We here at YHTALMM are very pleased to announce the publication of the first ever YHTALMM guest lecture. Today’s visiting professor is TP (which probably stands for Tom Patriot) who will address food and the fear of flight. Following the lecture YHTALMM founding members Death Mask (DM) and HC Earwicker (HCE) will provide the first of what could prove to be several interpretive discussions/debates over the content.
Without further introduction, I’ll pass the podium to TP.
I was recently on a plane that almost crashed. Well, there was a loud sound from the engine, followed by a shaking. Several women made a noise that was halfway between a scream and a constipated moan. My ears popped and we moved closer to the layer of clouds beneath us. The captain came on over the loud speaker and said, "We're having some engine...pause (1...2...3)...irregularities, and we'll be making a (1...2...3) landing in Oklahoma City. Our descent was quicker than usual, or it seemed like it anyway. Not just to me, but to the muttering people around me, and the white-knuckled man in the aisle seat of my row. Maybe we we're actually safe all along, but the point is that none of the passengers seemed to think so.
When we had touched down and taxied to the gate, the flight attendant explained that we would be waiting in the otherwise-closed terminal for another plane to come from Austin and a crew from Dallas. It seemed it would be awhile. She did, however, mention that there would be refreshments served.
Now, considering that we all had, collectively, at least a fleeting sensation of impending death, I would have expected that to be the consensus topic of conversation--the what-does-it-all-mean and before-my-eyes and kids-growing-up-without-a-whatever bullshit seemed inevitable. I was wrong.
Pretzels. Flight 916 was mostly concerned about pretzels. Every topic of conversation I overheard was about snacks. "So, I guess they'll be serving us snacks." "The lady said there would be snacks, or food, or something...I hope it's something good." "God, they almost killed us, the least they could do is hurry up with those snacks." NOTE: I don't completely disagree with the last sentiment.
When the snacks did come (little bags of pretzels along with the standard array of non-alcoholic beverages that can be found listed in the back of your in-flight magazine...they wouldn't even give us the fucking booze!), it was what I would have expected the crowd to look like as it rushed toward the emergency rows of a burning fuselage. In my experience, no one really likes those little pretzels (not to be confused with the big pretzels you can get with a variety of dipping sauces as free samples at the mall), but will certainly eat them if they are placed in front of you. They seem, to me, like a totally neutral object. Not something one would scorn, but certainly nothing you feel a strong sense of desire toward.
Maybe it is just another indicator that Americans are fat and stupid (many of these passengers, I should note, were eating shitty airport food while we waited in Dallas...they couldn't have been THAT hungry). But I wonder if it was something more.
I know that your blog deals specifically with sleep-eating (many of my fellow passengers were, of course, asleep in that dark cabin prior to the rude awakening), but I wonder if there is any correlation between this specific type of gluttony and a brush with that eternal, final sleep.
HCE: Do you want to start or should I start?
DM: I’ll start.
HCE: Okay. Good.
DM: To answer TP's closing question, yes, there is a correlation between the sudden desire to eat and your flight’s brush with disaster. For example, you only have to watch Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” for about ten minutes before Anthony asks his ethnic tour guides what their final meal would be if given the chance to choose. After an abrupt brush with death your fellow passengers were made aware how close they all came to forgoing their last meal-wish and as an attempt to regain a harness on the longevity of their lives. The passengers on Flight 916 immediately desired a food-object which is barely enjoyable, and non-substantial as if to say “I’m alive and going to live on to eat many, many meals and therefore I’m going to eat shit right now.”
HCE: I find Anthony Bourdain abrasive. I feel like he’s purposefully confrontational with the other chefs, like he’s trying to start shit. Although he was purposefully reverential when he went to el bulli because he knew that dude would fuck him up (in a strict culinary sense) if he played him like that. I don’t know that the food was necessarily an expression of the “will-to-live” like you suggest. I think it was more of an “anything to get through” kind of deal. I think the whole brush-with-death-gives-you-a-sunny-look-on-life thing originates from Hannah and Her Sisters, and now people feel obligated to have it. When I fell off the bow of a deep sea fishing boat and was pulled out of the sea I was mostly embarrassed that I almost killed myself. I certainly didn’t write a bucket list or some shit like that. I’m going to lob you a softball and close by positing that rather than being the affirmation of life that you suggest the pretzels signify what Zizek refers to as the “nothing” that fills the void of modern existence. I’ll let you elaborate because I know that will make you happy.
