Less Seductive Poem by gershon hepner

Less seductive than potato casseroles,
some women don’t deserve from me a ballad,
to get one, they have got to please me with their roles,
more like chopped liver than potato salad.
My favorite women arfe not entrées but desserts,
tiramisu, a sherbert or a crème
brûlée, and after I have cleared my breath with Certs,
I get rewarded by most fatales femmes.
I’ve learned that making unforeseeable what life
becomes can be for sexual tastebuds most exciting,
and since my unchaste chef is my blue-ribboned wife,
I do not worry about wine and lighting.

Inspired by Kenneth Turan’s comment, LA Times, September 2008, reviewing “Appaloosa, ” comparing the seductivness of Renée Zellweger, playing the role of Allison French, to that of a potato casserole:

Given the marked lack of piano-playing women with extensive wardrobes in Appaloosa, both Cole and Hitch are smitten, albeit to varying degrees, with the newcomer. Which really is too bad. Though the press notes insist that Allison French is 'beguiling, ' the reality is that she is anything but. With a simpering manner that offers all the charm and seductiveness of a potato casserole, she is not only unconvincing as the object of multiple suitors, she is also so off-putting a character that you wince when she comes on the screen. Though the Oscar-winning Zellweger has been excellent when she matches up well with the roles she plays, this is not a part she connects to at all. French is such a distraction that it's difficult to focus on the rest of 'Appaloosa's' plot, which involves the attempt to bring that reprobate rancher to justice and the working out of various romantic entanglements. One of the best lines in 'Appaloosa's' script talks about how fate has a way of making 'the unforeseeable that which your life becomes' and the way French's presence derails the entire enterprise is also something no one had the vision to foresee.

11/27/08