Category Archives: Living Well

“Ave, Jeff Bezos, morituri te salutant!”

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Bezos.

bez0-008I’ve been thinking about Jeff Bezos this week, in part, because I was also trying to teach about Plato’s Philosopher Kings.

Bezos, for those of you who don’t know, is an evil Sith Lord ruling an all-powerful empire bent on destroying anything that is beautiful and of value to us.

No, of course not. He is, however, the founder and CEO of Amazon.
What he managed to do was found a company which could take advantage of the strength of the internet—ease of ordering, convenience—and couple that with the ability to manage a huge amount of inventory—including inventory he did not actually have to  possess or control—and the new possibilities of rapid shipping. By coordinating all of these parts better than anybody had managed before him, and by using the volume and the lack of actual inventory to keep costs incredibly low, and by coupling these with amazingly good customer service, he managed to build an unequaled on-line bookstore, and then a larger on-line market place, and become the first realistic leader in the electronic book business—a business which played to Amazon’s strengths, eliminating the problems of delivery and inventory, but adding the challenge of actually having to design, build, and maintain a physical product: the kindle.

This is a charitable interpretation, but, I think, an accurate one.

I’ve been a book customer since before I can remember.Shakespeare & Co stairs
I’ve worked in several book stores.
I want to disdain Mr. Bezos, because Amazon is driving bookstores out of business.

But I can’t; he is getting books to people—either electronically or in the mail—with great efficiency, and at a lower cost. How are we to fault that?
Besides, he can get me stuff nobody else can, and Wow! Does Amazon have great customer service!

As I said, I’ve been teaching a seminar class on Plato’s Republic, his utopian vision where decisions are made for us by wise, benevolent rulers.
So, perhaps, we should allow businesses to be dominated by those wise folks who can figure out how to make it work better, how to make it work best, and let them do what they do best. Bezos is sharp, he has read the market well, he offers a quality service, and he does something that is dear to my heart: he gets the written word to people.

However, in doing so, he has forever changed the business of books.

BooksThere are unintended consequences to any series of choices, but with a shift of this magnitude there will be even greater consequences.
We no longer browse shelves in the way we used to—there is no longer the serendipitous moment when we  pick up a random book because it strikes our fancy, and begin to leaf through it. Sure, we can find new books on-line, perhaps even sample some pages, but it is harder to get captured in the ruffling of pages that brings us to a sentence or story that captivates us.
There still can be folks to discuss and recommend books—chat rooms, recommendations, posts, etc.—but these are read in the same way the sample is read: not with the enthusiasm of a flesh & blood human being handing us a book and saying “You have to read Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni!” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msy1ctlRh4Q) I have a friend who actually remembers the names of booksellers at a local Indie and looks for recommendations from her favorites. This is the kind of interaction a local brick & mortar store can give. I have seen it happen on-line as well, but I still think it happens best face to face.

Furthermore, Amazon is primarily a distribution company, and because of its success has been able to dominate the companies which actually produce the product, companies which have greater risk in accumulating inventory, and greater expenses up front. Although Amazon has taken its toll on chain booksellers like Borders (rest in peace) and Barnes & Noble (bless their hearts)—as they, in turn, wiped out smaller bookstores, its greater long term impact—as well as the impact of the move to digital books in general—will be upon publishers, because this will affect the way books are actually produced, eliminating editors and other ways of cultivating talent.

The greatest danger, however, might be one inherent to success and centralization: pb 001markets dominated by a single or even just a few corporations are unwieldy and unstable.  Having the decisions about the future of an entire industry made in one or two board rooms—whether Amazon or Monsanto—is not very different from having decisions made by a centralized Politburo committee.
Freedom aside, a corporation as big as Amazon cannot turn on a dime. It would be nice if those leaders were self-less, all-wise philosopher kings who were capable of making good choices, but they are humans, like we are, and it is hard to judge the unintended consequences of the decisions they make. Unlike the humans who are actually interacting with local customers daily, and have small enough operations to make changes, corporations change slowly, and react slowly.

