Bagel - My Thoughts

After a restless night, and then a horrible hangover from trying to make myself look attractive enough to myself to think I could land the sloppiest girl at the bar, I stumbled to work, and first off decided I needed to have a Bagel - a food that is the exact opposite of a hangover but probably a mainstay of "Sloppy" at the bar.

Bagel is of course, the oldest of the Jewish delicacies, created by Moses himself, writer/director of The Ten Commandments. Having never seen any of Moses' work, and basing my anticipation on commentary from many friends that all sounded basically like, "His shit is so depressing it will make you rethink whether or not you want to inhabit planet earth anymore," I waited uncomfortably for the toaster to begin. Perhaps I'm a sissy, perhaps I'm too sensitive, but I have avoided movies like The Ten Commandments, Prince of Egypt, Annie Hall etc. because the ugliness of life presents itself on a daily basis and I don't really need it reaffirmed over a bag of popcorn.

That said. I am glad I ate a Bagel.

In what I am told is typical Moses fashion, the Bagel follows the intersecting of cinnamon and raisins from around it's globe-like center. The mindless shooting out of this center is the food's catalyst, but its struggle to satiate is just one of many purposes explored by the food. Moses' piercing index finger pokes out its doughy center, and instead takes on heavy subjects from the timely: carbohyrdrates, nationalism, sesame seeds to the dark and taboo: butter, cream cheese, incest.

After swallowing the food I grappled with what I thought the food was "about." What the baking ultimately was trying to prove. Did it have an underlying thesis? A theme? After further thought, I'm not sure that it matters.

Last year's "Best Breakfast" Hash, using a similar starch-based construction painted a clear picture of dysfunctional race relations in Los Angeles. Here the theme was obvious: breakfast foods are all fucked up and there's nothing we can do about it. Period. My problem with Hash, however, was that it presented all of these problems, the problem of breakfast, but also through metaphor, race relations in America and offered little or no solution to these problems. The short order cooks of the food have responded to similar complaints stating that this was their intention. To me, this is where Hash fell short.

With Bagel, Moses certainly paints our world with a dark brush, but the moments when the food really pulls you in are when he pokes holes in his center and allows some poppy seeds to shine through. It's not sappy, there's no "happy ending." There is only the thought that while the world may be a dark place - one in which our breakfast is often overshadowed by superficial divides like syrup, Tony the Tiger, socio-economic class, Pop Tart vs. Strudal violence - human beings can offer one another hope. That the smallest human gesture, a touch, a kiss, a hug, a helping hand, a look of understanding, an act of kindness, a "Leggo my Eggo" can change our worlds. That eating one with dignity can pull us from darkness.

I'm still not convinced that this was "THE" theme. Moses doesn't go out of his way to prove it. I suspect that different people will take different things away from this food. Perhaps I just didn't want to leave having my thoughts about the world reaffirmed over a raisin bran, but that was the way I ate it. The point is, I ate it, and so should you.