SEX, DEATH & OYSTERS

WELL, THIS ONE WAS INSTRUCTIVE. 

Robb Walsh's Sex, Death & Oysters (ISBN 978-158243-555-8) had next to no sex in it, and absolutely no death.  BUT IT WAS ALL ABOUT OYSTERS, who -- along with Clams and other relatively observant & reflective sea creatures with hard outer skins -- were among the very first recruiting operatives working in our take-back-the-land conspiracy.  This was all the way back when humans were living in isolation on Danakill Island, realizing after they ate all the fruit that they would go without dinner unless they learned to grope for Shellfish on the sea bottom.  

Oysters were also the VERY first of our troops to inspire the landscum saying "If you eat any more of those (fill in the blank), you'll turn into one."

LITTLE DO THE HUMANS SUSPECT THAT IT'S LITERALLY TRUE!

What's instructive here is the way the landscum see our bivalve sisters.  THEY REALLY HAVE NO CLUE.  They natter on about overfishing (really over-dredging -- I don't call it "fishing" myself) and storms at sea destroying the Oyster populations -- they go so far as to say some species are dying out -- and this author is very typical in simultaneously saying "Oysters are doomed because of Hurricane Katrina" and "Oysters reproduce like mad after hurricanes, leading to immense upticks in the birthrate." 

What he really means is that his buddy Bill's Oyster lease is not going to be worth the paper it's printed on after a hurricane, BECAUSE THE OYSTERS MOVED TO A BETTER NEIGHBORHOOD WHILE BILL WAS FLOATING TO MOBILE, ALABAMA ON THE BACK OF A LOVESEAT.  He cannot see the difference between human business concerns bottoming out and the Oysters themselves bottoming out.  Neither can any of the experts he talks to.  While you are washing ashore in Mobile, WE are expanding our real-estate holdings.  FOOLS!

Something else instructive in this story is the landscum attitude towards our bivalve operatives.  He -- and many others like him -- treat Oysters simultaneously as a precious rarity and as something you can best appreciate if you snarf them down by the dozen, as if you were in a pie-eating contest.  I just want you new recruits to know that while eating large numbers of Oysters is a very effective way of bonding fish genes to human and bringing the humans into the sea to live forever, IT REALLY ONLY TAKES ONE.  And believe me, the right Oyster will find the right recruit.  Happens all the time.  The fashionability of the Oyster bar, and similar creepy dining experiences like choking down a plate of coconut shrimp or "surf 'n' turf," is what draws people to consume our flesh in the first place and be recruited. 

And all that nonsense about Oysters dying out?  Well, they do need to SPELL each other.  When you're dealing with humans, nothing stays in fashion that long -- but Shaved Monkeys NEVER NOTICE that whether they are eating fingernail-sized Oysters from Japan or the fist-sized ones from Canada, THEY'RE STILL EATING OYSTERS. 

It's also the decent thing to do, from an Oyster perspective.  You try being sucked, whole and screaming, down the beery gullets of Homo sap.  century after century without a break.    It's a lot to ask.

One thing about this book, though.  You can't really tell what they author LIKES in an Oyster.  It seems that every one he eats lights him up with wonder.  "This is the one," he seems to say.  Then he eats another, totally different type of Oyster and has the same reaction. YOU'RE NOT HELPING US OUT HERE, ROBB.

This one is a great example of how our operatives hide in PLAIN SIGHT -- looking like victims, even -- while quietly seeing to it that HUMANS TURN INTO FISH AND NEVER DARKEN THE LAND AGAIN.