Usque ad Hilaritatem (part 1)

This is Foie Gras Poutine. If there ever were a dish to compete for 'most unnecessary', surely Foie Gras Poutine is it.

Exegegis:

Poutine is a traditional Canadian lower-class dish. (I say it with respect, remember always no matter what else I say, that I delight in hot dogs more than a grown man reasonably should). Now Poutine for us Southerners need only be explained thusly: it's french fries with gravy on top; a traditional rib-sticking feature of the Canadian everyman's after work meal. Already at this humble point we have crossed the border into what the modern world would call the dietetically perverse, as so many ordinary meals do these days. But a certain Chef by the name of Martin Picard took it several dozen steps further.

Martin Picard is the head Chef and founder of a Montreal-based restaurant I (desperately) would like to patronize one day. It's called Au Pied de Cochon, which is French for 'the foot of the pig'. Martin Picard has stuck with a die-hard extremism to the classical forms of good French cooking, that is to say, butter, fat, salt, meat, wine, pig's feet, cream, pâte, bread, pastry, duck, love, happiness...

... and in that sense, by returning to a time when nobody cared about the calorific content of their food but rather its taste, he has become a revolutionary in the most literal sense: innovation by coming full circle. With his typical disregard of health-conscious, bean-sprout-devouring, omega-47Q-fatty-acid-Z-obsessed modern culture, Martin Picard invented the Foie Gras Poutine.

Foie Gras is the liver of duck or goose which have been bred and fed for the specific purpose of possessing extraordinarily tasty livers. It is very fatty. It is very rich. It is excellent with Sauternes (by the way)...

Foie Gras Poutine's gravy is made by blending a good bit of goose liver into the gravy, and then, for good measure, slapping a solid chunk of pan-seared Foie Gras onto the whole mess at the end. It is the only $23 dollar French Fries you'll find anywhere, and it probably takes a year off of your life-expectancy every time you eat it.

Martin Picard, in fact, was criticized by the culinary elite for his introduction of this dish into the menu of a purportedly also 'elite' restaurant. And to be fair, it was originally created as a sort of joke, something entirely unexpected to surprise a favorite regular, who ended up loving it so much the dish made it to the big leagues and has since become one of the more successfull dishes Au Pied de Cochon offers. But what bothered critics, besides how low-brow even ordinary Poutine is, was the engorging excess, the unabashed richness, the artery-clogging, no, the artery-destroying health-heedlessness.

Foie Gras Poutine is unnecessary. It doesn't do any more to fulfill the purpose of food than astronaut, freeze-dried protein and vitamin chips might, in fact, if the purpose of food is indeed simply nutrition, Foie Gras Poutine does it rather worse. It's all fat and starch. It's bad for you. It's useless.

Homily:

And this is its glory. I agree with Asher. And both of us, for that matter, agree with Robert Farrar Capon. The world was never meant to be used; it was meant to be enjoyed. The world, the whole deliriously spinning universe, was made to be enjoyed.

It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries. and it has enough textures, tastes, and smells to keep us intrigued for more time than we have.

So let me repeat: Foie Gras Poutine is unnecessary, but let's take that as a compliment. Everything good is unnecessary but the original Good. He didn't need any of all this when he made it. He made it out of love, because he thought it was good, tov. As Capon puts it, He likes it.

The Supper of the Lamb has many deeply worthwhile things to say, but it was this point I felt was driving all the different thoughts of the book. The world is Good. Life is good. To be is good. To eat, and especially to eat together, is good. And not to say that a man who doesn't feel this way about things isn't Christian, or can't be a Christian, but that he isn't thinking like one. He's making a mistake, and I think a more costly one than he realizes.

What do you suspect we'll be doing for all eternity? Singing hymns and nothing else? I will confess to you I felt a good deal of dread as a child thinking I would have to stand around bellowing the same hymnal mediocrities I even then recognized as substandard for the rest of an infinite time. Dreadful. That's not to say there won't be singing. There will be, and (praise God!) much better than we're used to. But I suggest to there will be more, that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will be, in a sense, only a taste of what's to come after, the wine an Apéritif, the food Hors d' Oeuvres.