What can we do?
Well, support alternatives!
Buy local.
If you have to choose, buy regional, since they are more likely to be in touch with the local economy, and with local producers.
Buy Indie.

Independent booksellers and food producers are outside of the decision making process of the corporations, although they are still influenced by it. They are closer to you, and able to adjust their courses based upon what is happening “on the ground” rather than having to wait for decisions from a detached board room. They are also more likely to cultivate diversity, leaving room on their shelves (or in their fields) for genetic variation, so that we won’t just be stuck with pasty golden delicious apples and 50 Shades of Gray.

So buy local. Drop by CSAs like Trosley Farm or a road-side produce vendor.
Share a local microbrew at a local restaurant like The Acoustic Coffeehouse or the Philosophy Bistro.
If you can’t find what you need locally, find an independent dealer like Malaprop’s Bookstore not too far away, or find an independent business on-line like Glynne’s Soaps and use Amazon’s tools against him.live local live grand 10.3

Beautiful Sensibility

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Beauty 1I’ve been thinking about beauty this past week, thanks, in part, to my friend Ben. This is a good time for this, because Tennessee is about to turn its most beautiful, so I am sitting behind an abandoned restaurant, listening to, feeling the spray from, and watching an old fountain, watching the sun play, and thinking about beauty.

There are a lot of theories out there, and then there are people who create beauty and people who enjoy beauty without any needed assistance from philosophers like me.
Among the theories, a powerful one is what I will call the Classical Ideal.snow angel It finds a high expression in Plato, but also owes a great deal to Pythagoras, and, outside of them both, animated ancient art. For these lovers of beauty, beauty is an ideal, a perfection, something we try to capture in art, we aim for in art, and which we cannot find in nature. We have an innate sense of what this ideal beauty would be, and we consider things beautiful to the extent that they come close to reflecting this ideal. This ideal is closely tied to balance and proportion and harmony, and can, in many cases be expressed mathematically. The sculptures of Polykleitos are an example of this; in a pleasing, beautiful face, the distance between the eyes is a set proportion to the face as a whole, and a certain position in the face, and the length of the body, the size of the chest, the width of the hips, the length of the legs…

Oh, Mathematics: you naughty bugger!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABy contrast to this calm balance of rules, the Romantic view of art aims precisely to tear loose, to suggest power and passion that is not even expressible in conscious thought, let alone within the surgical precision of math. The wild emotion of beauty in art or in nature takes us beyond the calm, placid, everyday, into the cosmos as a whole, the mind of God, or our own subconscious.

I’m not sure which of those is bigger, or which of those is darker; my subconscious, however, requires less storage space.

I find beauty in the cool, crisp, rational lines of Greek architecture, and I also find beauty in the stormy passionate upheaval of Wagner’s Liebestod. They are both beautiful, but beautiful differently.

What, then, is beauty? What makes both of these beautiful, as well as “an exhilarating sunset, an expressive smile, a tranquil view,” or good company, or rest at the end of the day, or even, Joe Frogger ginger cookies?

I don’t know what it is in the objects themselves that makes them beautiful, although somehow it seems to be in the object itself, so that we can expect it to have that effect upon others. Beauty affects us deeply in the mind, so that we can talk about balance or about movement, or about color or about tone. It also affects us deeply in the heart, and can move us to tears or euphoria, to laughter or to passion.
However, it affects us through the senses; beauty is not a thing of the mind or of the emotions, but something we experience through sight and sound and touch, perhaps even through smell and taste and other senses.

A rose is beautiful.Beauty 2

A rose looks beautiful–the gradual fading of colors into different shades, the gentle folding and unfolding petals turning in upon each other, turning out towards the world, circling into a tight center.

