Flesh

They are not so much alive as undead. Open for business, but only to take rather than give. Lumbering, blank-eyed and soulless, they only want more and more of our flesh - or at least the federal government's bailout money. Zombie banks - when there is no more room in hell, they walk on Wall Street! When did George Romero get hold of our economy? The man behind all those zombie movies, from Night of the Living Dead to the multiple Dawn of ... and Day of ... follow-ups, seems to have scripted the current meltdown, what with entire industries lurching about on their last legs.

"Messiah," by Andrei Codrescu. Simon & Schuster. 366 pages. $25.The ending of every story, according to this book, is an illusion.Stories, it declares, go on long after both the teller and the telling are finished."Messiah" could have gone on for another thousand pages and still Codrescu -- serving up Scheherazade on the half-shell -- would not have been done.By turns, the story takes place in two of the most fascinating cities on Earth: New Orleans and Jerusalem. The simultaneous sanctity and profanity of those capitals allow the author, the world-class free associator known as the poet Andrei Codrescu, to twist his Transylvanian heart out.Because the novel is about the end of the world (as we know it)

To estimate doneness in fish without using a thermometer, insert a sharp knife point into the thickest part of the fish. If the fish is sufficiently cooked, the edges of the flesh will be slightly opague and not adhere to the bones; the center may still be slightly translucent but will be beginning to flake.-- Cole's Cooking A to Z

Gentlemen, start your limousines.The 50th anniversary of NATO this weekend is attracting the largest summit of world leaders in Washington's history -- as well as an enormous swarm of motorcades. With sirens wailing and little flags flapping from the corners of midnight-black sedans, about 50 motorcades, with a total of about 550 cars, will crisscross city streets during the three-day affair.World leaders agree at least on this: Everybody loves a motorcade. The tinted-glass processions are a must for any appearance on the world stage this weekend.

State police said yesterday that they are investigating a hazing incident at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in which a student who was caned dozens of times over a two-month period had emergency surgery to remove gangrenous flesh.Five pledges of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at the UMES campus in Princess Anne were treated at a hospital last week with injuries to their buttocks after being regularly beaten with wooden paddles and canes from Feb. 8 to April 4, said Capt. Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman.

The Baltimore County Liquor Board yesterday ordered a one-week license suspension for a White Marsh bar where female dancers were accused of baring too much flesh -- the second such violation this year for the Excape Lounge. And the owners' troubles aren't over.The seven-day suspension, which starts tomorrow, came after county vice detectives visited the Pulaski Highway bar July 15 and found women were dancing nude in an upstairs room open only to certain patrons.Police said the women encouraged male and female patrons to touch and fondle them for tips on what one female employee called "anything goes night."

"The English Patient" plunges one into the heart of radiance: It's a heat that can maim cruelly, as applied to flesh; or it's a heat that can heal, also as applied to flesh, but necessarily involving someone else's flesh as well.Those are the possibilities covered by the film, which is another way of saying its possibilities encompass the whole world, as well as the entire metaphorical spectrum of fire. A love story, a spy story, a war story, an airplane story, a desert story, even a bomb-disposal story (and a damn good one!

REMEMBER flesh?" Jean Walker asked."Every hour of every day, even in my sleep," I replied."Not that kind of flesh, silly. The flesh-colored crayons."Of course I remembered. Flesh was a favorite color in the flap-topped Crayola box of 48, introduced in 1949, the year Ms. Walker and I, three-quarters of a continent apart and not to meet for nearly half a century, entered third grade.Ms. Walker clutched her first crayons at Dublin Elementary School in Harford County -- she was Jean Sheppard then -- and now lives in Linthicum.

It's good to be the king.This is the thrust of "The Lion King," the new Disney animated feature film opening today, which wants to be about fathers and sons but can't quite break free of the fact that it's about kings and princes. Although it's state of the art, one might say that in terms of its values, it's the best animated film of the 19th century.Beautifully mounted and dynamically told, it follows Simba, Prince of the Beasts, son of the mighty Mufassa (James Earl Jones), current holder of the kingship.

The message of John Duigan's new film is obvious: Do not send to know for whom the sirens sing; they sing for thee.The song they sing is the song of flesh and its possibilities, of sliding through sensations, of the profound and delightful lassitude that follows mingling it and all the happy work you have to do to get there. For "Sirens" refights the oldest of human battles, between Eros and order, between flesh and discipline, between the rock and the soft spot.The place and time are Australia somewhere in the still-Victorian '30s.

