October 31st, 1997, Exploration
The French have invented a new tradition, they were eating the little song birds, they
starved and fattened them in the dark for a week before the killing of their voices, they
were dressed up at a dinner party, tearing the sinewy breasts open, the grease coating
their fingers, it was like trying to get a meal out of an almond or a small shell, some of
the birds were still in the oven, one of the guests asked, "how do you know when they are
cooked?", "you listen to the oven," said the chef, "you know when they are done when they
begin to sing", they were exploring a small bird's insides, inside themselves and their
digestive systems, more than tradition it was exploration, in a similar way that the
explorer Redmond O'Hanlin admitted to sucking out a monkey's eyes, he said that he was
at a traditional feast of some Indians; Amazon or the Congo, they shot a Macaw or spider
monkey, the scream or thud through the fat green leaf, "they made a soup," he said, "as
the soup went down in the bowl the monkey's skull appeared and it had the eyes still
looking out of it", he said that the Indians told him that it was tradition that the guest
suck the eyes, Redmond said, "I held the skull up to my mouth and sucked, the optic
nerve gave way and they slid straight down my throat," then the Indian looked over and
said, "that is disgusting, that is really disgusting, white men will do anything to be loved,"
Redmond said, "never go straight to the gold," he reminded me of all those student
bushwalkers who use to rush off to the tops of mountains, or the bottoms of valleys along
those rocky well-worn tracks, missing everything along the way, they wanted to complete
the walk, in this way Redmond had completed part of himself, when he had sucked the
monkey's eyes out, but the real completion was boasting to the world about it on
international television, he had indeed gone straight to the gold, for what more can you
do in this life after sucking a monkey's eyes out of its skull?, what more can you give to
the world or expect the world to teach you?, what more can shock you or plead to your
conscience?, after such an event there needs to be a great pause, after such action there
is completion, after the birds in the oven stop singing, he has become a fuller man, in a
sense complete, sometimes you get sicker before you get better, yet after the event of
this two-bit explorer sucking a monkey's eyes out, there was simply relief that it was
over, during that pause I was able to get a grip on myself, and go on in a world that so
often gets to the gold, it's like after a rotten hangover, after you really get over it, and
there is the sun on your skin, once that sun stops hurting you are thankful for it, the first
thing I notice after trauma is light or the amount of moisture in the air in a rainy park,
then my galloping dogs and the small brown birds moving through that moisture and light,
it's a very simple thing and being thankful is very simple, sky or dirt or flowers, nothing
that was and now isn't, must be thought of, after long illness I can strive to live. |
