My favorite meditation piece today: “Christ opened up Heaven to us in the manhood he assumed,” - St. Iraenus. The possibility of Heaven was given to us by Christ. What greater reason to praise and thank Him! Where once in Heaven the bodily were looked down upon and not accepted, not worthy of making the cut, now the Creator Himself became body and brought the body to Heaven so that all the angels and archangels and heavenly spirits might not look down on us anymore, the curse of Adam lifted.
* * *
Reading a book on Mexico City that is patently biased and one-sided which I won't name rather than give further publicity to it. The anti-religion viewpoint could not have been made more clear than if the writer’s name were Hitchens or Dawkins. He denies the existence of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego but - humorously in the glaringness of its omission - he can’t deny the existence of the tilma. The materialist sometimes won't deny that which he can see with his own eyes, but will ignore it if it doesn’t fit into his pre-arranged views. Thus, sadly, all the wonder of the image is lost for him. He does not even address how something like that could last for hundreds of years when science has shown that tilmas of that sort degrade over a fraction of that time. It’s an ongoing miracle, but that goes to show that even ongoing miracles can be ignored. Proof again as if we needed it that what is needed, even in the face of the miraculous, is faith.
* * *
The NY Times has an article about KSM, the terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and he was said to be very surprised at America's reaction to 9/11. He did not anticipate the incursion into Afghanistan or that we would seek out Al Qeada operatives across the globe. In other words, he underestimated us. Just like Saddam Hussein, who thought we were a paper tiger. It's stunning to see how out of touch with reality those folks were but I suppose in hindsight it's recognizable if only because by definition if you're willing to attack the U.S., then you're going to think we're a paper tiger.
* * *
Heard an encouraging homily not too long ago from the new friar at the downtown Dominican parish. It concerned the gospel was where Jesus cleared out the Temple at Jerusalem (which is the favorite passage for those with anger management issues). But the gospel was twinned that day with a reading from 1st Maccabees about how Jesus was simply fulfilling this old passage, being a "type". In Maccabees, they cleared how the Temple of pagans so that the Jews could worship in purity again, but what Jesus was doing was clearing the court of the Gentiles of animals. There would be no need to clear the court of the Gentiles - that wasn't the holy ground, was it? Or was it!? He was, symbolically, making room in His temple for we Gentiles! In Heaven there are many mansions, and he was building more mansions for the Gentiles. How lovely is that thought? Also, he mentioned that Jesus never objected to the Jewish practice of praying for the dead, so that would be another point in favor of the truth of Purgatory.
November 30, 2009
For Those About to Read...
...I salute you. (My homage to AC/DC; I'm still looking for a rock band that will riff on things biblioholic.) Now for the Mexican trip log:
Day 1 - Sunday
It was utterly predictable I’d be bowled over by this place. After all Aaron has great taste and he recommended it. It’s physically beautiful here, the art and architecture exactly what I would have chosen had I done the choosing. I feel a stab of guilt at such luxury, wondering if I deserve it. Do I contribute enough at work do warrant this sort of reward? Tom Wolfe’s description in “The Bonfire of Vanities” of the arbitrageurs haunts even though I make a tiny fraction of their money. I’ve always found there’s nothing like a vacation to make me want to work harder, or work to make me want to vacation harder.
We arrived before check-in and they told us our ocean-front wasn’t yet available but we could go for another room on a higher floor that overlooked both pool and ocean. I asked to see the room, perhaps pushing my luck, and it was a good view but not goose-bump inducing. We waited for the original room by eating dinner, which is where I got the first inclination that the downside of an “all-inclusive” resort is that the food is unlimited. Every day is a buffet. Bring out the Alka Seltzer! So I had ribs and a salad and washed it down with a liter of Negro Modelo. And cheesecake for dessert. Oh my was it good.
Hunger slaked, we headed back to our real room and it was suitably magical. “I feel a Spanish crest upon my chest….” I have the urge to read Reid Buckley’s “Servants and Masters” a novel thick with Spanish atmosphere and intrigue.
The balcony hung suspended over azure/green waters crashing the shore. It was the closest to the ocean I can recall to being while in a hotel room; the only thing closer was when we sat out on a balcony above the ocean, on a cruise. It’s a fine specimen of a room with beautiful furnishings. I put my Sarah Palin book on the bedside reading table and the combo looked splashing. Yet how can I read amid such splendor? Instead I hit the balcony for a vacation cigar as the sun sets and the blue waters fade to black.
The sports bar we ate at had about a dozen screens in every direction and the Bengals played on one of them, which made me happy. The main screen was inexplicably devoted to the Chargers-Broncos game and unaccountably there were a ton of Charger fans in the place. Every time San Diego did something good there rose raucous cheers from the jersey-clad visitors. Go figure, as Cancun is a long way from San Diego. But travel always offers surprises, even amid mundane things like that.
I explore the hotel and it’s pleasingly labyrinthal quality and it brings to mind how man was meant to explore, and not just the physical but the intellectual and spiritual. There’s a Proverb that talks about it being the glory of man to seek out what the Master has hidden, quoted by John Paul II in “Fides et Ratio”.
Day 2 Monday
The sun starts early down here -- just after 6am there’s an orange circle on the sea’s horizon. I think about the Sarah Palin book I was reading last night, how in 2004 she started ftraining for a marathon and went on long runs feeling not a restlessness or ambition so much as a calling, that she would be called to do more and that she could do more. (I felt like that about my Bingo career only it turned out to be not a calling, haha.)
“What gets you excited to wake up in the morning,” she quotes herself in her speeches at graduations. “What is the desire of your heart? God put those in you not to tease or frustrate you - He created them in you to give you direction! To put you on the right path - He bridles your passion!” Palin writes that she told herself “You’ve got to go out there and fly! Go and do more!” This was in the lead-up to run for governor.
* * *
About 75% of the earth is covered with water, but since we experience only a tiny portion of it our perception can skew. Because we live on land, we may act as though 95% of the planet is land. Similarly how easy it is, if we don’t pray enough, to think that God is a small part of the overall picture when He is the picture itself. From the Word Among Us meditation today on the passage from Daniel: “This has great practical application for us, as we must choose each day the proper balance of how much time we spend consuming the world’s philosophies, attitudes, and values, versus how much time we spend consuming God’s word in Scripture.”
