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Fly Me to the Moon is Made of American Cheese – For Now
“What Sort of All Hallows’ Eve Trollop Art Thou?” PIT Seventeen asks. I’m not sure. I’m fairly sure what sort of trollop I’m not — I’m not the sort to consider glitter and body paint an acceptably modest substitute for undies. At least not on me. Nonetheless, The Sun alleges the black, bespangled, and quite bare bat bum is this Halloween’s fashion trend (any “trend” involving bums, of course, being of great interest to The Sun).
I stumbled on this so-called trend while perusing The Sun‘s investigation into snake handling, the ritual wherein Christian oppressors manhandle (“personhandle” would be more gender-neutral, but “manhandle” properly names and shames the unjust kyriarchy) innocent serpents, possibly without the serpents’ consent, purportedly for God’s glory. These oppressors — typically poor Appalachian whites — are themselves oppressed, of course, themselves victims of the same kyriarchy which enables their cross-species molestation. As one of Ricochet’s resident reptilians (I only self-identify as human online), I ought to have been outraged by the speciesist presumption that conscripts nonhuman species into human worship without even asking permission. Instead, I got distracted by sparkly bums.
Fly me to the moon — gliterally! The bat bum quite cleverly utilizes the contours of a firm fundament as a pop-up canvas to depict a stylized chiropteran whose ears prick right up to the dimples of Venus, and whose webbed wingtips will lovingly handle your love handles if you’ve got ’em (though if you do, perhaps your canvas is of the sag-down, not pop-up, variety, and you should consider costumery more fundamentally supportive). Several years ago — perhaps on Ricochet 1.0, lost in the mists of time — the topic of vajazzling came up. It was an emerging trend then — a trend which has, mystifyingly, survived. Not just survived but in some sense flourished, now spreading to embrace the rear.
I don’t mind artistic nudity. I don’t mind fashions which only look good on a minority. I don’t mind the sheer ingenuity spent on designing, then applying pigment and jewelry directly to bare skin — it’s really rather impressive. I do wonder in what universe beglittered butt-paint constitutes a “trend”. (The universe of product promotion, perhaps?) Perhaps some upstanding citizens will sport bat bums this All Hallow’s Eve (adorned thus, I doubt they’d feel downsitting). Still, it’s difficult to imagine a real-life scenario in which a bat bum wouldn’t be tacky. Not stick-to-the-chair tacky (though that, too, could happen if the makeup didn’t set right). But tacky as in cheesy. Most likely outcome of bat bum? Cheesy disaster.
Some cheesy disasters involve real cheese, of course. Between the great brunost fire and the FDA’s seizure of Mimolette, 2013 was an especially bad year for cheese — so bad, in fact, it inspired the Cato Institute to make a video:
The brunost fire was accidental destruction. By contrast, the seizure, then destruction, of 1.5 tonnes of Mimolette at US customs was a Deliberate Act of Government, done for the Citizens’ Own Good. According to the FDA, since 1940, the Citizens’ Own Good has excluded the sale of cheese containing more than six cheese mites per square inch. Mites? In our cheese? Perhaps that sounds mitey awful to you, and you’d have agreed with the FDA verdict that such cheese is a “filthy, putrid, or decomposed product.” The mites in Mimolette are supposed to be there, though. Mimolette-makers encourage them. Cheesemaking relies on all sorts of biological agents — bacteria, molds, veal-stomach enzymes, and yes, even the odd arthropod. If you want creepy-crawly cheeses to give you All-Hallows heebie-jeebies, Milbenkäse and casu marzu are even bigger fright fests.
After about a year’s worth of crackdown, the FDA began allowing Mimolette back into the US again. Nobody seems quite sure why — or at least those in the know don’t want to talk about it.
Politics is downstream of culture, as the saying goes, and the latest cheese crisis to hit the news is cultural, not regulatory. It’s the decline and fall of American cheese, that pasteurized, processed product. Yes, this is supposedly the fault of Millennials and their globalist ways. Millennials got used to fancy foreign cheeses, and no longer treat American cheese as the cheese, rather than just one cheese among many — or perhaps not even cheese, but a cheese product (which, in fairness, it is). Processed cheese products melt differently from natural cheeses, and in some recipes, this difference in melt is desired. So I doubt younger Americans will lose their taste for American cheese entirely. But for those who relish intergenerational resentment, American cheese stands as another front in the culture wars, one affecting the livelihood of the All-American Cheesemaker as prices of the processed cheese and the 500-pound barrels of commodity cheddar used to make it continue to fall.