This life eternal that is given to us is a life of peace, and peace is good. Christ is the Prince of Peace, after all. And although I readily agree that our lives now cracked, broken, at war, that there are things that need doing, that our self is sinful and thus more often than not needs denying, restricting, yet there are people who have taken the struggle of this present darkness and fetishized it, made an idol of it in fact. They paint the struggle as the whole of Christianity. They are the workaholic pastors, the obsessive penitents. They are the self-aggrandizing pedants of the Law, the Pharisees.

I don't mean to be judgmental. All of us are these people to some degree. Every religious man is also a religious hypocrite. This time is one of struggle, but we take this struggle upon ourselves wanting to be rid of it. It is a weariness, and glory to the day when it's done!

For myself I have come to believe that precisely to the extent that you value your own self in terms of your religious powers (your honesty, your earnestness, your chastity, your generosity), it is to that extent that you will find Heaven a disappointment. You have not developed the sensibilities of Heaven, because honesty, earnestness, chastity, generosity, all the virtues, are not the point of existence in eternity, they are the pre-requisites, and they are long since accomplished for you by Someone Else. The point, what we are to be doing all that long, long time, is loving things, loving each other, above all and through all, loving God.

What is the chief end of man?

Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Loving things now, loving wine and beer and cheese and company (the crown of good food), and loving dancing and loving art and loving sport and the world generally, it is all training for Heaven. In this race we will all stumble in of course, because that's who we are, but whatever shape I'm in by the time I get there (rather rounder than not, I suspect), I'll be ready for a drink.

Doxology:

May God bless you and keep you,

May God make his face to shine upon you,

And give you peace.

Symposium!

Hey All,

I'm sure many of you are convinced that bringing Andrew on board was just the beginning of a phasing out on my part; gradually I would shift more and more responsibility to him, until eventually he was left holding the bag while I ran away scot free to frolic in fields of laziness.

FEAR NOT! I have returned with a vengeance. Furthermore, we are officially entering a new era in this blog's history. For the next few days, Andrew and I will be collaborating on a virtual conference of sorts; we will both be posting entries about various aspects of the book The Supper of the Lamb, which I have mentioned here before. In case you missed it, SotL (as I will heretofore call it) is... well, not really able to be categorized. It is unlike any book I have read: part cookbook, part food writing, part spiritual meditation, part cultural criticism -- all woven together with a thread of good humor and common sense. It is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone you know, but you aren't sure whether most people will tap into its peculiar sensibilities. For that reason it makes an ideal subject for our first collaborative effort. It contains "many multitudes", themes which are best explored by multiple authors. Without further ado, let the first Semi-Annual Symposium begin!

**********************************************************************************

Last Monday I attended TU's annual Snuggs Lecture in Religion. I went because the speaker was this guy, and he sounded completely awesome. The lecture was about the intersection of religion and science. I went cautiously expecting another lecture on the topic of evolution and creation (really, is there any more boring subject?), but was pleasantly surprised to discover that the lecture was actually about much more significant issues, the deeper problems that lead science and religion into conflict. The lecture really picked up steam as it went along; it started out with an interesting but perhaps overly technical analysis of necessity versus contingency (according to Scruton the new or "evangelical" atheists take as their foundation the assumption that all things are contingent), but the final section was an analysis of the sacred as it appears throughout human situation. Scruton's basic argument seemed to be that there is no scientific or genealogical explanation which can sufficiently account for the idea of the sacred in human life. His two big examples of the sacred were sex and death (duh), but what really stuck in my mind was the idea of cooking, eating, and drinking as sacred acts. I even boldly raised my hand and asked Dr. Scruton about the connection (knowing him to be a gourmand and an oenophile), and he agreed and gave some nice ties between eating and the divine.

Hopefully you begin to see where I am headed. Robert Farrar Capon titled his book The Supper of the Lamb, partly because of the recipe which winds its way through the book (Lamb for eight persons four times), but also because of the sacramental implications. Let's start with the obvious: The Lord's Supper (the Eucharist if you are a bit more high church, simply "communion" if you take it with wafers and Welch's or, God forbid -- and I mean that literally -- pizza and grape soda) is the perfected, transcendent meal. It is the sacred come to us, the Lord dwelling with us. Yet I think Capon (and Scruton) would say that this is simply the most extravagant example of sacred food. Every day we are presented with the possibility of tasting the divine. Capon says "Only miracle is plain. It is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory." The smell of onions frying in butter; the wonder of braising meat; the ineffable mystery of pastry dough: all these point us to the meeting of God and man at the table.