The pool area is flanked by ornate 3-foot cement pillars and fronded with red Spanish-style slats that lend a dappled shade effect. The music, though mostly innocuous, is loud enough to be distracting. Beethoven’s 2nd plays in my ear, incongruous with the Tijuana music over the loudspeakers. The pool has the advantage of bar proximity and is a scene undulating with bottoms of curvy females on their stomach or flipped with their obelisks aspiring skyward. Gresham’s Law as it applies to pool-side thoughts: the flesh drives out musings about the effectiveness of Keynesian economics. Overall, perhaps by design, it feels very cruise-shippy. Pretty waters / a tranquiscient/ neologism / full of fresca.
The surf is white as Sparky Anderson’s hair, which I mention only in a bid to go down in history as the only person ever to compare Anderson’s hair with the surf. (Note to self: google 'Sparky Anderson's hair' + surf.)
Plan to read and exercise on this trip though drinks not likely to be under severed either, given the all-inclusive (a term forever stained by Michael Scott of The Office fame). Last night the Negra Modello’s hit the spot - two “freebies” brought up to the room. Paid forward. It felt too easy, like bank robbery in the 1800s.
* * *
Looking at the great ocean reminds me of how capricious life seems to be, as if a mere accident of geography (put anyone without a boat anywhere in the vast expanse of ocean and they’d be shark food). I think of how many have people through the centuries have had short lives and how length of life is meaningless compared to how one lives. In the ancient world, the fragility of life was so apparent that “life was less something to be made as something to be endured” per D. McMahon. McMahon also quotes a Greek history in which Croseus is “only saved after he renounced the belief that he was, or ever can be, happy while still alive.”
I’m also reading “The Machine” about the ‘75 Reds. Excellent stuff, like crack-cocaine for the baseball fan. I take note what others are reading, including two Kindles seen down here “in the wild”, one a DX and the other a Kindle 2. Book sightings:
Day 3 - Tuesday
The look and feel of the balcony is very similar, almost identical, to that of the balcony on a cruise ship. There’s the same strong wind, the same loud noise of surf. Because the surf is marked with red flags (heavy surf) it’s likely louder than is typical. “He collects the waves of the ocean; he stores up the depths of the sea.” - from today’s Shorter Christian Prayer book (Ps 33).
* * *
The customer service here at the Casa Magna is at times otherworldly. Got back from a run and I’m offered a wet towel at the door, a small cold towel held with silver calipers. Simply amazing if overkill. Later the wait staff brings Pacifico beer or a Negra Modella or a strawberry daquiri precisely at beer o’clock. After a workout one needs plenty of fluids, so set me up with a beer iv.
Today we set up off-off-pool, which is like off-off-Broadway only sunnier and quieter. All-inclusive means never having to look at prices, which is something I haven’t done since my parents were young.
An itinerant beach cigar salesman beckons and I’m a sucker. “You are good people,” he says after I give him a twenty dollar bill for a five pack of Cohiba Cuban cigars. I just hope they’re not exploding cigars. How do I get them home? Has Obama lifted the sanctions against Cuba yet? The next day I meet another itinerant cigar salesman. “Almost free,” he says. I think this is capitalism at its finest - breaking the near monopoly on cigars the hotels have by dramatically undercutting their prices.
* * *
Reading Lewis Buzbee’s book on biblioholism & McMahon’s on happiness now after having finished “The Machine”. Buzbee says “we fear for ourselves what we’d never imagine for others.” In the background ’70s tune “Shake Your Booty” plays and I still hear it in context of “fast dances” of my formative years. The song seems fraught with danger despite the silly lyrics - perhaps the most dramatic difference between lyrics and tune in history? Or maybe not, come to think of it. Next up is “Get Down Tonight” and it’s hard to read about bibliophilism to the old beat.
Or German historian/philosopher Max Weber. I love this - he took a trip for which the prospect was to raise his spirits and provide the mojo in order to write the first half of the book he would be known for. Get this: he traveled intensely for 3 ½ months in the U.S. And I feel guilty for a week vacation. I think the Europeans have it right.
* * *
Dinner at the Argentinian Steak House was ridiculously good. Over-the-top good. The servers came out with the entrees and it feels like a choreographed - everybody in sync, in rhythm, with steak knives appearing before our very eyes along with filet mignon and creamed spinach. The béarnaise sauce was other-worldly. Then dessert; a layered dark chocolate cake for me. The dinner was the best I’ve had in a year or so. Then out to the lobby, as ornate as the promenade deck of a new cruise ship and with live music playing again. The cruise-ification of Cancun resorts? If so I can’t complain. On the balcony I feel like Di Caprio in Titanic, wind in my face, sea at my feet. Uh-oh, not a good analogy…
DAY 4 - Wed
Into every life and vacation a little rain must fall and it did today. I was surprised there are “only” 200 sunny days here a year; I would’ve guessed closer to 300. So today was one of the 165 from the get-go and so I traveled by tour bus, by which I man regular bus, to and around downtown Cancun. Not a whole lot to see, truth be told, or at least so it seemed. I always think that a completely resort-style vacation is lazy - don’t want to be provincial and not explore other cultures but I’m not sure Senor Frog’s is culture. To be fair, that was just the downtown core and there were other streets that might be of more interest but for the language barrier.
Clouds obscure the sunrise. Mornings here are like the Discovery Channel’s “Sunrise Earth” come to life. I love the cut of the hotel’s jib, everything ovaled and arched instead of the hard angles and rectangles of doors and passageways up Norte.
One person may see, in the sea, only randomness and chaos, while another sees regularity, consistency, dependability. It depends on attitude and faith.
Dinner at night at the Japanese Steak House. I don’t get out much, so this was like going to old Japan. The hostess was in a kimono, chopsticks were available and the music was the kind they play at massage centers - very Eastern. This was the first time I can recall being at a Japanese steak house. We got a “regular” table instead of one where they cook right in front of you. Got Sumashi soup, shrimp tappan keg, (or something like that). It was all good. Steph had seaweed soup, the seaweed tasting just as you’d think seaweed would taste like. Sorta like spinach. There was this very fine rice noodle in the soup and I asked what it was and Steph humorously said “squid hair”.
DAY 5 - Thurs
Cumulous clouds, or Columbus clouds as I call them, ‘cumulate against the horizon while the sun subtly rises behind them. A signature of orange is writ in the sky…
* * *
After a desultory morning reading mix of Ray Bradbury and Walker Percy, headed out for play time in the world’s biggest swimming pool. You always know the surf is solid when there are mostly adults out there as in this case. The waves were so big that you’d want to just stand there and admire them, as if they were mammoth home runs, but mostly you’d want to get out their way. Riding the crest, I tried to enjoy the split-second view atop , as if from a 2nd story condo forty yards into the ocean. The surf threw me like I was a feather paperweight in a gale storm (okay, slight exaggeration) and I kept my arms moving in a defensive gesture lest I get thrown against rock instead of sand. It’s the first time I can recall really respecting the waves. But oh my but the espirit de corps among the wave hunters when we commandeered the high ground and rode down the splashy chutes to shore, only to have the same sea spray us from behind by waves borne by wind-froth!