I don’t know if cheese-dispensing Advent calendars count as disastrous, exactly, but they, too, exist — and may be coming to a store near you. They sound bulky and awkward — who wants to store a calendar in the fridge? And if the point is to prepare for Christmas, why put the reminder in a place where you can’t see it? Perhaps the point is to be sacrilicious. If so, this could be yet another front in the culture wars, making them cheesier than ever. It’s enough to drive one batty.
Published in Humor
When I feel the impulse to generate any online content at all, I feel an obligation to generate it from arguably interesting personal experience, not from recycling online sewage.
I’m working on posts about air traffic control and guitar chords.
I see what you did there.
I love that clip.
Air traffic control is centralized government at its fascist worst. Guitar chords are essentially collectivist.
Let me explain the definition of American Cheese. It contains only cheddar cheese salt and emulsifiers . When you use the word product in connection to American Cheese that is actually something else.For Cheese “product” another ingredients are allowed. There is also something called “Cheese Food”. Again other ingredients besides cheese are allowed. Another category is American Cheese spread again other ingredients besides cheddar. Setting all four things apart are the allowed water content and fat levels, they are all different and the manufacturing cost is different. Right now I can only remember the fat and moisture of American, 50% fat, not more than 40% moisture. It’s true that cheeses go out of favor but like many things wait long enough and they come back. Anyone eaten Limburger lately. It was said 40 years ago that every time an old man died Limburger lost a customer .
So many things I’d rather not know…
Wikipedia may need your help, then, because it describes American Cheese as a processed cheese and processed cheese as a cheese product — which could fool anyone on a literal reading, since cheese product sounds descriptive of anything produced from cheese.
Is this one of those “every square is also a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square” things? That is, is processed cheese a cheese product, even though not all cheese products may claim the label processed cheese?
Of American Cheese specifically, a footnote observes,
Other regulations cited list the fat and moisture content, as you say. With “American” right on the label, it would be treason to not meet parameters! ;-P
Dear Rattler,
I rather think you could pull off a bat bum even after having a few bat pups. However I respect your modesty, and just leave it to the imagination despite your back handed invitation above to think on it.
You might enjoy some of my other posts better, then. Some are personal. Some are technical. Some are personal and technical. And those things aren’t for everyone.
Sometimes I do feel obligated to write the silliest fluff I can about the most idiotic stuff I’ve run across lately. It may be a peculiar obligation to feel, but I have my reasons for feeling it.
Please @mention or PM me once you have your post up. I’m curious about which chords you’ll choose, and why — music being one of those things I tend to get both personal and technical about.
Slithering from place to place and topic to topic in a random fashion.
American cheese deserves to die, chiefly because it’s something of a mediocre compromise between real cheeses and their obvious superior, that aerosol delivered triumph of modern chemistry and engineering which in its purest application is aimed directly toward the human gullet.
American cheese is an absolute triumph of humanism.
http://ricochet.com/archives/a-new-appreciation-for-american-cheese/
I love American cheese, whether it’s actually cheese or not.
Different tastes . . .
“I believe the rattle.”
The moon is made of American cheese?
Not so fast. I understand it’s not even Wensleydale:
What do they wear on the front, though?
I’m curious – if cheese is made using 1% or 2% milk, is it cheese or a something more complicated?
Well, there is a US flag on it . . .
Each cheese is different as is milk. Some milk can be as high as 5% butter fat but bottled whole milk is standardized at 3.5% butterfat. Some cheese such as mozzarella is made from either 2% or whole milk.
You are correct about Wikipedia needing my help. It was actually hard for me to describe American Cheese and not use the word product. As for Colby in the business it is thought of as a form of cheddar.
It is absolutely cheese.
So your eyes glazed over.
Imperialistically appropriated cheese.
The best kind.
They make paste-on strapless undies, which are virtually invisible from behind, and also something called “c-strings” — strapless undies reinforced with wire to help them clamp on. In film, it sounds like the paste-on guards used during nude work are often custom-made, and attached with spirit gum.
I gather the main use of off-the-rack strapless undies is to prevent panty lines under various slinky garments, rather than being outerwear in their own right.
Ms. Rattlesnake, I followed your links, hoping that I would see photos of totally naked women. I rarely pass up the opportunity to see those sights.
Instead, all I saw was clipped photo of a woman with a bat painted on her rear end and a woman having sparkles glued to her lower tummy. Close but no cigar
I did learn, though, where the dimples of Venus were located. I’m not sure, however, what I will do with that knowledge.
Crimenutely. Too. Much. Information. Also, the spirit-gum business sounds painful.
Speaking of “outerwear in [its] own right,” I buy mine at the place mentioned in this video. And some of it has suffered a similar fate:
“With great power comes great responsibility.” – B. Parker.