Christ says in Revelation "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." We know this verse, yet I think we often cut it off before the end. When Christ enters in He does not simply wander into our house to admire the furniture and perhaps take off his shoes for a bit. He comes to eat; to sit at the table and enjoy our company course after course. If sex is the most intimate act attainable between two people, then surely eating is the closest we can come together as a community. We break bread together, and at the same time our hearts open up to each other -- and that is completely laying aside the issue of wine (which makes glad the hearts of men), that wonderful glue which binds heart to heart.

Food clearly shows us the heart of God, that glorious excess which helps to define His goodness. That food should not merely sustain but should bring us to rapturous heights; that Christ brings not merely water for nourishment but wine for celebration: these are miracles of extravagant grace that should point us finally to that most sublime extravagance, God become man.

Yet where do we find ourselves today? Far from sacred, food has become lumped solidly in with the secular. We analyze, categorize, and prioritize. All bows before before the altar of nutrition; all is reduced to calorie, carb, cholesterol. If the sacred is concerned with what is beautiful, then the secular busies itself with what is useful. As we have reduced sex down to an easily manipulatable biological function and offered it up prepackaged, so too we have converted food into a tool for survival, precooked and packed in neat little boxes waiting to be unfrozen.

Even the Church has fallen prey to the traps of the world. Every Sabbath, most Christians follow their formal worship by honoring (and eating) a sacred (and often literal) cow. The Sunday lunch has become an institution, and Denny's from coast to coast fill up every week with overweight, waddling Evangelicals waiting to stuff their faces with ham and eggs. We have forgotten the art of the family meal cooked slowly at home, blinded by the convenience of eating out. By abandoning the restraint that comes as a result of cooking your own food, we have embraced a culture where food is a notable exception to the clarion call for self-control (I am waiting for the new translation where Paul exhorts us to cultivate the jelly doughnuts of the Spirit). Or take the ghastly Protestant approach to alcohol. Instead of wine and beer leading us to celebration, we have banned them as dangerous objects, things to be shunned lest we indulge in excess. Yes, drunkenness should be avoided, but it is more evil by far to call unclean that which God not only calls clean but delights in. By thinking of food and alcohol merely in terms of their end results, we have lost the magic of the things themselves.

Capon calls us to rally against this relentless drive toward convenience and dullness. He desires to shock our palettes awake, and in the process awaken us to the mystery of the ordinary. Eating (and hopefully cooking) is something we do every day, yet it should be to us a source of wonder, for in it we experience the divine. In my next post I will more fully explore this perilous change from sacred to secular. For now, go open a bottle of Pinot Noir, whip up some homemade stock, and savor awhile the foretaste of glory we have been given.

Your People Call Them Vampires

But he, straining for no more than a glimpse

of hearth-smoke drifting up from his own land,

Odysseus longs to die...

My heart swells at the thought of home, my own Ithica, page 498. But there's a long way to go yet, comrades. Take heart!

... And one more thing. And really this could have happened to anybody, an honest mistake, but something to keep in mind and a lesson for everybody and one we should all take to heart- Twelfth Mate "Cheeky" James Bailey (recently demoted), has pointed out that my own personal Calypso is not, in point of fact, when all things are considered, summed up, and put into a neat and tidy row, named Stephenie Meyers, but rather Stephenie Meyer. Like I said, honest mistake. I'm not even going to try to save face in some preposterous manner and pretend I thought the novel was written by committee or something, or that she is Legion. No, no, I just wasn't paying attention. This ought not in any way reflect upon the credibility or rigor of my efforts.

That settled, let's um... sally forth or something and get a move on. Rough seas ahead.

Chapter 5

Blood Type

and

Chapter 6

Scary Stories

And

Chapter 7

Nightmare

If I may vent some frustration at this point. The invitation made by Edward to drive Bella to Seattle is made in Chapter 4. Presumably on this trip something awesome, violently vampire-esque, or both is going to happen. Three chapters and a solid 70 pages later, they haven't gone yet. No one has died, and there is a definite lack of mood-setting, darkly gothic ambience. Not even an Igor with a hump on his back and loads of stitches, who answers everybody's requests with an exaggerated 'Yeth, maaaarth-ter'. (That's asking a bit much, I admit.) I'm losing my vampire motivation, my BLOOD drive, if you will... har har. It's all being sucked away (get it?) by these sorts of exchanges:

I had to look away from the intensity of his stare. I concentrated on unscrewing the lid of my lemonade. I took a swig, staring at the table without seeing it.