A rose smells beautiful–the soft clean smell of the lazy, sunlit life within the folds of the petals, a sweetness more complex than sugar, a smell perfumists try to capture, but which becomes cloying and sickening if imitated.

A rose feels beautiful–the pink, red or white surfaces so soft to the touch, resisting yet falling back, so soft to each caress, so milky smooth, and yet so fragile.

Certainly, a rose can represent or be a simile or be a symbol of something else, but its beauty is not suggestive of something absent, but of the present, of the here and now. The beauty of the rose acts upon our senses–it itself is beautiful, and this beauty strikes us to the core.

Beauty may seem like it has a purpose, but it can be an end in itself, because it really is one of the few worthwhile ends we can find.

ending321

Apple Nests

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Spun Sugar final 2The theme of the week is beauty, so I tried to come up with something that was aesthetically pleasing on several levels. I don’t think it is complicated, but it is difficult, and may take several tries to get right.
Be careful with the hot sugar–it is sort of like a cross between super glue and lava if it gets on your skin. This is not a task for multi-taskers.

 Ingredients:

  • 2 cups sugar
  • ½ cup of sliced, toasted pistachio nuts
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt
  • Several (one per guest?) apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • Spice or flavorings to taste (cinnamon seems obvious, but cardamom is a possibility, as are cider, or rum or brandy, I suppose; I used a tablespoon of my apple butter)
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp sugar or powdered sugar

Equipment:

  • Clean stainless steel pan
  • Several steel soup ladles
  • Several forks
  • baking sheets and baking parchment

Step 1, Prepare Ye the way: Get all the stuff you will need ready, especially the first three ingredients, and the equipment. Make sure you have a clean, clear work space, and the time to work un-interrupted. Take a deep breath.

Step 2, Heat that Sugar! Put the sugar in the steel pan, and put Spun Sugar 010it over a medium to high heat. At first, it will do nothing, then it will smell hot, and then, the edges will start to melt and to turn slightly brown. The less you can stir this, the better, but it is also good to sort of swirl it around so that it doesn’t scorch or get to burnt around the edges. After 10, maybe 15 minutes, it will be a very thick brown syrup. Take it off the heat and let it cool slightly.

Step 3, Shape it: You will be using this sugar by dipping a fork in it and drizzling the syrup over things to form the nests. If you drizzle it over a wooden spoon dangled over a pan on the floor, it will form long, spider-web like strands. You could drizzle Spun Sugar makingshapes in it on the parchment paper and let them cool and get hard.
What I am doing is making little nests by drizzling the sugar over ladles.
Coat the ladles with cooking spray, and maybe sprinkle a little bit of the nuts and the salt on them. Take a fork-full of the melted sugar and drizzle it in a pattern of your choosing on the back of the spoon. After each swipe, sprinkle a little more of the nuts on the nest.Spun Sugar nest
Continue until you have a solid enough basket to put the desert into. Reheat the sugar mixture if it gets too thick.
Note: you will want these to cool before handling them, but it is best if they are still a little warm, because the pliability will make it easier to peel them off the ladles. If you are not using them immediately, store them in a dry, airtight container, maybe even with Spun Sugar toppingthose little moisture absorbing vitamin packets–humidity makes these really sticky.

Step 4, Another path: After you have enough nests, sprinkle the remaining pistachio nuts and a little Kosher salt on a parchment sheet, then drizzle the remaining sugar mixture over them. this will give you little sheets of pistachio praline which you can use to decorate the dessert (or just to eat).

Step 5, Meanwhile, back at the apples: Fry the apples in the butter. Spun Sugar applesAdd whatever sweetener you like if the apples need it (or if you need it, which is really more likely), and whatever spices or flavorings you would like. I kept mine simple, but you could go whole chai or spiced rum punch.

Step 6, Whip it good: In a largish bowl (4 cups or more), combine the heavy (whipping) cream, the vanilla, and the sugar. Whip with a mixer until peaks form.

