CALYPSO+WELLNESS+UNDERWATER+TINNED FISH+THE EROTIC+AMBROSIA
In college, often,
One becomes a particular type of confident by senior year in some part of academic study. It’s honestly a very cute moment. Anyway, it led me to try a crazy little experiment. Though I was already double-majoring in English and American Studies, I decided to go rogue and write every paper, no matter the class, on something that involved the study of food as a symbolic object. Who was around to stop me???
For classes like art history, it wasn’t that hard. Momento mori etc. Classes like my James Joyce seminar were a little more challenging. But I figured it out :)
We were reading Ulysses and had to do chapter notes. Ulysses is Joyce’s interpretation of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey. We got to pick our chapters and I picked Calypso. I had read the Odyssey, but actually had no recollection of what Calypso had been about. A lady? It made me remember this 2005-era store that used to be in NYC that sold Real Housewives resort-wear (bless them!). I guess it closed.
I’ll say a little bit about Joyce’s Calypso chapter. It involves our hero, Leo Bloom, going to the butcher store to get kidneys, and then scurrying back home to his wife, Molly. It’s weirdly erotic, as much of the book is. Mostly, while he’s out in town, he fixates on coming home: “To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.” (4. 237-239).
My favorite part of the chapter is what interrupts his sexy daydreams. He has an existential panic on his way home from the butcher, after noticing an old woman and thinking about the deterioration of humanity. A dark cloud passes over the city of Dublin. He reminds himself: “I am here now. Yes, I am here now.” (4.232-3).
Actual Calypso,
In Homer’s work, is quite the lass! A goddess nymph, she runs her own island and is a daughter of Oceanus. She is very beautiful, Odysseus falls in love with her, and she keeps him on her island for seven years. Then the gods get mad with her for being with a mortal and detaining him (though male gods do it! she reminds us all), and she has to let her boyfriend Odysseus go free.
^ “Telemachus on the Island of the Goddess Calypso”, Hugues Taraval. Here is an interpretation of Calypso. She seems lovely! The table spread is beautiful. She toys with her necklace, she’s got some décolletage happening, her gowns are chic, her nymph children seem well-behaved.
Odysseus’ homesickness transcends everything. He has to go. To Calypso about his wife Penelope, he says she is “nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else.”
So she packs him up. She “gave him a goatskin full of black wine, and another larger one of water; she also gave him a wallet full of provisions, and found him much good meat. Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm for him, and gladly did.”
Black wine omg. I always finish this chapter feeling sad and confused. Always struck by how ornate and beautiful her relationship to the sensory world is; she is master of wine and water and meat and softness. She has curated a paradise. But Odysseus and the gods dismiss her forcefully. Apparently, though at first he loved her, she has made Odysseus miserable. Though she offers him immortality, she still holds up his story.
^ “Odysseus and Calypso”. Arnold Bocklin. Another depiction. Grim.
SOMETHING IS DISSATISFYING
And I never know quite what to make of the Joyce Calypso chapter and the Homer Calypso chapter, but I am confident in a current between them – a relationship to isolation and to water. Calypso has her own island and controls the seas. Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife, is from Gibraltar, an island itself. When Leo tries to talk to her about metempsychosis, she rejects his pretension and just replies “O, Rocks!”. The two share beauty and some sacred possession of the sensual. They know what it is to be loved by the heroes on the Hero’s Journey. They seem to have much, and yet – Calypso gets left and Molly only gets one big soliloquy at the end of the book. These stories are told, of course, by men and every man is, of course, an island – but these women seem at a distance. I always find myself squinting to understand.
I read recently
That soon the trend in skincare will just be tap water. Using tap water to wash your face. The temperature barely even matters.
Wellness culture is obviously overwhelming,
Even if one is a part of it. We’ve gone from Gwyneth’s Goop to Kourtney’s Poosh to Kate and Jacqueline’s satirical Poog.
The phrase self-care has even started to sound outdated and charged, like girlboss. It has all kind of happened at hyper-speed. With skincare, for example, we’ve developed an infinite digital library on multiple platforms (Tiktok, YouTube, etc.) on how to make your skin work. These videos are often long, contracted for TikTok, and go all day: chaptered with morning and nighttime. I actually do not click on these videos, because they stress me out. Skin is the body’s largest organ!