There’s a swim-up bar at the pool - ordered a Mango daquiri thus fulfilling a childhood dream, or at least early adulthood dream, of swimming up to a bar to order a drink. I’m finding the sweetness of daquiris a fine precursor for beer. The latest is Mexican beer tried is: Montejo. We ran into a loquacious contractor at the swim-up bar who does cement work and who, as it turned out, did jobs for my dad and uncle. Small world alert! We joked that he’s spending my Dad’s money. “Fix or six beers and I’m done,” he says. “You can tell I’m not a big drinker since I’m buzzed after three Corona’s.”
Poolside I start reading “Moby Dick”; I watch the sea and looked for that “appalling beauty - lit up by a horizontal spangly sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal on the blue morning sea.”
Day 6 - Fri
The pool is too architecturally attractive for us not to be pulled into its sway this last day. We set up mid-deck, o’er looking the white tops between the Mayan columns accompanied by a stiff breeze and soft jazz.
Styrations greet the eye like sedimentary layers of a mythical gemstone: foam-white, to turquoise, to black-blue speckled with a thousand points of white wave. I’m glad we moved from our too-suburban patch of concrete off-off-pool. Sure it was quiet and sunny but it lacked the sights. Above and stage-right stands the adobe left wing of the palace, with its patio-balcony floors so sheer and smooth the chairs glide with greatest of ease.
Foreknowledge of the vacation’s end harshes the mellow. Ran into cement dude Jerry and Pat again today and found out they are regular Cancunites - they come down every 2-3 months using discounts earned from a Marriot awards credit card. Steph met a lady from Canada who lives six months in Canada and six months in Ecuador to escape the winters. She says the standard of living is so low there that she hired a maid for $12 a day. Today’s big read was Chabon’s “Manhood” book after a fruitless search for truth and poetry in “Moby Dick”’s more discursive parts.
Day 7 - Sat:
Six a.m. pre-sun rise and it’s surprisingly cool on the balcony, a heavy breeze and a cloudy sky. One last morning…breakfast at La Capilla…a visit to the hottub where I soak a sprained ankle. Watched a sailboat go by. Then onto the airport where I read Josh Hamilton’s book “Beyond Belief”. Fine story of redemption. I like the inspirational baseball story, of stories of excellence and overcoming. Liked “The Machine” and even to an extent Joe Torre’s overdog team “The Yankee Years”. Reading about Paul O’Neill was enough in that. It was never the same after he left the Yanks or the book, so I haven’t finished that one yet.
For Hamilton, it’s surely a lifelong battle and I’ve heard there was a brief relapse into non-sobriety early last year, a year in which he also struggled at the plate.
We make it to Cincy airport and stumble through a Borders. A bookstore in an airport is a breath of poetry in a prose world. I felt intoxiprinted by the wares, spurred by the romance of the terra incognitios of various books, mostly the Five Points section of Rutherford’s historical novel “New York” (Five Points being of particular interest in provoking wonderment how people could live that way) and in Bill Simmons’s “Big Book of Basketball” with all the redolent memories of factoids past, like whether Kareem was better than Wilt. Say but the names and I feel the nostagia: “Jerry West…Oscar Robertson…Lew Alcinder…” Ahh…
Day 1 - Sunday
It was utterly predictable I’d be bowled over by this place. After all Aaron has great taste and he recommended it. It’s physically beautiful here, the art and architecture exactly what I would have chosen had I done the choosing. I feel a stab of guilt at such luxury, wondering if I deserve it. Do I contribute enough at work do warrant this sort of reward? Tom Wolfe’s description in “The Bonfire of Vanities” of the arbitrageurs haunts even though I make a tiny fraction of their money. I’ve always found there’s nothing like a vacation to make me want to work harder, or work to make me want to vacation harder.
We arrived before check-in and they told us our ocean-front wasn’t yet available but we could go for another room on a higher floor that overlooked both pool and ocean. I asked to see the room, perhaps pushing my luck, and it was a good view but not goose-bump inducing. We waited for the original room by eating dinner, which is where I got the first inclination that the downside of an “all-inclusive” resort is that the food is unlimited. Every day is a buffet. Bring out the Alka Seltzer! So I had ribs and a salad and washed it down with a liter of Negro Modelo. And cheesecake for dessert. Oh my was it good.Hunger slaked, we headed back to our real room and it was suitably magical. “I feel a Spanish crest upon my chest….” I have the urge to read Reid Buckley’s “Servants and Masters” a novel thick with Spanish atmosphere and intrigue.
The balcony hung suspended over azure/green waters crashing the shore. It was the closest to the ocean I can recall to being while in a hotel room; the only thing closer was when we sat out on a balcony above the ocean, on a cruise. It’s a fine specimen of a room with beautiful furnishings. I put my Sarah Palin book on the bedside reading table and the combo looked splashing. Yet how can I read amid such splendor? Instead I hit the balcony for a vacation cigar as the sun sets and the blue waters fade to black.
The sports bar we ate at had about a dozen screens in every direction and the Bengals played on one of them, which made me happy. The main screen was inexplicably devoted to the Chargers-Broncos game and unaccountably there were a ton of Charger fans in the place. Every time San Diego did something good there rose raucous cheers from the jersey-clad visitors. Go figure, as Cancun is a long way from San Diego. But travel always offers surprises, even amid mundane things like that.
I explore the hotel and it’s pleasingly labyrinthal quality and it brings to mind how man was meant to explore, and not just the physical but the intellectual and spiritual. There’s a Proverb that talks about it being the glory of man to seek out what the Master has hidden, quoted by John Paul II in “Fides et Ratio”.
Day 2 Monday
The sun starts early down here -- just after 6am there’s an orange circle on the sea’s horizon. I think about the Sarah Palin book I was reading last night, how in 2004 she started ftraining for a marathon and went on long runs feeling not a restlessness or ambition so much as a calling, that she would be called to do more and that she could do more. (I felt like that about my Bingo career only it turned out to be not a calling, haha.)
“What gets you excited to wake up in the morning,” she quotes herself in her speeches at graduations. “What is the desire of your heart? God put those in you not to tease or frustrate you - He created them in you to give you direction! To put you on the right path - He bridles your passion!” Palin writes that she told herself “You’ve got to go out there and fly! Go and do more!” This was in the lead-up to run for governor.
