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Weekend Butler: The best cold squash soup, a podium for cat orators, Margaret Mead explains “civilization,” Otis Redding’s last performance, and a space story that would terrify Bezos and Branson
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Published: Jul 21, 2021
Category:
Weekend
PODIUM CAT SCRATCHER FOR INDOOR CATS (IN THE PHOTO)
As I’m new to cats, I believed they only like tunnels and boxes, like the arty Cat House I recently featured. It turns out they also like to give speeches. This 22.9″ x 13″ x 13″ podium has features that encourage cats to stand up and orate. It’s a scraping post. At the top is a brush with black plastic bristles disguised as a microphone. Reviewers are divided on ease of assembling, but my sense is that a roll of tope will solve any problems. [To buy the Podium Cat Scratcher from Amazon, click here.]
THE VERY BEST COLD SUMMER SOUP
This Yellow Squash Soup is ridiculously simple to prepare and cook, serves eight, and earns raves from your guests.
1 1/2 pounds yellow summer squash
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, sliced
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
3 to 4 grinds of fresh nutmeg or dash of ground nutmeg (optional)
1 cup heavy cream
Wash, trim and slice squash.
In a large saucepan, melt butter and gently sauté onion.
Add chicken broth gradually, then sliced squash, salt and pepper.
Cook over low heat for half an hour.
Puree soup in blender or food processor. Add nutmeg.
Stir in cream with a wire whisk.
Chill.
HOW DID CIVILIZATION START? MARGARET MEAD: “WITH A HEALED BONE”
Anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.
OTIS REDDING’S FINAL PERFORMANCE
He died in a plane crash. He was just 26. Once, when he did this song, Janis Joplin raced to the stage to look up, in awe, and go to school on him. If you don’t know what “the feels” means, here’s a good definition. [To buy Otis Redding CDs from Amazon, click here and here.]
A STORY ABOUT ROCKETS TO SPACE NO ONE HAS MENTIONED: “THE MARCHING MORONS,” BY C.M. KORNBLUTH
There are 3 million highbred elite and 5 billion morons on the planet and the “average” IQ is 45 in “The Marching Morons,” a 1951 sci-fi story by C.M. Kornbluth (no relation). What to do about the morons? If they’re poorly managed, there will be chaos and mass death. There are too many to sterilize. John Barlow’s solution: convince the morons to travel to Venus in spaceships. Once there, they’ll send rhapsodic postcards to relatives left behind. A typical exchange:
Dear Ed, how are you? Sam and I are fine and hope you are fine. Is it nice up there like they say with food and close grone on trees? I drove by Springfield yesterday and it sure looked funny all the buildings down but of coarse it is worth it we have to keep the greasers in their place. Do you have any truble with them on Venus? Drop me a line some time. Your loving sister, Alma.
Dear Alma, I am fine and hope you are fine. It is a fine place here fine climate and easy living. The doctor told me today that I seem to be ten years younger. He thinks there is something in the air here keeps people young. We do not have much trouble with the greasers here they keep to theirselves it is just a question of us outnumbering them and staking out the best places for the Americans. In South Bay I know a nice little island that I have been saving for you and Sam with lots of blanket trees and ham bushes. Hoping to see you and Sam soon, your loving brother, Ed.
Of course there is no “fine climate and easy living.” There is only a one-way ticket to eternity. How does the story end? With resentment of the guy who’s just a bit too smart — Barlow is shoved on a rocket and launched. [To read the story, click here.]
