Over the past few weeks, I've had unusual pairs of items popping up in my daily life. One Thursday, I was munching on some bean burritos and reading the Shepherd Express. The AV Club had a review of a newly released reading of Beowulf, and mentioned that a Beowulf movie was coming out (featuring Anthony Hopkins, if memory serves). AFter I'd finished my gut bombs, I went out to the car and started driving, listening to my Book on Tape. Not more than two minutes later, it was revealed that a peripheral pair of characters were actually Grendel and his mother. I spent the rest of the week watching for other references to Beowulf but - nada, zip, bupkis. Does it mean something? I don't know.
Then today I realized I've been spotting strange foods in association with germany. I'm not talking boiled pig's snout with canary beaks. These are foods that an alien would find indistinguishable from typical american foods. F'rinstance Spaghetti Ice. Imagine forcing ice cream through small holes to produce spaghetti-like strands, then topoing it with strawberry sacue colored to look like tomato sauce. See what I mean? Familiar, yet... other worldly. Today's hit: curry ketchup. Just like it sounds, ketchup, plus curry flavor. Sounds apalling to me, but search it on the web, and german expats are sobbing how much they miss it.
So somebody tell me, what commonality is there between the concepts of Beowulf and german food weirdness? And based on that, what will be the next synchronous juxtaposition? (ooh! good name for a band, eh?)
2 comments:
You obviously haven't been tuned in to this week's SciFi channel Saturday night movie, "Grendel." It looks like a CGI-fest of epic proportions! I doubt if Beowulf or Grendel's mother even gets a mention.
The Somniloquist
Damn, I missed that! Had I seen it, it'd likely have provided the missing piece of the puzzle. Wealth and joy would have been mine!
Hey... this new blogger doesn't have any words to type in... bummer.
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