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked, distracted.

"No." I didn't feel like mentioning that my stomach was already full- of butterflies. "You?" I looked at the empty table in front of him.

...

...

...

Precisely.

But we won't get anywhere complaining and lolligagging about. Here's what happens. Bella comes to school and she gets invited to sit next to Edward at lunch, and here we enjoy the already cited repartee. They flirt outrageously (all three senses: it is too much, it is very strange, and I am outraged), and Bella faints in science class because blood is being drawn. Edward saves her by seducing the secretary so Bella can get out of school.

Afterwards, Bella goes on a camping trip and meets an Indian boy named He-Who-Advances-Plot or Squawking-Foreshadow or something. Anyway Running-Gag tells Bella that the Cullens aren't allowed on Indian ground... because they're vampires! Hooray! Someone finally says it!

So Bella of course gets depressed and franticly researches vampires... on the internet. Yes, the internet. If you must, go ahead and google 'vampires'. (Please, filters on for this one.) How many credible resources sprang up? Anything that reassured you that here, finally here, you might find a sober, academic approach full of gravity and reason? Well, Bella does. She discovers the following:

Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires.

She finds this very reassuring. Oh, and then she has a nightmare.

Now, this Stregoni Benefici is apparently an actual mythological figure and not of Stephenie Meyer's creation. Or at least several websites claim so. Obviously, if there is any credence to this story, we would have to look through Italian history for some powerful figure, some knight of goodness, who stands out in a unique way. Could it be Da Vinci? I doubt it, too much of an egghead. Dante? What a ponce! Garibaldi? Please. We may never know who the real Stregoni Benefici is, but let's just say I have my theories.

Best sentences:

- His voice was like melting honey.

-"I love them," I enthused, making an effort to smolder at him.

-... but there was no sign of Edward or any of his family. Desolation hit me with crippling strength.

Woolfing it Down

For she could stand it no longer. Dr. Holmes might say there was nothing the matter. Far rather would she that he were dead! She could not sit beside him when he stared so and did not see her and made everything terrible; sky and tree, children playing, dragging carts, blowing whistles, falling down; all were terrible. And he would not kill himself; and she could tell no one.

-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Of course he wasn't interested in me, I thought angrily, my eyes stinging- a delayed reaction to the onions. I wasn't interesting. And he was. Interesting... and brilliant... and mysterious... and perfect... and beautiful... and possibly able to lift full-sized vans with one hand.

-Stephanie Meyers, Twilight

If I really did have to describe Stephanie Meyers right now, I would say she's like Virginia Woolf, minus her sensibilities, competency and feminism, but plus vampires. Now, I''m no... (Woolfian? Woolfite? Woolfeur? Considering the subject matter I'm going in a different direction.)

Now, I'm no Woolf-man, but I have done several minutes worth of research on the global repository of human knowledge that is Wikipedia. Virginia Woolf, as it turns out, was among the writers who pioneered a narrative stream-of-consciousness technique in the early twentieth century along with fellows like Joyce and Faulkner. And there are times when Stephanie Meyers sounds a bit like her.

I am aware there are people with English degrees reading this, so nobody get their aesthetics in a twist just yet. Here's the similarity. Woolf is the only one of those three I mentioned whose style of stream-of-consciousness narration is both purposefully melodramatic and purposefully feminine. I say purposefully feminine because she had political and social reasons for taking on what she considered a feminine voice (she was a favorite of the early feminist movement). I say purposefully melodramatic because I've felt a rather strong undercurrent of irony in how she depicts the wild mood-swings of her characters. Stephanie Meyers of course isn't so subtle or accomplished, but the narration absolutely draws upon the stylistic influence of writers like Woolf, Joyce, and Faulkner. (Everybody does. Their influence is ubiquitous and subconscious; I doubt strongly Meyers is modeling herself after them on purpose.)