* * *
About 75% of the earth is covered with water, but since we experience only a tiny portion of it our perception can skew. Because we live on land, we may act as though 95% of the planet is land. Similarly how easy it is, if we don’t pray enough, to think that God is a small part of the overall picture when He is the picture itself. From the Word Among Us meditation today on the passage from Daniel: “This has great practical application for us, as we must choose each day the proper balance of how much time we spend consuming the world’s philosophies, attitudes, and values, versus how much time we spend consuming God’s word in Scripture.”
The pool area is flanked by ornate 3-foot cement pillars and fronded with red Spanish-style slats that lend a dappled shade effect. The music, though mostly innocuous, is loud enough to be distracting. Beethoven’s 2nd plays in my ear, incongruous with the Tijuana music over the loudspeakers. The pool has the advantage of bar proximity and is a scene undulating with bottoms of curvy females on their stomach or flipped with their obelisks aspiring skyward. Gresham’s Law as it applies to pool-side thoughts: the flesh drives out musings about the effectiveness of Keynesian economics. Overall, perhaps by design, it feels very cruise-shippy. Pretty waters / a tranquiscient/ neologism / full of fresca.
The surf is white as Sparky Anderson’s hair, which I mention only in a bid to go down in history as the only person ever to compare Anderson’s hair with the surf. (Note to self: google 'Sparky Anderson's hair' + surf.)
Plan to read and exercise on this trip though drinks not likely to be under severed either, given the all-inclusive (a term forever stained by Michael Scott of The Office fame). Last night the Negra Modello’s hit the spot - two “freebies” brought up to the room. Paid forward. It felt too easy, like bank robbery in the 1800s.
* * *
Looking at the great ocean reminds me of how capricious life seems to be, as if a mere accident of geography (put anyone without a boat anywhere in the vast expanse of ocean and they’d be shark food). I think of how many have people through the centuries have had short lives and how length of life is meaningless compared to how one lives. In the ancient world, the fragility of life was so apparent that “life was less something to be made as something to be endured” per D. McMahon. McMahon also quotes a Greek history in which Croseus is “only saved after he renounced the belief that he was, or ever can be, happy while still alive.”
I’m also reading “The Machine” about the ‘75 Reds. Excellent stuff, like crack-cocaine for the baseball fan. I take note what others are reading, including two Kindles seen down here “in the wild”, one a DX and the other a Kindle 2. Book sightings:
- Dan Brown’s latest
- “Soul Made Flesh”
- “Glimmer Train”
- A Tom Clancy novel
- “Caravans” by James Michener
- “The Day Heaven and Earth Changed Places”
- “A Long, Long Way”
- Another “Going Rogue” reader
- a Ken Follet novel
- a Grisham novel
Day 3 - Tuesday
The look and feel of the balcony is very similar, almost identical, to that of the balcony on a cruise ship. There’s the same strong wind, the same loud noise of surf. Because the surf is marked with red flags (heavy surf) it’s likely louder than is typical. “He collects the waves of the ocean; he stores up the depths of the sea.” - from today’s Shorter Christian Prayer book (Ps 33).
* * *
The customer service here at the Casa Magna is at times otherworldly. Got back from a run and I’m offered a wet towel at the door, a small cold towel held with silver calipers. Simply amazing if overkill. Later the wait staff brings Pacifico beer or a Negra Modella or a strawberry daquiri precisely at beer o’clock. After a workout one needs plenty of fluids, so set me up with a beer iv.Today we set up off-off-pool, which is like off-off-Broadway only sunnier and quieter. All-inclusive means never having to look at prices, which is something I haven’t done since my parents were young.
An itinerant beach cigar salesman beckons and I’m a sucker. “You are good people,” he says after I give him a twenty dollar bill for a five pack of Cohiba Cuban cigars. I just hope they’re not exploding cigars. How do I get them home? Has Obama lifted the sanctions against Cuba yet? The next day I meet another itinerant cigar salesman. “Almost free,” he says. I think this is capitalism at its finest - breaking the near monopoly on cigars the hotels have by dramatically undercutting their prices.
* * *
Reading Lewis Buzbee’s book on biblioholism & McMahon’s on happiness now after having finished “The Machine”. Buzbee says “we fear for ourselves what we’d never imagine for others.” In the background ’70s tune “Shake Your Booty” plays and I still hear it in context of “fast dances” of my formative years. The song seems fraught with danger despite the silly lyrics - perhaps the most dramatic difference between lyrics and tune in history? Or maybe not, come to think of it. Next up is “Get Down Tonight” and it’s hard to read about bibliophilism to the old beat.
Or German historian/philosopher Max Weber. I love this - he took a trip for which the prospect was to raise his spirits and provide the mojo in order to write the first half of the book he would be known for. Get this: he traveled intensely for 3 ½ months in the U.S. And I feel guilty for a week vacation. I think the Europeans have it right.
* * *
Dinner at the Argentinian Steak House was ridiculously good. Over-the-top good. The servers came out with the entrees and it feels like a choreographed - everybody in sync, in rhythm, with steak knives appearing before our very eyes along with filet mignon and creamed spinach. The béarnaise sauce was other-worldly. Then dessert; a layered dark chocolate cake for me. The dinner was the best I’ve had in a year or so. Then out to the lobby, as ornate as the promenade deck of a new cruise ship and with live music playing again. The cruise-ification of Cancun resorts? If so I can’t complain. On the balcony I feel like Di Caprio in Titanic, wind in my face, sea at my feet. Uh-oh, not a good analogy…
DAY 4 - Wed
Into every life and vacation a little rain must fall and it did today. I was surprised there are “only” 200 sunny days here a year; I would’ve guessed closer to 300. So today was one of the 165 from the get-go and so I traveled by tour bus, by which I man regular bus, to and around downtown Cancun. Not a whole lot to see, truth be told, or at least so it seemed. I always think that a completely resort-style vacation is lazy - don’t want to be provincial and not explore other cultures but I’m not sure Senor Frog’s is culture. To be fair, that was just the downtown core and there were other streets that might be of more interest but for the language barrier.
Clouds obscure the sunrise. Mornings here are like the Discovery Channel’s “Sunrise Earth” come to life. I love the cut of the hotel’s jib, everything ovaled and arched instead of the hard angles and rectangles of doors and passageways up Norte.
One person may see, in the sea, only randomness and chaos, while another sees regularity, consistency, dependability. It depends on attitude and faith.