Spun Sugar final 1Step 7, Plate: On a small plate, set the nest, then fill it with the fried apples, and top it with the whipped cream. you can set a chunk of the praline on top of the cream, and, if you prefer this for presentation, either draw in caramel sauce on the plate, or dust the plate with pistachios.

Step 8, Serve it up: This Doctor isn’t telling you to feed anybody shortening bread; have some of these and share them with a dinner party.

Pirate Muffins (aka Krakenmuffins)

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Just a reminder:
NTLP Day 2012 - CopyYom Kipper may be Friday, but National Talk Like a Pirate Day is a week from tonight. Now, I could have waited and posted this then–that will be when we will be leaving them unguarded on the counter at the Philosophy Bistro–but then ye filthy bilge-rats would not have the time to be bakin’ yer own.
Should I dress up again?

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup TVP
  • 1 cup rum (approximately)
  • 2 cups flour (Whole wheat, white, both, as you wish)
  • ½ cup of sugar
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ½ cup rolled oats
  • ½ cup walnuts
  • 1 cup diced apples
  • ½ cup chopped golden raisins
  • 2 cup cooked sweet potato (I like it baked, but I assume canned will do)
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ cup buttermilk or Greek yoghurt
  • ½ cup oil (it might work without this; I liked making it with coconut oil.)
  • 2 tsp. vanilla

Step 1: the TVP: This can be done earlier. Measure out a cup of TVP, and cover it with the rum. Let it soak, so the TVP absorbs the fluid. If you are a teetotaler, substitute something interesting.

Step 2, Prepare Ye the way: Preheat the oven to 350°, chop the apple, either grease the muffin tins or put in the cupcake liners (I usually spray a little canola oil in the bottom of these to make things come out easier). I get 2 dozen medium sized muffins out of this mix.

Step 3, sifting the dry ingredients: In one bowl crumble up the brown sugar and the oats, then sift (mix if you don’t have a sifter) in the flour, white sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix thoroughly.

Step 4, mixing the wet ingredients: In another bowl, mix the TVP, the apples, the raisins, sweet potato, vanilla, oil, eggs and buttermilk.

Step 5, combining the big mess: Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and mix well. You want to make sure the individual bits of apple are each coated to keep them from getting too clumpy. The consistency should be much firmer than batter, but a little more liquid than cookie dough.

Europe 2013 007Step 5, baking: Fill two dozen or so muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. See how they look. Stick a toothpick in one and see if it comes out battery.

Step 6, gratuitous pirate joke: What is a pirates favorite letter?
You would think “Rrrr,” but no; a pirate’s heart belongs to the “C.”

MuffinsStep 8, sharing: Oh, make them work for it. Bury the muffins on a deserted beach, leaving the only map in possession of a drunken, cursed first mate. or just tie them to the parrot.

Sensuality, continued.

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We Americans are a rather hedonistic culture, placing a high value upon comfort and pleasure.
The sad thing is, we are not very good at it.
We are not very good at being hedonistic, because we really don’t understand how to use our senses.

Any trip to most American restaurant will prove my point—there are huge servings, and way too much salt, fat, and sugar, but there isn’t really that much sensual pleasure to be had. We have made gluttony a national past-time and, at the same time, a chore. In fact, the reason we need so much sauce (besides the low quality of the ingredients—Damn you food industrial complex! Damn you to hell!….Wode-Toad-color-miffed.jpg

                                                ***SLAP!***

But I digress. Thank you, Wode Toad.

The reason we need so much sauce is that we don’t really taste our food. We don’t take the time to find out what the flavor of each item is. We allow our food, our music, our body washes (Thanx, Axe), our entertainment, our sensual experiences (Thanks, 50 Shades) to be over-blown and way too loud, going for quantity, but not enjoying the full array of sensations each moment can bring us.

Among the problems is that we put so much priority upon sight and sound—the least intimate of all sensations—have we barely are aware of the wide variety of input of our other senses.