Meyers uses stream-of-consciousness of a sort, and if it sounds like anybody, it sounds like Virginia Woolf. Stephanie Meyers character Bella certainly is feminine, in the most culturally stagnant, stereotypical sense, and my God, is that poor girl melodramatic. Reading her mind (the narration is first-person) is like reading the prose equivalent of a mood-ring stuck on a mad she-chimp in heat.

Bella and Edward.

She might be insane:

Grrr.

-Stephanie Meyers, Twilight

I rest my case. Anyway, here's the chapter synopsis:

Chapter 4
Invitations

I'll give you three guesses to figure out what happens in this chapter. Got it? That's right! Bella gets invited to the school dance. Repeatedly. And that's what happens in this chapter. This chapter is about Bella being invited to the school dance no less than three times. The school dance. This is a vampire novel, by the way.

So she tells them all she's going to Seattle that weekend, and (gasp!) Edward invites her to go with him and the curtain closes. It's a date!

Here are the best sentences (the two from above are out of chapter 4 also):

-"You're welcome," he retorted.
-I tried to be crafty as I hid my horror.
-Stupid, shiny Volvo owner.
-His eyes were gloriously intense as he uttered that last sentence, his voice smoldering. I couldn't remember how to breathe.

See? Just like Virginia Woolf.

A Heaping Pile of Seconds

Oi... the first chapter was rough going, but I'm back for more and (secretly) enjoying myself in a perverse sort of way. Like a QT hotdog eating contest with extra jalapeno relish. I'm doing a two-fer here because you really don't want 24 separate blog posts about this.

Chapter 2
Open Book
and...
Chapter 3
Phenomenon

I'm justifying doing these two together for two reasons. First, like I said, this ought to be as short and merciful as possible, and second, nothing much happens in these chapters. Bella continues to narrate the story like a 40-year old divorcee (did I mention this? 16-or-whatever-she-is year olds don't talk like this: "It was ridiculous, and egotistical, to think that I could affect anyone that strongly."), and the story is moving along without much of anything happening. These two chapters first really introduce Edward as a character and that's about it. And boy is he... something.

I can't really say what I thought at first, to be honest. I was only introduced to Twilight when the movies came out and this face:


began to harass me every time I went to the check-out line at Krogers. He's the only thing I picture when I read about Edward Cullen, and I have to give the casting director for the movies some props here; Robert Pattinson is terrifying.

"I would like to eat your flesh."

I honestly do believe that he could be a vampire. Really, if he approached me I'd genuflect, and run to the nearest table and break off a leg so I could defend myself, Ron Artest-style. (If you don't get the reference, you will if you keep reading my posts about the NBA. That story will come up eventually.) Anyway, he's honest-to-goodness, poo-in-the-pants scary, and he's the only thing I saw reading these last two chapters. I was a little distracted to say the least.

My synopsis: Bella goes to school, already obsessing about Edward for some reason, but he's not there. He continues not to be there until he shows up again a couple weeks later looking rather less sallow. Presumably he's eaten someone.

"With some Fava beans and a nice Chianti. Fu-fu-fu-fu."

He then proceeds to be genuinely friendly and interested in her. She, in turn, proceeds to instantly fall in love. In the next chapter, it snows some, Bella complains like its the end of her freaking world, and she almost (almost!) dies in a car crash. Except Edward saves her.

And that's about it. I did, however, manage to unearth this gem of a sentence:

"I made the Cowardly Lion look like the terminator." (pg. 30)

Until next time!

"Don't turn out the lights!"

Further Reading:
The Onion Twilight Article

Roundball Semiotics: Basketball qua Jazz

What Fats is saying of course, and this ought to be sufficiently demonstrated by the sax solo at least, is the nearly axiomatic and essential truth: Jazz = Basketball, Basketball = Jazz.

The analogy has reached the cultural saturation point that even though I can't recall who first suggested it to me, or even if any one person in particular suggested it to me, I still associate on a guttural and more or less involuntary level (read: thoughtlessly) the game of basketball with the musical form Jazz. Certainly someone thought of the analogy first, but he's long faded into the background and morphed into an assumption. I've seen it sometimes criticized, because really, what else do bloggers have to do all day? But much more commonly it rests serenely in the background as an unconscious archetype by which we understand the game.

If you think about it too hard though, there are likely a host of racial subtexts and attitudes, possibly ugly ones, which contribute to the idea. Most of which I don't have the heart to explore except to comment on how telling it is that we're still surprised when white people engage in either activity. Sometimes with reason.

