CYCLE FIVE: CHRISTIAN AND SUPERCHRISTIAN ALTERNATIVES
1. Turning from the Superheathen/Heathen
options to the Christian/Superchristian ones, which
have less to do with female-dominated triangles than with non-triangular
hierarchies in which the male side of life has been liberated from female
dominion and enabled, in consequence, to rise above woman on both vegetative
and, more importantly, airy terms, the latter commensurate, in the Christian
context, with a relative degree of supermasculinity,
we may posit for our cooking parallels the likelihood of lid boiled at the
bottom, in due pegged-down femininity, followed in ascending order by oven
baked in the masculine position above this, and oven grilled in the supermasculine or, at any rate, at best quasi-supermasculine position at the top, so that the ascension
is from two internal methodologies of cooking to one external or, rather,
internalized external method in which a down-turned, gas-fuelled flame duly
grills whatever foodstuff has been entrusted to it.
2. Now just as we may distinguish oven roasting
from free boiling and frying-pan frying on the basis, admittedly somewhat
colloquial and in questionable taste, of a 'cowshit'
metaphor under 'cowpiss' and 'cowpuss'
metaphors, both of which are more authentically feminine, so we can distinguish
the oven-baked and oven-grilled methodologies of 'Christian cooking' from the
lid-boiled methodology on the basis of the ascension of both 'bullshit' and 'bullgas' metaphors over their 'bullpiss'
counterpart, the pegged-down wateriness which could be said to defer, in
quasi-Christian vein, to the more genuinely masculine alternatives above,
pretty much, in sporting terms, as Camogie to Gaelic
Football and Hurling, or Catholic humanism (Marianism)
to Catholic nonconformism (Christism)
and Catholic transcendentalism (prayerful universality).
3. Be that as it may, we need not doubt that the
Christian alternatives to the Heathen norms of cooking, sport, etc., will be
relatively more male-biased, and that, far from constituting a parallel with
Soft Rock, the oven-baked mode of cooking is closer to Hard Rock in its
vegetative ascendancy over fluidal compromise to a degree which calls forth the
analogy with 'bullshit' rather than, as in the oven-roasting context, with 'cowshit'.
4. Christianity may not, in its overly
phenomenal basis in mass and volume, Mary and Christ, allow for a genuine supermasculine, and hence spiritual, ascendancy over
vegetation, but the gas-fuelled grilling we have identified with a quasi-supermasculine position is at least beyond anything to be
found in the inverted triangle of Heathen (Protestant) civilization, even if it
necessarily falls short, in its phenomenal associations, of what might be
called 'superbullgas', the more genuinely supermasculine metaphor one would have to reserve, in due Superchristian vein, for the cooking methodology that
accords with transcendentalism per se, and thus with that order
of non-triangular ascension, effectively appropriate to 'Kingdom Come', which
lies beyond anything Christian.
5. With regard to such a Superchristian
hierarchy, I should like to posit the contention that new forms of pegged-down
boiled and baked food which transcend the phenomenality
of conventional ovens have to be conceived of in relation to this ultimate
cooking context, and that if microwave ovens are not the type of unconventional
means most applicable here (which seems somewhat doubtful in the absence of any
alternative), then something arguably very similar must be allowed for, in
keeping with the noumenal requirements of the context
in question. For nothing short of a noumenal antithesis to the deep frying, flame grilling, and
microwave roasting of the Superheathen cooking
methodologies could be relevant to a Superchristian
dispensation, and in cooking, no less than in a variety of other contexts, the
overall result should be a more genuinely spiritual parallel ascending, in
gassy vein, over reformed orders of intellectuality and instinctuality,
masculinity and femininity, to the greater advantage of mankind, with
particular emphasis on the implications of that term for male ascendancy beyond
anything hitherto attained to in the Christian past.
6. Thus while there would still be metaphorical
scope for the notion of 'bullpiss', now presumably
further pegged-down to what may well be a 'sub-bullpiss'
level way beyond the Christian humanism of old, our 'bullshit' and 'bullgas' metaphors would need to be elevated to a 'super'
standing, in keeping with the need, within Superchristianity,
of enhanced maleness both in relation to vegetation and, more importantly, to
air, the former nonconformist and the latter transcendentalist, opening out, in
internalized externality, towards a universality which goes way beyond anything
prayerful in its commitment to authentic spirituality. Doubtless the watery and vegetative parallels
would still be internalized, after their separate fashions, but the airy
parallel, now more genuine than ever before, would reflect that which was
universally selfless, and thus noumenally holy.
