Okay. So, in her interview, the bride (who, btw, quite disturbingly does not look nearly insane enough for my taste...I want to be able to spot someone like this coming from at least 3 blocks away.) becomes quite visibly and audibly choked up with emotion as she describes her "childhood dream" to be, um, rendered life-sized in cake and carved up in effigy by...herself!? She then manages to slip in the mysterious comment that, while the aforementioned auto-effigy consumption fantasy was indeed the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition, she "didn't get it all." Okay. so: "didn't get it all." Wait. What!? "DIDN'T GET IT ALL!?!?" WTF could possibly have been another component of her wedding fantasy so important that is bears mentioning in a TV interview about your INSANE EFFING GIANT CAKE MONUMENT!?! Now, I had noticed that the story mentions that this rather, erm, shall we say "unique" fantasy had its genesis in her Nigerian childhood. Thus, in the interest of fairness, I did some brief google-assisted research into Nigerian wedding traditions. As it turns out, Nigeria does in fact have some unique wedding traditions. (Many of which, incidentally, are being lost due to the incursion of Christianity and the desire of "modern" couples to adopt a Western aesthetic. Sad, but unrelated.) Some of these traditions include "Hen (bachelorette) Parties," a ceremonial palm wine toast and an elaborate (and gorgeous!) bridal headpiece constructed of folded and tied cloth imported from India. But nowhere did I find even a single mention of either an enormous bride-of-cakenstein or the elusive, yet surely even more mind-blowing, "all" mentioned by the bride in the video. (Okay, I admit I'm flying blind here; I just can't see something like a palm wine toast being eighty-sixed as "too much" or "over the top" from a wedding including a cake body-double.) Therefore, out of the kindness of my heart (and the twistedness of my mind) I would like to propose several means by which this bride- constrained by budget to an uncharacteristic demureness- might be properly dignified via that medium which bestowed upon her her initial renown.
I give you, lucky readers, the first look at my stunning new series and film treatments. No need to thank me. Really. No, really! Keep reading; you'll see...even having a close family member in The Industry has not prevented me from accumulating an almost unbelievable, total lack of scripting skillz! Remarkable!
First up, "Cakebeard: the Miniseries."
Synopsis:
An innocent Nigerian immigrant of meagre means labors long hours as a night doorman in a luxury New York co-op as he attempts to save enough money to bring his aging parents to America. He meets a mysterious, sternly beautiful young Nigerian woman in the course of his duties; she is a frequent visitor to the otherwise (apparently) empty penthouse condo. He is drawn in- against his will- by the aura of (mysterious!!) tragedy which surrounds her...or is that merely her scent? A scent...mysteriously(!!) reminiscent of...bakeries?! He is hopelessly intrigued.
After several months of mysteriously(!!) beguiling small-talk, the immigrant (let us call him "Michel.") is working one night in the basement of the building, in an area where residents are provided with stall-like storage spaces. He hears the sound of something heavy being dragged, and when he goes to investigate, the beam of his flashlight picks out the struggling figure of...his mystery(!!) woman! She appears to be trying- and failing- to pull a large burlap sack of something(?) across the uneven cellar floor. Michel finds that, once again, his nostrils are assailed by a powerful, sweet scent. He steps forward to offer his assistance, and, after demurring several times, the woman (let us call her "Carmela") relents and allows him to finish hoisting the heavy sack into the locker and securing it.
Fast-forward to several hours later, and the two are locked in passionate-yet-ultimately-chaste embrace in the luxuriously furnished, though dusty and abandoned-feeling- penthouse condo. Michel divulges his long-held, distant fascination with Carmela and in a gush of emotion she invites him to come visit her that weekend at her "true" home...a resplendent-sounding estate in Westchester.
Michel counts the seconds until the weekend, when, shaking with anticipation, he doffs his doorman jacket and hat and hops the express train to Westchester. He finds Carmela waiting for him at the station in an elegantly-appointed refrigerator truck. Together, they drive in nervous silence to the gates of her estate: an imposing, yet elegant and elaborate wrought-iron confection crowned with stylized sugar-tongs. She produces a massive iron key, fits it to the cherub-faced lock, and together they begin a slow ascent up the impossibly lengthy-seeming, darkly-shadowed drive...
More installments to come...if you can "stomach" them...muahahaahaahaaa
I was doing some additional reading on this story, and came across a comment that, while I disagree, it seems in the interest of fairness to relate. Someone on the cakewrecks blog commented that in Ghana (which, btw, is not in nigeria; it's a nearby west african country) there is a tradition to create elaborate, fanciful coffins. (I checked some out- they're pretty awesome.) However; it strikes me as more than a bit paternalistic to be (or so it strikes me) implying that west africans are terribly creative people...who nonetheless can't discern between a wedding cake effigy and a beer-bottle coffin. just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteThat is all sorts of odd. Self-consumption by proxy not-withstanding... I don't think I could eat a cake that looked like a person - especially without the comforting disassociation of a shift in scale.
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