened!
“True, there are sometimes
Tough joints. I feel them coming,
I slow down, I watch closely,
Hold back, barely move the blade,
And whump! the part falls away
Landing like a clod of earth.
“Then I withdraw the blade,
I stand still
And let the joy of the work
Sink in.
I clean the blade
And put it away.”
Prince Wen Hui said,
“This is it! My cook has shown me
How I ought to live
My own life!”
- Chuang Tzu (translation)


Perhaps it works for birds too, humans not so much, or maybe more so.

deborah said...

That is a very short list compared to the others.