Jian Lotfi - Writing - Odds n Ends

God Bless America

It's been quite a while since I've added any writing to this website -- a year, maybe.

There's a story behind that, of course, but it's too much to share. Not now, not here.

All the writing I did last year was a sudden efflorescence rooted in long workings out of sight and "under the surface."

I feel that again, I'm in a long spell of workings out of sight and under the surface. What will blossom, and when -- who can say?

I think of the many mushrooms I've come to know the last few years, as I've become a more and more enthusiastic forager.

In a sense, most of them you can sort of predict -- general areas and general times of year you might find them, based on understanding, experience, and intuition.

Of course, I say that knowing that, in a more accurate sense, you can't really predict mushrooms at all. Or, I can't, yet.

They're intelligent.

Sneaky.

Their invisible fingers spread through every inch of the forest and feel every ripple in it.

They know you, and they know you're there. Sometimes they want you to find them, sometimes they don't.

But that aside, sometimes you think you know when you'll expect some, and where, and -- nowhere to be seen.

And then, a month after you think the season is over (or a month before it begins) -- a little cluster bursts forth in a hidden place, bright and fresh, almost seeming to smile with glee.

What I'll share below seems like that to me.

A friend and I were emailing yesterday.

The conversation ran its course, and rather than sending the normal "conversation's over smiley face," I thought, Let me send something different.

I just scrolled through the emoji-archive and found these, which I sent her:

🎸️🥓️

And then added, "I don't know what that means."

She thought a while and replied, "Spam Jam?"

That "tickled my fancy," and I started looking that term up online to see what came up. I was thinking of some image of a disgusting sandwich with Spam and jelly (which I would send to her in reply), but instead I found out... there is a thing called the Spam Jam.

I didn't look into it beyond seeing that it was an annual event (many years running) in Hawaii.

So, I replied to her:

"Be there or be square."

No reply the rest of the day.

Today, I checked my email and saw a new message from her -- with the subject line, "Spam Alert."

I opened the email, and in it was a link to this event:

That more-than-tickled my fancy; it got my creative juices flowing, like the warm, reddish, tinny (and no doubt slimy) contents sitting at the bottom of (apparently) everyone's favorite canned meat. I wouldn't know.

Anyway, all that is a rickety-ass preamble to my saying...

When I saw this was a festival devoted to Spam that (apparently) had an officially-judged competition to objectively verify who made the "best" dish with that canned approximation of meat, this came to mind:

Wow.

I think I could win the competition.

I would just get a big black Hefty bag, fill it with the contents of 1000 tins of Spam, and then, having dragged it into the competition amid the judging, would heave it over my shoulder onto a picnic table with a resounding and crowd-silencing thud.

Having won the attention of the judges and the milling crowd and held it in a long moment of tense silence, in a sudden dramatic motion I'd whip out my hunting knife, jam it point downward into the middle of the bloated Hefty bag, and slice it open.

As the rancid Spam and its oily juices spilled eagerly forth in a mesmerizing moment of wretched release, I would cry out in a cold, deep voice, loud enough for all to hear:

"Behold! I bring you Manna from your God. Sueeeee!"

Maddened by the invocation of their deity and their senses inflamed by the reek of the offering entering their nostrils, hundreds would swarm to the table, clawing and squealing, glutting themselves, cheek to jowl, out of the plastic bag as if from a trough, or like hyenas at the sun-bloated belly of some rotting plastic elephant.

And you know what?

While I'm winning competitions, I could simultaneously record this unholy feast and live-stream it as an avant-garde performance-art-exhibit-cum-film-festival at the MoMA: I'd pay a morbidly obese man a tidy sum to sit in dirty white boxers on an old recliner while watching the Spam Jam trough-eaters devour the contents of the trash bag.

People would pay to watch him, of course, and that's how I'd earn a return on my investment.

I'd call it, "Freedom from Want II: Freedom from the Need to Be Free," in honor of Norman Rockwell: