Has anyone else been noticing the
recurring burbling in the classic
cassoulet of nativist paranoia,
on the evils of pedestrian migra-
tion to this sacred melting pot?
It was not ever thus, of course.
Pedestrian migrations were cel-
ebrated, before the emancipation
of slaves, in regular compulsory
expulsions of undesired Americans,
to various deserts not yet covet-
ed by the boaters and their des-
cendants, for their oil and gas
or railhead potential. Through
it all, however, transit on foot
has marked a populace with disfa-
vor, stigmatizing the stroll as
an act of such outcaste indecency,
as to ostracize the practitioner.
Not since Andrew Jackson have
Americans enjoyed the Presid-
ency of so avenging an angel of
Famed for his devotion to ham
hocks, his adoration for the
white bean is reciprocated even
more ebulliently by the longest
to swelter in his marmite. His
great project, like that of the
beans, is to sustain the horiz-
ontal layering of the cassoulet
against the vertical inevitabil-
ity of its burbling evolution.
This lends his passions a truly
fatal air, widely apprehended
by his cherished, sodden beans.
One senses, through the turmoil
this upstart Jackson brings to
the protectorate of white beans,
that there must be some obscure
complication in their resistance
to the laws of physics - beneath,
that is, their corruption of na-
tionhood and faith to conceal it.
Various gurus murmur along think-
tank lines, of North-South versus
East-West forces of upheaval or
renewal, depending on the bean.
But insofar as they cannot bring
themselves to migrate to a waste
land of their own, cannellinis
think only to hoist the marmite
from its flame, or by closing it,
enjoy the thrill of its explosion.
Simple operation of steam, really.
