MUSINGS

Have you had the pleasure of knowing many pirates? I don't necessarily mean "knowing" in the Biblical sense. But if the knowing of a pirate is not a knowing in the Biblical or some other sacred sense, can there be any knowing at all? Can anyone really know a pirate?

How would you recognize one? It might be easy if you saw the matey on a pirate vessel. Certainly, context aids recognition.

Or perhaps context is recognition. Perhaps context is monotheistic creator of identity.

Or would you be able to recognize a pirate sitting in the midst of what you would deem an unusual context? Let's see: What might be an unusual context? Teaching a Sunday school class? Working in a candy factory? Demonstrating the fine art of French cuisine?

Ah, now I have gone far enough. I do know of a pirate who was a French chef. Allow me to introduce you: To Julia Child, often known since 1964 as The French Chef. Before she died in 2004 she wrote many books and did her famous television series. She was larger than life, a breathy baritoned opulence of spirit. Her very being legitimized decadence. The epicurean dream became awakened in her presence, entering through pixels and cathode tubes into the bounded, real life of the early '60s. I believe she played a part in the revolution of that day, bringing the French spirit to the newly unfolding world more obviously courted by the British sound waves that followed the Beat poets.

Julia's first meal of oysters, sole meyniere, and an exquisite wine was, in her words, "an opening of the soul and the spirit for me." Her bon appetit was indeed good, and even beyond good into the realm of the transpersonal sacral, into the heart of piracy.

Take it from Julia: Everything you need to know about piracy you can learn from the folding in of egg whites. This infolding, like the embryonic infolding of migrating cells in gastrulation, is a delicate operation. And just like in the embryonic cellular infolding, there is the promise of the new.

We must not lose the air that has been brought into the whipped whites to create the delightfully buoyant foam. Mindful care is of the essence. We must use a clean, dry, room-temperature copper bowl, with no trace of oiliness. A bit of salt or acid in the form of cream of tartar or lemon juice firms up the proteins.

After careful preparation, when we begin the actual folding in, we must reach deep down through the center of the foaming whites with our rubber spatula. We introduce our batter into the mix, gently, repeatedly. All this is happening without loss of firmness of the whites.

Julia was familiar with many mixings, including the mixing in of cunning linguistic codes. After all, she served in the OSS, an international spy ring, a prototypical CIA, created during WWII by FDR. She is a prime example, like piracy itself, that what you see is not what you get. What you get is all mixed up and in and around with great artfulness and glee. In such a context, knowing is not recognition, but is creation. Knowing is essentially the mix of the sacral (like sacred) and the sacral (like hard bony parts of lower bodies). Knowing is the rabid disruption of context.

There is talk of the concept of bubble universes created from the mixing of the foam of parent universes. This kind of multi and meta universe creation is mirrored in the delicious infolding of original cells and meringues.

Piracy is racy, is creation, is tasty. Piracy is life itself, rejoicing in mixing it up. And the mixed mind of piracy is the fun of moving below deck toward courting wavy depths. But all this is to be done gently, with a care not to bruise or deflate or collapse.

Let's mix it up, lovingly.

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse w ho hopes t o inspir e pr ofound mu tiny in all those who care to rea d. Our Rx ma y be wearing a pir ate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You ma y e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.