Sea Moss Girlies
I recently found out about someone named Kate Glavan. The way I found out was through West Elm Caleb.
West Elm Caleb – I really don’t care to dive in. Feel free to google! Basically, he is a cad who dated a number of TikTok influencers at once. Big mistake! And one of them was Kate Glavan!
Kate Glavan is 23 and loves wellness. She and her friend Emma Roepke host a podcast called ‘What the F*ck is Sea Moss?’, and their followers and fans are called Sea Moss Girlies.
Sea Moss, for the record, is said to have many health properties. Writing this, I realized that I had some in my fridge. Literally… of course I do. It tastes totally fine! It is an algae, also called Irish Moss, that looks magical.
Kate and Emma talk a lot about the workings of the body. The gut microbiome, hormone levels, the lymphatic system. They make clear that this podcast, is, in part, an outlet of their healing from disordered eating. Go off! Because I am deeply noble and curious, I listened to some of their podcast.
Maybe I just leave you a transcription of the way that Kate starts the episode. As a check-in, they basically talk about what they’ve consumed:
“I am in a manic beverage state. I’ll have a kombucha and then I’ll have a Celsius then I’ll go to SoulCycle then I’ll get home and have magnesium then I’ll have dandelion tea then I’ll have like a Ghia or something. A lot of liquids that are probably causing me something… but I don’t care to investigate. I’m in my twerky tail era with my rainbow mushroom tincture in my coffee.”
This podcast feels earnest, and I am not here to make fun. I will just say that, as I listened, I kept thinking that even if I was their age, listening to this would make me feel very old. There was a distinct sense of urgency in these voices.
What’s most interesting is the liquid. Moving from one beverage to another to another. Washing down elixirs throughout waking hours. Kind of fascinating that the Sea Moss Girlies barely talk about coffee, and don’t mention alcohol at all here – but instead the brand Ghia, which is a trendy non-alcoholic apéritif. These shifts from kombucha to tea to something like Ghia – from cleansing to calming the insides, all without the presence of alcoholic ‘spirit’ - feel like an even more acute focus on tempering one’s own consciousness. What is wellness if not optimizing the body to align with the demands of a moment? There’s something to potions in succession, baptizing from within.
The Quantum Sea
Is one phrase that Jung used to describe the collective unconscious. He wrote, “water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious … the descent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent.”
My memories of Los Angeles
Are so funny because they all feel cinematic, highly detailed, lit by a spotlight of sun. I remember being at a wine bar just opening in Echo Park. It was before the pandemic, and it was crowded, and no one running the space really knew what to do. All the servers were so so pretty. I don’t remember what wine we drank, but I do remember the menu: only tinned fish. I could feel the chaos of the service, how there wasn’t really a rhythm yet amongst the gorgeous servers. Through the ether, a satisfying sound of lids cracking open. The bursting open of aluminum seemed to relax us all.
I think a lot about the brand Fishwife. Fishwife is a women-run tinned fish company, “with the mission to make ethically-sourced tinned seafood a staple in every American cupboard.” They do tuna, they do trout, they do salmon, they do it all.
They also have engaged with some of the wildest branding I have ever encountered. Sure, they use allusions to seaside folklore (‘fisherfolk’, three fish upon the head of a woman, etc.) to contextualize the charm of their product. Their website lets us know that a fishwife is one brassy broad who knows her stuff!
But, fascinatingly, Caroline Goldfarb, one of the company’s founders, let Nylon know that
“Tinned fish is the ultimate hot girl food,” says Goldfarb. “There is no food that will make you hotter than tinned fish. Straight up.”
Becca Millstein, the other founder, added:
“What is sexier than sitting on your veranda with a glass of wine and a toasty baguette and a glug of olive oil? It’s a very sensual eating experience.”
!! see what I mean? Kinda wild. I feel like everyone went crazy after this article came out, trying to make sense of it. Goldfarb and Millstein leaned into the chaos they wrought and started an Instagram campaign where influencers posed with the tinned fish:
^^^ even Kate Glavan! Gen-Z **ICON**!
The contrast between narrative folkloric origins to the product itself, and the selling of it as ‘hot girl food’, feels like the most rogue PR move ever. What’s most interesting about it is that, in logical ways, tinned fish can kind of sell itself without all the branding. It’s shelf-stable, inexpensive, versatile to cook with. There’s even something lovely about the way the fish themselves sparkle in a can.