Have you forgotten the Flesh Rule? It can happen, especially in a world where there are so many ways to be in contact with geographically distant people, thanks to cell phones, PDAs, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. The Flesh Rule states that when engaging in any social, business or leisure activity, you should always give the person who is physically present your full attention. In other words, the person in the flesh rules - not the person on your cell phone, your BlackBerry or your iChat.

They are not so much alive as undead. Open for business, but only to take rather than give. Lumbering, blank-eyed and soulless, they only want more and more of our flesh - or at least the federal government's bailout money. Zombie banks - when there is no more room in hell, they walk on Wall Street! When did George Romero get hold of our economy? The man behind all those zombie movies, from Night of the Living Dead to the multiple Dawn of ... and Day of ... follow-ups, seems to have scripted the current meltdown, what with entire industries lurching about on their last legs.

Mini pumpkins are both decorative and delicious in this easy holiday recipe. The souffles, which use the cooked flesh scooped out of their pumpkin-shell holders, come together quickly and with just a few ingredients. They'd be a festive Thanksgiving appetizer, or a main dish (serve two to each person) for vegetarians or kids who don't want turkey, or a fun morning-after brunch dish. Serve with steamed green beans. shopping list Mini pumpkins: $7.92 Eggs: 73 cents Flour: 15 cents Baking powder: 4 cents Cheese: $1.50 Green beans: $1.50 From the pantry: salt, pepper TOTAL: $11.84* Note: Prices are calculated based on the amounts used in the recipe.

Well, this certainly gives support to the fool-for-a-client adage. The cover story of the current Washington Monthly tells one of those tales that would be unbelievable, except that it's set in Baltimore - which is where all strange ideas eventually seem to come, not to die but to blossom and flourish against all reason. The story, by Kevin Carey, an analyst at a Washington think tank, is about how a group of Baltimore men facing federal charges of murder, drug dealing and racketeering is using a bizarre legal argument in their defense.

I have just returned from a few days in Ocean City, which confirmed my belief that what this country needs is a national campaign to get people to cover up on our nation's beaches. This campaign could begin in the form of public service announcements on TV. I envision a PSA showing footage of fat guys in Speedos walking along the shore, or large, tattooed women in string bikinis rising with a great jiggling of flesh from their beach towels. Then a voice-over intones: "Please ... put on a shirt.

On a recent afternoon, close to sunset, there weren't too many visitors at the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of South Africa. I had the blustery beaches nearly to myself, save for a small colony of penguins and a capering pair of ostriches. These ostriches were the first I'd ever seen in the wild. The one with black feathers, I later learned, was male; another, gray-plumed, a female. I was delighted by their odd, loping gait; their small heads jutting about at the end of long, twisting necks; and their protuberant eyes.

Tip--Pumpkin carving-- A vegetable peeler, if inserted into a pumpkin's flesh and rotated, carves the perfect nostril for a jack-o'-lantern. -foodies.com

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 Lawrence Wright Alfred A. Knopf / 470 pages/ $27.95 Just before Christmas 1948, a middle-aged Egyptian writer stepped off an ocean liner docked in New York Harbor and onto U.S. soil for the first time. He had come to escape the threat of persecution at home, but the next several months would bring a bitterness all their own. The country's unabashed materialism repelled him. Americans seemed "a reckless, deluded herd that only knows lust and money," and he longed, as he told a friend, for someone to talk to "about topics other than dollars, movie stars, brands of cars - a real conversation on the issues of man, philosophy, and soul."

Off the vine, winter squash look like some kind of exotic rustic pottery, with rich colors and textures that give them the appearance of having been elaborately carved and colored. That beauty makes them one of nature's more versatile vegetables: Until you're ready to eat, you've got a holiday centerpiece. But once you cook them, they transform completely, that ceramic hardness giving way to a nearly creamy texture and a subtle, nutty sweetness. Of course, that's not going to happen with just any winter squash.

OF ALL THE PIG parts that are cookable, the loin gives me the most trouble. It is too skinny. I like my pig big, flavorful and fatty. Gimme a pork shoulder or a rack of real spareribs. You rub some spices on these marbled hunks, you sweat 'em over a low fire and the results are worth waiting for. Yet modern pigs and their loins, cuts that come from the upper middle sections of their bodies, are exceptionally lean. As with so many skinny creatures, once you get beyond their svelteness, there is not much excitement.