Dinner at night at the Japanese Steak House. I don’t get out much, so this was like going to old Japan. The hostess was in a kimono, chopsticks were available and the music was the kind they play at massage centers - very Eastern. This was the first time I can recall being at a Japanese steak house. We got a “regular” table instead of one where they cook right in front of you. Got Sumashi soup, shrimp tappan keg, (or something like that). It was all good. Steph had seaweed soup, the seaweed tasting just as you’d think seaweed would taste like. Sorta like spinach. There was this very fine rice noodle in the soup and I asked what it was and Steph humorously said “squid hair”.
DAY 5 - Thurs
Cumulous clouds, or Columbus clouds as I call them, ‘cumulate against the horizon while the sun subtly rises behind them. A signature of orange is writ in the sky…
* * *
After a desultory morning reading mix of Ray Bradbury and Walker Percy, headed out for play time in the world’s biggest swimming pool. You always know the surf is solid when there are mostly adults out there as in this case. The waves were so big that you’d want to just stand there and admire them, as if they were mammoth home runs, but mostly you’d want to get out their way. Riding the crest, I tried to enjoy the split-second view atop , as if from a 2nd story condo forty yards into the ocean. The surf threw me like I was a feather paperweight in a gale storm (okay, slight exaggeration) and I kept my arms moving in a defensive gesture lest I get thrown against rock instead of sand. It’s the first time I can recall really respecting the waves. But oh my but the espirit de corps among the wave hunters when we commandeered the high ground and rode down the splashy chutes to shore, only to have the same sea spray us from behind by waves borne by wind-froth!
There’s a swim-up bar at the pool - ordered a Mango daquiri thus fulfilling a childhood dream, or at least early adulthood dream, of swimming up to a bar to order a drink. I’m finding the sweetness of daquiris a fine precursor for beer. The latest is Mexican beer tried is: Montejo. We ran into a loquacious contractor at the swim-up bar who does cement work and who, as it turned out, did jobs for my dad and uncle. Small world alert! We joked that he’s spending my Dad’s money. “Fix or six beers and I’m done,” he says. “You can tell I’m not a big drinker since I’m buzzed after three Corona’s.”
Poolside I start reading “Moby Dick”; I watch the sea and looked for that “appalling beauty - lit up by a horizontal spangly sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal on the blue morning sea.”
Day 6 - Fri
The pool is too architecturally attractive for us not to be pulled into its sway this last day. We set up mid-deck, o’er looking the white tops between the Mayan columns accompanied by a stiff breeze and soft jazz.
Styrations greet the eye like sedimentary layers of a mythical gemstone: foam-white, to turquoise, to black-blue speckled with a thousand points of white wave. I’m glad we moved from our too-suburban patch of concrete off-off-pool. Sure it was quiet and sunny but it lacked the sights. Above and stage-right stands the adobe left wing of the palace, with its patio-balcony floors so sheer and smooth the chairs glide with greatest of ease.
Foreknowledge of the vacation’s end harshes the mellow. Ran into cement dude Jerry and Pat again today and found out they are regular Cancunites - they come down every 2-3 months using discounts earned from a Marriot awards credit card. Steph met a lady from Canada who lives six months in Canada and six months in Ecuador to escape the winters. She says the standard of living is so low there that she hired a maid for $12 a day. Today’s big read was Chabon’s “Manhood” book after a fruitless search for truth and poetry in “Moby Dick”’s more discursive parts.
Day 7 - Sat:
Six a.m. pre-sun rise and it’s surprisingly cool on the balcony, a heavy breeze and a cloudy sky. One last morning…breakfast at La Capilla…a visit to the hottub where I soak a sprained ankle. Watched a sailboat go by. Then onto the airport where I read Josh Hamilton’s book “Beyond Belief”. Fine story of redemption. I like the inspirational baseball story, of stories of excellence and overcoming. Liked “The Machine” and even to an extent Joe Torre’s overdog team “The Yankee Years”. Reading about Paul O’Neill was enough in that. It was never the same after he left the Yanks or the book, so I haven’t finished that one yet.
For Hamilton, it’s surely a lifelong battle and I’ve heard there was a brief relapse into non-sobriety early last year, a year in which he also struggled at the plate.
We make it to Cincy airport and stumble through a Borders. A bookstore in an airport is a breath of poetry in a prose world. I felt intoxiprinted by the wares, spurred by the romance of the terra incognitios of various books, mostly the Five Points section of Rutherford’s historical novel “New York” (Five Points being of particular interest in provoking wonderment how people could live that way) and in Bill Simmons’s “Big Book of Basketball” with all the redolent memories of factoids past, like whether Kareem was better than Wilt. Say but the names and I feel the nostagia: “Jerry West…Oscar Robertson…Lew Alcinder…” Ahh…
November 23, 2009
November 21, 2009
November 20, 2009
And Then There Were Two...
So the pro-abort Harry Reid Health Care Bill had four stalwarts who stood firm against cloture as of 8am this morning. The hall of heroes included: Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman and Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Suddenly, in the space of a few hours, Ben Nelson folded like a cheap suit and Lieberman somehow doesn't appear to be needed. And now I hear that Reid has the votes or will be able to get them by Saturday night. Sad.
Beer Log
Well I've had the chance to try a few of the beers purchased at Jungle Jim's exotic beer market down in southwestern Ohio. My grades:
___________________
Otter Creek Pale Ale: Solid pale if somewhat forgettable: Grade B
Stoudt's Triple (Belgian abbey-style ale): It was okay...a bit too hefe-weizen-ish for me. Grade: C
Lion Stout - Hello! Now there's a wake-me-up stout. Utterly fantastic. "With flavors of dark chocolate, coffee, and smoked/roasted malt," says one website. The find of the night. Grade: A+
Abita beer amber: Very nice drinkable beer. Grade: A-
On deck? A breakfast stout:
I'd have taken pictures of the Lion Stout bottle but it's rather plain-looking. Can't judge a beer by its packaging.
Speaking of alcohol, I came across both this and this today. Go figure.
Otter Creek Pale Ale: Solid pale if somewhat forgettable: Grade B
Stoudt's Triple (Belgian abbey-style ale): It was okay...a bit too hefe-weizen-ish for me. Grade: C
Lion Stout - Hello! Now there's a wake-me-up stout. Utterly fantastic. "With flavors of dark chocolate, coffee, and smoked/roasted malt," says one website. The find of the night. Grade: A+
Abita beer amber: Very nice drinkable beer. Grade: A-
On deck? A breakfast stout:
What a label! Wouldn't mind a little 'breakfast stout' for breakfast.
