“I only have eyes for you, Scott McClellan.” 

My favorite show, hands-down, is NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.    I mean, where else would you hear Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan playing a game  called, “You’re a Diminutive, Gay, Alcoholic Genius and Gossip Addict“  and asked three questions about the famed gossip, writer Truman Capote.  (McClellan got a perfect score, btw, which led host Peter Sagal to wonder why two other White House Press Secretaries, Dana Perino and Tony Snow,  who had previously appeared on the show, failed the quiz.  Sagal offered the explanation that perhaps, “once you leave the White House, suddenly you can see the truth.”)

I felt that little NPR-listener geek rush when, last week, CBS News Sunday Morning featured a story on my favorite radio show.  I mean, I was glad to have Wait, Wait get some much deserved recognition, but also felt like too many people were getting in on my “secret.”  That is, until I realized that most God-fearing people were a) in church on Sunday morning b) think that NPR is funded by Satan.  Secret…safe!

Anyhoo….this is a book blog and a post about books ye shall have.  All the drivel above is prelude to my thoughts on the host of “Wait, Wait…” Peter Sagal’s relatively new book called, appropriately, The Book of Vice:  Very Naughty Things and How to Do Them.   

Sagal, often with the consent or participation of his wife, set out to experience the Seven Deadly Sins first hand, or at least be there to record the activities of the imbibers of each sin.  I would like to say it was shocking and surprising but as a regular listener to Howard Stern, it was all pretty ho-hum.  (And you can just get off your high horses, all you NPR snobs out there that were with me thus far!  Ira Glass of This American Life is also a Howard fan and even admits to stealing some ideas from the show.  Like the who-has-the-highest-testosterone-level-in-the-office contest.  Remember that?) 

Sadly, there wasn’t too much to shock me in Sagal’s book.  I read it a few months ago and don’t truly recall very much…except one thing.  This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of, and remember, I’m an NPR listener, which means that I am frequently forced into situations with wine snobs who are convinced they can taste such things in wine like the composition of the soil the grapes were grown in.  Their frowny faces will then either a) decry the prescence of asparagus or b) laud the faint nuances of lamb chops, or, perhaps,  c) insist that there is a subtle essence of butterflies around the rim.   I don’ t know.  I taste “red” and “white” and look around for more.

Again, I digress.  The most memorable part of Sagal’s foray into vices, for my money, ($18.95), has got to be “microfood.”  That’s right.  Small.  Food.  Very small food.  The consumption of which is called “molecular gastronomy.”

Here are a couple of quotes in Sagal’s book from superstar micro-chef Grant Achatz, “We simply micro-plane matsutake mushrooms over the cracker and arrange various herbs throughout”  (56) and ”Surface area exposure to flavonoids is increased in liquid state due to coverage, but dissipates faster due to dilution and consumption”  (59).  Wow.  That is lot of bullshit packed onto a cracker. 

Me, I’ll be over here reading Gulliver’s Travels and drinking cheap wine.  No butterflies were harmed in the production of this column.

Posted Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:18:05 and filed under Podcasts, jamie, Websites, eNotes, Authors, Humor. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.