I already talked a bit about taste in the recipe section, but what of the others?

Step outside. Feel the sun on your face. Close your eyes, and feel the sunlight soal into you as if you are absorbing it, the way a tomato does. Breathe in, and try to figure out how many smells there are in each breath. Dogs absorb most of their information through smell, whereas we tend to ignore this sense entirely. Is there fresh mowed grass? The early browning of tree leaves? New flowers? The roads and sidewalks baking through the afternoon sun?
Or just exhaust and different cigarettes? Can you smell the different smells of the city? At a distance, even unpleasant smells can be interesting—the faint smell of skunk on a summer night is one of the smells in very good coffee.
Speaking of that, how do you drink coffee? Do you feel the warmth of the cup in your hands, look at the rainbow-mottled surface of the liquid (of course there is oil, ya’ mook! Essential oils provide most of the flavors we enjoy), add sugar, and feel it as you drink it—each cup involves taste and smell and sight and feel.

Stretch.
Take a moment and feel different muscles tighten and untighten as you stretch. Tense and relax, and feel your body.
At work, take a hop and then break into a run; feel your legs stretching beneath you as you dash.
Jump up under a tree, grab a branch, and pull yourself up; you will be aware of each part of your body as your feet hunt for new footholds and your hands swing across branches amd you taste and smell each leaf and bark.

Dance! Throw yourself into wide, wild abandon as you feel the rhythm pounding through your body, and your boots against the floor.

Recipe for Sensuality

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Ingredients:

  • 1 Cucumber
  • 1 Tomato
  • 1 Carrot
  • Mixed Salad Greens
  • Salt to taste

Step 1: Have a seat; you are going to be here for a while. The two main ingredients will be time and attention; the main tools you already have with you: your senses.

IMG_2984Step 2: Find a good, preferable fresh and local, but really good cucumber. Cut a thin slice or two off it. Hold it up to the light—already the juice from the cucumber will be forming in little drops on the outside. Place it on you tongue, and try to think about the flavor. Breathe through both your nose and your mouth, so you can get the full smell. The flavor of a cucumber is subtle, but unmistakable. Slowly chew it, letting it melt into your mouth. Try nibbling the next one from the outside in—how is the surface, then each layer, different in taste? Try a thicker slice; doesn’t it taste differently? How about if you just take a big bit out of the unsliced cucumber? If you add just a little bit of salt—just a little bit!—how does that change it? If you don’t over-power it, the salt might enhance the flavor.
Pause.
Slowly finish the cucumber.

Step 3: Take a sip of ice cold Prosecco DOC.

Step 4: Find a fresh tomato, preferably still warm from the sun. TomatoSmell it—the stem and leaves of a tomato have a sharp, harsh scent, and if the tomato is fresh you can still smell them, as if you were standing in the patch (you could, of course, be standing in the patch—that would be even better, unless it is your neighbor’s, in which case, please keep your eyes open).
Feel the weight of it in your hand, the firmness of the skin as you roll it in your palm. Feel its skin against your cheek, then your lips. Feel the elasticity of the skin against your teeth, and then the sudden give of puncture and bite. Suck in the juice & seeds, feeling them against the back of your throat, swallow and then laugh.
Pause.
Continue as needed.

Step 5: How about another sip of wine? Maybe you should get a napkin to clean up.

Step 6: Find a fresh carrot, and scrub it thoroughly. Take a big bite of it, and chew it IMG_3002thoughtfully. Is it sweet? Is it bitter? Chew it slowly, breathing, again, through both your mouth and nose, to let the air flow across it.
Try slicing it thickly. It tastes differently, doesn’t it? Eat it slowly, nibbling from the outside in, and savoring each part.
Try shaving it with a vegetable peeler, and eating the long peelings. Again, it tastes differently this way—more sweet, but also more insubstantial and faint.