Note: no actor was used in the making of this photograph.
For all you stout hunters out there, here we see the stout in its native habitat, the refrigerator.
I'd have taken pictures of the Lion Stout bottle but it's rather plain-looking. Can't judge a beer by its packaging.
Speaking of alcohol, I came across both this and this today. Go figure.
November 19, 2009
November 18, 2009
Lame-Stream Media Strikes Again
I'm with Dom here: AP goes rogue with the facts. Had to laugh that that was the best the AP could come up with. It reminded me of Hitchens' essay contra Mother Teresa: "this is the best you could do?"
It's gotten to the point where I can't quite figure out if I like Sarah Palin for herself or whether I like her for her enemies, and the vituperative reaction she inspires in all the right people. Throw in her nice legs and it's even more difficult to be objective. Tis true that she's no intellectual, and I rarely find her replies meaty or poetic, but on the other hand I've such a thirst for the unscripted politician that she's refreshing in that way. She's at least capable of surprise and independent thinking, which is more than can be said of most of our moribund Congress.
It's gotten to the point where I can't quite figure out if I like Sarah Palin for herself or whether I like her for her enemies, and the vituperative reaction she inspires in all the right people. Throw in her nice legs and it's even more difficult to be objective. Tis true that she's no intellectual, and I rarely find her replies meaty or poetic, but on the other hand I've such a thirst for the unscripted politician that she's refreshing in that way. She's at least capable of surprise and independent thinking, which is more than can be said of most of our moribund Congress.
Radio Priest
Turned on the local Catlick station and heard the voice of our beloved former pastor, now gone into retirement for about half a year: "There are things coming!" I hear him say:
"We may not be called to be great preachers but we are called to witness to our conviction that life is greater than the present moment..that life has a destiny...that it is headed somewhere...that there is something about life that compensates for the sorrows and illnesses that we have including the burdens of old age...there is a greater context for all of that. It's not just the present moment. The trials of our lives are our apocalyptic moments."
"If religion is a tool of life rather than a pilgrimage, a journey, then we isolate our life of faith. It becomes just one more tool among the tools in our toolbox.I f I'm sorrowful or I need a favor I go to church and pray... Religion then does not capture my soul. It is not a revelation, it is not apocalyptic. A classic case is in the great movie 'The Godfather'. Is there any relationship between faith and life in it?"
"Apocalyptic means there is something far beyond the present moment. It's a symbolic language..it's what really good poetry is supposed to be: to express the inexpressible. In apocalyptic literature our sense of the reality that is around us is stretched. Greater, deeper, vaster reality...how can we handle the present moment if we don't believe in this greater reality which we can scarcely comprehend? We can't comprehend what lies ahead but we seek to encase that which we cannot comprehend in good liturgical music, monuments, grave stones, burial rituals - all of that is supposed to remind us of the future. But funerals have changed in recent decades to look at the past or the present. Our culture tells us that whatever is happening right now is the only moment that matters or exists.
"Apocalyptic literature jars us out of the present moment. We are in the midst of a world that is beyond us. Ask God to expand your horizons and open your eyes to that which is beyond you, in creativity, trust, and faith."
November 17, 2009
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts
When you see it exposed, say to yourself: Thanks to this Body, I am no longer dust and ashes, I am no more a captive but a free man: hence I hope to obtain heaven and the good things that are there in store for me, eternal life, the heritage of the angels, companionship with Christ; death has not destroyed this Body which was pierced with nails and scourged… This is that Body which was one covered with blood, pierced by a lance, from which issued saving fountains upon the world, one of blood and the other of water… This Body he gave us to keep and to eat, as a mark of His intense love. - St. John Chrysostom via McNamara's BlogToday, after the horrors of the [twentieth-century] totalitarian regimes (I remind the reader of the memorial at Auschwitz), the problem of theodicy urgently and mightily demands the attention of us all; this is just one more indication of how little we are capable of defining God, much less fathoming him. After all, God’s answer to Job explains nothing, but rather sets boundaries to our mania for judging everything and being able to say the final word on a subject, and reminds us of our limitations. It admonishes us to trust the mystery of God in its incomprehensibility. Having said this, we must still emphasize the brightness of God, too, along with the darkness...The God who is Logos guarantees the intelligibility of the world, the intelligibility of our existence, reason's accord with God, and God's accord with reason, even though his understanding infinitely surpasses ours adn to us may so often appear to be darkness. The world comes from a Person, and is Love - this is what our biblical faith tells us about God. The world is not just... appearance, which we must ultimately leave behind. It is not merely the endless wheel of sufferings, from which we must try to escape. It is something positive. It is good, despite all the evil in it and despite all the sorrow, and it is good to live in it. God, who is the creator and declares himself in his creation, also gives direction and measure to human action. - Pope Benedict XVI
He, nailed on the cross, cries out the cry of forlorn humanity, 'My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?' People who are keen on exegesis explain to us that at that point He was rehearsing a verse of a prophetic song. If you have seen anyone die a violent death you can't well imagine Him at the last moment rehearsing a prayer He had been taught when he was a little boy! Besides, it is an error of vision -- for it is prophecy that is turned towards its fulfilment, not fulfilment that is supposed to recite words of prophecy. No, it was something real. - Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh via Dylan of "dark harp"
The great luxury Protestants have in debates with Catholics is that Catholics recognise and respect the authority of Sacred Scripture, even if they disagree with the interpretation of it; Protestants have no such regard for Sacred Tradition. - Sancta Sanctis
We were cultured then, purchasing old volumes and new music and bathing in the flickering light of the cinema. They came for the books first; later they scaled the sturdy cases and found the vases, the decanters, the Italian glassware. - Mrs. Darwin on children
The great problem of our statesmen has been from the first, How to assert union without consolidation, and State rights without disintegration? Have they, as yet, solved that problem? The war has silenced the State sovereignty doctrine, indeed, but has it done so without lesion to State rights? Has it done it without asserting the General government as the supreme, central, or national government? Has it done it without striking a dangerous blow at the federal element of the constitution? In suppressing by armed force the doctrine that the States are severally sovereign, what barrier is left against consolidation? Has not one danger been removed only to give place to another? - Orestes Brownson, writing in the 19th century, via Bill of Summa Minutiae
When your strawman argument is also a non sequitur, it makes me feel like you're not even trying. - Tom of Disputations tweet
The Golden Globe Awards Show brings together all of the biggest talents in Hollywood under one roof. Watching such an occasion on TV inevitably causes people to ask themselves certain questions. My husband asks: “Where are the terrorists when you need them?” - Betty Duffy
Darwin: "Every female blogger on this thread right now wants to be you. (Doesn't have the same ring, does it...)"
