Of tapeworms and bodily fluids

By Leila Marie Lawler ( articles ) | Aug 08, 2003

Diogenes, your trenchant comments reminded me of a passage in C. S. Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress.

Then I dreamed that one day there was nothing but milk for them, and the jailer said as he put down the pipkin: "Our relations with the cow are not delicate -- as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions." ...at these words something seemed to snap in [John's] head and he gave a great sigh and suddenly spoke out in a loud, clear voice: "Thank heaven! Now at last I know that you are talking nonsense... you are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung." "And pray, what difference is there except by custom?" "Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?" "So Nature is a person, then, with purposes and consciousness," said the jailer with a sneer..."no doubt it comforts you to imagine you can believe that sort of thing..." "I know nothing about that," shouted John ...,"I am talking of what happens. Milk does feed calves and dung does not."

Most instructive for knowing what the enemy is planning, thinking, and assuming is what he says and accepts as normal when he thinks you are not looking. A filler article in today's New York Times Arts section lets slip a little something which also reminded me of the Lewis passage:

Asianpunkboy uses a mixture of bodily fluid and Pepto-Bismol to embellish a portrait embossed on paper.