Step 7: Eat the salad greens one by one, pausing before going on to the next leaf. IMG_3003The solid reliability of leaf lettuce, the peppery-ness of arugula, the firm, thick green taste of lettuce—each is different. Try just a hint of salt. Does this enhance, or just mask the flavor?

Hello Plato, my old friend.

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pb 001Although it doesn’t quite feel like it yet in Upper-East Tennessee, it is Autumn, the beginning of a new school year, and I have the good fortune of teaching a college class. Originally, the class was largely Plato and Aristotle, then was expanded into more of a general Ancient Philosophy class, and then became what it is now: How to Live Well: Ancient Philosophy and Enduring Questions.

We begin with Socrates—everything begins with Socrates.

Socrates may have been a brilliant original thinker, or might have been a pernicious troublemaker; he may have been one of the first great martyrs of free thought, or he may have been a dangerous cynic whose students attempted a totalitarian coup of Athens.

Maybe, all of the above.

We don’t entirely know—what we know of him is not a person Socrates, but a character within the dialogues written by a former student. The ideas expressed may be his, or may be Plato’s or may be a game.
We don’t know much of the person Plato—the writings he produced where he spoke for himself have been largely lost, and what we have are a series of dialogues from which we try to infer his ideas.

Yet, we begin with Socrates, because Socrates asked questions. He asked questions, he took answers, and then he said “but wait….that doesn’t seem right…” and he asked more questions.
That is how philosophy began.

I like that.

As I struggle through this life longer and longer, I also appreciate what he wanted to ask questions about. How do we live well?
He lived at the tail end of a great empire, a brilliant empire, a scientific, literary, poetic, artistic and beautiful empire.
He lived at the time it was all unraveling, and everybody was uncertain, and everybody was afraid of causing a stir, and nobody knew what was right or what was wrong anymore, or where to turn for answers, and instead everybody went through the motions and was ironic and clever and local and traditional and new at the same time, and the economy was shot, and nobody knew what would happen next.

If you do read any of the Platonic dialogues, bear one thing in mind: Everything is a question.

Everything is a question.Know Thyself

The key to reading is trying to keep track of what the question is.
What is the question? What does he mean by the question? Does he mean what we would mean, or does he mean something else? Does he change what the question means in the dialogue? What possible answers are advanced? How and why does Socrates shoot them down?
What are the questions? What are his answers?

Christopher Phillips, the foundr of the Socrates Café movement, characterizes Socrates as always being concerned with 6 Questions:
What is virtue?
What is moderation?
What is justice?
What is good?
What is courage?
What is piety?

That’s not a bad starting point. Those were all good questions to ask 25 centuries ago; those are all good questions to ask now.

The down-side to the class is this: I dislike Plato.
Plato on Library (1)A brilliant student I had in this class a few years back characterized him as seeming really cool at first, but by the end of The Republic, he seems more like a cross between Dr. James Dobson and V. I. Lenin. That’s a pretty bright characterization.

Mostly, though, I dislike his idealism. Plato saves the idea of absolute truth by locating it in a real of ideas or pure forms somewhere outside of the corruption of our day-to-day lives. The material world is secondary, a mere shadow of the real.

I have friends to whom this idealism appeals, and who like to quote Pierre Teilhard de Chardin “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  I could not disagree more. I have fought long and hard to stay in this material world, and my scarred and chemically fluctuating body–permeated by my mind to the tips of my fingers, and in turn radiating my mind through cosmos upon cosmos of imagination. I will fight for it, and remain true to it, and have no desire, when it is done, to be cursed with drinking from the river Styx, forgetting all my body has taught me, and starting anew.

But that is another story for another day.Life is uncertain

Ireland

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Europe 2013 055It is hard to believe that only a month ago, we were flying out of Charlotte and into Ireland.
Ireland was beautiful and very, very green. It really is called the Emerald Isle for a good reason.

If you have a low tolerance level for quaintness, I would advise you never to visit.

