Slow News Day:
Times Of London Front Page, August 2009
(Photo: Little Rupert's
Times of London)
In one of my favorite relationship films, John Cameron's
The Abyss (1989), Lindsey Brigman (
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) says to a barely-in-control Lieutenant Coffee (Michael Biehn), "With all that's going on up in the world -- you're all broken up about some
gigantic Carp???"
Well, okay; she doesn't mention the Carp. But, if she had, that line would neatly express what I'm thinking about the news in
Harper's magazine (see "Now You Know", below) that a larger-than-life fish in an English lake had passed away:
Benson, the really big, 52-pound Carp.
In real life, Benson was actually a
female (please insert all jokes about the English being closet Poofters and cross-dressers and Bloomsbury Lesbians here) Carp, who lived in a lake and just got larger with each passing year, much like many of us.
It was discovered in 1984 and captured over and over again for the next twenty-five years (In a Google Image search, enter "Benson the Carp" -- tossing your line in the cyberpool, as it were -- and see what you pull up). The odd thing is, this fish is described in the English press as "Britain's Best-Loved Carp"; this would seem to suggest that there are
other Carp, not quite so loved? Is there a
Carp Hierarchy Subculture in the UK?
Fun Fish Facts: Not all fish want to be your friend, idiot.
(Photo:
Freshmandy [Warning: Not All Content Work-safe])
Well, think about it. Who in their right mind would name a giant fish "Benson"? The English,
aber natürlich. Got to be part of a Monty Python bit, you're thinking ("I'd like a license for my pet fish, Eric," says John Cleese, "He's an Haddock. A flatfish. Picked him out of thousands; didn't like the others, they were all too flat"), and you're half right.
The English like their animals, in an anthropomorphic way. Their children's literature is full of them (
Wind In The Willows, no?); they have vivisectionist groups and hedgehog appreciation societies, and the people who fought for almost forty years to re-introduce the Beaver to the shrinking wilds of Scotland (they succeeded). And don't mention Badgers; there are Badger-watching groups in the UK, and if you start them up about, you know, those cute little guys (just look at those black-and-white stripes and those half-anteater faces and those little
ears... [ahem] sorry), they'll be no end to it.
Fun Badger Facts: There can be lots of them. Don't piss them off.
(Photo:
Freshmandy [Warning: Not All Content Work-safe])
So, they had Benson. And apparently,
the circumstances of her demise may not have been on the up-and-up. It's an Agatha Christie mystery, a Holmesian puzzle, which a taxidermist charged with stuffing and mounting the old girl will have to determine.
At least no one is putting her in a deep-fryer. For myself, I'm happy that the only thing which prevented an obligatory moment of silence in schools for Benson, or the establishment of a 'Benson The Carp Day', or criminal charges filed against some poor Fudd for Benson's "death by misadventure", here in the U.S. -- was the American Revolution.
No kidding; finally a useful, modern reference to the Founding Dudes. They saved our national honor. They kept us from ending up an extension of Great Britain and suffering the inanity of a Holiday honoring -- not the end of the Great War; not an epochal moment in human history; not the death of General Wolfe in Canada or a courageous stand of British regulars against The Fuzzis in Darkest Otheristan... but, a
big fish, Buddy. America was saved for... better things, like hip-hop, and George W. Bush and
the Evil the Evil the Evil Goldman-Sachs.
'S all good, Dogg. Ay ay ay listen
up: Jefferson (get your hand off Sally Hemmings, graymeat); Hamilton, Franklin; Adams; George Da
Man (Yo); all you guys bein' so cool. You saved us from gettin' extra Holiday. Fly Low an' Get Classic. An' don't eat no fish; could be your friend. Or, it's gettin' a buncha Mercury -- and that shit's
bad, Dogg. Fuck you
up.
Peace Out, Benson! You Go, Man Girl!
