Catfish and Other Abominations

Herein are the beasts that inspire loathing.

The catfish is a vile creature ready-made for the hellish visions of Bosch and Breugel. As a child, I came upon a dead catfish in an alley, and foolishly kicked it over, tearing the thin tissue of its underbelly and exposing maggots and the full putrescence of decay. The sight and smell still haunts me, and I try to keep the experienced locked in a far closet in the basement of memory.

A friend of mine in Central Texas told me that as a child he and his buddies used to fish for catfish at the sewage outfall, they'd take their catch to the nicest restaurant in town where it would be fried and served up as the special of the day.

Besides their dull soft underbellies and their nasty alien visages, their ability to grow to prodigious size is another creepy aspect of this abominable beast. Also in Central Texas, the river passed by my parents' home. I would go stand and peer down at the concrete bridge embankment, where a catfish that must have been at least 5 feet in length would lazily float. It must have been guarding the water door to some abode of the damned, and I couldn't think of a more horrible experience than to fall into the water next to it....

**changing Maki's po-boy order to ersters**

2
Please do! I used to work with a sweet Catholic girl from Mississippi who would insist that we go to the -gawd! - Catfish Parlour on Fridays for Lent. There's nothing like emerging into the hot Texas sun after enduring an hour of sitting amongst a crew of Stetson'd Bubbas chowing down on the all-you-can-eat lunch special, while taxidermed monstrosities stare down their mustaches at you from the wood panelling. Talk about your heebie-jeebies!

I have dissected wormy catfish and I have eaten lots and lots and lots of catfish. But I would rather not unite the two activities in my kitchen, I agree.

Any mass produced food of ours is grown among shit and parasites, alas.

Recreation with catfish. I've seen a video; it's dangerous.

Robert

The South is a different country...

5
I'm curious as to the derivation of the term "noodling". A "noodle tale" is a popular type of folktale about simpletons (see There's a Carrot In My Ear). Bill Irwin named his silly pantomime character on Sesame Street "Mr. Noodle" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Noodle). I'm only speculating, but it wouldn't surprise me if the name of this particularly idiotic form of fishing derives from a common term for the village idiot.

See also:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/bon/index.htm

> 1: As Lovecraft taught us: any creature sprouting tentacles from its face is evil.

In Wikipedia, the first synonym listed for noodling is "catfisting."

I don't know about you, but I'd definitely take pause if someone were to invite me catfisting. ("Here kitty, kitty...")

I'd have to get to know the cat first, maybe buy him a beer.

Pink dolphins are being slaughtered to be used as bait for catfish. Can't we arm the World Wildlife Fund, or something?

Robert

Pink dolphins are found only in the Amazon River and are said to be the most intelligent of the five species of dolphins in the world.

Can't we just save the dolphins and keep using hillbilly body parts as bait?

Can't we arm the dolphins?

#11

Bloody crime! Geez. If the dumb terrestrial mammals didn't get a break with dinosaurs kicking the bucket, who knows... aquatic intelligence might have ruled the planet...

Microbes might have ruled the planet - heck, in a way they do.

Microbes have no intelligence... (so we think)...

And maybe we only think we humanoids do have an intelligence. In practice: seeing very little of it.