Sunday, October 13, 2013

Return of Pale Death

This Norman Mailer book about the moon landing continues to be concerned, in part, about the vending-machine food available at various NASA facilities. In the Project Engineering Facility Building in Houston, "A choice was presented of preheated cans of Vienna sausage, corned beef..." Wait! I'm going to pause for a second. "Preheated cans of Vienna sausage!" There are two things wrong with that: "preheated cans" and "Vienna sausage." I am sure you will recall that my friend Andy referred to Vienna sausage as "tubes of pale death." Now imagine them in a preheated can! I dare you! I am truly saddened to note that Andy has not "blogged" about anything since a can of cling peaches more than two years ago. Okay, back to Mailer: "A choice was presented of preheated cans of Vienna sausage, corned beef, beef and macaroni, Dagwood sandwiches, pastry, chili, chiliburgers." Chiliburgers again! I remain fascinated by the predominance of chiliburgers in the space program. As usual, I am focusing on the wrong things in the books I read. That's the problem with books!