EQUINE EMANCIPATION

And here’s another small equine thing.  Elliott Erwitt, the great photographer, that's him above, American, though a Russian born in Paris, found himself aged 16, living in a house on Fountain Avenue, in Los Angeles.  He took over the lease after his father left town, and took in boarders at $6 a week.  This would be sometime in the 1940s.

One of the guys who lived there was Eugene Ostroff, who eventually became the curator of photography at the Smithsonian Institution.  He said in an interview, "Those were times when we were down to one meal a day. We knew somebody who owned a pet shop and he sold horsemeat. When we were able to get enough money together we'd buy some horse fillets, get a few bottles of wine and have a banquet."

I do hope that there’s currently some emancipated 16 year old out there, living independently, with the lease on a house, and with access to horsemeat and wine, but you know, somehow I doubt it.

EARTH, GAPE OPEN WIDE AND EAT HIM QUICK

Honestly, it did cross my mind to write a post combining something about the British horsemeat scandal, with the line from Shakespeare’s Richard III, but I see somebody has already done it, and probably better than I could have.  So hurrah.  As is the way of things found on the net, I don't know who originated it - but respect to you dude or dudette.

The one thing I’ve learned from this whole horsemeat issue is that the drug they’re complaining about - “bute” - doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.  It was originally used in humans as an anti-inflammatory and anti-gout medication.  So you could eat all the red meat you want and still be gout-free.  Then they decided only horses should be allowed to have it.  But it seems to me that if ALL red meat contained anti-gout medication, the world might be a much less gouty place.  That'd be a good thing, right?

MATTERS ARISING

First, thumbing through the ads at the back of my copy of Eatomic Secrets - which include Prosser’s Ice Cream, Lobo Joe’s catering service and TWA: “”The Best bill of fair in the air” - I came across this fine, hand-crafted ad: 

 This is so refreshing. Compare and contrast with “Fancy Feast Elegant Medley” which offers, “White meat chicken Tuscany with long grain rice and garden greens in a savory sauce.” 

Archer’s say loud and clear that horsemeat is good enough for pets – and too good some would say.  Britain currently has an attack of the vapors because they’ve found that Irish horsemeat has been furtively slipped into some hamburgers.  Personally I would go out of my way for a horse burger, though admittedly I think people have a right to know what they’re eating, just as I wouldn’t want my horse burger to turn out to be buffalo.

And then, the other other matter, speaking of cocktails of the past, I happened to watch the 1955 movie The Big Knife, starring Jack Palance, based on a play by Clifford Odets, about the many evils of Hollywood, and a stage bound period piece if ever there was one, with everybody doing a whole lot (really a WHOLE lot) of acting.  Rod Steiger in particular leaves no piece of scenery unchewed.

Briefly, but crucially, it features the divine Shelley Winters, as the careworn actress, going by the name of Dixie Evans, who’s clearly never going make it in Hollywood.  Early in the movie she says, “I don't care if I do see a snake. I'm sure I'd much rather see a snake than a Hollywood producer.”

And toward the end as things start to unravel and everyone is threatened with doom and exposure (a hit and run accident is involved), it’s discovered that Dixie is sitting in a “bar across from Schwab’s” ready to spill the beans that will destroy everything for everyone.  One of the hideous Hollywood flunkies delivers the unimprovable line, “A woman with six martinis can ruin a city.”  I’ll drink to that.