DM: Anthony Bourdain looks a lot like Humphrey Bogart and works for the Travel Network now, not the Food Network. And I’m not saying that those on board of TP’s flight consciously were aware of their renewed zest for living- I’m more trying to express how immediately after a near-death experience, humans revert back into killing themselves slowly. On Zizek’s “nothing”, you’re right, I really like talking about this. In Welcome to the Desert of the Real, the documentary unfortunately titled, ZIZEK!, Slavoj talks about how modern products are sold without their malignant quality. Coke without sugar, decaffeinated coffee, cyber-sex, etc. Pretzels, in TP’s experience acts as Zizek’s “nothing”. If the flight offered “the big pretzels you can get with a variety of dipping sauces as free samples at the mall,” they would no longer place themselves as the “nothing”. The reason why these products are interesting to Zizek is because he feels the “nothing-ness” quality makes their consumers feel like they always desire them: since they consist of nothing one can never satisfy their hunger for them.
HCE: Right. Right on. The thing about it is, in The Fragile Absolute, Zizek talks about how the “nothing” of meaningless and substanceless food products fills the “void” created by how the horrible unavoidable shit of human existence is slowly encroaching on everyday life. This “void,” according to Zizek, used to be filled with holy objects; beautiful works of art in the renaissance were the response to the dead babies that clogged the renaissance’s aqueducts. Now, though, the “void” is filled with “nothing.” In this case, the “void” is created by the imminent reality of a hollow metal tube filled with ash-crusted corpses. The “nothing” that the passengers stuffed their craws with just happened to be the most meaningless (free) object. Pretzels.
This is exactly how I’ve been thinking about sleep-eating lately. Like the waking part of life creates the “void,” and like Freud said in The Interpretation of Dreams, at the fundamental level dreams are simply the fulfillment of deferred waking desires. Therefore, since now all of our “holy objects” are food, the void that needs to be filled in sleep because of the omnipresent horror of waking life must be filled with “empty” calories.
DM: Freud also believed that dreams are presented as they are (through symbols) because if we saw our actual desires face to face, it would be so upsetting we’d wake up. Like if I were married but wanted to sleep with my husband’s brother, I might have a dream where I sleep with someone with his name or job or another signifier of the brother. Like in Annie Hall when Annie dreams that she breaks Frank Sinatra’s glasses. The film interprets this as her want to break away from her controlling relationship with Alvy Singer. TP mentions how certain items on the flight menu were made unorderable or unavailable. By barring specified objects (actual meals and actual drinks) the passengers were spared a total awakening to the trauma that had just occurred. Much like how I sleep-eat foods I feel no hunger for or are only partial foods of an entire craving (breakfast bars).
HCE: But in a way I feel like even if the shitty drinks and expensive sandwiches were available to buy, the majority of the people on the plane would choose the free pretzels, because they are the most arbitrary and meaningless (as a means of avoiding any choice). So, in a way I agree with your assertion that the alcohol and grinders are closer to the horror of true desire.
Two Woody Allen references, two Freud references, two Zizek references, THREE Anthony Bourdain references. What does that say about us? Also, how do you think the Death Wish plays into TP’s submission. Oops, that’s three for Freud.
DM: Okay, I agree with your first statement but I think that the passengers are more satisfied with having something barred from them than they would be if the menu was entirely open. They like the idea of having something they only marginally desire forced on them. Upping the Zizek reference to FOUR, he claims that there are two schools of fathering. The first being the “tough”, “patriarchal” father is the kind of parent who will force their child to call their grandparents every weekend, because “they have to.” The second is the father who tells his child to call his grandparents only if they want to- but what this ultimately does is make the child feel like they have to want to call their grandparents. In the end, Zizek believes that the first version of the father is the preferable one because it is less manipulating. People dislike choices and therefore the passengers aboard TP’s flight were relieved not to make one.
As far as Freud’s death wish goes, I hit upon that above when I noticed how after a confrontation with death, the passengers chose to consume an object which their body reacts negatively towards.
HCE: Wow. Thanks for that Death Wish illumination. Seriously enlightening.
Okay, I’m done being a dick. But I do really like your Strict Dad/Lenient Dad comment. You’re right. The passengers were relieved that the “for sale” items on the menu were disallowed. It represented the authority that they sorely longed for when “The captain came on over the loud speaker and said, 'We're having some engine...pause (1...2...3)...irregularities.' Like, if the captain had just said “Sorry, we’re all going to die. No cell phone use” the passengers would have been relieved.
Alright. Final thoughts. On a scale from 1 to 10 how YHTALMM is this?
DM: I like the new forum. I think it’s about a 7.5, pictures considered. We should do this to a film sometime soon.
HCE: I’ll concur. You had the first word and I want you to have the last one. Quick! Name the film we’ll make:
DM: P.S. She Fell Over.
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