But then sometimes not; we all know Django had style, and Larry Bird is Larry Bird. Nonetheless, I think we find it much easier to accept the association of basketball with a stereotypically "black" art form like jazz or (increasingly) hip-hop than we do with an oppositely characterized "white" art form such as, say, baroque chamber music. But that's beside the point. The question is, does the analogy shed any kind of light on the nature of basketball in its own right? Would the analogy still work without all the race-issue boogeymen mucking up the picture?

First the argument. I think it is commonly stated that Basketball = Jazz for the following reasons.

1. Basketball and Jazz are both, at least in theory, a series of improvisations set within an ideal structure. In this sense, an A#7 to Fm7 chord progression is something like the high screen and roll, although possibly less emphatic.

>

2. Said improvisation is at its best when cooperative. There are solo jazz performances of course, just like there are isolation plays in basketball, but both Jazz and Basketball are, I believe, at their most fascinating and most fully realized when the individual talents of the players merge in a skillful synergy, a sort of hive-mind gestalt.

3. Although this may apply more appropriately to Football (Soccer), there is also the continuity and flow of the game. In theory, if the refs aren't a little too chippy with the whistles, or if one of the teams isn't coached by Jeff van Gundy, Basketball is a game where the back-and-forth, give-and-take pace can take on the liquid contours of some of the more lengthy Jazz odysseys.

So far so good. The previous three points are the three I see made most commonly, and certainly, they all have their salient merits. What I don't ever really see, but which I submit for your consideration as point number 4, is something I hope will strengthen the analogy beyond the merely coincidental.

4. At least since the early eighties, upon the dawn of the Larry Bird v. Magic Johnson rivalry, and culminating finally in the Michael Jordan Era (MJE, a dating system based upon the ascension of Jordan into the league. We are, for example, in year 25 MJE) the game of basketball has always been extremely character driven in a way I think is highly reminiscent of Jazz.

Defense: More than most musical forms before it, I suggest Jazz was a star-driven art form. I don't simply mean in how it grew commercially, I mean in how it developed stylistically from catalytic influences of highly talented individual musicians like ole' Fats or Dizzie Gilespie. In many ways, Jazz artists failures can be attributed as much to their inability to cultivate interesting public personae as much as any lack of skill. Kenny G, remember, can circular breath ad infinitum, which truly is impressive... But does it matter?


I suggest basketball is similar. It's development has always been driven by individual talents more than basketball theorists like the coaches or owners. I hold this to be true of more than just the NBA by the way. Any pick up game you go to will always feature at least one very talented player trying to leave his own stamp on the game in his own way.

Basketball and Jazz are both extremely individualistic, even during moments of cooperation. The assist is as much of an opportunity to impress yourself upon the game as any other, and under this light, we could think of Basketball as an unexpectedly apt expression of Schopenhauer. Of course Jazz isn't competitive, so it's right about here that the analogy breaks down (as all analogies must), but Jazz remains extremely character-driven, and if we had to stretch things way too far, we could suggest that the performance is a kind of Schopenhauerian attempt to impress one's personality upon the song. But that would be ridiculous.

All right then kiddos! There's the first of my ramblings about basketball. Up next? Basketball teams as wine. But whatever else happens, remember: Basketball = Jazz, Jazz = Basketball.

Whyyy helloooooo theeeere (Resolutions)

The most productive thing I have done with my two "cold days" off from teaching (The cynics among my readership will at this point cry "Well, it certainly hasn't been posting on your blog like you promised" -- feedback duly noted) has been to start a book my father gave me for Christmas called Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. I plan on posting a full review when I finish, but I wanted to offer some reflections it has provoked in me so far.

We live in a culture which worships speed and efficiency. If I don't get my hamburger 30 seconds after ordering, I sigh and tap my foot and wonder what the world's come to. Sadder still, I rage, rage (and sometimes even curse) when the Internet -- the Internet! -- fails to load at a speed commensurate with my oh so important and hectic schedule. Hello, my name is Asher, and I am addicted to speed. (My lawyer counsels that at this point I pause to clarify with utter certitude that I mean speed as in alacrity, not speed as in the harmful drug -- especially since some of my students apparently have started to read this.)