Betty: "May not have the same ring, Darwin, but probably more accurate because I have a new Oreck."
Anon: "A wise philosopher once said that it's not your Oreck, it's what you do with it."
Betty: "Anon, you may tell your wise philosopher that I prefer to think not what I should do with my Oreck, but rather, what should my Oreck do for me. With such lengthy attachments, the Oreck can reach places where no man has been before, like my ceiling fan." - Betty Duffy thread
You must – do you hear me, my young friend? – you must work harder than you do. I suspect you of being a bit of a loafer. Too many whores! Too much rowing! Too much exercise! A civilised person needs much less locomotion than the doctors claim. You were born to be a poet: be one. Everything else is pointless – starting with your pleasures and your health: get that much into your thick skull. Besides, your health will be all the better if you follow your calling. - Flaubert to de Maupassant via SR
November 16, 2009
The Homily in B-flat Major
Sunday Mass at St. Margaret's. Was momentarily annoyed by being crammed in by late-comers but eventually the Mass took me over. God's gift of Himself in the Eucharist. Fr. Jeff's homily was about perspective: is the day partly cloudy or partly sunny? Does the end of the world - or our end - bring us fear or hope? "Fear is useless, what is needed is trust," said Jesus, in the gospel of Mark. And yet so often I think I can use fear to my advantage, as preparation somehow.
Similarly I can approach Christ with fear or trust. Fr. Jeff mentioned how the symbol of hope has long been an anchor. The function of the anchor is to prevent the ship that is storm-tossed from drifting to the rocks and becoming shattered. Christ is our anchor to prevent us from perishing on the shoals of this life's troubles and temptations. The temptation to despair, towards discouragement, and sloth are ever near me. "Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man." And today I did just that.
Saturday's fullsome readings, from the book of Wisdom, included this line: "And as he alighted, he filled every place with death; he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth." How could Jesus, who is Wisdom, bring death? If one thinks of Baptism as death, death to ourselves, then he did bring death to the masses. Instead of death by way of justice, he brought death to our deaths, via His mercy.
I asked myself during the homily: "am I like the judge who fears neither God nor respects others?" Hopefully the mere fear of not fearing God is a sort of fear that affirms that I do. The Allelulia was particularly hopeful: "God has called us through the Gospel, to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thes 2:14)
The Sunday readings alternated the complementary themes of despair and hope: in the First reading: "it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress" and yet the Psalm is "You are my inheritance O Lord!" and the 2nd reading: "For by one offering Christ has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated." (Heb 10:11-14,18). How often do I forget the forgiveness of sins! How often do I feel unworthy just in the day-to-dayness, in my lack of trust and then I read something like that and it gives me hope. So often I feel like a running-back getting 1 or 2 yards a carry but there is always the chance that God will spring me for 99 yards. God has the element of surprise about Him. "Now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool...where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer offering for sin." I am now made free by the blood of Christ. May I use my freedom well!
Similarly I can approach Christ with fear or trust. Fr. Jeff mentioned how the symbol of hope has long been an anchor. The function of the anchor is to prevent the ship that is storm-tossed from drifting to the rocks and becoming shattered. Christ is our anchor to prevent us from perishing on the shoals of this life's troubles and temptations. The temptation to despair, towards discouragement, and sloth are ever near me. "Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man." And today I did just that.
Saturday's fullsome readings, from the book of Wisdom, included this line: "And as he alighted, he filled every place with death; he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth." How could Jesus, who is Wisdom, bring death? If one thinks of Baptism as death, death to ourselves, then he did bring death to the masses. Instead of death by way of justice, he brought death to our deaths, via His mercy.
I asked myself during the homily: "am I like the judge who fears neither God nor respects others?" Hopefully the mere fear of not fearing God is a sort of fear that affirms that I do. The Allelulia was particularly hopeful: "God has called us through the Gospel, to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thes 2:14)
The Sunday readings alternated the complementary themes of despair and hope: in the First reading: "it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress" and yet the Psalm is "You are my inheritance O Lord!" and the 2nd reading: "For by one offering Christ has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated." (Heb 10:11-14,18). How often do I forget the forgiveness of sins! How often do I feel unworthy just in the day-to-dayness, in my lack of trust and then I read something like that and it gives me hope. So often I feel like a running-back getting 1 or 2 yards a carry but there is always the chance that God will spring me for 99 yards. God has the element of surprise about Him. "Now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool...where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer offering for sin." I am now made free by the blood of Christ. May I use my freedom well!
November 15, 2009
Caught All the Fish
Our desires are bottomless. A Brad Paisley song:
I filled up two shopping carts late last night
One was full of fishing gear, the other Miller Lite
The checkout lady laughed and said you think you've got enough?
And i said yeah, you're probably right and filled another two carts up
Gonna catch all the fish, gonna drink all the beer
Gonna hanker down, we're staying here
Might take all day, might take all year
Till we catch all the fish, till we drink all the beer
So i picked up the boys at dawn and we were on our way
It hadn't been ten minutes before jimmy's cellphone rang
His old lady asked him how long we'd be on the lake
And i said you tell her we're staying here however long it takes
Gonna catch all the fish, gonna drink all the beer
Better warn her now, better make it clear
Might take all day, might take all year
Till we catch all the fish, till we drink all the beer
Just as long as there's a can left in that cooler
Just as long as there's a bass left in that lake
That just means we've still got some work to do here
Just as long as there's still gas left in that tank
As long as there's a can left in that cooler
As long as there's a bass left in that lake
That just means that we've still got some work to do here
As long as there's still gas left in that tank
Well, we caught all the fish and we drank all the beer
And we ran outta gas, now we're stuck out here
A bunch of empty cans and worthless fishing gear
'cause we drank all the fish and we caught all the beer
Well, i mean we caught all the fish and drank all the beer
November 13, 2009
Chabon's Memoir & Mine
At last we have our generation's Updike, a chronicler of "Wacky Packages" (circa 1973) and one of the fellow survivors of the last generation of children who had time and adventure on their hot little hands - back in the age before structure and organized sports took all the fun away. "Kids are natural cartographers," he writes, and I recall the interior map of my childhood neighborhood at the intersection of Sando (a name that would fit well on the Flintstones and thus lent it a positive air) and Fairfield, which bordered the Elysian river and its frank smell of creek bed which wove into our hearts a love for nature.
