MORE ABOUT FRYBREAD.

In response to our question about whether there is any subject about which it is not possible to become incandescently furious (Dr. Boli believes those words demand to be set in italics), our frequent correspondent Colin writes,

I suppose that a subject would be impervious to any kind of luminous fury if it is either devoid of any meaning whatsoever, or so unimaginably dull that nobody even wants to think about it.

To my mind, among the topics that meet these criteria are:
– The contents of The Museum of Bad Art
– The philology of the Klingon language
– The platform of the American Whig Party
– and of course, The Complete Works of Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle

Dr. Boli believes, however, that anyone who cannot become incandescently furious about those subjects has a rosier view of human nature than is currently fashionable. Let us take them one by one:

The first is too easy, because the Wikipedia article on “Museum of Bad Art” gives us a reason for outrage without our having to go to the trouble of inventing one ourselves: “The Museum Of Bad Art has been accused of being anti-art, or taking works that were sincerely rendered and mocking them.” If you are not already burning with incandescent fury on behalf of those sincere artists whose work is held up to ridicule here, you need only sincerely render a work of art yourself and then leave it in a trash can somewhere in the vicinity of one of the museum’s locations, and if it is acquired for the permanent collection you may tremble with outrage.

The second item, the philology of the Klingon language, must already have provoked blazing infernos of incandescent fury on a dozen different forums dedicated to the topic of the Klingon language. However, you may test whether the subject is capable of provoking incandescent fury by entering such a forum and posting a statement that is regarded as incorrect by the other members.

The platform of the American Whig Party:

As for the complete works of Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle, there were riots in Newport News when Mr. Vanderblock-Wheedle’s novel Perpetua-Lou was published. The mob was not pacified until the Superintendent of Schools signed a pledge that the work would not be included on any required reading lists.

Meanwhile, our likewise frequent correspondent Maypo writes,

What drives me past incandescent fury into spittle-flecked rage is the fact that I’ve never even heard of frybread! And it sounds delightful!

It is never too late. Here is Dr. Boli’s utterly simple two-ingredient recipe for frybread.

Instruct your cook to take

Self-rising flour

Water

in a ratio of about 8 to 3. For example, for a dozen medium-sized rounds, you might use 4 cups of flour and a cup and a half of water.

Mix the two ingredients in a big bowl.

Need the dough as much as it kneads.

Pull off pieces of dough, form them into balls, and have the servants flatten the balls into thin discs.

Fry the discs in a shallow pan of hot oil or shortening until they look golden.

Let the fried discs drain on paper towels or a wire rack.

Eat them with anything you can think of that you would like to eat with fried bread. As a general rule, if it is food, it probably goes well with frybread.

 

Comments

  1. Maypo says:

    Now I am truly enraged sir! How can it be that the same prime ingredients for my many papier-mâché models of the world (needed for obvious planning purposes), through simple heating in fat, could produce this delicacy? AND NOBODY EVERY TOLD ME BEFORE?

  2. Colin says:

    Touche, Sir. Far from incandescent rage, I feel a sense of satisfaction, knowing that the good doctor, even at his advanced age, retains his characteristic wit and good humor.

    Yet I still find intellectual exercise in Dr. Boli’s question too enticing to immediately pass up. Perhaps a topic of pure altruism would be impervious to feelings of rage?

    Show me the man who flies into a boiling fury over a newspaper story about a fireman saving children from a burning building, and I will show you a pure sadist, which is merely an exception that proves the rule. One might feel indignation at a city’s lax building codes, the exorbitant expenses of maintaining a fire department, or the results of parental negligence. Yet I would hardly classify such feelings as rage, no matter how sensitive one’s emotional bolometer might be.

    Which brings a separate question to mind. The name of the bolometer is too similar to our good doctor’s appellation to be mere coincidence. Was Dr. Boli an inventor of scientific instruments in his youth?

    Your Obedient Servant,
    Colin

  3. Incandescent fury is its own reason.
    Possibly it even precedes the universe of subjects. Were there no subjects for the fury at all, it would create one–the lack of subjects, for example.
    Or perhaps the lack of all subjects would be hell, a fury left alone with nothing but itself.

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