But maybe the reality of fish, having been brought from the ocean to our little world, is what Goldfarb and Millstein seemed to be fighting against. I just ate tinned fish, so I can report: it makes me feel good, and also the oil kind of always spills on my hand, and I’m like “ohhh no where did it go?” and then I do kind of smell like it even if I feel like I don’t. You know? You really do come to terms with the little fishy bodies, and you have to figure out how to wash out the tin afterwards properly and recycle it without too much residue. Which doesn’t mean that it’s not hot! Or… folkloric! But it does kind of mean that it is exactly what it is. A tin of fish.
Fish as sexy
Means that the Ocean is hot, too, no? To make love to the ocean is something that I guess… people are into? I’m sure you’ve seen some media around this. I think about
My Octopus Teacher
Which is a documentary that was released in 2020 about a kindly diver who basically becomes enamored with an octopus friend and hangs out with her a lot. It is filmed beautifully, and you learn about the life aquatic. What a world! Also, this man… really loves this octopus. They have quite the bond. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that! The end is sad and I cried!
Now we move into the more romantic and fantastical, thank you very much! The Shape of Water, directed by Guillermo del Toro, came out in 2017. It is whimsical and strange, about a love affair between a lady and an aquatic man, who is a monster but also very strong. The top still is where they bond when she starts eating an egg, and then shares it with him. The romance is passionate!
The Pisces is a novel by Melissa Broder that came out in 2018. It, too, is about a human woman who falls in love with a man who is… I guess a merman? It’s actually quite an erotic novel that turns out very funny, very poignant. Lucy, the protagonist, is a classics scholar and the merman is actually quite charming and sweet.
Many odes to inter-species connection in the popular cultural canon within a span of three years, if you think about it! Impossible and thrilling, reminding us to contextualize the existence of humanity, making clear that desire and connection are the only real currents that span the elements.
As Jia Tolentino wrote in her review of The Pisces: “people don’t have sex with sea creatures unless the world has failed them”.
Quick note from me, a Pisces
Melissa Broder is actually a Virgo, if you can believe it, so I want to hop in as a deeply proud Pisces.
The sign Pisces, itself, is of two fish swimming in opposite directions. This is supposed to represent the tension of opposites, which as Pisces’ location is at the end of the zodiac, feels like some sort of conclusion. The fish are always together, a bond of tension between them. It’s the ‘both/and’ as my Joyce professor would say every class.
Often for moi, it is my imagination versus reality. Those little fishies never stop swimming, I can tell ya that!
Ambrosia
Ambrosia is another word I love. Ambrosia pops up a lot on Calypso’s island, as it’s the nectar that the gods drink for eternal life.
(Hilariously and of course, it has transformed into this marshmallow, cream, fruit salad American Classic. You can’t make this shit up!)
^ Ambrosia salad :o
In Greek mythology, ambrosia is often consumed with nectar. With ambrosia, Athena prepares Penelope for sleep and Hera “cleanses all defilement from her lovely flesh”.
Funnily enough, Lucy, the protagonist of The Pisces, muses: No one can simply coexist with the oceans, the storms … They had to codify the elements with language and greater meaning, and create gods out of them—gods who looked suspiciously like themselves.”
Calypso is an island, Molly is an island. Wellness is ambrosia. The commonality between all of this – everything here – is the prevalence of folkloric optimism and the weirdly accessible potential of suspending disbelief. Wellness seems to me a question of the human condition. I feel this specific thing, it hurts me in this way – do you feel it too? How do I make it stop?
This invisible chord between one thing and another, two fish swimming, never to fully meet the other. Odysseus tugging away from Calypso’s island, ambrosia pulling her back to where she is. Ambrosia of different names to heal, to wash down, to feel better. Ambrosia in a silver tin, smelling of under water, promising beauty. Ambrosia through the body of a sea creature, impossible. Of course sexuality would come into all this, a desire to copulate with the infinite Ocean. Under water, there is no gravity. If you’re alive under water, you can’t age. You can’t die.
Ambrosia may be delusion, the suspension of some hard thing we sense. Ambrosia, I think, is invisible and necessary; it may be faith.
“Rooms by the Sea”, Edward Hopper.