(Not the author of this post)

The truth is, I live for instant gratification. Anything short of immediacy burdens me with its inconvenience. The past few years I have consistently chosen ease over the more rewarding path. My immediate reaction on sitting down on my couch is, I am sad to say, not to reach for a book but to grab the computer or remote.

My main resolution (much as I disdain the term) then is to simply slow down my life. Thankfully the process has already begun. Since getting married, I have become preoccupied with cooking as a leisure activity. I have always enjoyed cooking, but what I have discovered is the joy present in slow deliberation in the kitchen, in taking the time to do things well. Eschew short cuts in the kitchen -- they rarely pay off. The long simmering sauce is (in general) the most flavorful and rewarding. My guru in this has been Robert Farrar Capon, author of the strange yet wonderful cookbook/food memoir/spiritual meditation Supper of the Lamb (a book I am hoping to review alongside Andrew in our first real collaborative effort for this blog). In the book Capon warns against "tin fiddles", contraptions which promise to take the work out of cooking. But remove the labor and you lose not only taste but the very essence of cooking. Good cooking is a process which takes time; not only takes but gives, gives time for reflection, meditation, that simmering of the mind and hands which gives off a heavenly aroma.

So I am slowing down the way I produce food (and also, hopefully, the rate at which I eat it. I am a notorious, self confessed scarfer. Some primordial urge prods me to wolf down food at an alarming rate. This year I pledge to slow down the process, to truly savor each bite I take in to my body). But food is far from the only area which merits the cultivation of better habits. Caring for Words has confronted me with the need to treasure and savor the words I use. Too often I take the path of least resistance, fall back on lazy usage, pick an adequate word instead of the perfect word. My thought, speech, and writing are dwarfed versions of what they could be if I took the time to be contemplative.

Lectio Divina is the monastic practice of reading through Scripture contemplatively, of pausing in places to really suck the meaning from the verses as a dog worries a bone. I love to read Scripture, even to study it, but I rarely take the time to let it sink deeply into my life. Therefore lectio divina is an important part of my resolution for the year. Hand in hand with this is the need to create areas of silence in my life. Confession: silence makes me uncomfortable. When I encounter silence I feel like I have slammed into a wall: I emerge with my nose out of joint and feeling altogether put out. But silence, pure deep silence, is a precious gift. One of my favorite quotes comes from Kierkegaard's Journal, where he says:

The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: Create silence! Bring men to silence. The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were blazoned forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore create silence.

Silence creates the space we need for grace to act. Create silence. But, having created silence, speak. Conversation is another part of my resolution. Conversation which moves and breathes deeply, conversation which blows the dust off of our lives and dives in deep to the inner places. I desire to take the time to really know people, not rush through my interactions with them at a hurried pace. Extended face time tends to make me twitchy or unsettled, but this year I resolve to take the time to listen, really listen, and to speak when the time is right. To invite people into my life in ways that matter. To appreciate the slow winding of a conversation that takes a few hours to find its real center. People and relationships matter so much more than whatever small, self-centered agenda I have set for the day.

These then are my resolutions. Really they united in one purpose: helping me slow down my world, which spins so fast that I am constantly thrown off balance. Will you, my readers, help as I stubbornly devote myself to this task?

Maybe There Was a Glitch in My Brain

My wife Jenny and I were once stranded in Oklahoma City for a day, and spent much of it hanging out at a Borders pretending we might buy things. I took the time to read through the graphic-novel Watchmen for the first time (a rewarding experience) and Jenny sat down with a copy of Twilight. (And I would like to preempt any snarky comments about us using Borders this way; we were bored, out of cash, and eventually did make a minor purchase.)

Now, admittedly, we spent a good, oh, six hours at the Borders cafe, but in that amount of time Jenny managed to read through the entire first novel (498 pages) and its sequel (576). In one day. Not just one day, in six hours Jenny managed to read well over 1000 pages of teen vampire drivel. She couldn't stop, like a speed-reader literally on speed. I made fun of her. She claimed to hate them. But of course, once we returned to Tulsa, Jenny found someone who owned the other two Twilight novels and devoured them at a similar pace. What gives?

What, indeed, gives? I have taken it upon myself to find out, and have determined to do what I thought I never would. I'm going to read Twilight. And liveblog my thoughts... Here goes!