I can see the map in front of me - the limits of the known world at half-mile increments in most directions, though truncated in some by busy roads which were parentally ruled out as hostile territory, Injun territory. Our house sat next to a neighbor with a prominent gut who wore white t-shirts with holes and whom you suspected would be at home with a 40-ouncer, and next to him was the opposite, tony WASP-ish Protestants who made their own wine and soon fled the neighborhood for wealthier climes. But distinctions between adults only become noticeable with age - back then they were all lumped into the large category of "tall people with jobs".
Directly across the street was "the unknown neighbor" and down from him was Gary Porter which we mispronounced as "Grady Porter" since that name seemed to fit better; it had more heft and gravity for there was something slightly sinister about him and his house. Mostly it was their mean dog who struck fear in the hearts of all the neighborhood children and whom I had the pleasure - oh the sheer joy of it! - of outrunning once when it was loose. But it scared the hell out of me.
The civilized world consisted of two parallel streets as well as fragments of where the streets intersected with others. Two blocks, but two blocks that contained infinite wonders, especially at Halloween when all houses became figures of great interest, and at Christmas when many non-Scrooges lit up their houses in generous displays. The bourgeois put up a string of lights; the bohemians put pedal to the metal.
In Chabon's book, his father sounds familiar: "Some people, one imagines, may be naturally buoyant of heart, but with him, good spirits seemed, far more admirably, to be the product of a strict program of self-improvement in his youth - he believed, like most truly modest men, in the absolute virtue of self-improvement."
Even of his marriage, and the desire for rootedness resonates with me given how closely I identified with my best friend's German-American parents: "God, it was a seductive thing to a deracinated, assimilated, uncertain, wandering young Jew...". Or to a deracinated, assimilated, uncertain, wandering young Catholic. I chose German as my high school language of choice because of my familiarity with my friend's upbringing, not even realizing until years later that my own family is of half-German heritage.
Of our generation he writes how we are "supposedly cynical, wised-up, skeptical" and I have to admit that surely was why Letterman was such a cult hero back in the early '80s, back when he was anti-establishment and cynically cool. (The older I get the more I realize how much more a creature of the culture I really am despite my adolescent delusions of individual grandeur.) I wasn't into MAD magazine much, other than the fun of folding the back cover to reveal what lay hidden which you could do in the store for free. I hadn't the money it seems now.
I hadn't realized how far back that sort of cynicism of advertising went, that even as early as '73 there were peel-off stickers that mocked the appearance and name of some well-known brand of household product. "A bottle of fetid-looking salad dressing labeled Fish-Bone, a Bustedfinger candy bar with a big swollen finger poking through...". There was something almost Gothic about it which was appealing in a Halloweenish sort of way. I don't know that at the time I considered it mocking products and advertisements so much; to me "Dial soap" was still revered for its 99% effectiveness at banishing germs, if you cared about banishing germs, and I don't think "Vile soap" hurt the branding. But to this day I recall a classmate who'd made a gross rhyme to the words of the "Our Father"and I was appalled: "was nothing sacred?" I wondered, literally.
Chabon writes about marriages and calls himself a "close observer of other people's marriages":
I can see the map in front of me - the limits of the known world at half-mile increments in most directions, though truncated in some by busy roads which were parentally ruled out as hostile territory, Injun territory. Our house sat next to a neighbor with a prominent gut who wore white t-shirts with holes and whom you suspected would be at home with a 40-ouncer, and next to him was the opposite, tony WASP-ish Protestants who made their own wine and soon fled the neighborhood for wealthier climes. But distinctions between adults only become noticeable with age - back then they were all lumped into the large category of "tall people with jobs". Directly across the street was "the unknown neighbor" and down from him was Gary Porter which we mispronounced as "Grady Porter" since that name seemed to fit better; it had more heft and gravity for there was something slightly sinister about him and his house. Mostly it was their mean dog who struck fear in the hearts of all the neighborhood children and whom I had the pleasure - oh the sheer joy of it! - of outrunning once when it was loose. But it scared the hell out of me.
The civilized world consisted of two parallel streets as well as fragments of where the streets intersected with others. Two blocks, but two blocks that contained infinite wonders, especially at Halloween when all houses became figures of great interest, and at Christmas when many non-Scrooges lit up their houses in generous displays. The bourgeois put up a string of lights; the bohemians put pedal to the metal.
In Chabon's book, his father sounds familiar: "Some people, one imagines, may be naturally buoyant of heart, but with him, good spirits seemed, far more admirably, to be the product of a strict program of self-improvement in his youth - he believed, like most truly modest men, in the absolute virtue of self-improvement."
Even of his marriage, and the desire for rootedness resonates with me given how closely I identified with my best friend's German-American parents: "God, it was a seductive thing to a deracinated, assimilated, uncertain, wandering young Jew...". Or to a deracinated, assimilated, uncertain, wandering young Catholic. I chose German as my high school language of choice because of my familiarity with my friend's upbringing, not even realizing until years later that my own family is of half-German heritage.
Of our generation he writes how we are "supposedly cynical, wised-up, skeptical" and I have to admit that surely was why Letterman was such a cult hero back in the early '80s, back when he was anti-establishment and cynically cool. (The older I get the more I realize how much more a creature of the culture I really am despite my adolescent delusions of individual grandeur.) I wasn't into MAD magazine much, other than the fun of folding the back cover to reveal what lay hidden which you could do in the store for free. I hadn't the money it seems now.
I hadn't realized how far back that sort of cynicism of advertising went, that even as early as '73 there were peel-off stickers that mocked the appearance and name of some well-known brand of household product. "A bottle of fetid-looking salad dressing labeled Fish-Bone, a Bustedfinger candy bar with a big swollen finger poking through...". There was something almost Gothic about it which was appealing in a Halloweenish sort of way. I don't know that at the time I considered it mocking products and advertisements so much; to me "Dial soap" was still revered for its 99% effectiveness at banishing germs, if you cared about banishing germs, and I don't think "Vile soap" hurt the branding. But to this day I recall a classmate who'd made a gross rhyme to the words of the "Our Father"and I was appalled: "was nothing sacred?" I wondered, literally.
Chabon writes about marriages and calls himself a "close observer of other people's marriages":
"I have noticed that in nearly all the longest-lived ones, if there is space enough in the house, each partner will have a room to flee to. If, however, there is only one room to spare, it will always be the husband's."Man caves we will always have with us. Not exactly something you'd find in Theology of the Body 'eh?
Wi-Fi Madness
There once was a phrase "reefer madness"
that supposedly described the weed cannabis,
but I find myself hooked
on something less crook'd
that is, wi-fi at bookstores so fabulous.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)