“She once wore pink tennis shoes with purple trimmed socks?” asked Calliope. “How dazzling!”
“I know…right? These days it’s black and grey, black and grey, black and grey,” said Thalia.
“Did you notice how long it took…her? Us? to get started this morning?” said Urania.
“It seems she can’t write a stitch these days without parading us into the daylight,” said Thalia.
“What’s wrong with that? I kind of like the attention…,” said Urania.
“She’s using us as a crutch?” asked Calliope.
“Whatever works…,” said Thalia. “We’re in this together.”
Ahem! I can hear you! said the muse wrangler. Please…share the dialogue from the film…,
“Give the author what she wants, give the author what she wants, give the author what she wants!” chanted Urania.
“Sometimes the author wants too much ice cream,” said Calliope. “That vanilla Cow Belle brand tastes almost like custard.”
Ahem! The dialogue?
“Alright alright, we’re muses, not cogs…in The Hundred-Foot Journey’s opening scenes, Hassan’s mother tells him…tells him…,” Urania struggled to produce the line.
“I looked it up,” said Calliope. “She tells him… ‘but to cook, you must kill. You make ghosts. You cook to make ghosts. Spirits that live on in every ingredient.’”
“I have no idea what that means…,” said Thalia.
“I think…it has something to do with memory…and how food makes us feel,” said Calliope.
“I think it has to do with creativity…when humans create…they are operating on a different plane,” said Urania.
“I think…it’s time for more coffee,” said Thalia. “Let the readers sort out how they feel about the line themselves.”
>> You cook to make ghosts. Spirits that live on in every ingredient.
I’m not sure I feel like I am channeling the spirits of the beans, onions, bell peppers, and whole grains in the chili we made yesterday. (Not counting digestive gasses, of course.) Chicken, maybe, but ground chicken from the store? Lots of chicken pieces do not a ghost flock make, IMHO. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Those muses! Seems they live in the moment, chaotic though it may be. It’s plain as day this was snapped last summer as you crossed a local trickle.
The “cooking to kill” idea is a brain teaser for me. I first wondered, “E pluribus unum.” (I chuckle. Auto correct turned “unum” into “unimpressive.” Perhaps a not so subtle hint?) It seemed the strong, active verb “kill” was referring to something deeper than the words on a symbol on the back of a dollar bill.
Next, the image of a chef cutting stalks of rhubarb to make a pie came from out of nowhere (I refer to my brain that way sometimes). Certainly more active; definitely “killing” the rhubarb stalks. Pretty sure something more metaphorical was intended in the phrase from the movie.
Following Calliope’s lead, while food doesn’t call to mind memories, music does. Powerfully.
Have Thalia call my people this afternoon and share any trends that have emerged from the readers of today’s Born Free Newsletter... 🤔