Beguiling Chicken Skin

Reminiscent of the exalted Rachachuros Seasoning chicken, this glorious monstrosity served up by the New York Times art department bursts upon the scene, an audacious example of myth-making!

As the Times says: "There are white-meat people and there are dark-meat people; there are those who swear by the drumstick, thigh or breast. And then there are skin people."

Here, then, is the patron saint of the Skin People, a carefree scaffolding of chicken skin, otherwise known as a dead, plucked, headless, and footless chicken. It used to be a bird, but it has become so much more. A symbol! A figurehead! The emblem of a new identity! What started as a mere living thing has parted the veil surrounding the eternal and become the apotheosis of a New Discipline.

This politico-religious icon, this beguiling provider of multifariously edible skin, this let-me-just-slip-out-of-something-more-comfortable charmer is part-vixen, part-apostle. Nothing could be more familiar to the lusty despoilers of animals!