We flew into Shannon, because we decided that we wanted to force ourselves to see the Irish countryside, and were afraid that otherwise we might get stuck just seeing Dublin—lovely in its own right, but a city.Europe 2013 071
We knew we would be arriving at 6:30 am local time, and that it would feel like 2:30 am to us, so we didn’t have anything specific planned. We managed to find our way to the bus, and climbed up to the second story. Apparently, all Irish (and most Scottish and English) bus drivers are expected to drive like the night bus from Harry Potter—lurching back and forth, taking turns at frightening speeds, etc.—but we were also driving across green rolling hills, past stone cottages & castles, all under a brilliantly stormy sky. We unfolded ourselves at the train station in Limerick, and found the Railway Hotel.
Europe 2013 105The check-in time was 2:00 in the afternoon, and the clerk frowned as we walked in. She suggested we eat breakfast, and I realized she was frowning because she was trying to think of a way to allow us to check into our rooms early. That first breakfast in Limerick was one of the best meals we had—Irish brown bread toast and jam, strong Irish breakfast tea, scones, a full Irish breakfast (rashers? black pudding? white pudding?), porridge—it was so good, I have tried to duplicate the bread.
After a nap into the afternoon, we wandered about Limerick, and found a local farmer’s market that was just shutting down. The very Irish and very sturdy Europe 2013 031looking lady behind the counter at the cheese mongers frowned at us, then gave us samples of several cheeses, discussing where each had come from, and how long each was aged, and we left with supplies for a plowman’s lunch down by the wharf.

Again and again, we encountered Irish natives who were friendly and kind—the bartender at the Bram Stocker hotel warning that the people in Cork “spoke funny and are hard to understand,” cab driver who refused to take us as customers—“Oh, I’d be embarrassed; it’s only t’ree blocks, now. Just cross the bridge and through those tall buildings” (I knew how far it was—6 blocks—and I had a 20 pound pack)—although often, the kindness was about fixing something that had gone wrong.
Things going wrong is apparently common in Ireland, and they all seem to have developed what I think of as “a bemused complacency towards the fecked-up-ness of it all” (“Oh, I can’t sell you a ticket on the bus; you can only get those from a machine, and that one there, it is broken. Marvelous!”)

Another odd observation, though: any given block in Ireland seems to have two pubs, a bookie shop, a homeless person or two and their dogs, and a pro-life billboard. It seems to me that there are vices that might be more important to fight than allowing a woman the right to choose, but, then again, Ireland only reluctantly legalized birth control.

It did surprise me that I had trouble getting used to both the stern face and the b.c.t.f., since those are both things with which I face the world. That and the heavy lidded Irish eyes that are part of my genetic heritage.

I did love Ireland.
Irish HarpistIt was one marvel after another–a beautiful countryside here, a harpist there, music in a pub, the stormy skies at sunset, the voices–Irish is not so much an accent as a cadence, a lilt, a language sung softly. Kind people, great ale, and wonderful food–yes! the French were polite and the British Isles had good food; re-examine your prejudices!

If you are ever in Dublin, drop by the Murphy Brother’s Ice Cream Shop. They are always smiling.

Of course, who wouldn’t, spending the day around ice cream hand-made in Dingle.
(“hand-made in Dingle” that makes me giggle.)ending321

A few words about politeness

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4 Cavaillon to Gordes (12)On our recent trip to Europe, we were surprised again and again by how helpful most of the people we encountered were. Yes, since you asked, even the French. In fact, some folks at the information desk in Cavaillon went about of their way to help us get the bicycles we needed to travel to Gordes (as was the artist in Gordes whose floor I woke up on after a black-out, but that is another story).

A notable quality of European politeness, however, is that they don’t seem to feel it is necessary to smile at you constantly. At first, many of the people I encountered seemed to be scowling, but they were merely concentrating on what I was saying and trying to figure out if they could be of help. It is ironic that it took me a while to figure this out, since I tend to look a bit dark if I am concentrating, perhaps even hostile. But even total strangers who had no obvious reason to do so were friendly and helpful–even people in Paris were kind and patient with us.

