Licking Toads

I would watch Philip Seymour Hoffman fold his laundry. Magnolia, 25th Hour, Capote. Like a blond, overfed version of Sean Penn, he is so riveting onscreen — so true in every single role he plays — that the actors around him seem to fade.

In The Savages, which I saw this afternoon at the Edina Cinema, Hoffman plays Jon, a 42-year-old eternal boy who teaches dramatic theory and whines to both his sister and his beautiful Polish girlfriend about his inability to commit. Yet Hoffman infuses the character with such rumpled confusion and genuine decency, you cannot help but love the child-man. And when he and his sister, an equally emotionally-stunted 39-year-old named Wendy (Get it? Jon and Wendy. . . .I kept waiting for a Peter), must stow their demented and dying father in a nursing home, Hoffman manages to play the part simultaneously with impatience, sadness, disgust and a profound sense of loss.

See this film for the wry story, for Laura Linney and Philip Bosco, for a cameo bit by a young Nigerian-American actor named Gbenga Akinnagbe as a brusquely gentle geriatric nurse. But see it. And you may go home as I did, less concerned about the rampant dysfunction in your own family and hopeful that even incredibly fucked-up people can show a little humanity when brought right down to the wire.

After the movie, while basking in the glow of shared neurosis, I opened a Languedoc from 2004, the Domaine de L’Hortus Grande Cuvée 2004, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre, and the last of the holiday bottles we had on hand. It gave off a musty, almost yogurty smell when first I removed the cork. I took a tentative sip and maybe it was the movie still running through my mind — Philip Seymour Hoffman’s meaty, sweaty charm — but when my husband asked whether I liked it I said I did, though it was rather amphibious, like licking a frog.

This begs the question of whether I have actually licked a frog, I suppose. And the answer is no, I have not. But the first mouthful I got had the flavor of river water and mushrooms; it tasted the way murky ponds smell. After this, however, the Grande Cuvée lightened almost magically, with cherry and coriander on the tongue with a bit of burlap sack. I liked it a great deal, because I love a wine — as I love an actor — that will change and surprise me, being at once funky, mean, and sweet.

Our 13-year-old happened through the room as we were discussing The Savages and debating the taste of wet frog. She informed us that there are people who lick toads, not for their flavor but because their skin excretes a substance that will produce a good high. Now, put aside for a moment that she knew about his practice while I did not (a precocious child, she), and be assured that tomorrow we’re going to have a long mother-daughter talk about what exactly a young lady should and should not lick.

The important thing is that I’ve done some research — on behalf of my daughter and you — and determined that toad licking is not, after all, an effective means by which to get high. According to The Truth About Toad Licking (and who would not trust such a source?), the slimy stuff you ingest when licking the back of a toad actually is venom. In order to get a good dose of the hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT, it’s necessary to collect a quarter cup or so of toad juice (by agitating a toad — and I’m totally serious about this, look for yourself), heat the goop until it crystallizes, then smoke the grains.

Now call me a pessimist, but I don’t think your average toad-licking addict has the follow through to complete all the steps in this process. I know I don’t. What’s more, I wouldn’t recommend it. There are so many startling joys in life even without the use of hallucinogens. For instance, I’m very happy drinking my frog-tasting wine and thinking about the way Philip Seymour Hoffman makes unshaven and schlumpy look so wordly and suave your whole world simply turns upside-down.