Everyone is talking about it. Or at least everyone that tracks homespun local interest reports that attract national and international media interest because they are about Jesus or Mary showing up in some unexpected place. So here we have one story that becomes a couple stories, which all end up being the same kind of story, the old Madonna of the Toast story.
According to The BIG One – WTAM 1100, Dennis Bort of Berea, Ohio, was peeling potatoes, on Christmas Day no less, when he found a cross in one of the spuds. Now it’s up for grabs on eBay. But guess what? It’s not the only potato cross available on eBay right now. On New Year’s Eve a woman in Iowa found one too, though this one is more rough hewn.
Who remembers this potato cross from my January 23, 2008, post? You don’t remember? It’s much better than this post, which is just more of the same when it comes to these stories. There is one bid on the Iowa potato, while the Ohio one has a minimum of $1,000. Guess what? That one won’t sell. But, if you check out the older story, you can also get a little dose of James Joyce and my secret ingredient for making the best potato salad.
Not even a month into 2008, and I think I have found a story that is sure to count among my year’s favorites, all because of my respect and admiration for, you guessed it . . . potato salad. From WOFL Fox 35 in Orlando, Florida: Pastor Renee Brewster “says she had been looking for an excuse to get out of making potato salad. ‘I was hesitant about making the potato salad because Sister Frankie makes the potato salad at church and I said lord if it’s not for me to make potato salad then send me a sign.’” Sister Frankie must make damn fine potato salad for Brewster to be so intimidated that she asked for a sign from on high. I guess no one really likes peeling potatoes; must be why it’s what prisoners always have to do in the movies. Brewster got the sign she was looking for on the first tater that she halved, but tossed it aside because it looked rotten. Her granddaughter pointed out, however, that it wasn’t rotten. It was an image of Jesus on the Cross.
This form is kind of a hybrid icon. The cross is unmistakable. The Jesus looks like He is in a robe, and the beard stands out in the right-hand side half, but it is a very different look from the bleeding, head lolling figure so familiar to us through art. To me, this Jesus looks more like the teacher, not the tortured.
Renee Brewster is married to Bishop Winston Brewster, so you have to figure that they’re pretty religious folk, but I don’t know if dodging kitchen duties merits a prayer. The potato has been put in the freezer. Brewster did end up making the potato salad – so much for her sign from the Lord. According to her husband, it was “the best [she] ever made...it was almost as good as Sister Frankie's.”
Certain of these stories involve a person actively looking for a sign, but most of these visual manifestations are stumbled upon. A tree, a section of wall, the wood grain on a closet door – everyday it looks the same, but then one day it displays a difference, or the viewer possesses a different vision. I couldn’t help but think of Madonna of the Toast after reading this: “Every morning he hallowed himself anew in the presence of some holy image or mystery.” That’s James Joyce, from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I’m rereading it. It is our contemplative protagonist (and Joyce alter ego) Stephen Dedalus in the presence of “some holy image or mystery” on a daily basis. It is true to say that in this scene he is contemplating something far greater than potato salad, but it is just as true to say that these visions, no matter what sets them off, come from the same place: that place of the human need for answers, wherever they may hide.
P.S. Want to make the best potato salad? Use a couple of teaspoons of sweet gherkin pickle juice.
Out of Tampa, Florida, via Brazil, comes this 400-pound hunk of granite. Purchased two years ago by a Pinellas County granite distributor, the slab will soon be auctioned on eBay. According to this news story from Fox 13, the 7-by-7 foot piece of polished granite is worth about $4,000, but John Finkbiner (the guy who will sell the granite because the owner wants to remain anonymous) believes it could fetch a much larger sum because many people see the image of Jesus on the Cross embedded in the rock. Says the news report, the granite’s source “is near the town of Espirito Santo – translated, it means ‘holy spirit.’” So it has that going for it.
Like any good vendor of subjective memorabilia trying to cash in on an eBay sale, Finkbiner cites Diana Duyser’s $28,000 windfall (documented in Madonna of the Toast), “and that was just a sandwich.” But, Finkbiner is hedging his bets, reminding people that no matter what, “It is a very interesting natural image.”
It looks more like a Texas Longhorn to me, or a bolo tie, especially when compared to past examples of Christ on the Cross. This form is too much like a knot: all torso and no hips or legs.
This story from Rochester, Minnesota, as reported by KTTC, is slightly confusing in terms of details, though they all revolve around Rob Lloyd’s sick mother and the image of a cross on a house’s roof. Lloyd’s mother was admitted to a room on the sixth floor of Saint Mary’s Hospital for a throat infection that has rendered her unable to speak. Lloyd flew from Oregon to Minnesota to visit his mom, thinking about family, life and death. The article insinuates that Lloyd has made the decision to move back home to be close to his family; it also suggests that he needed to buy a house and from his mother’s room he spotted this roof, "And seeing that frosted cross, it just spoke to me." Adding to the sway of unexpected sights and happenstance, it also turns out that Lloyd’s aunt was also in the hospital, on a different floor, unbeknownst to the family.
As I mentioned a few post ago, details seem to matter less and less when it comes to these stories. People just want to know that these images appear, providing them with the ability to soldier through whatever challenges they must confront.
But there it is, a cross. Worth noting that for all of the Jesus and Virgin Mary images that have sprouted up since I got into the Madonna of the Toast project, this is only the second sighting of a cross (here's the first), which is surprising since it is a common shape. Goes to show you that what we see has plenty to do with what’s going on in our lives.
Nick Cave must have been considering higher powers and the unknown when he penned the song “The Mercy Seat.” I’ve been a fan of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for a while, especially the album Tender Prey. It was only today, however, listening through headphones that I noticed these lyrics:
I began to warm and chill To objects and their fields, A ragged cup, a twisted mop The face of Jesus in my soup
Short of asking Rob Lloyd what he was thinking about when he spotted the cross, we can’t really know what was on his mind, but whatever it was, it drew his attention to this image that carries an incredible amount of significance for many, many people. Same is true for Nick Cave’s lyrics, though it seems safe to speculate that he was wrestling with how to react to his surroundings.
As for me, I knew I was going to chime in on here today, and voila!
Here’s a video of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performing “The Mercy Seat.”
Brad Edwards from WOOD TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan, helped me with Madonna of the Toast by sharing his first-hand account of the Pope Pancake story. He emailed me this past Sunday, Easter, alerting me to the fact that the book was going to be mentioned on air, all thanks to this potato.
Found by Elizabeth Sachs of Marshall, Michigan, as she prepared a twice-baked potato for her son, she believes the cross is a positive sign, no matter what others may think. She says it is "definitely a for-real sign from God," which has "changed everything." You can watch the piece, and even get to see some footage of the book -- thanks, Brad!
This raw potato was cut open way back in 2005 in Joshua Tree, California, by a personal chef, by a personal chef that specialized in raw foods. (I made up the last part.)
Luckily, photographs of this other holy potato in various stages of shriveling exist on this website. You'll have to visit if you want to know how the tuber looked on Day 6.
Oh yeah, some cursory Internet research suggests that there are no potatoes in the Bible . . .
I've written for an array of publications, including the Village Voice, PRINT, Swindle, The Believer and San Francisco Chronicle. I am an infrequent contributor to the literary blog The Millions.
Madonna of the Toast was named one of 2007's Best Underground Books by the New Statesman.
