Fish Face

The images are coming soon, promise.

But for now, I'll paint a picture and set the stage with some glossy prose and try to wow you with my oh so prolific vocabulary.

Begin: Last night dinner time got reunited with it's favorite mate - sushi! It's hard to think of anything that is as satiating and beautiful as the rainbow hued, gem toned and brilliantly displayed pigmented pieces as sushi. Note to self, when you read "anything," wrangle that idea into the realm of cuisine and taste buds, because I'm quite aware that there are indeed things more fascinating than raw fish. Examples might include: finding a new species in the deep sea that looks suspiciously like Japanese animation, understanding the not-so-secret courtship between the moon and the tides, and how babies are usually very ugly as newborns.

I digress. My most favorite sushi spot is a local one with one chef and one server. Little, intimate. It was my dining pal's first time so I thought he deserved to behold the heaven sent chef's combination platter. The presentation of this dish had likely under gone some preliminary art direction, because when it reached us it was a sight. Breath taken. My color palate craved nothing, no pop of color, no focal point. The fish segments were standing like malleable dominoes begging to be tipped, some stacked giraffe tall and others molded into to rose flowers. I wished I had my camera like the two at the end of the counter, who were flashing before feasting, but thank me for my lack of technological prowess, as you'd be visually and perhaps audibly salivating. And that's rarely quite attractive, especially if it looks like you're drooling. Bad news.

Beyond this most sublime of sushi which I will cease to describe and instead share my other favorite part of this sushi hut, the stuff on the wall. There's a piece of artwork on the wall of a fish. Yes, a fish. But this fish is quite unique because it has a triangle bit missing from it's tail. My instincts tell me the frame, not the artist, was the culprit for this chop. The fish, however, has been fixed. Some lovely soul with a mild case of OCD has graciously added the departed anatomical section. It's right there drawn onto the wall extending above the thin wooden frame that houses the rest of the still life. Symmetry, in life and art, is such a stronghold where many of us find solace. Or maybe it's completion? Either way, this fish, once imperfect, now whole yet thoroughly asymmetrical, lives on the wall in a revered yet sad state and then on my plate.

I eat my sushi in two bites not one, the pieces consistently lopsided.