But not cheerful in the way we are expected to be here in the States.

I recently discovered a very obscure 18th Century English thinker named Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671 – 1713). I knew his Grandfather, also named Anthony Ashley-Cooper, who was a brilliant man, a lively conversationalist, a marvelous political player–although it almost cost him his head to James II–and who kept a very good table. He was also the patron of the philosopher John Locke, whom he also engaged as a tutor to his grandson.

The 2nd Earl, son of the 1st and father of the 2nd, was a git of the highest order.

Anthony_Ashley_Cooper,_3__Earl_of_ShaftesburyThe Third Earl, however, was an influential and, in  his day, well thought of thinker. Most of the thinkers we associate with what we call Moral Sentiments were influenced by him. Among his claims was the observation that we–human beings, that is–seem to have an innate (sorry, Mr. Locke) tendency towards being kind to others. Contrary to thinkers such as Hobbes or Calvin who tend to take a rather dim view of human nature, Shaftesbury observed that we do have a tendency to help others–much as that wide variety of friends and strangers helped me on my recent trip.
His idea–and this seems insightful–was that it quite simply makes us happy to make other people happy. He coined a term–borrowing it from a jewelers term for the brightness or polish of a gem, and called this politeness. For him, politeness was about structured acts of kindness towards others, not about the snobbish pretensions of court etiquette or the dull, rote, empty obligations of church virtue, but a joyful giving of oneself, and of caring.

This seems true.
This seems to be a really important insight into human nature. We take pleasure in making a baby laugh, or a kitten purr, or a dog happy. We enjoy giving presents to others, and watching their faces light up when we give them something we know they will like. When we help somebody jump-start a dead battery or change a tire, we often feel good for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, like all pleasures, it is not enough; we grow tired of it, and look for other pleasures.315signature

Allotment Gardens

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For those of you who do not know, I’ve just returned from 4 weeks of riding the rails through Europe.
Lake District- Hunting for Angus (edit)I am certain that I will have a lot to write about in the coming week, and I will try not to madden you with jealousy, or bore you to tears.

Along the railroad tracks in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and the British Isles, one can spot small gardens. Imagine the grassy area, like a median, between a county road and the railroad track–maybe 12 or so feet before the gravelly slope of the railroad embankment. Now, imagine that area subdivided into little parcels, maybe 20 feet wide. Now, imagine those areas enclosed, en-fenced, and planted with well-tended gardens, and maybe even with an outbuilding. This is an allotment garden.

Allotment gardensAs Europe became increasingly industrialized, this little gardens began springing up. Many Europeans live in large cities with little garden space, or even in apartments with no garden space, sometimes without even lawns that they can actually walk on. Although there are parks, and even wonderful forests and fells to hike in, there are many people who still feel a need to have land of their own. I don’t think it is as much about owning the land (they often do not), as it is about having a little corner that they can tend, that they can grow something upon. You often see them on the weekends, working and then sitting or staying over in the little sheds. Sometimes, they will even invite friends out to their little domains to share wine and eat al fresco.
The part that struck me over and over again was the pride with which this tiny little parcels were cared for and decorated–yes, Virginia, there were garden gnomes. Since I really do not enjoy gardening–it is like housework, but dirtier and hotter, and I am really uncomfortable at the idea of permanent ownership, especially of land–this feeling is alien to me, but perhaps those of you who could imagine the desire for a tiny little farm (or even tending tiny little sheep) could try to explain it to me. However, I do believe that there is something about being human that makes us want to have our little piece of nature and of life to tend and to take care of. I don’t know if this is in spite of or as a result of our increasingly artificial and detached relationship with the natural world and with our food sources.

Either way, it seems like a lovely idea.801signature