The Cowl: Could I Grow a New Father?

My father was born with a cowl over his head. According to local custom it signifies the birth of a saint.

His mother, my grandmother, wrote in her diary “Baby born at 6am.”

I used to wonder how she had the presence of mind to do her journaling on a day like that.

This day in fact, August 29. 1930, the end of summer but not quite autumn.

Today, 88 years ago.

My grandmother never changed a diaper in her life.

She had six children but my father was her favorite. She adored him.

Sometimes, when they were young men, my father and my uncle would provide such jollity and entertainment for her and the rest of the family at the lunch table looking out over the Atlantic (the family ate in the dining room in those days) that the meal would stretch on for hours on end, a practice unheard of anywhere else in the neighbourhood.

Anyway, the cowl was removed, placed in a brown jar where it stood on the bookcase in the dining room (my generation never ate there except once or twice at Christmastime; it was my father’s office) and preserved, in formaldehyde or some other appropriate chemical.

I often looked at the pot-bellied brown glass jar with the metal screw-top lid. Sometimes I would climb up on one of the walnut chairs with prussian-blue leather seats, reach up and grasp the jar.

It was cold to the touch. I would wipe off some of the dust, weigh it in my hands, hold it up to the light and try to see what was in there.

It seemed to be dark and have the consistency of an egg.

When he died, almost thirty-five thirty years ago, someone tossed the jar into the grave on top of the coffin.

I read recently about growing meat in a laboratory:

I wondered…

Is this lab flesh sentient?

How can you know for sure?

What is life?

Is it DNA code?

What is its source?

What is ownership?

Does a duck 🦆 own its body?

Does Wall Street want to own our very life?

Are you stealing the essence of life from a duck 🦆, chicken 🐦 or cow 🐮 if you take a piece of it and make it grow some more? What about those mice I’ve seen, growing human ears?

If you chop off my arm, can I grow a new one?

Will it be the strong 💪🏼 arm of a 16-year old with fresh new muscles and dense bone?

Can I grow spare parts?

A new pair of breasts even… if I ever get to the stage… you know…

Would I pray over the meat 🍖 before I prepare it? Or wouldn’t that count?

Could I grow a new skin?

So, if I had kept the cowl instead of letting it be thrown into the grave, could I have used it to grow a new father?

Would I be his mother?

Would I punish him for his selfishness?

Would he even BE selfish?

How would I tell him?

“Hey Sonny boy, I’m not your mom, I’m your daughter.”

Like that Chinatown moment…

Memphis Meats is portrayed in the article referenced above, as an innovative and pioneering company, supported by the presence of an establishment newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. It rehashes the theme that we are becoming familiar with, that science is potentially liberating and emancipatory.

My experience and observations strongly suggest that this is not the case.

Über and Airbnb have clearly demonstrated that this is more business as usual, dressed up as innovation but in practice more oppressive than the legacy structures it attempted to replace. At the same time Facebook brings opression and control to a whole new level.

Caveat Emptor; let the buyer beware.

A version of this post was first published on Medium on March 18 2017.