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
'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,
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