Chapter 1
First Sight

I have to admit, I was a little excited to read this. I'm a snob and everybody knows it, but I love vampires, and am secretly glad of the opportunity to read the book while pretending to have ulterior motives for doing so. Anyway, I was surprised right off to find an epigraph from Genesis gracing the first page.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 2:17

This, if it makes sense of nothing else, at least makes sense of the front cover:

Ahh. That's why there's an apple. I detect a theme! I don't really know what it means at all yet, but I'm sure something or other forbidden will be offered at some point. We'll see.

The first chapter features our quirky, sassy heroine Bella leaving her hometown Phoenix to live with her estranged father in a sunless bit of Washington called Forks. (As in, a Forks in the road?) Anyway, she's extremely moody and sad, and chapter one details her anxiety driven first day at school. She doesn't fit, and cries a bit. There's also a preface in which somebody called the hunter tries to kill her... while sauntering. I assume only a vampire could accomplish this. Some of the writing is a little odd. My favorite sentences:

"The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me." (preface)
"And I never looked a free truck in the mouth- or engine." (pg 7)
"I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag." (pg 9)
"Maybe there was a glitch in my brain." (pg 11)
"I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers." (pg 20)

They love bagels.

And the absolute best? Bella muses to herself as she approaches her new school:

"I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me." (pg 14)

Get it!? Do you get it!? Like a vampire!

Sadly though, no one did. But I'm a writer, and those of us who are in the Biz (as we call it) refer to this technique as Foreshadowing.

But really, it isn't so bad as I'm making it out to be, and if I were forced to be entirely honest, I would have to admit that I kinda sort of am enjoying myself. Like I said, I dig vampires.

I wonder what happens in chapter 2!

Turn and Face the Strange

Loyal readers will notice that there have been a few changes around the ole blog. Thanks to my wonderful (and technologically advanced) wife, I have a new template which I hope will liven things up a bit. Commenting on my previous template, Leslie had this to say "It's depressing and boring I don't want to read it." So there you go.

Appropriate, I suppose. I realized that the last few posts (since I've come back to semi-regular blogging) have been very ponderous, if not downright glum. That is certainly one side of who I am, but far from a complete picture. When I first started writing, my intention was to chronicle all things cultural; of late I have left a very large portion untouched. I hope to return to those things. In that spirit, I have come into the 21st Century and added a "gadget" to the site, albeit a gadget which mimics an arcade game from the 80's. Burger Time is perhaps the greatest classic arcade game, and reflects part of my taste: the goofy side which values silly pop culture oddities. If you need a break from my ramblings, just scroll down to the bottom of the page to relieve stress by being chased around by sociopathic hot dogs.

The most important change, however, is the addition of a new friend. As you may notice, this blog now has two contributors. In addition to me, TEP will now feature my good friend Andrew. Cheesemonger by day, novelist by night, Andrew currently lives with his wife and adorable baby daughter in Dallas, Texas. He has a sharp mind (and wit), and fills in some cultural blind spots: he promises to write about the NBA, among other things -- something I enjoy but am not particularly knowledgeable about. He also pledges to give to the site his silly side, which he swears is his best. I believe his first post will be a blow by blow account of him wrestling with that noted literary classic, Twilight. I feel sure that we can expect great things from him.

As for my rascally self, I will do my best to put up a new post tomorrow.

Maiden Voyage

Ahoy! to all (five? six?) readers of Asher's much storied blog. this is the maiden post of The Erstwhile Philistine's first second blogger ever! I haven't thought of any clever title's yet, so I'm going with my usual handle (Andrew, if you don't know me).

Credentials: Before I ever met Asher I did in fact enjoy the novel pleasures of a category we might call the... "less-than-competent". My tastes ran primarily to the B-grade Kung-Fu variety, but was not averse to the B-grade in general. However. I must admit this amateurish habit was inflamed by Asher himself into a kind of passion approaching (if only asymptotically) the level of everyone's beloved Philistine. I have witnessed R.O.T.O.R. and survived. I have eaten peanut-butter-and-scrambled-egg sandwiches and enjoyed. I am competent to comment, or I like to think so. In any case I can run my mouth with the best of them.

Also: Yes, I am working on a series of posts on the Twilight novel, and yes, eventually I will write about basketball.